Hello all,
This statement is about the ongoing issue centered around SCP-268-J and the 3-month long bans that were issued on 21 July, 2025 for vote manipulation. We are aware of the ongoing conversations surrounding these bans, and are actively working with Administrators from CN and the INT teams to address these concerns for all parties.
We first wish to clarify that the bans were issued based on how we evaluate vote manipulation and brigading. A user's branch of origin was not considered in this assessment. The next sections will walk through the rules, clarify items of confusion, and address what the next steps will be.
The rule for brigading on the EN wiki is as follows:
Brigading: Calling for group downvoting (or group upvoting) of an article is prohibited. Being part of a vote brigade may lead to a ban.
Note: Not every call to check out an article by someone who dislikes it is brigading. Context and intent will determine whether or not an incident is considered brigading.
When we were made aware of the ongoing vote manipulation taking place on SCP-268-J, we conducted an investigation regarding the voting patterns of the users who voted on the EN article. We determined that the sudden influx of votes was related to the translation on CN, as based on users' activity between the two sites.
For each user who we suspected had engaged in vote manipulation, we examined their activity levels on the EN wiki, in comparison with their activity levels on their home branch. Several users had been found to rarely vote on EN works in any capacity, either participating sparsely on our Wiki or having been largely inactive prior. As these users were frequently participating in discussions and voting on the same branch, it became clear to the Disciplinary Team that the sudden influx of new votes was a direct result of coordinated vote brigading.
Of the users who were initially identified, there were a number of users from CN who were not banned for their voting, because they were either a member of the EN community, or frequently voted or engaged on the EN wiki. The bans were issued to users who did not actively participate in the EN wiki, and had only voted on this article as a part of a larger group of votes.
The Disciplinary Team would like to apologize for its lack of transparency surrounding the rationale behind these bans. Nonetheless, the actions taken by particular users of CN were still in violation of our defined rules on vote manipulation. In the past, the Disciplinary Team's lack of proper enforcement regarding this rule has lead to several incidents, leading to larger conflicts; as a result, we now uniformly apply the rules we have at present, to try and address when we identify a pattern of vote manipulation.
We also understand that there has been a lot of confusion surrounding this issue, especially from users originating from foreign branches concerned about being banned for voting on the EN wiki. As such, we are actively communicating with the CN Wiki and are hoping to alleviate their userbase's concerns, while simultaneously clarifying our branch's position and policies. We are working with INT as well, to create a unified understanding between all branches. We hope that, through communication, we will be able to prevent any similar situations from happening in the future.
Appeals for the bans related to SCP-268-J are still being accepted, and will be processed impartially; the bans will not be modified without an appeal. We have not changed the process regarding bans or appeals.
For the previous bans, additional details will be provided in each thread, and any future bans related to this ongoing situation will take place within a centralized thread. To ensure that we are communicating our rationale clearly, we will be providing more specifics for bans issued, providing additional clarification on the specific rules being broken.
The Disciplinary team would like to take a moment to apologize for failing to properly communicate ban reasons and the rationale applied in the situation, leading to an unclear enforcement of the rules. We are actively working to correct this failure in communication, by adding additional context to existing bans, and clarifying how we apply rules between branches. Our hope is that any confusions or misunderstandings will be clarified.
On behalf of the Disciplinary team, we appreciate you reading this. We will continue to update the community as discussions take place.