Wikipedia talk:Harassment

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This page is for discussion of the guideline; if you wish to complain about a user harrassing you, your request won't be heard by many people here; you will have better luck at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance). Thank you for your time.

• Older discussion can be found here.
• and here.

Contents 1 Is this policy 2 Wikistalking? 3 Query 4 Harassment 5 And WP:STALK 6 And WP:STALK, part 2 7 Harassment? 8 User:Artaxiad violating WP:Stalk 9 Shortcut

[edit] Is this policy

As part of an overall effort to simplify and streamline policy, I've boldly replaced the policy tag with a guideline tag. There are several reasons.

The policy tag was added less than a year ago without a clear consensus.

This page is disjointed and is more of an essay than a statement of policy. Much of the reason it is disjointed is that there isn't any real consistent policy on harassment. The AC cases that are identified in the page were the sort of cases that produce unclear precedent because there were so many problems being addressed at once. The most serious problems of harassment we have had are not mentioned here; they have involved sexual innuendo, threats of physical violence, and deliberate disclosure of personal information. That this sort of behavior is inappropriate at Wikipedia is so clear that no policy is necessary.

I note that several attempts to generate consenus for a "wikistalking" policy have failed to gain much support.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I will re-read the page and related pages and come back either supporting or opposing this decision. Congradulations on being bold. HighInBC 20:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

After a very short re-read I have determined that it is indeed a disjointed series of ideas mostly covered in other areas. The section on wikistalking seems to be the only unique information here, but following people around can be either constructive or disruptive. In the case of constructive following(such as following a vandal or spammer) this is acceptable behavior, in other cases I beleive that other policies cover it. I support you decision to turn this page into a guideline. HighInBC 20:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

After re-reading the page, I also support your action. Thanks for doing this. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikistalking?

When I looked at a user's contributions page, I saw several articles (about Italian models, if you want to know) that had a couple of minor formatting and capitalisation errors, so I went to those articles and fixed them. Would that be considered Wikistalking, though not harmful? --Gray Porpoise 19:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I consider such things to be more giving someone a hand rather than stalking. True wikistalking would be if you were to check their contributions on a daily basis and edited most of their changes. LinaMishima 15:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query

I have had questions about the identity of a particular user and whether or not he is a person about whom a Wikipedia article is written. When I asked this question, he told me I had to remove it as it represented a form of harassment. I don't think that the policy states that it is a form of harassment to ask the question whether a particular user is actually the subject of an article, especially if that user is editting that article (and then there is question of violation of WP:AUTO). Please see the related discussion on my talkpage and give me some guidance. --ScienceApologist 19:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Read the note at the top of the page. This talk page is for discussing the policy; complaints about actual harassment go on e.g. the village pump. (Radiant) 15:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harassment

A few people have been harassing me after I made a change to Treaty of Nöteborg. First some guy shows up claiming I'm some other user and posting things on my page. Then another guy shows up threatening me with blockage and stalking me half way across Wikipedia (undoing something that doesn't make any sense). I then took to see who this person and undid one of his edits (something that didn't make any sense to me). Then he comes back calling me names, claiming I should be blocked for stalking him (HE WAS THE ONE STALKING ME!). I left a message on this guys page telling him not to stalk me, but he removed the message saying "plonk".

Why am I being harassed and how come no one is doing something about it?

Atabata 12:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Read the note at the top of the page. This talk page is for discussing the policy; complaints about actual harassment go on e.g. the village pump. (Radiant) 15:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] And WP:STALK

Copied from WP:COI If this has already been covered, please direct me to the relevant conversation, but: doesn't this policy conflict a bit with user's right to privacy? In other words, it is it possible to suggest to someone that they are violating this policy without yourself violating the policy, in particluar "Posting another person's personal information (legal name, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself." IronDuke 20:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• I don't understand what you're trying to say. It's quite possible to point out that someone is posting personal information without repeating that personal information. (Radiant) 09:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, wasn't clear. It's like this: let's say I edit the Bill Gates article and change the lead to read "Bill Gates is the smartest human who has ever lived." After looking at some of my other edits to Microsoft, etc., you get suspcious. So you come to my talk page and you say, "IronDuke, you aren't by any chance Bill Gates, are you?" Well, if it turns out I am, aren't you violating my privacy? And yet, am I not violating COI by editing the Bill Gates in a hagiographic manner? IronDuke 14:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• If someone asks whether you're Bill Gates, they're not violating your privacy (they are likely incivil and incorrect, though). If he posts Bill Gates's home address and telephone number, that would be violating privacy. (Radiant) 15:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

But it says "legal name" above. Thus, if you post that I am Bill Gates, you are violating that part of WP:STALK, no? IronDuke 15:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• If asked out of the blue, yes. If this could reasonably be implied from your on-wiki activities, then no. For instance, if John Doe is the founder of DoeCorp, and the article on DoeCorp is suffering WP:OWN issues from User:JDSomeone, it is not unreasonable to conclude that JDSomeone might be John Doe. In effect, the user has exposed himself. (Radiant) 15:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, he's exposed himself to being exposed, yes? If you, intrepid editor, are the only person who puts it together, it can stay secret of you keep it secret. But this gets back to my question... when may one essentially violate WP:STALK. I'm going to paste this conversation over there and see what people think. IronDuke 15:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] And WP:STALK, part 2

This is similar to the situation above. We have an articles on a company and its owner/CEO. Over time there have been several registered users and IPs who have identified themselves as the owner or officers of the company. Overall, they appear to be just one editor. One account was banned for legal threats but several of them posted threatening or intimidating language. The editor engaged in various edits which represented conflicts of interest, such as promoting the company in other articles, removing information from the articles of competitors, and trying to settle scores. In addition to violating WP:COI and WP:NLT, the editor has repeatedly violated other policies and guidelines, such as WP:POINT, WP:COPYVIO, etc.

A new account claims to have no relation to the company or its owner. However his editing patterns, spelling mistakes, interests, etc, clearly show it to be the same editor as before. Outside information, such as the content of a MySpace account, further supports the theory that the new editor is the owner of the company. Proving the connection to the owner serves to prove that the editor has a conflict of interest and that he is the same editor as previous usernames. So, to recap, is it legitimate to reveal a user's probable real name in interest of enforcing wikipedia rules? -Will Beback · † · 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

(Cross posted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard due to lack of response). -Will Beback · † · 07:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harassment?

Since Wikipedia has pages on many real life people, places, and even businesses, what is it considered when people bring real life conflicts and start placing them onto Wikipedia? For example: an argument between two people, at least one of whom has a Wikipedia article about them, or also, a business that has an article and an employee/ex-employee that is angry at the business.

I have seen a specific instance of the latter where an employee from a company has gone onto the Wikipedia article of the company and posted various defamatory statements about real people that work at the company. Is this vandalism, harassment, or perhaps something else?

This brings to mind a second problem. What happens when sensitive information is posted onto a Wikipedia article? Due to the way the Wiki system works, any content that is posted is technically there forever. It may not be on the official page, but it will exist in the pages history indefinity as far as I know. What if, say, someone at KFC decided to post the complete KFC chicken seasoning recipe, or maybe every last piece of personal data they could find about the CEO? I suppose information of that nature would not be verifiable, but it should probably be removed somehow from the history. Sahuagin 01:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• This talk page is for discussing our guidelines against harassment, not for reporting actual cases of harassment. I'd suggest you bring this up on the village pump, because you're more likely to get a response there. >Radiant< 13:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I had a feeling you'd say that. I am not reporting a case of harassment, I'm asking questions regarding Wikipedia policy, specifically about vandalism and/or harassment. Sahuagin 15:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Okay okay, from your wording it was obvious you had a specific case in mind. Yes, it's inappropriate to bring real-life conflicts to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is not a good place for whistleblowing about your ex-employer, because such statements tend to be unsourced (however, if you whistleblow to a newspaper and it becomes a media scandal, we'd certainly write about it). Sensitive information, well, that depends. If you mean "something that is true and verifiable but that the subject of the article doesn't like", well, tough luck. If a celeb goes to prison for embezzlement, our article will report that, regardless of whether the celeb likes that. If you mean "personal contact information", we delete it from the history. If you mean "a secret recipe", likewise. The admin deletion button allows us to do that. >Radiant< 10:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Artaxiad violating WP:Stalk

I would like to report a case of harassment by User:Artaxiad. He has been following my edits, to identify myself with certain other physical identity without any proofs at hand. My creation and editing of this page [1] of a poet who lived in early 20th century, served as a faulty ground for User:Artaxiad to claim my identity based on false name associations and some information he found on Internet about a certain individual in California. His first case of intimidation was here [2]. User:Artaxiad further pursued harassment, trying to associate again User:Atabek with someone else and use an article on Internet as a basis for claiming that someone else as friend of another Wikipedia contributor User:AdilBaguirov right here [3]. I will not add extra evidence on User:Artaxiad following my edits to pursue revert warring, all of this evidence is well summarized at [4], [5], [6]. I am just wondering when negligence of disruptive behavior of this user is going to end. While being an experienced user, he walks away free with confirmed sockpuppets [7], gets involved in heavy revert warring, which is presented in ArbCom case [8], clear attempt to remove all of the images related to a certain country admitted here [9], accusing others of "lying" [10], and now clear case of harassment and stalking. How long this is going to go on? Atabek 11:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcut

The most common shortcut reference to this page seems to be WP:STALK. I see that a couple people (including myself) have tried adding it to the top of the page, but someone else keeps removing it saying it's unneeded. It's so commonly-used though, I think it's worth including. Anyone else have an opinion? --Elonka 20:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is good to have. I had seen people referring to "wikistalking" and was looking for mention of this on a policy page yesterday and had trouble finding this page because the shortcut was not there. Abridged 21:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

First, the point of the shortcut box is not to list every single incoming redirect; that's what Special:Whatlinkshere is for. The point of the shortcut box is to list a select few handy mnemonics for the page, generally related to the page name (e.g. HAR -> Harassment). Second, "stalking" is a needlessly nasty term and should arguably not be used for that reason (for the same reason that the term "COI" is preferred to "vanity"). Third, the term "stalking" is frequently used to mean "reading people's contrib logs". While it is not infrequently argued that reading people's contrib logs is a form of harassment, we should not be giving the impression that there is merit to this argument. So adding that redirect is (1) not necessary and (2) gives people the wrong impression. >Radiant< 09:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)