Wikipedia:Harassment: Difference between revisions
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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 |
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 posts this information, or links to this information, on Wikipedia themselves. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm in "the real world". 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. Edits attempting to out someone should be promptly reverted, and a request for [[WP:OVERSIGHT|oversight]] made to permanently delete the edits from Wikipedia. |
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If you see an editor post personal information about another person, '''do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information''' as this would give the person posting the information – and anyone else who saw the page – feedback on the accuracy of the material. Do not treat incorrect attempts at outing any differently to correct attempts for the same reason. When reporting an attempted outing take care not to comment on the accuracy of the information. Outing should usually be described as "an attempted outing" or similar, to make it clear that the information may or may not be true, and the users blocked for outing should have it made clear that the block log and notice does not confirm the information. |
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Unless unintentional and non-malicious ( |
Unless unintentional and non-malicious (for example, where Wikipedians know each other off-site and may inadvertently post personal information, such as using the other person's real name in discussions), attempted outing is grounds for an immediate block. |
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===Private correspondence=== |
===Private correspondence=== |
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Revision as of 23:52, 6 October 2008
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 | This page in a nutshell: Do not stop other editors from enjoying Wikipedia by making threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks or posting personal information. |
- 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.
Harassment and disruption
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.
Wikistalking
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.
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.
Posting of personal information
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 posts this information, or links to this information, on Wikipedia themselves. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm in "the real world". 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. Edits attempting to out someone should be promptly reverted, and a request for oversight made to permanently delete the edits from Wikipedia.
If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information as this would give the person posting the information – and anyone else who saw the page – feedback on the accuracy of the material. Do not treat incorrect attempts at outing any differently to correct attempts for the same reason. When reporting an attempted outing take care not to comment on the accuracy of the information. Outing should usually be described as "an attempted outing" or similar, to make it clear that the information may or may not be true, and the users blocked for outing should have it made clear that the block log and notice does not confirm the information.
Unless unintentional and non-malicious (for example, where Wikipedians know each other off-site and may inadvertently post personal information, such as using the other person's real name in discussions), attempted outing is grounds for an immediate block.
Private correspondence
Private off-wiki correspondence such as emails and private IRC channel transcripts should not be posted on Wikipedia without the author's consent, but can be forwarded to administrators, the Arbitration Committee or or the unblock mailing list if necessary. The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, passed 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.
User space harassment
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.
User pages are provided so that editors can provide some general information about themselves and user talk pages are 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.
Off-wiki 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.
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.
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. Please note that OTRS cannot deal with protracted disputes between established editors, but rather can only address urgent incidents where page deletion may be required.
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 request 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 this is civil and addressed appropriately, and for valid purposes, it would not be considered 'harassment'.
Assistance for administrators being harassed
Wikipedia administrators' actions as editors and administrators can bring them into direct conflict with difficult users and at times they too are harassed. Typically this happens when an administrator decides to intervene in a dispute with a view to warning or blocking disruptive parties or preventing their continued problematic behavior.
Administrators are not required or expected to place themselves in an uncomfortable situation, to undertake actions which will diminish their enjoyment of working on Wikipedia or place themselves at risk 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:
This administrator can and will make difficult blocks if needed.
- 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.