Wikipedia:STALK/ENGLISH

Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to a reasonable and objective observer to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons, usually (but not always) for the purpose of intimidating the primary target. The purpose could be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to encourage them to stop editing entirely.

Harassment is sometimes described as a violation of don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point or no personal attacks, but is properly both a subset and special case of both, while at the same time being separate from both for definition reasons. The policy of "no personal attacks" is primarily about content, not behavior (for example, calling certain editors "assholes" is a violation of NPA, but is not in itself harassment), while the policy of "don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point" covers many less malicious behaviors that, while unacceptable, are not as bad as harassment (for example, disruption intended to support a cause). And yet, it is a subset of both, in that it is disruption to prove a point, and it is an attempt to personally attack another editor of Wikipedia.

Types of harassment

There is no way to spell out all the behaviors that can be considered harassment. One of the tendencies of harassers is to come up with new and inventive ways to plague their victims. However, in the past, harassment on Wikipedia has included:

Following an editor to another article to continue disruption (also known as wikistalking)

The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.

This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful.

Targeted personal attacks

Not all personal attacks are harassment, but when an editor engages in repeated personal attacks on a particular editor or group of editors, that's another matter.

Threats

Threatening another person is considered harassment. This may include threats to harm another person, to disrupt their work on Wikipedia, or to otherwise hurt them.

Legal threats are considered a special case, with their own settled policy. Making legal threats against another person or organization involved with Wikipedia may lead to being blocked on the basis of that policy.

Posting of personal information

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. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media. This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor. It also applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives.

User space harassment

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.

A user page is for the person to provide some general information about themself and a user talk page is 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.

Blockable disruption not defined above

This sort of behavior is blockable on its own (for example, moving another user's User Talk page), but should be considered an aggravating factor for the purposes of the block. For example, behavior that would earn a 1 day ban might become a 1 week ban if the Administrator believes the behavior was for the purposes of harassment.

Other

This user's story is an instructive example in the aggravating enhancing factor of harassment; the editor in question moved another user's talk page, which was disruption sufficient to get him blocked for 24 hours; however, as it was part of a pattern of harassment, the ban was extended indefinitely.

Types of harassment

Other

See also