Misplaced Pages:No legal threats: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 03:07, 22 November 2009 view sourceDank (talk \| contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users133,970 edits →Perceived legal threats: moving this section to WP:Harassment per talk← Previous edit		Revision as of 11:38, 22 November 2009 view source Team1525 (talk \| contribs)478 editsNo edit summaryNext edit →
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	{{dablink\|"WP:LEGAL" redirects here. You may be looking for ].}}		{{dablink\|"WP:LEGAL" redirects here. You may be looking for ].}}
	{{Policy\|WP:NLT\|WP:LEGAL\|WP:THREAT\|WP:LAWSUIT}}		{{Policy\|WP:NLT\|WP:LEGAL\|WP:THREAT\|WP:LAWSUIT}}
	{{Policy in a nutshell\|If you have a dispute with the community or its members, use ]. If you do choose to use legal action or threats of legal action to resolve disputes, you will not be allowed to continue editing until it is resolved and your user account or ] may be ]. A polite report of a legal ''problem'' such as defamation or copyright infringement is not a threat and will be acted on quickly.}}		{{Policy in a nutshell\|If you have a dispute with the community or its members, use ]. If you do choose to use legal action or threats of legal action to resolve disputes, you will not be allowed to continue editing until it is resolved and your user account or ] may be ]. A polite report of a legal ''problem'' such as defamation or copyright infringement is not a threat and will be acted on quickly.}}
	{{Policylist Behavioral}}		{{Policylist Behavioral}}
	] rather than legal threats!]]		] rather than legal threats!]]

	Rather than immediately threatening to employ ], you should always first attempt to resolve disputes using Misplaced Pages's ] procedures.		Rather than immediately threatening to employ ], you should always first attempt to resolve disputes using Misplaced Pages's ] procedures.

	If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so. However, it is required that you do not edit Misplaced Pages ''until the legal matter has been resolved'' to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels. You should instead '''contact the person or people involved directly''', by ] or through any other contact methods the user provides. If your issue involves Misplaced Pages itself, you should contact Misplaced Pages's parent organization, the ]. Do not issue legal threats on Misplaced Pages pages.		If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so. However, it is required that you do not edit Misplaced Pages ''until the legal matter has been resolved'' to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels. You should instead '''contact the person or people involved directly''', by ] or through any other contact methods the user provides. If your issue involves Misplaced Pages itself, you should contact Misplaced Pages's parent organization, the ]. Do not issue legal threats on Misplaced Pages pages.
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	# It prevents the difficult situation where a person is both seeking to be collaborative partner and also setting themselves up as litigious adversary (in general those two roles are mutually exclusive).		# It prevents the difficult situation where a person is both seeking to be collaborative partner and also setting themselves up as litigious adversary (in general those two roles are mutually exclusive).

	If these conflicts are in fact resolved (or a ] is reached to ] if they are resolved), then involved editors should be unblocked if there are no other issues that warrant a block.		If these conflicts are in fact resolved (or a ] is reached to ] if they are resolved), then involved editors should be unblocked if there are no other issues that warrant a block.

	==See also==		==See also==

Revision as of 11:38, 22 November 2009

"WP:LEGAL" redirects here. You may be looking for Misplaced Pages:Legal disclaimer.

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts

This page in a nutshell: If you have a dispute with the community or its members, use dispute resolution. If you do choose to use legal action or threats of legal action to resolve disputes, you will not be allowed to continue editing until it is resolved and your user account or IP address may be blocked. A polite report of a legal problem such as defamation or copyright infringement is not a threat and will be acted on quickly.

Conduct policies
Block evasion Civility Clean start Consensus Dispute resolution Edit warring Editing policy Harassment No personal attacks Ownership of content Sockpuppetry Username policy Vandalism
v t e

Rather than immediately threatening to employ litigation, you should always first attempt to resolve disputes using Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedures.

If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so. However, it is required that you do not edit Misplaced Pages until the legal matter has been resolved to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels. You should instead contact the person or people involved directly, by email or through any other contact methods the user provides. If your issue involves Misplaced Pages itself, you should contact Misplaced Pages's parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. Do not issue legal threats on Misplaced Pages pages.

If you make legal threats or take legal action over a Misplaced Pages dispute, you may be blocked from editing so that the matter is not exacerbated through other channels. Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing while legal threats are outstanding.

Legal threats should be reported to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents or an administrator.

What is not a legal threat

A polite, coherent complaint in cases of copyright infringement or attacks is not a "legal threat".

If you are the owner of copyrighted material which has been inappropriately added to Misplaced Pages, a clear statement about whether it is licensed for such use is welcome and appropriate. You may contact the information team, contact the Wikimedia Foundation's designated agent, or use the procedures at Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems.

Misplaced Pages's policy on defamation is to immediately delete libelous material when it has been identified. If you believe that you are the subject of a libelous statement on Misplaced Pages, please contact the information team at info-enwikimedia.org.

Perceived legal threats

Further information: Misplaced Pages:Harassment § Perceived legal threats

It is important to refrain from making comments that others may reasonably understand as legal threats, even if the comments are not intended in that fashion.

Background to the policy

Rationale for the policy

While you may sue in a court of law, Misplaced Pages is not the place for legal disputes. Making legal threats is uncivil and causes a number of serious problems:

It severely inhibits free editing of pages, a concept that is absolutely necessary to ensure that Misplaced Pages remains neutral. Without this freedom, we risk one side of a dispute intimidating the other, thus causing a systemic bias in our articles.
It creates bad feelings and a lack of trust amongst the community, damaging our ability to proceed quickly and efficiently with an assumption of mutual good faith.
We have had bad experiences with users who have made legal threats in the past. By making legal threats, you may damage your reputation on Misplaced Pages.

Attempting to resolve disputes using the dispute resolution procedures will often lead to a solution without resorting to the law. If the dispute resolution procedures do not resolve your problem, and you then choose to take legal action, you do so in the knowledge that you took all reasonable steps to resolve the situation amicably.

Conclusion of legal threat

The Misplaced Pages community has a long-standing general principle that (almost) anyone is capable of reform. Accordingly, statements made in anger or misjudgment should not always be held against people for the rest of their lives once genuinely and credibly withdrawn.

This policy removes an editor who makes legal threats to prevent damage or deterioration to the project. The editor is not blocked just because "it's a legal threat", but rather because:

It reduces scope for escalation of a bad situation,
It reduces stress and administrative burden on the wiki,
It reduces disruption to articles and the editorial environment,
It prevents the difficult situation where a person is both seeking to be collaborative partner and also setting themselves up as litigious adversary (in general those two roles are mutually exclusive).

If these conflicts are in fact resolved (or a consensus is reached to test if they are resolved), then involved editors should be unblocked if there are no other issues that warrant a block.