Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:50, 2 April 2008

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages behavioral guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:HAR WP:HARASS

This page in a nutshell: Do not stop other editors from enjoying Misplaced Pages by making threats, nitpicking good-faith edits to different articles, 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 Misplaced Pages unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely.

Harassment is sometimes described as a violation of don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to prove a point or no personal attacks, but is properly both a subset and special case of both, while at the same time being separate from both for definition reasons. The policy of "no personal attacks" is primarily about content, not behavior (for example, calling another editor a "fascist" is a violation of NPA, but is not in itself harassment), while the policy of "don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to prove a point" covers many less malicious behaviors that, while unacceptable, are not as bad as harassment (for example, disruption intended to support a cause). And yet, it is a subset of both, in that it is disruption to prove a point, and it is an attempt to personally attack another editor of Misplaced Pages.

Types of harassment

There is no way to spell out all the behaviors that can be considered harassment from the early incubation of a pattern to an unmistakable offense (one without even the pretense of camouflage). One of the skills of persistent offenders is flexibility and inventiveness in pursuing their target. However, in the past, harassment on Misplaced Pages has included:

Wikistalking

• WP:STALK

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 Misplaced Pages policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles (in fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam). 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.

Targeted personal attacks

Not all personal attacks are harassment, but when an editor engages in repeated personal attacks on a particular editor or group of editors, that's another matter.

Threats

Threatening another person is considered harassment. This may include threats to harm another person, to disrupt their work on Misplaced Pages, 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

• WP:OUTING

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 Misplaced Pages 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. Posting personal information to point out conflict of interest concerns about another editor is not a violation of this guideline.

Private correspondence

There is no community consensus regarding the posting of private off-wiki correspondence. The Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee, which has no standing to create policy, 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 Misplaced Pages:Private correspondence, Misplaced Pages:Correspondence off-wiki and Misplaced Pages:Confidential evidence.

User space harassment

• WP:HUSH

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 themself 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.

Blockable disruption not defined above

This sort of behavior is blockable on its own (for example, moving another user's User Talk page), but should be considered an aggravating factor for the purposes of the block. For example, behavior that would earn a 24 hour block might become a 1 week block if the Administrator believes the behavior was for the purposes of harassment.

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. As per WP:NPA#Off-wiki_attacks, 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 Misplaced Pages.

Precedents/examples of note

Personal attacks

There exists a list of Arbitration cases involving Personal Attacks that might be illuminating to those seeking further information at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy/Precedents#Personal attacks (and associated principles).

Other

• This user's story is an instructive example in the aggravating enhancing factor of harassment; the editor in question moved another user's talk page, which was sufficient disruption to get him blocked for 24 hours; however, as it was part of a pattern of harassment, the block was extended indefinitely.

Dealing with harassment

If, after reading the above, you feel you are a user who is being harassed, there are several things you can do about it.

First and foremost, act calmly (even if difficult). If the matter comes to the attention of administrators in future, it will be much easier to see who was acting wrongly, if you are visibly civil and calm and obviously just trying to not get involved. It is hard to over-emphasize this. Stay calm and try to avoid encouraging it.

If that consistently fails, then:

1. For simple, on-wiki matters, such as a user with whom you have arguments, see dispute resolution. This is the usual first step. Frequently people will disagree on editorial matters, and disupte resolution has many ways to help.
2. For more serious cases where you are willing to address it on-wiki, you may wish to seek administrative assistance.
3. Finally, and usually only 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.

Note: if there are concerns over your 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'.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Civility: be civil and avoid harassment.
• Misplaced Pages:Etiquette: apply wikiquette and avoid harassment
• Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith: assuming bad faith would force someone else into no longer assuming good faith on you.
• meta:Don't be a dick
• Misplaced Pages:User talk page

Related articles

• Institutional memory
• Cyberbullying
• Cyberstalking
• Harassment by computer
• Psychological abuse
• Hate speech
• Gatekeeping (communication)
• Thoughtcrime
• Psychological warfare

• Misplaced Pages behavioral guidelines