Last modified: 2010-05-15 15:37:54 UTC
When there is a short and long block on the same user concurrently, the user becomes unblocked when the shorter time period expires, when it should be the longer time period(or possibly the sum). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Blocks_washing_off_in_the_rain.3F , which is below: "Blocks washing off in the rain? I have a feeling that users are becoming unblocked without any admin action. For example, I know that an account of the Willy on Wheels vandal were blocked indefinitely several months ago, yet it was able to vandalize recently. Also, on en-Wiktionary, the vandal "ConneI MacKenzie" (impersonating user Connel MacKenzie) was blocked indefinitely, yet he disappeared from the IP block list, and no record of him being unblocked could be found in the block log. --Ixfd64 22:23, 2005 August 16 (UTC) When an account or IP is blocked more than once with differing lengths, it becomes unblocked when the shortest one expires. ConneI MacKenzie was blocked for one week and indefinitely; therefore his block ran out after one week. —Cryptic (talk) 23:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC) That sounds backwards. Shouldn't it be when the longest one expires? — Nowhither 23:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC) That's what I thought too. --Ixfd64 00:03, 2005 August 17 (UTC) You'd think, but the software probably checks the database every x amount of time for expired blocks, and then unblocks those cases, causing this behavior. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:06, 17 August 2005 (UTC) I should probably fix Wikipedia:Blocking policy then. --Ixfd64 01:15, 2005 August 18 (UTC) No. This is a bug. I'm posting it to Zilla. Superm401 | Talk 04:13, August 20, 2005 (UTC) "
I've since learned that this is the known state of affairs. Please remove the bug.
We can't remove the bug. However, I'm working on improvements to the blocking page, e.g. bug 1496, and the cause of this will be reduced as a result, since users will not be double or triple blocked by admins who don't know that a block exists, and block with varying lengths of time.
Excuse me. I meant close it.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 2492 ***