Wikipedia:Harassment
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This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page. |
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This page in a nutshell: Do not stop other editors from enjoying Wikipedia by making threats, nitpicking good-faith edits to different articles, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks or posting personal information. |
| Wikipedia policy |
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| Article standards |
| Neutral point of view Verifiability No original research Biographies of living persons |
| Working with others |
| Civility Consensus No personal attacks Dispute resolution No legal threats |
| Global principles |
| What Wikipedia is not Ignore all rules |
- If you are a user who is being harassed, please see Dealing with harassment, below.
Harassment is defined as a pattern of offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to have the purpose of adversely affecting a targeted person or persons, usually (but not always) for the purpose of threatening or intimidating the primary target. The intended outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely.
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[edit] Harassment and disruption
See also: Engaging in incivility
Harassment, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks or making threats stops other editors from enjoying Wikipedia. These and other forms of harassment if not curtailed may cause disruption to the encyclopedia.
[edit] Wikistalking
See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette
Wikistalking refers to the act of following an editor to another article to continue disruption.
The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.
Reading another user's contribution log is not in itself harassment; those logs are public for good reason. In particular, proper use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing errors or violations of Wikipedia policy or correcting related problems on multiple articles (in fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam). These logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in requests for comment, mediation, WP:ANI, and arbitration cases. The important part is the disruption — disruption is considered harmful. If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter.
[edit] Threats
Threatening another person is considered harassment. This may include threats to harm another person, to disrupt their work on Wikipedia, or to otherwise hurt them.
Legal threats are considered a special case, with their own settled policy. Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely, while legal threats are outstanding.
[edit] Posting of personal information
See also: Wikipedia:User talk page
Posting another person's personal information (legal name, date of birth, social security number, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media. This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor. It also applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives.
[edit] Private correspondence
There is no community consensus regarding the posting of private off-wiki correspondence. The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, once stated as an editing principle that "In the absence of permission from the author (including of any included prior correspondence) or their lapse into public domain, the contents of private correspondence, including e-mails, should not be posted on-wiki" and in a second principle that "Any uninvolved administrator may remove private correspondence that has been posted without the consent of any of the creators. Such material should instead be sent directly to the Committee." See related rejected proposals Wikipedia:Private correspondence, Wikipedia:Correspondence off-wiki and Wikipedia:Confidential evidence.
[edit] User space harassment
- See also: Wikipedia:Don't restore removed comments
Placing numerous false or questionable 'warnings' on a user's talk page, restoring such comments after a user has removed them, placing 'suspected sockpuppet' and similar tags on the user page of active contributors, and otherwise trying to display material the user may find annoying or embarrassing in their user space is a common form of harassment.
A user page is for the person to provide some general information about him- or herself and a user talk page is to facilitate communication. Neither is intended as a 'wall of shame' and should not be used to display supposed problems with the user unless the account has been blocked as a result of those issues. Any sort of content which truly needs to be displayed, or removed, should be immediately brought to the attention of admins rather than edit warring to enforce your views on the content of someone else's user space.
[edit] Off-wiki harassment
- See also: Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment
Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Off-wiki harassment can and will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence will be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.
Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia.
[edit] Dealing with harassment
If you feel you are being harassed, first and foremost, act calmly (even if difficult). It is hard to over-emphasize this. Stay calm and try to avoid encouraging it.
In serious cases or where privacy and off-wiki aspects are an issue (eg, where private personal information is a part of the issue, or on-wiki issues spread to email and 'real world' harassment, or similar), you can contact the Arbitration Committee or OTRS by email, in confidence.
For simple, on-wiki matters, such as a user with whom you have arguments, see dispute resolution as the usual first step. It makes it easier to identify the problem you are having if there are some specific diffs. For more serious cases where you are willing to address it on-wiki, you may seek administrative assistance.
Note: if there are concerns over your own editing, then you will quite likely gain attention from administrators and other concerned users as a result. Provided these are civil and addressed appropriately, for valid purposes, they would not be considered 'harassment'.
[edit] Assistance for administrators being harassed
Since Wikipedia administrators' role as users can bring them into direct conflict with difficult users, at times they too are harassed. Typically this happens when an administrator has decided to intervene in another user's disruptive behavior, with a view to warning or blocking them, or preventing their continued problematic behavior.
Administrators are not required to place themselves in an uncomfortable situation to deal with difficult users, not expected to undertake actions which will "spoil" Wiki-involvement for them or place them at risk of distress in any way. Administrators who feel that they may have such a situation are advised to seek advice, discuss privately with other administrators, or pass the matter to another administrator willing to make difficult blocks.
Administrators who are confident they are safe from harassment, or willing to address difficult users and their potential actions, may wish to list themselves on the above page, and add the userbox template {{User difficultblocks}} to their user page, which also adds the user to Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to make difficult blocks:
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This administrator can, and will, make difficult blocks if needed. |
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- Or use: [[Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to make difficult blocks|{{PAGENAME}}]]
In case of problems administrators have the exact same right as any other user to decline or withdraw from a situation that is escalating or uncomfortable, without giving a reason, or to contact the Arbitration Committee or OTRS if needed.
