Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks/Death threats

This proposal covers a specific case of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. The proposal is currently inactive and is kept primarily for historical interest. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should ask for broader input, for instance at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks.

Existing policy

Note, incidentially, that WP:BLOCK#Personal attacks that place users in danger already allows for indefinite blocks for threats, so this policy suggestion merely clarifies and regularises an existing policy. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• My interpretation of that part of BLOCK is that it's referring to stuff like "I know Ms. X work at Krispy Kreme and I'm gonna call them up and tell them to fire her!" and also "Ms. X works at Krispy Kreme, the number is (555) 555-6981 everybody call them up and tell them Ms. X is a jurk and keeps reverting my edits!!" ...and that sort of thing. It doesn't seem to be about threats of murder and physical harm. Wikipedia:Harassment has a very brief passing mention of threats "of harm" but if very vague and is only a guideline anyway. My intention is to make this a "hard" policy along the lines of Wikipedia:No legal threats, which is one of our best, least-ambiguous and best-enforced policies IMHO. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Actions for admins

We need, I think, a "how admins should respond to reports of death threats" section, which I'd suggest would be something like:

• check if the report is accurate
• block the user
  • if it's a user account, block indefinitely. Use the block reason TBD and leave the TBD message on the user's talk page
  • if it's an IP, block for an appropriate time (as specified in Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Guide to blocking times). Even though a death threat is a serious matter, it's pointless to block a proxy or AOL address for a lengthy period. Use the block reason TBD and leave the TBD message on the user's talk page
• leave a note on WP:AN/I (should this have a note saying "your block is in effect a preemptory community ban, so it's necessary that the community review your decision" ?)
• inform Jimbo and the Arbcom in accordance with WP:BLOCK#Personal attacks that place users in danger
• if a specific person was the subject of the threat inform that person of the block

I think this is necessary because:

• most people (myself included, until right now) don't know about the email jimbo bit
• we don't want people leaving ban summaries that read "WP:DEATH" or something, which itself could be misconstrued as a threat
• the block message they leave on the user's talk page should be link to this policy page
• anons already get vexed when they run across a vandalism warning or block message left for the previous incumbent; a badly worded "you've been blocked for death threats" message is going to give some apoplexy.

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggested Addition to Protocol

I would recommend that if the location of the person making a death threat is identifiable (via IP information), law enforcement in that area be contacted. Making death threats is, in and of itself, illegal in most jurisdictions, and (IIRC) a felony in some. It would seem to me that due diligence on our part would include acting to prevent possible danger to the subject of the threat. Justin Eiler 17:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Most law enforcement won't take action on "if you revert me again I'll kill you." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You'd be surprised, they take death threats very seriously these days. As noted, it's a felony. Whether it happens online, on the phone, or by mail, it's still a felony. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Reporting to law enforcement is already there in the policy in the section on "What to do..." It's the victim's responsibility to report the matter. WP will cooperate but can't report it themselves. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Unneeded and badly worded

We don't need another policy for this. Threats are already prohibited. However, if we do use this, the current wording is just awful. It takes death threats way too seriously, in that it considers threatened people to be in actual risk. "Nobody should have to die just because they chose to participate in Wikipedia." Nobody's going to die because someone threatened them on the internet. The difference between this and the existing policy seems to be that these threats don't actually place the person in danger, they just threaten danger. If I say "I want to kill Jimbo" Jimbo isn't suddenly in mortal danger. It shouldn't be acceptable to tell people I'll kill them, but the reason for preventing them is not that they actually are dangerous, but that they're horrible breaches of civility. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

To simplify, making of threats is independent of the actual level of danger and the wording of this policy should recognize that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• A few rebuttals: ("Threats are already prohibited.") In practice, yes they are. But I couldn't find a policy page that actually explicitly stated so, and certainly not that they are a bannable offence. ("It takes death threats way too seriously") Yes, because it is serious. Your outher objections are mostly already covered in the objectons section of the page: There have been cases of violence and even murder as a result of Internet conflicts, so the danger is far from imaginary. And besides, like the proposal states, the fear and worry caused by such threats is a large part of the damage they do, even if they're rarely carried out. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oh, and another reason to take death threats seriously is because they're highly illegal in the US and elsewhere... a felony offence, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not saying we need to ring up the FBI and Scotland Yard every time somebody says they'll kick so-and-so's butt or whatever, but compared to our nice tough stance on copyvios, our current policy on death threats is extremely soft. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

But neither making a threatening statement nor banning someone from wikipedia changes the amount of danger that exists. That's not addressed in the piece. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean. Could you explain it differently? If you mean that a threat is not the same as a physical attack, that's obviously true. And the vast majority of threats are just threats, that's also true. But the point of a threat is not necessarily to let people know they're about to be killed, but to cause them fear and worry even if the actual threat will not be carried out. To put it in off-wiki terms, let's say Mr. X calls 100 phone numbers at random. When somebody picks up, he says that he's going to come kill them, then hangs up. Mr X has no intention of killing any of them, he didn't even know who they were. But by threatening them and causing them worry and distress, he's still done a very very bad thing (and a thing which would earn him hard prison time if he was caught at it, too). Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

But it doesn't mean they're about to die, and so phrasing that implies anyone who receives a death threat is in actual danger is inappropriate. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is why I'd advocate greatly limiting the references to actual death. We're not working up this policy because we want to save lives; someone who would commit WP-related murder is just as likely not to say anything about it first. Making death threats is inappropriate and childish and detrimental to the mood of the project in and of itself, which to my mind is plenty of reason to make it bannable. Even before you consider the extreme examples of actual homicide. --Masamage 23:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, as I said, it's mainly a violation of WP:CIVIL, not an "OMG PEOPLE ARE GONNA DIE" issue, so the instances of internet->murder are not appropriate. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

We have no way of knowing whether they're in danger or not, that's part of the point. Most of the time they aren't, but sometimes they are. It's not our place to judge: "Oh, well Mr. X is a real psycho but Mr. Z wouldn't hurt a fly." so we need to take them all equally seriously. Like it says in the policy proposal, there are sits out there whose whole purpose is "exposing" the personal details of WP admins: addresses, phone numbers, personal photos, the works. It's only a matter of time before the wrong person does something about it. Here's a [mailing list thread] about it all. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

So Night Gyr, are you in favor of what the proposed policy suggests--that is, permabanning people who make death threats specifically? If so, a possible solution is to reduce this whole thing to a subheading under the existing personal attack guidelines. That way it would still get its coverage, and would still make the policy extremely clear, but would not need to have its own page. (This would also solve the problem of "You've been banned per WP:DEATH!" looking like a threat.) --Masamage 01:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much what I'd prefer. (I'd also prefer a less ridiculous level of indentation) There are thousands of ways to engage in bad behavior on wikipedia, and such heavy emphasis on this one seems like a case of WP:BEANS to me. "Threats against other wikipedians are not permitted and are grounds for immediate banning." is pretty much what this policy boils down to. I haven't seen any cases of people making threats within wikipedia itself, so it seems rather needlessly preemptive in a very unwiki way to focus on it. I get such a vibe of rules creep. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Please, I beg you, read the "objections" section at the bottom of the proposal itself, as it addresses this (and your other objections to boot). This is by no means a "preemptive" measure: like the proposal states, there have been dozens of such threats, lately increasing in frequency. In fact, if you want a specific example, there's a case on AN/I right now. This is by no means an imaginary problem: it's real, it's getting worse, and it needs to stop. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 12:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it still doesn't address my objection that this proposal is misguided in considering death threats primarily as danger in themselves, rather than as incivility/personal attacks. If there is danger, banning will do nothing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If real-life murders and physical attacks have occurred on other major sites (Myspace, Ebay, Yahoo), why do you somehow think they couldn't happen here? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You're ignoring my point and throwing up a strawman. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, your point seems to be that you don't think real danger exists. I disagree with that, and have cited specific examples of why, which were even in the proposal before the talk page opened. If you have other points you'd like me to consider, please state them here and I will do my best to respond to them. I might not be able to change your mind if you're absolutely dead-set against having a policy against death threats (although frankly I cannot fathom why), but understanding your objections might help shape the policy and strengthen it against problems further on. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

My point is that the death threats are not themselves dangerous and preventing or removing them does nothing to change the level of danger. People willing to kill over something on the internet are dangerous, but threats are a symptom of a number of things, and wiping a runny nose doesn't get rid of a cold. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean it should go unwiped, either. Nowhere did I say that this (or any WP policy) could eliminate personal danger to WP users. That's up to real-world law enforcement. What we can do is make sure that they can't use Wikipedia to threaten them. Our copyvio policy isn't supposed to stamp out all copyright breaches everywhere in the world, it just prevents them on Wikipedia. It's all we can do. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they should be removed for the same reason as personal attacks -- they're harmful and hostile. The problem is that we're talking as if removing them has some relation to whether there is a danger. We shouldn't talk about them as if their existence places lives in danger and banning them or removing them changes the level of danger. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Banning them does change the level of danger, as it prevents the situation from further escalating (on Wikipedia at least). And besides that, there's a significant deterrence factor in that the possibility of banning can cool off some situations before they even get to that point, much as the similar legal threats policy does. This isn't just about stopping users who have made death threats, it's about giving users a reason not to do so in the first place. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If someone wanted to kill a WP user, in a lot of cases they wouldn't even need to talk. People give their full names and cities of residence on their userpages all the time. Banning would do nothing to stop that.

For that reason, I think NightGyr may be exactly right. This policy does need to exist, but it needs to be smaller. Sometimes, the more detail you go into, the weaker a rule is. I think we could easily combine it with NPA, boiled down to "If you do this, you're out of here." No one really needs to know why; it's common sense. We all know why. Threatening people is idiotic and no one in their right mind would argue that it helps. The issue of "free speech" is already covered in other WP policies. --Masamage 19:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

To me, it's not overly important whether the policy site on its own page (although that wouls make it easier to cite) or becomes part of NPA/Civility policy. A certain amount of explanation/clarification is necessary though, as we've seen on this page (does this count? what about this?). Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Just a note, "Threats of violence, including death threats." is already part of WP:NPA, right under "Threats of legal action". Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Some thoughts

I think this would make an excellent policy, and I'm glad it's being worked on. Here are some thoughts I had as I read it over; what do you all think?

1. The "policy in a nutshell" is good, but seems slightly soft. Would those participating support a replacement of "are completely unacceptable" with "will not be tolerated" or something similar?
2. I'm inclined to add the phrase "even once" to the bolded warning under Proposal.
3. The "Nobody should have to die" bit reminds me of a cheesy Public Service Announcement.
4. Should the "What to do" section be moved up? It seems more important than the possible objections.
5. I'd lean a little harder on advising people not to look for a physical threat in every statement.

I'll probably continue bringing things up as they occur to me, if that's all right. Thanks for doing this! --Masamage 22:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

3. I concur, it's unnecessary and rather melodramatic.

5. I concur. WP:NPA has experienced significant mission creep, we can't allow this to.

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• All five of the above are fine with me. In fact, I'll put some of them (2, 3, and 4) into action right now. Any thoughts on specific wording for 1 and 5? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

A thought: perhaps physical harm should be replaced by personal harm. I have read a WP case where someone with a search-engine related internet company was so mad that someone dare edit the article he mothered over that he contacted the university-related supervisor of the recent editor, bascially looking to belittle the man's so-called lack of expertise. I was shocked when I read this, and felt a ban of the user would have been called for, although it did not occur. Any kind of attack or threat of attack in the real world, be it physical violence, digital harm, or merely phone calls to people's contacts (with the intention to slander), should not be tolerated in any way. One publicized case would stain wikipedia in many minds. This is an enviroment to create an encyclopedia, hostility leading to the real-world in any form should be grounds for immediate banning. Guyanakoolaid 23:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• A very good idea, but the problem with expanding this in that direction is that to figure out the whole story in such cases would take actual investigation, which we can't really do with any consistency. For example, if I say "Mr X just sent me 50,000 emails and crashed my server! I want him banned ASAP!" How do we know it was really Mr X or somebody pretending to be him so as to get him in trouble? I think it's best to keep the scope primarily to on-wiki concerns, as we can at least verify those easily enough. Also, some of the "calling people's employers to get them in trouble" type stuff is already covered under WP:BLOCK. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Along these lines, I think it would be wise to add a specific exception: threats that are obviously meant to be humorous. For example: "User X makes me so mad sometimes that I want to hunt him down & smear mustard all over his forehead." (This assumes that topical application of mustard is not toxic, of course.) I wouldn't suggest adding such an obvious exception to a proposed guideline, but I've noticed an increasing number of Wikipedians insisting that guidelines & rules should be applied an increasingly more rigid & literal sense. I agree that someone writing a threat like "Stop reverting me or I will kill you" should be banned; but someone writing something like "Stop being silly or I will have to tickle you to death with this feather" is guilty of nothing more than using humor inappropriately & should only be warned. -- llywrch 07:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I considered adding a "joke clause" or something along those lines, but decided not to, on the grounds that (a.) Like all policies, this one should be applied using common sense, and obvious jokes which don't couldn't conceivably bother anyone wouldn't count; and (b.) I didn't want to make it look like there was an easy loophole in the policy whereby anyone rightfully banned could come back just by claiming their threat was a joke. In short: Good idea, but like every policy we just have to hope admins apply it sensibly. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 12:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor tweak on the nutshell

If it doesn't work, OK, but the statement seemed clearer. :) Justin Eiler 04:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Looks good, though I shortened and/or to just or. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Threats aren't necessarily directed at "specific" individuals

The draft policy states: "Covered: Any of the above threatening a specific individual who is not a Wikipedia user in an attempt to influence someone who is a user" (emphasis added). Since someone might issue a threat against an otherwise unidentified third party (who might or might not even exist), or for that matter might issue a threat on Wikipedia just because the threatener is a depraved person but not trying to influence the content of the encyclopedia, I would rephrase this item to say:

Covered: Any of the above threatening another individual (whether or not specifically identified).

Or something along these lines. --Metropolitan90 08:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure, can you give some imaginary examples of what you're thinking of? If you mean stuff like "Sometimes I get so angry I could kill somebody!" I wouldn't say that's quite the sort of thing this policy is intended to cover. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hahahaha, what if someone said, "I am going to kill everyone on Special:Listusers." --WikiSlasher 13:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be OK, as long as they started with themselves... Oops. Was that a death threat? :-)

Anyway, I agree with those who say this should be handled under existing policies. There is far too much writing up of new policies to cover situations that could be handled under existing policies. This page does come across as rather melodramatic and "nanny state". It's a bit like the child protection policy being debated elsewhere. Most adults know how to look after themselves, and know to go to real-world authorities if they run into really serious problems online. Wikipedia should be wary of getting its admin resources sucked into a black hole of protecting children, dealing with death threats, and so forth. The ways of dealing with the issues need to be scalable to the available resources, and that would suggest a minimal, common sense approach, rather than pages and pages of detailed advice on what to do. Please clarify existing policy, rather than creating a new one. Carcharoth 00:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Some more thoughts

This policy fails to address threats made by an anonymous user. Functionally, they may have to be left out of the scope of this proposal since we can't really ban all AOL users. If so, the page should say so. If not, the page should explain what recourse is available and appropriate when an anon user is the violator.

It also fails to establish any sanctions when a user simply creates a new ID. Sure, we might be able to trace it back through CheckUser and re-ban the new ID but who has the time or capability to check every new ID. So what process is appropriate?

The proposal is also appears to be in conflict with the current wording at WP:BAN which limits who may impose a permanent ban.

I agree with some of the comments above that this seems redundant to our existing policies. Given the implementation problems, I don't know what this really adds to Wikipedia's protections or civility. Add it as a line (or even a paragraph) in WP:BLOCK or WP:BAN. It seems excessive as it's own page. Rossami (talk) 19:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's true that this doesn't address IP users, but then no policy really does. It seems to me that an actual death threat is unlikely to be a "hit and run" situation: in other words, that a brand-new user looking at WP for the very first time is going to find a specific user and threaten to kill them. If an IP makes a death threat, it's probably a regular user who simply logged out, and can be rooted out with Checkuser. As for the new-ID issue, that would be handled just like with any other policy: if they stay far enough from their old ways that nobody notices, there's little we can do. But if they go back to threatening under a new ID, or confirm that they posted death threats under a former ID, then out they go. There is no conflict with WP:BAN, which makes it clear that "community" bands based on policy are appropriate... in fact, in doing research for this proposal I looked at a number of former cases on AN/I archives, and it seems banning users after a death threat is already de facto policy, which this is simply an attempt to clarify. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick thoughts

I read the policy, and I'm undecided on it, but I didn't notice any discussion on prevention, or avoiding provocation. WP:Civil covers this fairly well, but if this is going to be a seperate page, it should probably have something on it. It might also be helpful to have a bit of discussion on the difference in the real world and on Wikipedia. Believe it or not, there are people who consider various threatening statements and conduct to be acceptable, even normal. So they may not quite understand that on the Internet, including Wikipedia, the various communication cues and social ties that serve as a buffer for such things don't really exist. Just some quick thoughts I got from reading this article. FrozenPurpleCube 21:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• That sounds like a very good idea. Any ideas on specific wording, anyone? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
  • For the prevention, or the social cues? The former is a tad hard, I'd suggest more direct references to WP:Civil among others, but I'd really need to think on it. For the latter, something in the objections section like:

Me and my friends joke around like that all the time

That may be so, but the Wikipedia community is worldwide, so what's acceptable in your social circle may not work so well when there are millions of people who don't know you. To them, your joke may be not quite so funny.

That's just a start, mind you, nowhere near exhaustive of complete. FrozenPurpleCube 22:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I am also not convinced that this is anything more than a specific instance of WP:CIVIL.

How about a real example (which some may recognise): what if one editor suggests to another that they try fugu while in Japan - is that a prohibited death threat? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• No. Telling somebody to so something dangerous isn't the same as a death threat, just like "take a long walk off a short pier" and similar phrases. Although not very nice, they don't constitute a threat at all. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

So you are trying to prevent people threating to actively cause some physical harm, rather than suggestions that could lead to physical harm by another agency? Does it have to be the writer who causes the act themselves, or can they threaten to get someone else to do the deed? -- ALoan (Talk) 23:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd see that as a common-sense difference between "I'm calling a hitman on you right now!" (obviously covered by this policy) and "Why don't you go play in traffic on the freeway?" (likely a violation of WP:CIVIL but probably not running afoul of this one. Seraphimblade 06:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Legal intervention

First, I would like to say that I agree that, as a rule, anyone making death threats should be blocked indefinitely. (There are some exceptions for technical reasons, rather than moral reasons, such as blocking an entire university indefinitely due to a single death threat made by a drunk student.)

I would like to go a bit further. I think death threats are a serious crime in the real world, prety much in whatever country you are in, and whether or not the death threat takes place on-wiki. It should not merely result in a permabanning from a wiki, but also a report to whatever law enforcement agency which serves the area the IP hails from. If the death threat is coming from a school IP for instance, it should be reported to the administration at that school so that they may investigate it. I think death threats are such a serious issue that it should have consequences reaching beyond editing priveleges on a wiki. Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation does not have the power or authority to impose or enforce any such consequences, but we can and should report crimes to the authories who can. That does not mean that we want to send them to prison, often just having a police visit the offender will end any thoughts of making further such "jokes". In the very rare case where such a threat is serious, contacting the law enforcement is even more vital.

In response to the possible objection that this a violation of our no legal threats policy, I don't think it is any more a violation of NLT than our policies regarding libel, where we can warn living-bio vandals that they may wind up sued by the subject of the article.

For precedent, I would like to point to this ANI post where I think those involved handled the situation very well. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

As one of the participants in that case, I thank you. I too would like to see "contact legal authorities" as part of this policy's recommendations. There's discussion of that on this talk page, but it's not currently included in the proposal. The proposal doesn't even include "contact the ArbCom and Jimbo", which is existing policy.

I learned some things from the Cretanpride death threat that may be relevant in considering this: a death threat is a serious matter, but it's covered by the jurisdiction of the person threatened. The Cretanpride case was complex, because the person being threatened (the "young girl named Emily" mentioned in the proposal) was almost certainly fictional. That did not mean that the threat was taken less seriously, but it did complicate the matter. I spoke several times to law enforcement officers in the location where I believed Cretanpride was located (a college campus in California), but they were unable to find him or confirm that the person I suspected had made the threat. They said that I should contact my local police department, which seemed counter-intuitive to me, since I'm in Connecticut and Cretanpride was (and presumably still is) in California. Furthermore, Cretanpride sent the same threatening email to several other Wikipedians, who are located in other states and countries. But they said that was how it had to be handled, due to jurisdiction rules. This may complicate a recommendation to contact law enforcement in the IP's area.

That said, the only reason that I had a good idea of Cretanpride's location was because he had an extensive trail of IPs which I could check, and because of some extra-wiki detective work which Akhilleus (talk · contribs) had performed. If the person making the contact with law enforcement had checkuser privileges, they might have been able to do more. It's also possible that the campus police I dealt with weren't experienced with this kind of offence — in another case, particularly one with a more solid death threat, they might have been willing to take it further themselves.

As it turned out, before I contacted the police here in Connecticut, I received a second email from Cretanpride, saying "That last email was a joke." In the circumstances, I didn't feel that it was worth pursuing the matter further, especially since it was highly probable that "Emily" never existed. However, given that Cretanpride has resumed his campaign of sockpuppetry, I'm beginning to wish that I had pursued the matter further. Not because I think that anyone is in physical danger in this case, but because the sort of person who is capable of making a death threat on Wikipedia is probably also going to be persistent in other violations of Wikipedia policy. Perhaps if we had pursued the legal angle a bit further Cretanpride would have decided that Wikipedia was more trouble than it was worth.

Anyway, all that is just to say that although contacting the authorities can be difficult, I think it's the right thing to do in cases like these, and I think we should recommend it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

One thing to add here, as someone who has been fairly shocked by this, and by the case linked to somewhere round here of the online chat/webcam overdose, I would ask that it be made clear where Wikipedians who don't have the resources to pursue something, but morally feel they can't turn a blind eye, should post/e-mail in a case like this, and be sure of getting a response and knowing that someone is definitely dealing with the case, and where to pass e-mails, etc. Carcharoth 12:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggest rewording of the "outing admins" paragraph

Until I read that I wasn't even aware there were sites that exist to "out" admins, giving addresses and such. I don't know if the this page should actually say this -- I'd hate for it to actually give someone an idea and then have them start going in search of said sites. (I personally would be curious to find out if I'm listed on any of them, however.) I'm not sure how to work around this, because the point being made is valid and important. 23skidoo 03:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on policy - a single caveat

I think, overall, that this is a good and needed policy. However, I think it needs one exception. When two users have clearly interacted well and are friends, and the tone of the conversation clearly and unambiguously indicates that it was a joke, and both users continue to interact well, the user in question should not be indefinitely banned, although he or she should clearly be warned. With that single caveat, I support the proposed policy as written. Captainktainer * Talk 04:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

We should require a request for CheckUser whenever a death threat is found.

We should require a CheckUser for death threats by users with accounts here. That way, we could contact the relevant law enforcement agencies and ISPs with the information, and they will be able to locate the user making the death threat and bust him or her. Jesse Viviano 05:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

As someone who's been there, I support this suggestion (although see my concerns above). If legal authorities can be contacted with solid IP information, I'm sure they will be much more likely to take the matter seriously. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Title

Comment I'm on the fence about this, leaning slightly towards the supporting side. Many people see death threats as something above and beyond normal personal attacks that need special attention. Ti be honest, I side with them. However, wouldn't the title be better as "Threats Of Violence (WP:TOV)"?It seems to me to be a far more fitting term, covering the wider range of violent threats. Crimsone 03:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Good idea. ANY threat of violence or harm should be treated harshly, not just death threats. Anyone else have any thoughts? ♠PMC♠ 22:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Location of threats

One aspect that isn't mentioned in this policy is where the threat has to be made in order for it to come under the policy's purview. Cretanpride's death threat wasn't actually on Wikipedia proper; he emailed several users using the "email this user" link on our user pages. The content of the email made it clear who the sender was, and that it was Wikipedia-related, but the offence wasn't actually on a Wikipedia page; there was no diff that could be linked to. How should we address this in the policy? What if the threat was made on another website, or if it was suggested that the threat was related to Wikipedia activity, but not confirmed? We should consider these options, even if we don't explicitly address them in the policy. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, in the case of CretanPride, he used the Wikipedia mail system to contact all of us with the threat. I think that this probably places the threat within 'Wikipedian space' as far as policy is concerned. For that matter, ALL Wikipedia policies should pertain to e-mails sent through the Wiki system (I'd assumed this was already the policy...?). As for situations completely off the namespace, the policy should probably encourage law-enforcement contact if the user feels the threat is legit, but there's little Wiki admins can do to confirm such threats are coming from specific people. CaveatLector^Talk 06:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

For threats that are made outside Wikipedia, I note that WP:NPA has a section "Off-wiki personal attacks" that basically says off-wiki behavior can't be controlled, but can be an aggravating factor in evaluating on-wiki behavior. An off-wiki death threat could be seen as an extreme form of personal attack... --Akhilleus (talk) 07:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Giving in to ultimatums

There should be something in the policy that states whether or not death threats should be allowed to (temporarily) determine the content of an article. When 'Emily' was threatened, there was a hot debate as to whether or not to give in to the demands of CretanPride and change the article's content until the issue was resolved. I'm not sure what the policy should be, exactly. My gut tells me that the Wiki shouldn't give in to such threats (and that this would only encourage future such threats). However, this seems to contradict the idea of taking all threats seriously...thoughts anyone? CaveatLector^Talk 06:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

In that case, the debate led to a mini revert war. Eventually, we didn't make the changes, and the page was protected. I think I'd recommend the same thing in the case of another confirmed threat--don't make the changes, and possibly protect the page. If the policy is to meet the threat-maker's demands, IMHO that encourages bad users to make fake threats. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it would be good for us to say, as policy, that we don't give in to blackmail. As the People's Front of Judea would say, "No blackmail!" —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Tell them you are trying to change the page, but it is protected/reverted/whatever, and ask them to wait. ie. negotiate and stall them, while at the same time notifying the relevant people. I would recommend against a blanket ban on giving in to blackmail, as it is sometimes appropriate (think of the unlikely case of someone who is really insane, where acquiesing to demands might give the authorities precious time). Then, when the crisis is over, change things back. This supposes a high level of certainty about what is really going on (I am talking webcams/IRC here) and immediate, genuine danger, though in this sort of case, if genuine, immediate danger was confirmed, I'd hope the whole database would be locked by the office unless continued contact was required by negotiators. My imagination is running a bit wild here, so I'll stop per WP:BEANS. Carcharoth 12:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Humor

Although not encouraged, similar threats among proven wiki-friends for humorous purposes, cannot be considered punishable. Same goes for legal threats etc. Examples are all over the talk pages and involve very respectable users and admins. The smiley quote in Answers to possible objections could be heavily misinterpreted and abused, so I would suggest we clear out this issue, without encouraging this sense of often bad humor. •NikoSilver• 11:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps we could counter this by banning users who might be humorously threatening someone a shorter period of time. Like two weeks. --¿¡Exir Kamalabadi!? 03:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:BEANS and WP:CREEP

I agree fully with Night Gyr above. This policy is unnecesary, all that needs to be done is add a sentence or two into WP:NPA, WP:BLOCK, and WP:CIVIL that says threats of violence are blockable (after discussing on the talk page of course). We don't need an entire new policy that says death threats are bad when anyone with half a brain cell can infer that from WP:NPA or WP:CIVIL. If this becomes policy I foresee real contributors joking around and being permabanned for it. --Daniel Olsen 04:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that, while very important, it is probably most appropriate as a subsection to the policies you mention. The more we say about it, the less powerful it is. --Masamage 04:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

We should generalize this policy to all types of crimes.

I think that this policy should be generalized to any criminal activity on Wikipedia that would be crimes in both the United States (where Wikipedia is based) and the country where the user is based. The qualification is needed because Wikipedia is an international project. If someone commits an act that would be a crime in the United States but not in the user's own country (e.g. uploading a virus from Indonesia before VBS.LoveLetter.A was released and woke up Indonesian lawmakers about the need for computer crime laws), we will need to give a stern warnning that such activity is not allowed here. If the activity is a crime in the user's country but not in the United States, we will need to exercise common sense. For example, a spammer in Britain should be banned and prosecuted because spam is illegal there but not in the United States, but someone circumventing the Great Firewall of China to read Wikipedia should be welcomed here. Therefore, my proposed title would be "Wikipedia:Criminal activity". This proposed policy looks like it can be adapted to handle all criminal activity on Wikipedia with a minimum of work. Jesse Viviano 21:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... my instincts tell me that this may be a bad idea. I wouldn't feel comfortable either supporting or opposing this suggestion until I've heard from an international lawyer who would understand what the implications would be. One question is whether this would create different standards for different users: for example, if a certain activity is illegal in the United States and Britain, but not in Australia, does that mean that the Australian user has more liberty on Wikipedia than the Briton does?

Furthermore, many laws in the United States vary from state to state. Wikipedia's servers are in Florida, I believe; does that mean that our definition of "United States law" is "Florida law"? I'm in Connecticut — what if something is illegal in Florida, but not in Connecticut?

I'm also not certain whether death threats, the subject under discussion in this proposal, would necessarily be covered by the "crimes in US and where the user is based" criterion. I don't know for certain, but I'd guess that the laws on saying "I'm going to kill you" vary considerably from nation to nation. If, for example, Uganda has no law forbidding death threats, does that mean that Ugandan Wikipedians could make such threats with impunity? I think we're better off sticking to the subject at hand, rather than playing lawyer. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

If the activity is not illegal where the user is, but is illegal in the United States, we should warn him or her that such activity is very unwelcome here in the user's talk page, and if the activity continues, ban him or her. Jesse Viviano 23:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

At which point we're looking at the issue of restricting the freedom of individuals that don't live anywhere near the United States, which is equally shakey ground. Of course, if we decide to balance by barring anything that's illegal in any country of the world, I very much doubt we'd have a community at all. Best to let sleeping dogs lie I think. Wikipedia should only conform to laws that are actually applicable, not laws that that aren't. Besides - wikipedia isn't a police organisation, and real world lawyering should be left to the professionals. Crimsone 23:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, but

This doesn't really need a lengthy page of its own, nor a list of "frequently" asked questions - I'm saying this because we already have a veritable wildgrowth of policy pages, and the more there are the more confusing it gets. I think it would be good to redirect this to the blocking policy, and add a paragraph there. It's really common sense - those who threaten people are not welcome here. >Radiant< 23:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

SUrely a more approprate venue for a merge would be WP:NPA, as threats of physical violence or death are essentially personal attacks of an extreme variety? Crimsone 02:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge per Radiant and others. This is silly. John Reid ° 12:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging

A lot of the discussion on this page is redundant, so let's sound off about it. --Masamage 05:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's position on death threats needs to be a full-fledged policy with its own page. - CaveatLector^Talk - For reasons I have already stated above. (Though I hate straw polls as such).

Wikipedia's position on death threats needs to be more clearly delineated at WP:NPA, WP:BLOCK and/or WP:HARASS, but should not have its own page. Far too over-cautious.. Are people really going to not committ a murder they were going to committ because if they did they'd be banned? - Mike Young

Agreement by Masamage

• Couldn't this possibly include "threats of physical violence" - I believe if we're gonna have something like this, we should include things like "I know your address and I'm coming to bash the shit outta you sucker" or "you better watch out next time you walk down X street bitch" (where X street is the street their house is on). Could be just called Wikipedia:Threats. --WikiSlasher 13:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Guys, we really don't need a straw poll to determine what to do with this page. This has been discussed for awhile and most people seem to agree with some kind of merging. If someone feels strongly about merging it, he could be WP:BOLD and do so. >Radiant< 16:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care where the policy is written, as long as there is a clear policy somewhere. If someone wants to merge the proposal, I won't object — just tell us where it's been merged to! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• There would be a redirect, I'm sure :) >Radiant< 16:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  Sounds good to me. --Masamage 17:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Like I said further up the page, it's not of extreme importance to me whether this ends up on its own page or merged in with an existing policy, as long as we end up with a strong and clear policy that death threats/threats of violence are strictly prohibited and bannable. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A better example of instruction creep I have yet to see. The answer to the question "What should we do about death threats?" is obvious, the only thing that will change is that trolls will have opportunity to wikilawyer, i.e. "Unban me now! I said "Your edits have angered certain people enough that they will want to kill you", and Wikipedia:Death threats only prohibits direct threats, so I haven't done anything wrong!". I'm redirecting to Wikipedia:No personal attacks. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. :) I'm wondering though, instead of eliminating it entirely, should we perhaps just mark it as a Rejected Proposal? That would help leave a paper trail in case someone else ever wants to start up something similar. --Masamage 05:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Redirect probably works best here. What would be useful is to add a link to this talk page to the talk page over at WP:NPA. Carcharoth 10:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Another example

Here is an example of a 'death threat' that people might wikilaywer over: see here. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic). Carcharoth 10:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha, BJAODN candidate. ...if there was a "destroy this user and ban him for eternity" button... -- you could list it on eBay. ;-P John Reid ° 12:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Move instead of redirect?

If the page is moved, instead of redirected, then the text remains available for people to continue working on if they want to. I propose moving the page (and it's talk page) to Wikipedia:No personal attacks/Death threats, and changing the proposal tag at the top to indicate that the page is a subpage of WP:NPA. An example of a similar subpage is Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks/Extension. Is this proposed move acceptable? Carcharoth 10:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds better, I don't like the idea of loosing the page (just my opinion). cyclosarin (previously raptor) 10:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks/Extension seems to be kind of a siding for a failed proposal - it's not linked by any policy page, only talk pages - so I'd support the move so long as it's similarly indicated that this proposal is not policy. My objection isn't where the article is, it's that we don't need a policy about death threats. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 03:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to subpage of NPA and tag historical; change redirect to NPA; cautious edits to NPA. John Reid ° 12:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll go ahead and do this. Carcharoth 00:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Right, I've done the move, I've reverted from the redirect and tagged historical, I've inserted links in (and tidied up) the archive box at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks, but I've left the redirect at Wikipedia:Death threats pointing to the subpage of NPA, as I'm not sure if redirecting that to NPA is appropriate yet. I'm also not entirely happy about the historical tag here. I was considering editing it to say that the concept of a separate policy didn't meet consensus, and further discussion should take place at WP:NPA, but I'm not sure exactly how to word that. I'm now going to remove, or suggest removing, the proposal from the "cent" template. Carcharoth 01:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Now done the tag rewrite. No change to redirect. I've now updated the 'cent' template, logged the change, and updated the conclusions subpage (a horrible table to edit!). I think only the redirect is an issue now, though I may add a comment on the WP:NPA talk page so people there can read this discussion and decide what to incorporate into WP:NPA. Carcharoth 01:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Nicely done! :) --Masamage 04:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

let us not devalue the project

"Simply put, a single human life is worth more than every Wikipedia article combined."

i stronly suspect that both the time spent both on improving wikipedia and the time saved by using wikipedia over other crappier information sources is probablly more than a man-lifetime. Yes death threats are not something to be taken lightly but at the same time lets not forget the huge scale and significance of what we have built here. Plugwash 21:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

If one saves a life, it is as if he or she has saved the entire world. -Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a 204.52.215.107 21:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"Simply put, a single human life is worth more than every Wikipedia article combined" is a quote that I would agree with. Your utilitarian views don't necessarily reflect anyone else's on this one...--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 02:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)