Discretionary sanctions are a fast-track method for dealing with contentious or disruptive conduct within specified areas of conflict. It is a procedure authorised by the Arbitration Committee on a case by case basis and usually involves creating temporary, special rules for administrators to resolve disruption and promote civil participation.

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For the purposes of arbitration enforcement:

• The AE noticeboard is the noticeboard designated by the Arbitration Committee for requesting, applying, discussing and appealing enforcement requests, currently Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
• An area of conflict is the topic or group of topics specified by the Arbitration Committee when authorizing discretionary sanctions.
• The Committee is the Arbitration Committee.
• An editor is anyone and everyone who edits the encyclopedia. (See Wikipedia:Editor.)
• An enforcing administrator is an uninvolved administrator who enforces the sanctions specified in this procedure. To act in enforcement, an administrator must at all relevant times have their access to the tools enabled.
• A sanction includes any sanction, restriction, or remedy placed under this procedure.
• An appeal includes any request for reconsideration, reduction, or removal, of a sanction on whatever grounds.

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Discretionary sanctions are authorised for an area of conflict either as part of the final decision of an Arbitration case or as a Committee motion. Once authorised, they may only be modified by the Committee and remain in force until rescinded by a motion of the Committee.

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Editors editing within the area of conflict are expected to:

1. adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia; and
2. comply with all applicable policies; and
3. follow editorial and behavioural best practice; and
4. comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict.

Failure to meet any behavioural expectation may result in sanctions.

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No sanction may be imposed on an editor unless that editor has previously:

1. been notified or has notified others that discretionary sanctions are in operation for the area of conflict; or
2. been mentioned by name in the Final Decision of the case in which the applicable discretionary sanctions were authorised; or
3. participated in any appeal discussion about the same area of conflict;
4. otherwise, through their actions, clearly demonstrated that they are already aware that the area of conflict is under discretionary sanctions.

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Any editor may alert any other editor that discretionary sanctions have been authorised for the area of conflict. These alerts are advisory in nature and cannot be revoked or appealed. The alert links to the Committee's authorisation and is issued by placing the standard template message – currently {{ArbCom-Alert}} – on the talk page of the editor being notified. Alerts must be logged.

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All alerts and sanctions must be logged on the page specified for this purpose in the motion authorising discretionary sanctions for the area of conflict. Whenever sanctions are modified or overturned, the administrator amending the sanction must append a note recording the amendment to the original log entry. While failure to log an alert, an edit notice or a sanction, does not invalidate it, repeated failures to log may result in sanctions for the issuing editor or administrator.

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Only uninvolved administrators may impose discretionary sanctions. Any duly notified editor may be sanctioned for any repeated or serious failure to meet Wikipedia's behavioural expectations.

Individual sanctions

Any uninvolved administrator may impose warnings, admonishments, editing restrictions, interaction bans, topic bans, blocks of up to one year in duration, and/or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Sanctions must be logged.

Page restrictions

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page relating to the area of conflict semi-protection, protection, move protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except where a firm consensus for the edit has been obtained); or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to prevent disruption. Such restrictions are enforceable by uninvolved administrators through the use of individual sanctions. Administrators are expected to log page restrictions though failure to do so does not invalidate it. It is best practice to add edit notices to restricted pages where appropriate.

Accountability and recusal

The enforcing administrator is accountable for their actions and expected to provide explanations at any appeal. They may not however participate in the adjudication of it. Prior routine enforcement interactions and prior participation in enforcement discussions do not constitute involvement and are not usually grounds for recusal.

Questionable administrator conduct

Any administrator who, in the opinion of the Committee, regularly imposes questionable discretionary sanctions, or whose actions are regularly overturned on appeal, may be prohibited by the Committee from making any further enforcement actions or be subject to any other such remedy that the Committee considers appropriate.

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No administrator may reduce or overturn sanctions without:

1. The explicit affirmative on-wiki prior consent of the enforcing administrator or
2. The clear and substantial consensus of either (a) uninvolved participating administrators at the AE Noticeboard or (b) uninvolved editors at the Administrators' noticeboard. If consensus is unclear, the status quo prevails.

Any administrator who reduces or overturns a discretionary sanction out of process may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped or subject to any other such remedy that the Committee consider appropriate.

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Also applicable is Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Reversal of enforcement actions.

Only an editor under sanction may appeal that sanction. There are three possible stages for appeal.

1. To request that the enforcing administrator reconsider. (This stage does not apply if the administrator is no longer an administrator and/or has relinquished the tools.)
2. To obtain a clear and substantial consensus to annul the sanction of either (a) uninvolved participating administrators at the AE Noticeboard or (b) uninvolved editors at the Administrators' noticeboard. If consensus is unclear, the status quo prevails. The administrator who closes the discussion may prohibit any future appeal to a noticeboard for up to six months.
3. Thereafter to appeal to the Arbitration Committee, where a majority of active, non-recused of arbitrators is required to overturn the decision. If the sanction is of a longer duration than six months, it may be reconsidered again six months after an unsuccessful appeal to the Committee, unless a longer or shorter minimum period has been specified by the Arbitration Committee.

Appeals are governed by the procedures in effect at the time of the appeal.

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Nothing in this current version of the Discretionary Sanctions process constitutes grounds for appeal of a remedy or restriction imposed under prior versions of it. All sanctions and restrictions imposed under earlier iterations of this process remain in force. For the purpose of on-going enforcement, previous warnings are to be treated as alerts.

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