User:A.Z./Every user should be able to block other users

Also check the Sandbox. I'm using it to write this essay.

I think that the only reason why anyone should be stopped from becoming an administrator is if the high number of administrators causes legal trouble to Wikipedia somehow, because everyone would be able to see deleted content.

Another terrible thing is the ability of administrators to unblock themselves: if there were no legal problems and administrators could not unblock themselves, then every user should have the administrator tools, and if the user abused them, the user would just be blocked and would not unblock themself.

Since I don't have an answer yet as to whether the "legal trouble" is a real thing to be concerned about or not, I made this essay suggesting that one innocent tool at least be handed out to everyone of us.

=The proposal=

Administrators stop being able to unblock themselves and a new class of users is created: the blockers. The blockers are just the normal Wikipedia editors, now with the ability to block and unblock any user at any time, except for themselves. If they are blocked, either they will have to wait for their block time to end, or another user will have to unblock them, or they will never be unblocked.

All users are supposed to be blockers, but, as there are vandals who would be willing to use the tool to do bad things, there is a little threshold to become a blocker (the threshold is explained right below).

The threshold
The threshold is having a certain number of edits not made by a bot and a certain amount of time with the account. Two ideas of how to implement this threshold are listed below.

First idea:Becoming a blocker could require a number of positive votes by other blockers. Negative votes don't exist: once, for instance, forty positive votes are reached, the user becomes a blocker.

There will be only two things evaluated by the people who choose to vote:


 * Whether the user has more than 500 edits (or another number) and if those edits are made by a human being and not by a bot.
 * Whether the user has had the account for more than two months (or another amount of time)

A large number of votes (for instance, forty) would be required to avoid that a little group of vandals becomes able to elect a user with non-human edits and with less than two months with the account.

Second idea: The job to decide whether the edits are made by human beings or not could also be trusted to a few users who could decide it on their own.

The justifications
=Objections to the proposal=

Objection to the proposal: The proposal reminds people of Simpson's episode There's No Disgrace Like Home, when the family indulge in a bout of mutual zapping. Just imagine the anarchy that would ensue here!

Response: The article of Wikipedia on that Simpson's episode describes the following: "When standard methods prove useless in civilizing the [Simpson] family, Dr. Monroe resorts to shock therapy and wires the Simpsons to electrodes. Soon the whole family is sending shocks to one another. This causes brownouts throughout the city, and Mr. Burns is happy." The argument thus seems to be that everyone will start blocking one another, just like the Simpsons started to send shocks to one another. But the proposal says that blocked people are unable to unblock themselves and unable to block other people. Thus, there would be no such problem: people who started blocking other people for no reason would simply stop it by being blocked. I must add that, since you probably did not understand the proposal when you formulated your objection, you must have though that it would ensue an anarchy here if every single IP could block and unblock other people and also unblock themselves. If that was the case, I cannot but agree.

Objection to the proposal: The proposal uses the argument of 'mass mutual destruction' and this argument is invalid.

Response: (no response yet, as I don't understand what is the "mass mutual destruction" argument and why it would be invalid)

Objection to the proposal: I think that it would lead to endless blocks for no good reason. Perhaps if a certain number of people needed to agree to issue a block, that might work. But, if anyone suspected someone else might block them, they would do a "first strike" and block the other first. This is quite similar to the logic of why we don't want everybody carrying guns around.

Response: A certain number of people will have to agree to issue a block. If merely one editor thinks that a block is correct, and he actually uses the tool even though everyone else thinks he is wrong, he will be blocked by consensus. Guns are different because there is no unkilling. If there were, it would be easy to unkill someone and arrest the guy who shot someone for no reason!

Objection to the proposal: What an absurd idea this is. Why would you want to block users?

Response: When someone started doing something really bad to Wikipedia and to other people, you would block them to protect Wikipedia and other people.

Objection to the proposal: Admins can unblock themselves, so the proposal wouldn't work.

Response: The proposal includes the end of the ability for one to unblock oneself.

Objection to the proposal: I actually think we should go in the reverse direction, and make it harder to block people, by requiring a consensus of people (not just Admins!) to do a block.

Response: That's precisely my idea. If an administrator were to block someone without consensus, a crowd of editors would go and block him and block the people who tried to unblock him. Of course, the administrator would not even consider blocking someone without consensus, since he would know that he could be punished for this. Every single block would require a reasonable amount of consensus.