Wikipedia:WikiBullying

This is an explanatory essay about the Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Ownership of articles policies.

This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

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WP:BULLY

This page in a nutshell: Bullying is not permitted on Wikipedia, and any violators will be blocked from editing.

WikiBullying is using Wikipedia to threaten and/or intimidate other people, whether they are Wikipedia editors or not. Doing so violates Wikipedia's civility policy, and is not allowed anywhere on Wikipedia.

If you feel that you are being bullied, or another user has threatened you with bodily harm, it is important that you report them immediately to the Incidents page on the Administrator's Noticeboard so the matter can be properly handled. However, see "What bullying is not" below, to properly distinguish between a complaint about bullying versus other kinds of complaints. All complaints about bullying – even those which turn out to be unjustified – should be treated with seriousness and respect; any WP:BOOMERANG on individuals who have complained they are being bullied is contrary to the principles of respect for thoughtful intellectual discourse that Wikipedia represents. No one should ever be afraid to come forward to make the community aware of a bullying concern, and no one should ever feel (for one reason or another) that they can't come forward and report it.

There are essentially two forms of bullying on Wikipedia: attacks against the individual editor by targeting a single user, or giving the perception of power aimed at the entire Wikipedia community at large.

On Wikipedia, all editors have fair and equal rights to editing all articles, project pages, and all other parts of the system. While some may have more knowledge or familiarity with a topic than others, this does not mean those with less Wikipedia jargon are at a lower level, or not entitled to their point of view.

Stating a real policy when it is necessary is not considered WikiBullying.

Forms of WikiBullying

Asserting ownership

There are experts, or those otherwise very knowledgeable of a topic, in every field who create and make major contributions to the articles relating to that topic. They may be familiar with where to find sources of information to establish notability and vouch for accuracy, and have better overall knowledge (see WP:STEWARDSHIP). But this does not constitute ownership of any articles. No article on Wikipedia is owned by any editor. Any text that is added to Wikipedia is freely licensed under WP:CC-BY-SA and other users are free to add, remove or modify it at will, provided that such editing is done responsibly. While there may be disagreement, generally consensus will determine the final outcome.

POV Railroading

Point of View (POV) railroading refers to the use of bullying tactics to discredit or eliminate an editor with an opposing viewpoint.

False accusations

False accusations are a common form of bullying on Wikipedia, although people do sometimes make honest mistakes. Accusations of misconduct made without evidence are considered a serious personal attack.

Misrepresentation

Quoting others out of context, and implementing other forms of "straw man arguments" are against Wikipedia's civility policy. Again, try to find out if there has been a misunderstanding.

Making "no-edit" orders contrary to policy

Another form of wikibullying is to issue "no-edit orders" which are not supported by current policies or guidelines, or any active sanctions or editing restrictions (see also Wikipedia's page on contentious topics). A "no-edit order" is a message sent to a single editor (who is not banned), to a group of editors, or the Wikipedia community in order to tell or "order" them to not edit Wikipedia, a particular page, or part of a page - either at all or in a particular manner. These messages can be sent to a user's talk page, placed on an article's talk page, or in hidden text that would not be missed if an editor attempts to edit the targeted article, page, or section. No editor may unilaterally "take charge" over a page or part of a page and its content, nor may they claim or exhibit ownership of any page or part of a page (even if they were the page's creator), and no editor may "command" or discourage others from making edits or changes by sending or communicating "no-edit orders" of any kind.

There are some no-edit orders that are acceptable. For example, if a consensus has already been formed regarding a topic, and a single editor has constantly stubbornly defied the ruling, politely discussing this one-on-one on the user's talk page is acceptable in order to kindly curtail the behavior.

If any kind of edit war is in progress and in cases where the consensus is unclear, the users involved (or the entire group) are strongly encouraged to form a discussion with the primary goal of attempting to achieve consensus. It is also highly recommended that such discussions exhibit coming to a peaceful resolution, even if some compromises are made, as a primary objective or expectation.

Wikihounding

Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors by maliciously joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may regularly contribute to and in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is usually done with the intent to create irritation, annoyance, fear, or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place-to-place on Wikipedia, and often can be identified by reviewing the offending user's contributions. If they are suddenly joining multiple discussions that the intended "recipient" regularly, or even recently, participates in and with no evidence that they had participated or even expressed interest in those subject areas before, and if this sudden participation is usually, if not solely, met with battleground conduct, incivility, hostility, or disruption toward the editor and the discussion – it is likely that the user you're investigating is participating in Wikihounding.

Use of hidden text

Hidden text is frequently used to give editing instructions. There are some acceptable and unacceptable uses for hidden text. Hidden texts may be suggestions, in which case they should not to be taken as law, or they may be notes about current consensus among editors, or about policies or guidelines; policies should normally be followed, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. There can be exceptions to the rules, however.

Some unacceptable uses are:

Telling all other editors not to edit the page
Telling others not to remove a section of the article, as if the section were written in stone
Telling others that a page should not be proposed for deletion, when this may be doubted by others
Writing new guidelines that apply specifically to the page and branding them as "policy." In the past, policies that have been proposed for a single article have failed to attain a consensus.

Real life threats

Scaring or making threats against the person, either on or outside of Wikipedia. See also WP:VIOLENCE.

The Wikimedia Foundation, if need be, will investigate or arrange for law enforcement to investigate threats of violence.

What bullying is not

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WP:CRYBULLYING

A few things are often falsely identified as bullying:

A robust response to determined attempts to insert disputed content into an article.
Taking actions against attempts to promote a POV.
Sanctioning editors who do not take on board criticism.
Sanctioning editors who will not accept consensus.

If you complain of bullying, admins will look at your own edits and check to see that you have not been engaging in tendentious editing or stonewalling debate.

Don't make unfounded complaints of bullying. For one thing, they undermine your own credibility. But more importantly, they trivialize the harm done by actual bullying.