Wikipedia:Flying under the radar

It's watching you.

Wikipedia is a huge project, created and maintained by tens of thousands of people. In any such endeavor, there will sometimes be problems; new people may not know the rules and their content is removed or deleted. We hope that when this happens, the user can understand the reason and improve their contributions. We hope they will engage in dialogue so they can learn what kinds of content are appropriate.

But this is not always the case. Sometimes, they freak out and yell. Sometimes, they get mad and quit. And sometimes, they just keep doing what they are doing, ignoring every message sent to them, even ignoring short blocks intended to make it clear that they need to stop what they are doing. Often, such users have never used a talk page of any kind, or just stopped replying to any message at some point when they realized that people generally get bored and move on if they don't reply. They may move from one content area to another when there is an issue so the pattern is less apparent, but they don't discuss what they are doing and don't ever collaborate with other users.

Why this occurs

The three unwise monkeys: Hear no criticism, see no attempts to help, speak nothing at all

In some cases, this behavior is found among genuine new users who truly do not understand what Wikipedia is and how it works. They may confuse it with other websites with user-generated content that do not have the standards that Wikipedia has regarding notability and verifiability. Some users may also be reluctant to engage in talk-page discussions—whether due to unwelcoming past experiences, or just being uninterested—and so they stick to content editing. This is especially so for new editors, who may get bitten shortly upon arrival.

In other cases, this behavior is exhibited by users who know perfectly well what they are doing and have adopted it as a deliberate strategy to go as long as possible without being blocked.

How to deal with it

If you encounter a user whose talk page is littered with deletion notices, warnings, or notifications about poor editing behavior, but they have never replied to any of it, you have found someone trying to "fly under the radar". A short block, as is usual for a first-time disruptive editor, may be all that is needed. This may push them into realizing that they can't keep doing what they were doing, but it won't work every time. If they keep doing what they were doing after the block, and still refuse to discuss anything, the only options left are a partial block to article space to force discussion on project and/or talk pages, or, alternatively an indefinite block. Wikipedia is based on collaboration, which by definition requires communication. If an editor refuses to communicate, they are rejecting the idea of collaboration, and that is incompatible with what Wikipedia is and how it works.

The mobile apps

This problem is compounded by a series of known issues with Wikipedia's mobile apps, which make it much harder to see notifications or find talk pages. It seems designed more for readers than editors yet it does allow editing, while not allowing other important functions. Thus, it may appear that a user is ignoring talk page messages when in fact they don't have any idea talk pages even exist. This does not excuse bad behavior in articles, and at a certain point they may have to be blocked regardless, but it should be taken into account if you see this behavioral pattern. (Edits made from mobile apps are tagged so it is possible to determine if this is part of the problem.)