Wikipedia:Harassment

"WP:HA" redirects here. For Wikipedia's historical archive, see Wikipedia:Historical archive.

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

See also: Wikipedia:Civility § Engaging in incivility

Harassment, threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contact, and repeated personal attacks may reduce an editor's enjoyment of Wikipedia and cause disruption to the project.

Wikihounding

See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette

Wiki-hounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on pages or topics they may edit or debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work, with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. To use the older term "Wikistalking" for this action is discouraged because it can confuse minor online annoyance with a real world crime.

Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. 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. The contribution 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 component of wiki-hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason. If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.

Threats

Threatening another person is considered harassment. This may include threats to harm another person, to disrupt their work on Wikipedia, or to otherwise harm them. Statements of intent to use normal Wikipedia processes properly, such as dispute resolution, are not threats. Legal threats are a special case of threat, with their own settled policy. Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely.

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. For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous", that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue for defamation, even if this is not intended. To avoid this frequent misunderstanding, use less charged wording (such as "That statement about me is not true and I hope it will be corrected for the following reasons...") to avoid the perception that you are threatening legal action for defamation.

Rather than blocking immediately, administrators should seek to clarify the user's meaning and make sure that a mere misunderstanding is not involved. For example, a user might assert another editor's comments are "defamatory" because they are unaware of certain policies (such as harassment, personal attacks, incivility, etc.) and require assistance in dealing with such comments. While such comments may not be per se legal threats, they may fall under the scope of the aforementioned policies and repeated or disruptive usage can result in the user being blocked.

Posting of personal information

"WP:OUTING" redirects here. For the alternate meaning of outing, as an excursion, see Wikipedia:Meetup.

For the Wikimedia privacy policy, see Wikimedia:Privacy policy.

Posting another person's personal information is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted one's own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia oneself. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm outside of their activities on Wikipedia. This applies to the personal information of both editors and non-editors. It also applies in the case of an editor who has requested a change in username, but whose old identifying marks can still be found. Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly, followed by a request for Oversight to delete that edit from Wikipedia permanently.

If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. Doing so 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 from 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 it should be made clear to the users blocked for outing 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

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.

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.

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

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 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 the volunteer response team by email, in confidence. Please note that the volunteer response team 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

Main page: Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks

Wikipedia administrators' actions 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 continual troublesome 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 the volunteer response team if needed.

Consequences of harassment

Although editors are encouraged to ignore or respond politely to isolated incidents, that should not imply that they are acceptable or without consequences. A pattern of hostility reduces the likelihood of the community assuming good faith, and can be considered disruptive editing. Users who insist on a confrontational style marked by harassment and/or personal attacks are likely to become involved in the dispute resolution process, and may face serious consequences such as blocks, arbitration, or being subjected to a community ban.

Blocking for harassment

See also: Wikipedia:No personal attacks § Blocking for personal attacks

• In extreme cases, such as legal threats, threats of violence, or outing, protective blocks may be employed without prior warnings.
• Incidents of wikihounding generally receive a warning. If wikihounding persists after a warning, escalating blocks are often used, beginning with 24 hours.

What harassment is not

See also: Wikispeak: Harassment

This policy is aimed to protect victims of genuine harassment which is meant to cause distress to the user, such as repeated and unwanted correspondence or postings. Like the word stalk, harass carries real-life connotations and must be used judiciously. A user warning for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith and attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one. Neither is tracking a user's contributions for policy violations (see above); the contribution logs exist for editorial and behavioural oversight. Unfounded accusations of harassment may be considered a serious personal attack and dealt with accordingly.

See also

• Arbitration policy/Precedents#Personal attacks (and associated principles).
• Wikipedia:Griefing
• MeatBall:LynchMob