Wikipedians have five basic rights and five basic responsibilities.
The right to
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The responsibility to
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Rights
editEvery Wikipedian has the right to:
- Their privacy, and freedom from unreasonable intrusions into same.
- a) Privacy of all editors and readers of Wikipedia is governed by the WMF privacy policy.
- b) Every Wikipedian has the right to disclose as much or as little information about their real-world identity as they choose.
- c) No Wikipedian is permitted to, or attempt to, publicly disclose the real-world identity of any other Wikipedian or private correspondence without express permission. Restating publicly-available (not deleted or oversighted) information previously disclosed on Wikipedia by a Wikipedian such as one's own real name, geographic location, affiliations, profession, or any similar real-world information does not count as invasion of privacy.
- d) The right to privacy is subject to reasonable restrictions based on the CheckUser policy and related needs to combat vandalism, sockpuppetry, and other abuses of the site.
- e) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:OUTING - further explanation of why revealing personal information of others is forbidden
- Wikimedia:Privacy policy - the official WMF policy
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Durova#Private_correspondence - The Arbitration Committee's stance on release of private emails and other correspondence
- Be free of harassment.
- a) Editors do get into disputes, and the aftereffects can last for some time. However, all Wikipedians explicitly have the right to be free of harassment, stalking, and hounding across their edits.
- b) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:HARASS - Policy defining harassment on Wikipedia
- Make a good-faith case for their edits to be included, and be heard.
- a) All Wikipedians have the right to discuss their proposed edits, and attempt to have them included, subject to consensus and concerns about undue weight or inclusion of fringe views.
- b) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- Be free from arbitrary restrictions and appeal decisions made which affect their editing privileges.
- a) Administrators are given the ability to block editors from editing for hours, days, or indefinitely. Reasons for suspension of editing privileges include ongoing harassment, vandalism, or edit-warring, amongst others, and in most cases users must be warned and given a chance to reform their behaviour. Wikipedia's blocking policy covers how and when administrators may block editors. In all cases, the block log of the user will include the reason for blocking, and in most cases the blocking administrator will leave an explanation on the user's talk page. These blocks may be appealed via reasonable use of the {{unblock}} template, and subsequently by email to unblock-l@lists.wikimedia.org or arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org.
- b) The community may vote to ban a user from the project where other methods of dispute resolution and behaviour modification have failed to work. The usual reason cited for such a ban is 'exhausting the community's patience' due to repeated and chronic disruptive behaviour. In all such cases, bans are enacted only after discussions at either of the administrators' noticeboards, and the user in question is generally invited to comment, or if currently blocked may be invited to comment on their talkpage, with their comments being copied or transcluded into the main discussion. Such bans may only be appealed to the Arbitration Committee email list at arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org.
- c) The Arbitration Committee may also vote to ban a user as the result of a case in which the user has been involved. Such bans may only be appealed to the Arbitration Committee email list at arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org.
- e) Other editing restrictions that may be imposed include topicbans (prohibition from editing articles or projectspace pages related to a specific topic), specific pagebans, mentorship arrangements, and so forth. In all cases, such restrictions are imposed by community discussion at the administrators' noticeboard, as a result of an Arbcom decision in a case in which the user was involved, or as part of enforcement of a case in which the user was not involved, via a discussion at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.
- f) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- Participate in internal process discussions, policy and guideline changes, and apply for positions of greater responsibility within the project.
- a) All Wikipedians may participate in internal discussions related to article (or other) deletion, policy and guideline proposals and development, straw polls, and so on. Alternate accounts are forbidden from participating in the same discussions as the parent account, and are also forbidden from participating in internal project discussions such as policy debates. An exception is granted for clearly-linked alternate accounts which are used for editing from public terminals, for example.
- b) IP editors and/or users who are not logged into their account may not provide a numbered vote in the Request for Adminship or Bureaucratship processes, though they are invited to participate in the discussions.
- c) Any Wikipedian with a named (logged-in) account may apply for extra user permissions such as Rollback (one-click reversion of edits, and essential for using certain automated tools), Autoreviewer (automatic patrolling of newly-created pages), or Account Creator (in order to assist new users in creating their accounts), among others. These extra user permissions are granted by administrators upon a review of the editor's contributions, and may be revoked at any time for misuse or disuse.
- d) Any Wikipedian with a named (logged-in) account may apply for positions of greater responsibility within the project, such as Administrator, CheckUser, Bureaucrat, Arbitration Committee, Mediation Committee, Oversight, or any of several other positions. Some of these positions carry extra restrictions, such as requirement to provide proof of one's identity to the WikiMedia Foundation, and most require community approval through a hybrid voting/discussion process. The right to apply is not a guarantee of success.
- e) Relevant policies and guidelines:
Responsibilities
editEvery Wikipedian has the responsibility to:
- Work towards building a better encyclopedia
- a) Strive for a neutral point of view in all editing.
- b) Refrain from using any original research in their editing. Facts should be directly cited to reliable and verifiable sources.
- c) Avoid conflicts of interest in their editing, and/or declare any such conflicts.
- d) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:5 - the five Foundation Principles on which Wikipedia is built
- WP:NPOV - Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view
- WP:NOR - Wikipedia policy forbidding original research
- WP:RS - Wikipedia policy on what is and is not a reliable source
- WP:V - Wikipedia policy on 'verifiability', or explaining why readers must be able to find out where facts came from
- WP:COI - guidelines on conflict of interest
- Work in a collaborative manner
- a) Discuss challenged edits on the relevant article's talk page
- b) Pursue established dispute resolution procedures when discussion proves insufficient to resolve a problem, and engage in dispute resolution procedures initiated by other users in good faith.
- c) Respond to inquiries, constructive criticism, and help from other editors.
- d) Refrain from gross incivility, personal attacks, and threats. This includes refraining from legal threats, which will result in immediate suspension of editing privileges. Legal issues must be dealt with via the Open-source Ticket Request System (OTRS) or through direct contact with the WikiMedia Foundation.
- e) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:DR - explaining the Dispute Resolution process on Wikipedia
- WP:BRD - explaining the Bold → Revert → Discuss process, and the importance of the final step
- WP:COLLAB - an essay outlining how collaboration works
- WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA - the policies and guidelines on maintaining a polite atmosphere, free of attacks
- WP:NLT - how legal threats are handled on Wikipedia
- Use a single account per person, and use alternate accounts only when allowed by policy.
- a) Multiple users are not permitted on a single account due to licencing requirements of the Gnu Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0.
- b) Individual users may use multiple accounts for various reasons, as long as they are not evading bans or blocks, swaying discussions or polls in which they have taken part under another username, evading other types of restrictions such as topicbans or the Three-Revert Rule, or any other activity which might be reasonably considered as evading community policies and norms.
- c) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:SOCK - the Wikipedia policy on alternate accounts, known as 'sockpuppets'
- WP:NOSHARE - Policy on 'one person per account'
- Edit competently
- a) Competence is required of Wikipedians. This means contributing to the best of your ability while recognising your limitations and working to overcome them
- b) Wikipedians are expected to recognise that not all users are created equal; some have language barriers or learning difficulties, some simply have talents in different areas. All editors are expected to make allowances for this, within reason.
- c) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- WP:COMPETENCE - essay on 'competence is required'
- Ignore all rules when they conflict with building a better encyclopedia.
- a) Editors are reminded that few of Wikipedia's policies are ironclad.
- b) Ignoring rules in order to build the encyclopedia is not a free pass to ignore consensus, established policy, or community norms without a compelling reason.
- c) Relevant policies and guidelines:
- Ignore All Rules - foundation issue/core policy