This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Harassment. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I'm concerned by a comment here, User_talk:Jytdog#Redundant_one-way_IBANs,_etc.[...] definitely seems to be hounding you (he's edited two ANI threads in the last sixteen months, both related to you, and his comments in both have been serving to undermine you, which would be suspicious enough if he had no prior history with you whatsoever),
So, if someone is regularly named at ANI, and another party comments upon them (not even filing the ANI), then the problem is with the commenter, rather than the person who keeps being reported to ANI? Is this to be any part of our HOUNDING policy or practice? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:02, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
Clearly it was triggered by that ANI thread, although I don't quite follow what your point is here. My observations are two-fold:
At that ANI thread, there are two themes. One is "Why is Andy complaining of things that happened a long time ago?" and the other is, "Andy is Bad, he has run a long-standing campaign of harassment." Now, apart from me seeing the second of these as a long-standing series of unactioned complaints at ANI about the same editor and their actions elsewhere (I'm not the one making paid editor and SPI allegations), there's a clear disjoint about how long a window is to be allowed for the consideration of past events - and subjectively shifting that around obviously changes the weighting.
Secondly, in the case linked here, there's a messenger being described as who definitely seems to be hounding you (he's edited two ANI threads in the last sixteen months, both related to you, and his comments in both have been serving to undermine you. So how do we interpret that? Is that a long-running problem, or a non-problem with an over-zealous reporter? We seem to be inconsistent and far too subjective in how this is regarded. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
I reported it at ANI. If you see more, edit that section at ANI. There's no need to go into detail for a clear case like this, just mention user names. Ask at my talk if needed. Johnuniq (talk) 00:53, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
For garden-variety Wiki harassment like this, yes, WP:ANI is the place. In cases with serious real-world implications better to email emergency@wikimedia.org both for privacy reasons and to reach people who can do something about it. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
request for funding - machine learning research on wiki-misconduct
Hello, I edit Wikipedia professionally for a university and do Wikipedia research. I am writing to seek wiki community endorsement to receive US$5000 Wikimedia Foundation funds to better wikify some automated research on Wikipedia misconduct. If you can support this research then please sign off at the bottom of the research description.
I recognize that I am not posting on a board which is a perfect fit for seeking support and comments about an "Artificial intelligence in Wikimedia projects" approach to wiki community management, but as I have looked around in other places I think this board might be the most popular place for discussing responses to user misconduct.
The research is a data science examination of variables which have correlated with a user account getting a block in the past. The research output will be a list of accounts which closely match those blocked accounts, but which do not have blocks themselves. There will be no quick solution here, but I am looking to advance the conversation on this topic in both technical and non-technical directions. If anyone has questions I could talk here, but I appreciate any response - including criticism and challenges - on the talk page at the grant request. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk)15:33, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Suggested revision
Based on the discussion just above, I have a suggestion. Here is what WP:OWH says, with the sentence in green my suggested addition:
Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Contacting another editor off-site using contact information that they have not made available on-site can be a particularly onerousodious form of harassment.Off-wiki harassment will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence will be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.
Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia.
Support the change, per my comments above. I don't think that separating out other forms of unwelcome inappropriate contact is suitable for the policy - inappropriate external contact is inappropriate external contact, whether that's a phone call, non-Wikipedia email, Facebook message, SMS message, paper mail, personal contact, whatever. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:40, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
Well one does not know beforehand if the contact will be welcome or unwelcome. Both types of voice contact IMO should be disallowed without explicet agreement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) This doesn't seem to jibe with the rest of the policy page, which defines harassment as a pattern of repeated offensive behaviour. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I wanted to point that out. Also, "onerous" might not be the word you're looking for. Bradv 🍁 23:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
I absolutely agree with the intent behind this change, but I'm not certain the wording is quite right. I can't quite put my finger on why but Bradv's comments may be part of it. I need sleep though and so I'll look afresh tomorrow. Thryduulf (talk) 00:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
I wouldn't characterize it as "particularly onerous", as that seems to say that it is worse than other forms, when the circumstances can vary widely. Just make it clear that some recipients of such calls may feel threatened or outed by the call, and that it is not permitted. bd2412T04:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The wording is slightly off; as worded if I were to reply to somebody on Wikipediocracy about their on-wiki edits that would be "onerous harassment", regardless of the message. Obviously replying to a person on a web forum where that person identifies as being a specific Wiki editor is different than tracking down their phone number; the wording should reflect that. Perhaps "attempting to contact editors in an unexpected manner"? power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The whole section is in desperate need of a re-write. Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Seriously? No, it doesn't "create doubt"! It's outright prohibited And no, it's not can be, it is! And yes, egregious is the word, not onerous. - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'11:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree with others that this needs a more extensive re-write. I also think that the view that Jytdog engaged in harassment simply because he made the phone call is wrong and misrepresents what harassment actually is. So, here's a proposal for consideration:
Harassment of other Wikipedians is absolutely prohibited. Harassment occurring online in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation or in the "real world" are sanctionable on-wiki and may also result in off-wiki consequences. Reports of inappropriate off-wiki behaviour creates doubts as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Off-wiki attacks, including through the use of external links, are considered personal attacks and may be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence should be submitted by private email – outing remains prohibited. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.
If an editor wishes private contact with another editor, emailing through the Wikipedia interface is the preferred method. Posting to external forums (such as Wikipediocracy) where accounts are explicitly linked to on-wiki identities is also acceptable. In some cases, editors provide other contact information on wiki, or provide sufficient information for contact information to be located. Posting such information on-wiki is prohibited under the outing policy, and using such information to initiate contact without seeking explicit permission (such as by asking at a user talk page) is strongly discouraged. Even if the message sent is innocuous, such contact may be unwelcome; it could create concerns about privacy, safety, and even be perceived as threatening – and on-wiki consequences are certainly possible if the recipient of such a message makes an on-wiki complaint.
The first draft is appreciated. But, let's be entirely clear - if a Wikipedia editor makes unsolicited phone calls to another editor on a phone number that they have not explicitly provided on Wiki, it is an act of harassment - intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial - it is an act of harassment. Anyone who believes otherwise is misguided, misinformed, misaligned, or malicious. Now, there are parts of what is proposed above which are good. But the whole remains unpolished and full of equivocation. I would be happy to workshop the text, but we will not be ending up with something which provides a posteriori excuse of the recent events; and we will not be ending up with something that equivocates about that with discouraged and maybe and could and perceived and possible and whatnot. It's harassment. It's wrong. It needs no hedges. - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'13:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Ryk72, you have now posted both here and at the RfAr that anyone who disagrees with you misguided, misinformed, misaligned, or malicious. At RfAr, it was directly generally. Here, it is pretty clearly directed at me specifically. We disagree, that doesn't make me a bad person nor a fool. Please try to express yourself without the assertions that you must be right and the unpleasant comments / personal attacks. EdChem (talk) 14:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
EdChem My posting of the comment at both locations is not a coincidence; I consider it apropos to both discussions. My comment here is most certainly not directed at you specifically. There are a number of editors above who have made comment to indicate that the behaviour, or forms thereof, is acceptable to them; I most certainly disagree with them all. I do not, however, in anyway, assert that that makes them a bad person nor a fool. If such was your reading, then you have my heartfelt apology for my lack of clarity. I do assert, however, equally heartily, that those editors are incorrect; and I do couch it as fact. I do not wish to make further picking of bones, and would rather move forward on workshopping policy. I think your version is better than that which went before, but don't see editing a version on this Talk page to be optimal; and don't see writing a long list of proposed changes to be optimal either. Could we put something on a draft page and talk about it? Or could we put something in a separate section to be edited by all? - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'14:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
"Explicitly provided on-wiki" should be something like "Explicitly provided or linked to on-wiki" as someone saying "please phone me, my contact details are here: <link to external page>" is obviously not going to be harassment if anyone follows up on it. "In some cases, editors provide other contact information on wiki, or provide sufficient information for contact information to be located. Posting such information on-wiki is prohibited under the outing policy, and using such information to initiate contact without seeking explicit permission (such as by asking at a user talk page) is strongly discouraged." is poorly worded - it implies that it is outing to post your own contact details on-wiki (it isn't, obviously) whereas what is prohibited is posting someone else's contact information on-wiki that they did not, even if it was clearly linked to (and even then it's not an absolute - e.g. the information posted could be used to verify that a notable person is represented by a particular agent/agency). Also it is not harassment to contact someone unsolicited using methods other than special:emailuser if contact by that method has been invited on-wiki (see e.g. user:Thryduulf/Contact, someone contacting me directly using either email address listed on that page is fine). I don't know how to reword to reflect this without being very clumsy though. Thryduulf (talk) 14:24, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The second 'graph contradicts itself in places. I had notes to suggest but I think I'll just propose an alternative instead:
If an editor wishes private contact with another editor, emailing through the Wikipedia interface is the preferred method. In some cases, editors provide other contact information on wiki or links to their information elsewhere. Contacting a user through external forums (such as Wikipediocracy) where accounts are explicitly linked to on-wiki identities is also acceptable. Posting another user's personal information anywhere on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited under the outing policy, and using undisclosed information to initiate contact without gaining explicit permission (such as by asking at a user's talk page) is prohibited. Even if the message sent is innocuous, such contact may be unwelcome; it could create concerns about privacy, safety, and even be perceived as threatening. Users who are contacted through inappropriate means should report occurrences privately to the Arbitration Committee or Wikipedia:Emergency.
-- For the sake of brevity I dropped the bit about consequences. In my mind, doing something that we recommend be reported to the emergency response team ought to carry a reasonable expectation of severe sanctions. But then again, we're having this discussion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't have any problem with this addition per se. But it might be more useful to include language to the effect that "the forms of harassment delineated in this policy are not meant to be a complete list. Common sense dictates that other forms of behavior not listed are unwelcome and harassing and can subject editors to penalties. Administrators need to review the circumstances on a case-by-case basis." We don't want editors to say, "look, I can do it as it is not on the list." Coretheapple (talk) 16:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree. I would not want to see us list every possible way that someone could be inappropriately contacted. WP:CIR applies.- MrX 🖋 19:02, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The line on forums does not need to be mentioned. Also, my pet peeve about somehow pretending Wikipediocracy is special and not an external site that is subject to all the same guidelines about external sites as every other external site. It isn't, and we've had issues recently with people not understanding that in regards to linking to external identities. It should not be mentioned explicitly in policy.Here's the thing: if two people are members of some other online community that has a PM option, and they deduce that they're the same person on Wikipedia, there is no problem PMing them there being all "Hey, I see you're X on WP based on what you say here."What is a problem is someone looking up my Facebook account and adding me as a friend and PMing me there about a block I made. If that happens, I'm calling the cops. Having a specific line about forums creates too big of an exemption and would open the floodgates to some really unpleasant behavior and have situations similar to the current arb case where people misread what should be clear from the general principles of this policy as allowing them to do something that they shouldn't do. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The second sentence is missing a key clause about it being acceptable to use these methods, I'd also recommend making it clear we're talking about very clear links not following a chain of information. My suggested wording (with additions in italics) is: "In some cases, editors provide other contact information on wiki or clear links to their information elsewhere, making contact using these methods is usually acceptable provided common sense is used and any specific requests are complied with. If It is unclear whether a clear link was intended, assume it was not.". However this is very clunky and could probably be improved. The rest is good. Thryduulf (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Everyone who has pointed out that "onerous" was inept, that's so true, and I have been self-dope-slapping ever since shortly after I logged off last night. I meant "odious". Anyway, that was only an initial suggestion, and I appreciate how other editors are working beyond that, because I was primarily concerned with getting a discussion going. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone who has commented and suggested changes / alternatives. I think most are definite improvements to what I proposed. A couple of specific thoughts:
@TonyBallioni: FYI, I included Wikipediocracy as an example as I was looking to mention acceptable options other than email through WP. With the reorganising suggested by Ivanvector and some form of the additions from Thryduulf, such an example is not needed. I'm fine with dropping mention of that site or any other external WP review forum in favour of some version of Thryduulf's suggestion. However, I do feel that your comment about "calling the cops" is over the top and fits with some over-reactions to Jytdog's actions. Calling the police to say something like "I was contacted on Facebook / by phone from a WP editor. I didn't give them my contact details. They asked if it was ok for us to discuss a disagreement we were having on WP. This is harassment. Please do something." will provoke questions like "Did you ask them to stop, or say no? If so, did they persist? Was the message threatening or abusive?" Unsolicited and even unwanted contact is not necessarily harassment and I strongly believe we should not have a policy that says otherwise. In my view, that opens up an undesirable interpretation that we use the term "harassment" for behaviours that are not, and in so doing we diminish the seriousness of unarguable harassment.
@Ryk72: I certainly agree that moving forward on workshopping any policy change is desirable. I appreciate your apology, though I do encourage you to reflect on the absolute nature of your position. I accept that you hold the view that I am incorrect and I have no problem with disagreement. However, I don't see the need to declare that all who disagree with you must be misguided, misinformed, misaligned, or malicious. From my perspective, it is you who are mistaken in overstating that intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial - it is an act of harassment. In the specific case at issue, if Jytdog had persisted after being told that Beall4 did not wish to speak to him, that would have moved into harassment territory. As far as we know, what he did was to identify himself and request permission to have a discussion, and to continue only once that permission was granted. He should have waited for permission from his user talk page post, no question, but failing to do so does not (in my view) automatically move his actions into the category of harassment. If you consider my comment above to TonyBallioni, or a single unsolicited call from a telemarketer that was polite and ended when I stated that I was not interested, I hope you can see that alleging that it was harassment is diminishing the experiences people who are subjected to harassment within the more usual meaning of that term.
@Ivanvector: Thanks for your changes, they are definitely positive improvements. I am concerned, however, by changing "strongly discouraged" to "prohibited" in using undisclosed information to initiate contact without gaining explicit permission (such as by asking at a user's talk page) is prohibited. I keep thinking of the comment from Doc James about receiving such a call and having no problem with it, and I do believe that others may be similarly accepting of a polite phone call or other contact. On what grounds do we as Wikipedians have the right to prohibit a behaviour that is not experienced as harassment or seen as problematic by the recipient by declaring it to be harassment? Regarding "consequences", if you mean at the end of the second paragraph, I agree that it is not necessary, though I do wonder if moving As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely. to be a separate third paragraph might be appropriate. If you mean the mention of "off-wiki consequences" in the first paragraph, I was alluding to the fact that harassing phone calls can lead to police action and to legal consequences. Perhaps that is inelegantly worded or unclear, but I do think that possibility is worth a mention in some form.
I am not commenting about the case that gave rise to it, which I will do on the arb com page, but I consider it false that "if a Wikipedia editor makes unsolicited phone calls to another editor on a phone number that they have not explicitly provided on Wiki, it is an act of harassment - intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial - it is an act of harassment. " As several people have pointed out, in situations involving schools and universities, this sort of call is not usually considered harassment (depending of course on what is said), and a number of us have regularly or occasionally done this, including myself. There are other situations also. Someone who is openly editing as a PR representative even if they do not give their phone number expects to get phone calls--it's part of their job. Someone editing openly from a business even if they do not give their phone calls expects to deal with people on the telephone. In none of these three cases would any of these people expect to get a email first. It's different of course for private individuals, or people being semi-anonymous. It's different for people editing about personal maters fro ma business address, even if they happen to have given their phone number. Some of it is generational--to people my age, a phone call, not a email , is the expected initial contact, and if we can deal with something over the phone, we do so. WP is somewhat of a special situation, since the expectation of privacy here is greater than almost anywhere else in the world --perhaps unrealistically so, but still, it's good that we maintain the principle, just like it's good that we maintain the principle of respecting copyright more than almost anywhere else. There are virtues in different channels. For almost everything here, I prefer email or postings, because I want to be exact , and I can revise them before I send them. But to explain a nuance or a misunderstanding, phone or in person is better.
We have a tendency to try to find bright line rules; I consider that almost always an error, for circumstances vary. There's a illusion that treating everything the same way makes for fairness--it is in my experience sometimes excuse for being oppressive and over-bearing.. We are humans dealing with humans,and are expected to make use of judgement. the pretended virtue of bright line rules is that it saves thinking; I consider that the opposite of a virtue. DGG ( talk ) 06:30, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Hello DGG, could you please help me to understand your comments above: when you say "openly editing from a business address" does that include someone posting "hey, I work for Major ISP Company, and this is wrong" on the talk page of the article for the employer? Is it okay to try to contact by phone a person who claims to be the subject of a BLP? (I'm going to hope you don't find that okay.) What about someone claiming to represent the subject of a BLP? How much digging for personal information is allowed? And under what circumstances do you think it is okay to call schools or universities? (I've been around a long time, and can't really think of an example for this.)
What I am thinking here is that it's not really okay for people to be calling someone who posts on Wikipedia without explicit ("here's my phone number") or implicit (phone number is posted on userpage) permission. I think it would make it infinitely easier for trolls and people looking for paid editing jobs to simply say "hi, I'm Joe from Wikipedia, here's what I can do for you" or something like that. I think we're opening ourselves up to some really serious harm to our reputation if we tell our editors it's just fine to call the PR company that's trying to get an article onto Wikipedia. For years and years, OTRS responders have been saying "no, it was probably someone scamming you" if they're asked about someone calling and saying they're from Wikipedia. There's a lot of value in that. There's a reason that the phone calls to police departments come from the WMF Trust & Safety Department, whose staff identities can be verified. Risker (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
We all seem to agree that "onerous" is the wrong word but I contend that "odious" is also the wrong word. It is a highly judgmental word with very heavy and emotive negative connotations. I suggest something like "unacceptable" instead. Cullen328Let's discuss it07:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
@DGG: The statement discussed is mine, and so I should answer for it. I thank you kindly for your considered words, as I thank EdChem and any other editors who have commented on the statement; the input is deeply appreciated. My statement is that if a Wikipedia editor makes unsolicited phone calls to another editor on a phone number that they have not explicitly provided on Wiki, it is an act of harassment - intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial - it is an act of harassment. Comparing the statement to the various scenarios in which a phone call might reasonably be considered acceptable - those above, and those mentioned elsewhere - many are explicitly not covered by that statement. I believe that I have chosen my words carefully to achieve their intent. Stepping through some of them: a) A telemarketer, in their capacity as a telemarketer, cold calling a prospective customer is not a Wikipedia editor, and not covered. (They belong to the De'il and well may he take them). b) Situations involving schools & universities outside Wikipedia are not "a Wikipedia editor", and not covered - I accept statements that cold calls are acceptable in academic circles at face value, but what might be acceptable in one industry is not necessarily acceptable in another; not should we here be constrained by or beholden to what is acceptable to a subset of our community. c) For situations involving professorial staff being cold called in their capacity as Wikipedia editors to be known to be acceptable (on the basis that they are academics and that this behaviour is universally acceptable in academic circles) must involve them having identified themselves as individuals and as professorial staff and have provided sufficient details for them to be contacted - Name, School, Position, etc. That might be considered to provide an implied solicitation to be contacted; but explicit confirmation should still be sought, particularly, but not only, in situations where there has been an on-Wiki dispute. (I apologise if the wording there is strained, I hope the meaning is clear). d) For situations involving undergraduate students being cold called in their capacity as ... oh dear, no! just no!. e) Situations involving PR representatives being cold called in their capacity as Wikipedia editors require them having identified themselves as such and having provided sufficient details to be contacted and ... there may be some suggestion of an implied solicitation of contact, but explicit confirmation should still be sought, particularly (but not only) in situations where there has been an on-Wiki dispute. f) ... openly editing from a business ... identified themselves and provided sufficient details ... but explicit confirmation should still be sought, particularly (but not only) in situations where there has been an on-Wiki dispute. y) Wikipedia editors receiving email through the Email this user function do provide an implied solicitation of contact through that means. z) Wikipedia editors identifying themselves as such on other forums or social media ... implied solicitation of contact through that means (though social media may be a grey area for some. I note particularly the comments of TonyBallioni, above; those comments resonate. I do not (as yet) identify myself as Wikipedia editor Ryk72 on any other social media or forums, and would not expect to be contacted elsewhere about my activities here). I'll also draw some distinctions: Wikipedia is not the general world. Phone calls are indeed entirely reasonable ways of making even first contact in the real world. On Wikipedia we are already engaged in communication, using a medium for which there is implied consent (Wikipedia itself). It costs very little to use that communication medium to request or offer movement of a dialogue to an alternative medium, including phone calls, and to wait for affirmative consent. It doesn't require emails. It only takes a Talk page post, like this. It is a matter of having done the due diligence to ensure that a phone call is an acceptable means of communication. Without that due diligence, the cat is still in it's box, and we must assume that its state is "irate". This really is a case of needing to seek out affirmative consent; and it is incredibly low cost to do so. Again, I thank you for your thoughtful comments, and for the opportunity to clarify my intent. I also thank Risker for the comment above. I did have something slightly different drafted, but on reflection find full agreement with her. Finally, my statement does not seek to draw a bright line, but to find a place at which we make the incision whereby all of that which is antithetical to the good working and good name of this community is excised. We cannot do otherwise. While my intent is to be forthright on this matter, if it helps when reading to mentally wrap the statement in a "my opinion is" wrapper, then editors should feel free to do so. - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.' 08:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC) - reping Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'09:50, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I would agree with most of your comments--I'll reply in more detail when I have time later today or tomorrow. But I want to say now that in (b), the school instructors in the educational courses are usually at least technically WP editors. And sometimes these course instructors are in fact undergraduate students acting as undergraduate teaching assistants. DGG ( talk ) 17:08, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Outreach observations
Experienced editors may not appreciate how difficult communication on Wikipedia is for a new editor. New editors are commonly shown how to use the visual editor but talk pages use the markup editor where features such as indents, pings and sigs are not obvious. Getting a user page organised with userboxes and other personal details also takes some time and experience as the interface provides no template or wizard to help with this – just a blank page. I am aware of these issues because I am often interacting with new editors at outreach events such as editathons.
For example, I helped recently at an event. This was ticketed using Eventbrite and there was related activity on social media such as Twitter – both of these are standard for such events in my experience. After the event, one of the new editors contacted me by direct message on Twitter because they "couldn't work out how to reply to you on Wiki". My Twitter account is not listed in my Wikipedia profile but there should be no question of sanctioning or scolding someone for contacting me in such circumstances. It is our policy that Wikipedia is not social media and so editors will naturally tend to use other tools to communicate and collaborate. Organisers of such events commonly suggest a hashtag and get the participants to use a collaborative tool such as Etherpad or an Outreach dashboard. We should not obstruct such activity with a presumption that editors must only use Wikipedia and email.
As another example, an author recently contacted me by email to ask permission to use a picture that I had taken and uploaded. I advised them that they didn't need permission and also advised them that there was a Wikimedian-in-Residence at their institution, who could help them with such issues. I provided contact details to put them in touch with each other and that all seemed fine.
As a third example, I attended the AGM for Wikimedia UK this year and spent some time chatting with a couple of other members after the event. We exchanged business cards and these naturally included a variety of contact details, including phone numbers. This information is not on our Wikipedia profile or page, nor should we expect it to be. The similar monthly London meetup is coming up soon – notice that that is organised on Meta, not Wikipedia.
So, our harassment policy should allow for the fact that editors may meet or communicate outside of Wikipedia and that this is not automatically creepy or unpleasant. Phrasing such as "off-site" should not be used in a narrow, restrictive way to prevent natural and normal communication by other means.
@Andrew Davidson: in many of those scenarios, the people being contacted have explicitly given the other person their contact information (e.g. exchanging business cards) and/or have made that information public (by connecting their twitter username, wikipedia username and real-life identity). If you publicly state that you are attending a wikimeet you are implicitly giving people permission to talk to you face to face at that meetup about your editing. Nobody is suggesting that harassment occurs if you contact someone with their permission. Thryduulf (talk) 20:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
The proposed text addition would forbid "contacting another editor off-site using contact information that they have not made available on-site...". The examples describe such situations and so demonstrate that the proposed text is unreasonable. Andrew D. (talk) 22:32, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I will reiterate my comments at ARC and state that contacting another Wikipedia editor via off-wiki means without their consent (a means in which they have not provided on Wikipedia) is a serious issue. We have a communication method here on Wikipedia. If they do not respond then it stops there. If editors are disruptive, we have a means of recourse such as reverting, warnings, and blocking. Wikipedia editors should be able to come to Wikipedia and edit its content without fearing the possibility that they will be contacted in-person, by phone, or other means. While other professions or institutions are different and contact information is usually published accordingly, there are still rules that define what constitutes appropriate communication. In most cases, contacting them through other means they have not provided is inappropriate, such as home phone numbers. Harassment can be perceived or actual, and regardless of Wikipedia policy, anyone who inappropriately contacts another person could be subject to much greater repercussions than breaking Wikipedia rules. Mediawiki's Code of Conduct defines some forms of harassment: "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking." I recommend we consider something similar. Mkdwtalk21:29, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Every time there's a bit of one-off drama here, there's always this reactionary attempt to massively overcorrect, usually by means of zweihänder when a scalpel is all that is needed. Attempts to draw a hard line and define off-wiki communication attempts as "particularly odious harassment", or stating that "intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial" are ridiculous, 'harassment' is not just some black and white concept that can be defined with blanket statements, and intent and context is always relevant and needs to be carefully examined in each individual case. For example, a good faith, if unwanted, outreach attempt to someone who has disclosed their identity is entirely different from contacting someone off-wiki to maliciously antagonize them, just because they slipped up and accidentally self-outed one time. Both incidents are inappropriate, but it's ridiculous to attempt to unambiguously equate them. The wording should take a moderate, neutral, generalized approach in discouraging unsolicited forms of off-wiki communication. There is no need to pre-emptively define any potential scenario with blanket statements. Swarm talk 22:03, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree. The elephant in the room is the arbcom case. That's a total one-off, and apparently not an isolated event by any means. We can't "legislate" for very possible event or close "loopholes" in these policies. Policies are not legislation. Common sense also applies. So does competence. I agree that off-wiki communications can be terrible, and there are also circumstances I guess in which maybe they aren't so terrible. Why not simply acknowledge in this policy that the acts we are describing are not exhaustive? The very fact that we are here buys into the argument I have seen that something not being in this policy is a green light to do it, and that is bogus. This policy is fine as is. We can't "legislate" to deal with the possible future acts of editors who are intent on being harassers. Coretheapple (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Although I agree to some extent with both statements above, that we should not try to get overly precise or proceed too quickly, I also think recent events here do indicate some guideline and policy that may need supplementation or revision. The nature of harassment is better understood now than in the past, and there is a greater realization of the susceptibility to harassment, Over the period of time in which WP has existed there has been a considerable and desirable change in standards in society generally and on the internet in particular. Many of us are aware of things we might have thoughtlessly done 15 years ago that we would never do today. Thee has also been a long overdue and very desirable change in the makeup of the WP community, to include a much wider range of people and backgrounds than that most prominent at the very beginning. More specifically, as a starting point I certainly endorse Mkdw's proposed sentence above. There are of course additional things we will need to consider. DGG ( talk ) 20:15, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree that the wording Mkdw put in red would be a perfectly OK bit of tinkering, and is in line with what I suggested earlier about the conduct listed in the policy not being exhaustive. It's not necessary, as we are all adults and know or should know what "harass" means, but certainly not a problem to add. As long it's understood in the arbcom case that this is not done because phoning people out of the blue was fine and no longer is. It was never acceptable and was always harassment and always will be. Coretheapple (talk) 01:44, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Endorse inclusion of Mkdw's red highlighted text. Do we also need a Harassment may include, but is not limited to, the following: or Examples include but are not limited to: (from mw.CoC) at the end of the first section of Harassment and disruption? - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'02:07, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Section break: suggested revision
I've been quietly watching this discussion for a while in order to get a feel for what other editors are thinking (and I'm quite past onerous, odious, odorous, and the rest). I'd like to suggest another draft, in which I'm trying to take into account all of the comments above, and in which I'm trying to keep the wording brief, rather than overly prescriptive. For comparison, the existing wording is on the left, and my proposed wording is on the right:
Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Off-wiki harassment will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence will be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.
Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia.
Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking, violates the harassment policy. Off-wiki harassment, including through the use of external links, will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, evidence should be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning.
If an editor wishes private contact with another editor, emailing through the Wikipedia interface, when enabled, is the preferred method. Private contact is also acceptable when using other contact information posted by an editor on-site, when invited by an editor, or as part of organized projects such as educational, outreach, or meet-up projects. Contacting a user through information not posted by them on-site, without first obtaining explicit permission, is likely to be unwelcome, and even to be perceived as threatening. Users who are contacted through inappropriate means should report occurrences privately to the Arbitration Committee or Wikipedia:Emergency.
The current policy says "As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning." Isn't that enough? Why do we need new language? People know what harassment is. If they don't, if they have a problem in that area, they shouldn't be editing. Coretheapple (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
I guess that depends on whether or not we, collectively, want to make any revisions at all. As I read the sentence that you quote, it means that any kind of on-wiki harassment that is described elsewhere in the policy is also forbidden off-site. Since there is no way to place a telephone call using the Wikipedia editing interface, I suppose that means that phone calls are never considered to be off-wiki harassment. And we should also delete the existing language about external links. And we should also stubify the policy page to just say "Never harass anyone", because, after all, anyone who doesn't understand that must be a slobbering idiot. Now obviously I'm being sarcastic there, and I want to hasten to add that I don't mean it personally. But I'm making a serious point that sometimes it is not instruction creep to clarify some things, because even if they are obvious to you and me, they are in fact not obvious to someone else who isn't clueless. See also WP:LAZYLAZY. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:16, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
If we add the language in red quoted above prohibiting "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking" and add before the list of examples (see text in green above) "Harassment may include, but is not limited to, the following:" or "Examples include but are not limited to:" we'll probably be OK and accomplish the same objective. Coretheapple (talk) 17:08, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
That "red" language is right at the beginning, and I think it's more to-the-point than what we have now. Do you object to telling victims whom they should contact? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
"Intimidation" is specifically prohibited by this policy. I just think we're dealing with an extreme situation by filling a loophole that isn't there. Some editors like to intimidate; it's their style. You can write a policy as long as the Magna Carta and they'll still find a way to do it. As for "whom to contact," we already have a "dealing with harassment" section. Coretheapple (talk) 05:35, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I think we have each expressed ourselves, and it would be best if I not try to go around in circles with you over it. Given that many editors were just recently saying that they were in favor of some sort of addition, I hope to hear what other editors think. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
The concerns raised are serious and should be addressed, but we should be careful about the wording. As others have said, unsolicited offsite contact isn't necessarily a terrible thing. Although I can't see when it'd be appropriate for an editing dispute, I can imagine times where it might be appropriate to contact, for example, a photographer who uploads a JPEG in order to request the RAW file, or an academic who cites his paper in an edit, in order to request access to that paper. Benjamin (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I think the determining factor there is less about being unsolicited, than about using non-posted contact information. In other words, it's fine to contact that photographer or academic using the email interface, but tracking down their contact information that they did not post here should be against policy.
Also, it looks to me like this discussion has been quiet for a while, and I hope that we can resume the discussion. I think that the individual case about Jytdog is now in the rear-view mirror, and I would hope that editors feel a bit more distance in order to consider these proposals as the general case. Perhaps some editors who have been angry at Jytdog can look at this without being influenced by their opinion of him. And quite a few editors expressed strong support for a revision earlier on, and I cannot tell whether they have changed their minds and now oppose it, or whether there just needs to be a reboot of this discussion. If nothing else, it increasingly seems to me that the existing wording is pretty bad ("creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith": that's hardly the issue here!), and I hope that we can make that better. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
No, I think using off wiki contact information can be okay sometimes, as in the examples I mentioned. The determining factor would be if that contact information was meant to be public. Benjamin (talk) 00:18, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
We need a clear policy that the use of contact info that was not meant to be public is prohibited, and no, having your number in the phonebook does not count as "meant to be public". Tornado chaser (talk) 00:23, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree strongly with Tornado chaser that editors should not be making subjective judgments that something was "meant to be public": either it's been posted on-wiki or otherwise voluntarily communicated here, or it's off-limits. And the very fact of these comments seems to me to prove that this is not something that is self-evident to everyone, and that we need to revise the policy page to make it clear. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
There's a pretty significant difference between, say, a personal phone number found in a phone book and an institutional one found in a paper. Benjamin (talk) 15:02, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
@Benjaminikuta: There is, but those are two ends of a spectrum with no clear break - even institutional numbers are not a single thing (e.g. someone may have a number that gets through directly and another that goes via a secretary). How you found the paper also matters - if the paper is linked on their userpage that is very different to if you took three or four steps to find it. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: Exactly, that's why we need to be careful not to make policy that's overly broad or absolute. The purpose of contact matters as well; contacting someone for research or copyright purposes, for instance, is probably going to be a bit more acceptable than contacting them to continue a dispute. Benjamin (talk) 01:27, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
No the purpose doens't matter. Contacting someone using a means they have not provided or linked on-wiki and/or have not explicitly invited is not acceptable, regardless of why you are doing it. If you want to contact someone, ask them first using a method they have made available on-wiki. The policy needs to be absolute because otherwise it relies on editors making their own subjective judgement about what is and is not acceptable, and recent history has shown that not everybody can be trusted to get that right. Thryduulf (talk) 10:06, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
If you don't understand the difference between contacting a Wikipedia editor off-wiki using means they have not disclosed on wiki and contacting a research paper author who is not a Wikipedian using contact methods made public in that paper/by their institution then you are the exact reason why we need an absolute policy. Thryduulf (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
It could happen that someone contacts an author who is a Wikipedian using contact methods made public in a paper. Would you consider that inappropriate? Bear in mind that the names used are not necessarily the same, but might be. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 19:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: I'm a bit offended you think I'd know no better than to harass someone. But to the point, that's quite the opposite of what I said: there IS a difference between those two types of interaction, one is okay, and one is not, and policy should reflect that. Benjamin (talk) 00:11, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
I think this is an interesting issue, and I've been trying to work out how I would address it. I think it boils down to the fact that there should be, and is, nothing in Wikipedia policy that forbids editors from contacting people outside Wikipedia to get information about potential content. So if I'm working on a page about "X" and I contact someone who is an expert on "X", that has nothing to do with the harassment policy. For the interesting special case where that expert also happens to be a Wikipedia editor, it depends on whether or not the expert is being contacted simply like any other expert, or by way of their identity as an editor here. So if I have no idea that the expert on "X" is also an editor who does not indicate here that they are that person in real life, I'm not harassing anybody. Or, if the expert/editor provides their identity and contact information on-site, I'm free to contact them that way. But I should get their permission in advance if I want to use contact information that they did not provide here, once I know that they are an editor. It does not matter whether the information not provided here comes from the phone book or from their university website: if it is not provided on-wiki, I cannot use it without prior permission, even if their identity is provided here. (Note: this means that the expert I could contact about content without any issue of harassing them acquires the right not to be contacted that way when they become an editor.) But let's say that I have some reason to believe that the editor is also the expert, but they do not explicitly say so on-site. If I'm just inferring it, or if I figure it out by doing some research that reveals something, anything, not posted on-site, any private contact I make that involves or refers to their editing here is a violation, but that's because they are an editor who has chosen not to provide their personal information. What that boils down to is that editors who are also experts have the same privacy rights as every other editor, and so the policy is the same, regardless of whether the editor is or is not an expert. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:58, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Tryptofish. I think this can be summed up with a note saying that this part of the policy applies when you are contacting a person you know or reasonably suspect to be a Wikipedia editor. It does not apply if you don't know the person is a Wikipedia editor, and it doesn't apply if the contact is completely unrelated to Wikipedia. e.g. if I was employed by an organisation unrelated to Wikipedia in a role that required me to contact somebody I knew to be a Wikipedia editor about something unrelated to Wikipedia then this policy would not apply. Although I realise having read what I've just written that this is not perfectly worded as it could be seen as allowing editor A to seek out editor B's contact details that they haven't provided on-wiki to contact them about something unrelated to Wikipedia but which would still be perceived as harassing/stalking (in exactly the same way it would be if A learned of B's existence in a bar rather than on Wikipedia). It's also not a license to harass non-editors. Thryduulf (talk) 14:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it could be useful to add a note along those lines, and I'd like to examine how we might word it. My suggested revision at the top of this sub-section says: "Contacting a user through information not posted by them on-site, without first obtaining explicit permission, is likely to be unwelcome, and even to be perceived as threatening." We have a consensus to revise that to: "Contacting an editor using information not posted by them on-site, without first obtaining explicit permission, is likely to be unwelcome, and even to be perceived as threatening." I'm thinking that, first, we could revise that sentence further, to: "Contacting an editor using any information not posted by them on-site, without first obtaining explicit permission, is likely to be unwelcome, and even to be perceived as threatening." Then, second, add the following at the end of the first paragraph: This part of the policy applies to all editors and all contact with persons reasonably believed to be editors. I'm not sure if that covers enough, or covers too much. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
My fear is that will be interpreted as covering too much, per my comments about contacting people we know/believe to be editors when we are not acting as an editor. For example my userpage discloses my real name and the area of London where I live, but does not disclose my mobile phone number. Suppose I provide my real name, address and phone number to XYZ Ltd when making a complaint about their product. User:Example is a Wikipedia editor who works for XYZ Ltd and is the person whose job it is to contact me about my complaint. It would be perfectly reasonable for User:Example to suspect that the person they need to contact is also a Wikipedia editor, particularly if they are familiar with my writing style. It is not harassment for User:Example to contact me about my complaint using the information I provided to XYZ Ltd but not on-wiki nor to them personally, even if we are presently engaged in a heated on-wiki dispute. It would however be harassment under this policy (and hopefully also contrary to XYZ Ltd's policies) for them to use that information to contact me about my (or their) editing on Wikipedia, whether we are in a dispute or not, without my prior permission. I don't know how to make this anything close to succinct though. Thryduulf (talk) 22:31, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree. I do want to add the word "any" where I indicated, but I'm ambivalent about the rest. I'm starting to suspect that this may be a case of less is more, and we should consider it implicit that this policy, like all polices, applies to all editors and to no one outside of WP, and that it goes without saying. On the other hand, the discussion here does seem to suggest that something more needs to be clarified, but I don't know how. If anyone watching here can suggest something, that would be very helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
OK, I thought of something. The first sentence of the proposed revision is from the sentence that Mkdw suggested, and currently says: Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking, violates the harassment policy. Perhaps we could add: "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking, when directed at another editor, violates the harassment policy." It's pretty much a common sense addition that does not really change anything substantive, but it makes it clear that we are talking about harassment of editors as opposed to what WP:HNE says (and HNE is sufficient to deal with what applies to non-editors). --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
@Ivanvector:@Thryduulf:@Bd2412:@Ryk72:@MrX:@EdChem:@Mkdw: I hope this doesn't seem spammy, and I also hope it doesn't come across as canvassing, but I'm pinging each of you because your comments above seem to me to indicate that, at the time of those comments, you were significantly interested in making some sort of revision here. I'm not sure where we now stand, in terms of the discussion having gone quiet. What do you think? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm in favour of the suggested revision above, although I'd tweak "Contacting a user through information not posted by them on-site," to "Contacting an editor using information..." this is just stylistic and shouldn't get in the way of making a change. Thryduulf (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping and all your work on this. I hadn't forgotten but was finding the discussion aggravating and so felt it best to leave it in capable hands. Yes, I support the suggested new wording with Thryduulf's stylistic change, and also for reasons of style I suggest changing Wikipedia:Emergency to "the emergency response team." (same link, but flows better with "the Arbitration Committee") Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:26, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Sorry Tryptofish for the delay in responding. It has been a busy week! I have not been following the conversation closely, but has the community been opposed to prohibiting off-wiki contract when not consented to by the individual outside of Wikipedia-related events and programs? If not, I would suggest the following (or some variant) for the second paragraph:
Appropriate forms of private communication include: Wikipedia's email interface when enabled; any method of communication an individual has publicly posted on Wikipedia for the express purpose of private communication; or when an individual has received express permission and contact information from the other person. Contacting another editor through off-wiki means without their express permission may constitute as harassment and even be perceived as a threat to their safety and well-being. Participants during Wikipedia-related events and programs may be subject to other prevailing guidelines and policies regarding consent, such as the Wikimedia Foundation friendly space policy. Users who are contacted through inappropriate means should report occurrences privately to the Arbitration Committee or emergency response team.
I think this would be really good with a few changes to clarify thing:
Appropriate forms of private communication include: Wikipedia's email interface when enabled; any method of communication an individual has publicly posted on Wikipedia for the express purpose of private communication; or when an individual has received express permission and contact information from the other person. Contacting another editor through off-wiki means without their express permission is prohibited as it may constitute as harassment and even be perceived as a threat to theirthe safety and well-being of the person being contacted. Participants during Wikipedia-related events and programs may be subject to other prevailing guidelines and policies regarding consent, such as the Wikimedia Foundation friendly space policy. Users who are contacted through inappropriate means should report occurrences privately to the Arbitration Committee or emergency response team.
Thanks everyone who has been responding. I agree with what Thryduulf and Ivanvector have suggested. But I'm somewhere between ambivalent and uncomfortable with what Mkdw has proposed. The most substantive change that it involves is the way that it addresses things like educational, outreach, or meet-up projects, and it seems to me to go in the wrong direction there, per earlier discussion about outreach, above. It seems to add additional restrictions on top of the policy here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Tryptofish: I am unclear about what additional restrictions you are concerned about. If you are attending an event that has its own code of conduct, terms of use, or friendly space policy, you are already subject to those policies. If an outreach program has its own policy that prohibits any private unauthorized communication then that policy prevails over Wikipedia policy. We do have the authority to say private contact is acceptable in that situation. That is up to the organizers and stating so here may directly contradict a local event policy. I specifically omitted wording that definitively prohibits private contact because we cannot account for every situation in the real-world. Mkdwtalk19:56, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I suspect that we are each misunderstanding the other. Where you refer to the WMF Friendly Space policy, it sounds like you are saying that it applies in addition to the en-wiki harassment policy. So it would be like editors here are always subject to the harassment policy, and additionally become subject to the friendly space policy when they get involved with certain organized activities. I'm not seeing what that would accomplish, since WMF terms of use always apply here (but I would not mind having a see also going to the friendly space page). If you scroll up a bit above the section break, to where it says "Outreach observations", there is discussion about how there are certain programs in which some types of off-wiki communication within an organized structure is acceptable, that would not be acceptable if an individual editor seeks out another editor's private information. And, more broadly, I'm just not seeing what it is about the second paragraph that you are trying to correct. Is that clearer? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, we're not understanding each other. Plainly, the sentence, "or as part of organized projects such as educational, outreach, or meet-up projects" should be removed. The other changes were for clarity, grammar, and putting it in a more formal language setting. Mkdwtalk00:22, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't in fact understand. Why should that sentence be removed? (Again, please take a look at the comments above, starting at "Outreach observations", before replying.) Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:56, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
(PS. To other editors: the very fact of the two of us not understanding things the same way should serve as another demonstration of why a revision is needed, and why the existing language is insufficient. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 29 December 2018 (UTC))
My apologies for coming very late to this discussion. I want to add my voice to those above saying that off-wiki contact, using details not posted on-wiki, is not necessarily harassment and insisting that it is cheapens harassment and plays down some terrible experiences. I have very occasionally (twice, perhaps?) contacted other editors by phone. This has happened in the course of patrolling UAA where a new editor claims to represent a public institution (museum or library). I've blocked the account for violating the policy on usernames that imply shared use, dropped the appropriate template on their TP but also made what I consider a courtesy a phone call to the reception desk of the institution, asking to speak to whoever handles their Wikipedia presence to explain the problem and what they need to do to fix it. In every case, the call has been welcome and appreciated. Is this harassment? I certainly don't think so, but by some definitions floating around here it would be. I think some of the disagreements are helpfully clarified by Tornado Chaser's proposed edit above; some proposals here seek to ban all off-wiki contact without prior affirmative consent, not because that is always harassment but because it may constitute harassment or may be perceived as harassment. Imposing a blanket ban, and so losing the benefit of examples above of helpful and welcome off-site contact in order to prevent other inappropriate cases, may be a reasonable thing to do (I'm in two minds) especially given the difficulty we have articulating when such contact is and isn't harassing. But we should be explicit that we are casting the net wide, and prohibiting some unproblematic situations in order to protect people from harassment, rather than simply broadening our definition of harassment to the point where it is nearly meaningless. GoldenRing (talk) 03:17, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
The key thing about those examples, as I see it, is that if someone claims, on-wiki, to be representing an organisation then they are effectively disclosing that they can be contacted through that organisation. Stopping that contact is not the aim of this change nor do I see it being affected by the recently proposed versions either. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
(EC) I appreciate that that is how you see it, but I'm seeing a number of others here who don't see it that way. Eg. Tryptofish above, "tracking down their contact information that they did not post here should be against policy." My example above would breach such a policy, because I googled the organisation to find a phone number for them. Ryk72 takes this even further with "if a Wikipedia editor makes unsolicited phone calls to another editor on a phone number that they have not explicitly provided on Wiki, it is an act of harassment - intent is immaterial; how the call is received is immaterial - it is an act of harassment." Mkdw's proposed text above is problematic for me because it defines harassment in part as "unwanted contact." How is an editor to know whether contact is welcome until it has been attempted? There seems to be general agreement that finding an editor's personal phone number and using it is unacceptable, but it isn't obvious to me that such cases would always fall under "inappropriate" or "unwanted"; this seems to me to be a case of banning a wide range of contact in order to prevent the fraction that is actually a problem. As I said above, this may well be a reasonable trade-off, but we should not seek to justify it by pretending that every such case is harassment. GoldenRing (talk) 22:27, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
You make a good point about what you quoted me as saying. And I actually did not intend it to apply to what you described. I would very much welcome ideas about how to put this into policy language, since we certainly have a lot of illustrations of how not to say it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:54, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Following on from comments by Tryptofish, Mkdw and GoldenRing (among others) above it may help if we work out some examples of what we see as always unacceptable, and some examples of what is (sometimes) acceptable and work out if there is an easily expressed way of determining what puts something in one category or another: Things that are always unacceptable without explicit advance permission:
Contacting an editor off-wiki regarding an on-wiki dispute you and they are both involved in - doubly so if contact is by phone - an order of magnitude more so if contact is in person. If unsolicited contact with an editor is necessary it is almost always going to be better if this is initiated by an editor who is not, and has not recently been, involved in any dispute with the editor being contacted.
Intentionally contacting an editor in person, other than at an event you and they are both attending.
Contacting an editor at an event in any way that breaches the policies of that event.
Contacting an editor via their personal phone/email/etc when these have not been made available publicly.
Contacting an editor via their place of work when their edits to Wikipedia do not clearly form part of their duties.
Contacting an editor using any method they have explicitly asked you not to use (excluding vague or overbroad requests not to post on the editor's talk page)
Sleuthing alternative contact details for an editor when working details have been posted/linked to on-wiki.
Sharing contact details with third parties (other than exceptions below)
Using contact details provided for Wikipedia/Wikimedia matters
Things that are (sometimes) acceptable:
Contacting an editor at an organisation they explicitly or otherwise very clearly (claim to) represent, using publicly available contact details for that organisation.
Contacting an editor using contact details posted or linked to on-wiki (only regarding Wikipedia/Wikimedia matters unless
Contacting a teacher/tutor/professor/etc regarding an on-wiki activity they are (apparently) running/organising/instigated for their pupils/students/etc. Where possible, contact should normally be made through/via their educational institution.
Sharing contact details when required to do so by law enforcement or similar bodies (but inform m:Legal as soon as possible)
These are my initial opinions only (it does not necessarily reflect consensus), not all of them have been thoroughly thought through, wording above is explicitly not intended as policy wording, and I am explicitly not proposing this as a list of examples to be included in any policy and it is definitely not a complete list. Thryduulf (talk) 23:44, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, I think that this is a very helpful exercise. To take a pair of examples where I'm having a hard time putting it into policy-style language:
Contacting an editor via their personal phone/email/etc when these have not been made available publicly.
Contacting a teacher/tutor/professor/etc regarding an on-wiki activity they are (apparently) running/organising/instigated for their pupils/students/etc. Where possible, contact should normally be made through/via their educational institution.
I think we all agree that there are situations in which the first example is something we want to prohibit, and I think (hope!) that the second example is something we want to permit. But doing the second example pretty much requires violating the first. I'm coming up blank on how to explain that in a policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
I would say, there is no instance unless for some emergency situation which I am having a hard time imagining, where we contact a teacher personally when the editing work is in the name of students. Working with students is a professional endeavour and we don't have the right unless given permission, in my opinion anyway, to contact a teacher of any kind through personal means.Littleolive oil (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
If the teacher is working for/with an educational institution then we should be making contact with them through that institution if we can - no question. If however we can find only personal contact details (which would I suspect be most likely if it was a private tutor or someone not working through an official institution) then the answer is not so clear-cut. Thryduulf (talk) 01:03, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
The more I see of the discussions here, the more I am convinced that we need to clarify the policy about this, and the more I am convinced that it is depressingly difficult to do so. About class projects, I urge interested editors to look over the recent history of WP:Education noticeboard. It is not at all unusual to have class projects that show up at en-Wiki without going through the processes set up by WMF/WikiEd, create significant disruption, and subsequently result in some editors who are also highly trustworthy staff of WikiEd getting in touch privately with the instructor and working helpfully to fix the situation. If that's harassment of the instructor, well, to call it that would be ludicrous.
More broadly, I want to thank Thryduulf for setting up this part of the discussion, and GoldenRing for articulating particularly well why we should not classify a lot of off-wiki contact as harassment. I've slept on it, and I'm somewhat changing my previous opinion, to believe now that we need to define harassment here somewhat narrowly. In considering the lists above, I'm starting to think that the distinguishing factors (thinking out loud here, far from a final determination) between what is and what isn't acceptable come down to (or at least include) two specifics. (1) It's harassment when the communication comes as part of any sort of dispute – because that greatly exacerbates the dispute by adding a menacing aspect to it. (2) It's harassment when the editor contacted has a reasonable expectation that the contact information would not have been used because they had not provided it on-wiki – because that kind of contact is creepy and potentially menacing. But when neither of those two criteria apply, I'm not sure that it is harassment. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:29, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
It occurs to me to add: (3) It's harassment when the editor contacted has asked not to be contacted that way. It might be possible to combine (2) and (3). --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: A few times you have mentioned the case of educators organising projects for students outside of an organisational setting (private tutors etc). Is this a case that has ever come up? Or is it more a hypothetical? GoldenRing (talk) 22:29, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
@GoldenRing: I've never been involved with WikiEd so I can't say whether it has ever happened or not - my whole knowledge about this subject comes from this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 22:59, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
I've followed the issues surrounding class projects for a long time, and I do not recollect any problems related to that. If it is just one or two students editing, I doubt that other editors would even realize that they were doing it as part of a tutorial, unless two students were editing closely-related pages. If it were something with multiple students editing as part of such a tutorial, it would be regarded at WikiEd as still being a "class assignment", whether or not the "class" was conducted within an educational institution or as part of a private teaching exercise. What I think that means for the discussion here is that we can get only so far by basing this policy on a distinction between contacting someone through their institution or contacting them individually. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
What about something on these lines:
You must not contact other editors off-wiki unless:
The editor has explicitly consented to the contact by:
Publicly inviting contact on-wiki,
Participating in a Wikipedia-related event, the rules of which allow such contact, or
Specifically consenting to contact from you in private communication;
You reasonably believe that an editor edits (wholly or partly) in a professional capacity or on behalf of an organisation and you make contact through that organisation or using their published professional contact details; or
The contract is required by policy or law.
Although in these cases off-wiki contact is generally permitted, unless required by law you must not make contact off-wiki:
In relation to an on-wiki dispute, or
Where the editor has asked you not to.
This policy deliberately bans some off-wiki contact which is neither intended not perceived to be harassing in order to protect editors from unwanted contact.
The wording is rather clumsy in places, in particular the bit about professional capacity; this is an attempt to capture the private tutor situation. Also the "in Ralston to an on-wiki dispute"is perhaps unclear; where an admin blocks an org account and makes a courtesy phone call, that's intended to be permitted, but where they block an org account and the user kicks up a big fuss on-wiki about admin abuse and so on, then a phone call should not be permitted. The "required by law" language is intended where eg one editor sues another; we can block the plaintiff under NLT, but want to avoid blocking the defendant for responding to the suit. I'm still just thinking out loud. GoldenRing (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
My initial thoughts: I see the following as issues, in no particular order. I'd rather omit the legal parts, because the example you give is the only one I can think of where that applies, and both parties would be kept off-wiki until the legal dispute is resolved. We need to add something about it being fine to use email when the email function is enabled. I don't like saying in a policy that the policy bans some things that are actually OK, the way that last sentence does. I'm not sure that "on behalf of an organization" adequately reflects class projects: the students edit on their own behalves in order to get course credit, and the instructor might not be editing at all. Also, I can see an ugly opportunity for gaming if someone says that they contacted someone at their workplace because of a flimsy association between the editing and the workplace. Even if it's not gaming, there can be a lot of confusion over what constitutes "reasonable belief" – after all, the drama over the now-blocked editor that set off this entire discussion arose over contacting someone over their possible COI by using their organizational contact information. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughts. Having re-read this discussion this morning, I am starting to think maybe "no unsolicited phone calls ever" is the right approach, but I'm trying to see if we can frame a policy that avoids that. To respond to your points:
Would we block an editor for responding to an off-wiki suit? The actual text of WP:NLT says we wouldn't even block the plaintiff, so long as it isn't mentioned on-wiki. I can think of various other hypothetical situations, but admittedly they are mostly real-world-situation-plus-both-happen-to-be-wikipedians.
"publicly inviting contact on-wiki" is meant to capture the email function, but it could be explicitly added.
IMO off-site contact with students in this situation should be off-limits; I can't see a situation where we should be looking up a student's contact details. And if the instructor is not editing, the contact is outside the scope of the policy.
probably the most important part of the text is that it is never okay to make off-wiki contact where there is an on-wiki dispute. In these situations, even if the intent is good and the call would have actually helped, the potential for it to go wrong is enormous. Perhaps there are still opportunities for gaming here, with tag-teaming and such.
I think it is important that the policy sets a clear expectation that off-wiki contact is normally not okay, even in situations where no harm is done. I don't want editors to be able to say, "but the policy is ridiculously over-broad and my particular case didn't do any harm." Even if their particular case of off-wiki contact didn't do any specific harm, it still did a general harm of normalising a sort of contact that some editors are known to find particularly distressing.
Another aspect that I don't think has been discussed is that we encourage editors to contact image owners to ask if they will release content under a free license. In the general case this won't be in the scope of this policy but the owner may happen to be a Wikipedian (and the connection may not be public). I'm generally worried about situations that amount to a real world situation that would normally be fine except both parties happen to be Wikipedians and the potential for the harassment policy to be weaponised in these situations. GoldenRing (talk) 10:46, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
The point about file license permissions is a very good one, that I don't think anyone thought of before. Given that we have three versions being discussed here, the one that I suggested, the one that Mkdw suggested, and yours, I feel like we should be trying to get them into a single version. You've explained a lot of the points I raised, but we will need language that stands on its own, without a separate explanation. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Second section break
Given that most of the editors who have commented here are strongly in favor of a revision of some sort, it's been a surprisingly slow process to actually agree about what such a revision should be. I've been thinking hard about what other editors have been saying, and maybe I can reboot this discussion by suggesting this:
Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. Off-wiki harassment will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence will be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.
Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia.
Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking, when directed at another editor, violates the harassment policy. Off-wiki harassment, including through the use of external links, will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, evidence should be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning.
Editors who welcome private communication typically post their preferred contact information on Wikipedia, sometimes enabling email through the Wikipedia interface. Contacting an editor using any other contact information, without first obtaining explicit permission, should be assumed to be uninvited and, depending on the context, may be harassment. Never contact another editor in this way as part of a dispute, or when the editor has asked not to be contacted that way. Unexpected contact using personal information as described above in "Posting of personal information" may be perceived as a threat to the safety and well-being of the person being contacted. Users who are contacted through inappropriate means should report occurrences privately to the Arbitration Committee or to the emergency response team.
The mention of the outing section could be blue-linked. What I did was revise the second paragraph to use "depending on the context" as an alternative to trying list what is OK, and then to try to identify what editors seem to agree are the situations where it is never OK. I think it indicates what we consider to be harassment without making everything else harassment. I think that, ultimately, we have to rely on administrator judgment to distinguish between what is and isn't off-site harassment, just as we rely on it in the outing section to distinguish between outing and "unintentional and non-malicious" conduct, and we should not try to enumerate every possible situation. Does this move in the right direction? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
@Tryptofish: I may be a bit behind, since there has been much discussion. If not already stricken, I would remove "Contacting a teacher/tutor/professor/etc regarding an on-wiki activity..." from the proposal. One can always contact the editor on their talk page; I do not see where off-wiki contact without permission would be appropriate. Same for editors claiming to represent a company or an organisation. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2019 (UTC)``
Thanks, both of you. K.e.coffman, this most recent version omits all mention of teachers, companies, etc. Mkdw, I'm very glad that I came up with something that works for you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Earlier in these discussions, some editors expressed the view that no such revision is needed. I'd be interested in what editors believe, currently, about how we should determine whether or not there is sufficient consensus to implement the revision. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Are there any objections to implementing the version in this subsection of the talk page? If so, that's OK – I don't want to change anything if there are still objections. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm largely happy with the version in this subsection and my only issues are with phraseology rather than the intended meaning. I don't want to let perfect be the enemy of the good, so my comments here should not prevent a consensus to post, especially as I can't immediately suggest anything better in either case.
My first comment is regarding the "when directed at another editor" clause - I clearly understand that it is intended to limit the applicability in response to the comments in preceding sections of this discussion, but for someone not familiar with that I wonder whether it would be misinterpreted to be endorsing harassment of non-editors? Rather than rewording it may just be better to have an explanatory footnote summarising why this clause exists?
The other point is that in "Never contact another editor in this way as part of a dispute" it isn't necessarily immediately clear what "this way" refers to - I know what it means, but would someone not familiar with these discussions? Especially if they are wikilawyering, they may argue that it could mean either (or both) of the preceding two sentences. My only thoughts on alternative wordings for this are either very clumsy, repetitious or both and not necessarily without their own problems. Thryduulf (talk) 18:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the very thoughtful comments. About the first point, I'm not too worried, because it only says that it "violates the harassment policy", not that anything else is OK – and WP:HNE already has the issue covered.
The second point is actually something I had been thinking about, too. Like you, I've thought about alternative ways to say it, but have not come up with anything that isn't clumsy or repetitious. I do, however, think that the intended meaning is the obvious and common-sense one, and that it would be difficult for anyone to wikilawyer it convincingly. If anyone thinks of a better solution, I'd welcome it. I'm going to wait several more days before enacting anything, to allow for such feedback, as well as to give time for any editors to say that they oppose the change more broadly. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Actually, thinking about it a little more, I tend to believe that contacting someone through the contact information they provide or through Wikipedia email, when it's part of a dispute or after being asked not to do so, may, "depending on the context", potentially be harassment. For that reason, I think the proposed language may be OK as it is. Editors who earlier opposed any change have argued that there are times when if a user doesn't have the judgment to understand the difference between what is and what isn't harassment, then that user cannot be helped by a policy revision. I still obviously believe the proposed change fixes something that needed to be made explicit, but I also think that we do not need to explain the obvious for every conceivable circumstance. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
I remain of the view that prohibiting all off-wiki contact as harassment is both a misrepresentation of the nature of harassment and an unhelpful "bright line" response to a situation containing nuance and grey areas. Looking at the text proposed, I note:
Editors who welcome private communication typically post their preferred contact information on Wikipedia, sometimes enabling email through the Wikipedia interface. Contacting an editor using any other contact information, without first obtaining explicit permission, should be assumed to be uninvited and, depending on the context, may be harassment. Never contact another editor in this way as part of a dispute, or when the editor has asked not to be contacted that way. Unexpected contact using personal information as described above in "Posting of personal information" may be perceived as a threat to the safety and well-being of the person being contacted.
This is badly written. Of course using other contact information is uninvited if you have found the contact details independently and not sought permission, there is no need to "assume" that it is uninvited when it is self-evident that it must be. I find the second last sentence in this quote a little odd, too, as it says not to use such contact channels when in a dispute or when those have been explicitly ruled out, but leaves plenty of space for wikilawyering around those edges – especially as the sort of declarations envisaged here are rare. Perhaps something like:
Editors can choose to accept private communications by email through the Wikipedia interface. Some editors also invite off-wiki contact by providing contact information on their user page while others may post that they do not wish to be contacted in certain ways. Using any channel other than one plainly stated on-wiki to approach an editor off-wiki without first obtaining explicit permission is usually inappropriate and so is strongly discouraged. An editor may well perceive such unexpected contact as harassment or even as a threat to his or her safety and well-being, especially if you and the editor are involved in a dispute or if you have disregarding the editor's stated wishes regarding off-wiki communication.
The final sentence of the proposal has the wrong focus, in my opinion:
I would also like to point out a real-life example from recently. A new editor recently wrote a bio and started an article on an obscure area of chemistry. On being challenged, the editor revealed that s/he was the student of the academic that was the subject of the bio, that the new article was about this academic's research, and that the student had been told to create a bio for the Professor. For some students, on encountering problems (the Professor failed NPROF and the only material for the article was primary literature from that research group) and fearing the Professor's reaction, might well engage in problematic editing. Contacting the Professor directly to explain why their bio was not being kept was preferable to the student engaging in socking, etc, to try to save the pages. Now, under some of the above proposals, whether the Professor could be contacted (by email) would depend on whether the Professor also had an account. To me, this is a case where off-wiki contact was appropriate, so long as it was polite and informative and not aggressive or critical, etc. This is one reason why I think leaving some space (by saying discouraged but not prohibited, for example) is appropriate. Yes, some editors may do foolish things, but if so, judge them on how the recipient feels and / or what was said. After all, they can harass through the WP email option too, and we would sanction them for doing the wrong thing, not prohibit anyone else using the email feature. EdChem (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, and I'll largely defer to what other editors think. Starting with your last point, about changing "Users who are contacted through inappropriate means" to "Users who experience inappropriate off-wiki contact", that strikes me as an improvement, and I'll happily agree to it.
For the rest, I think that it is very important to recognize that the version proposed just before your revisions says "depending on the context". Consequently, it most definitely is not "prohibiting all off-wiki contact as harassment". And it would allow contact with the professor in your example; in fact, the language was crafted with such situations specifically in mind. Such contact is always uninvited, and saying so prevents wikilawyering over "I thought they wouldn't mind", but whether it is harassment depends upon the details. Conversely, where your revision says that it is "usually inappropriate and so is strongly discouraged", that seems to me to get it wrong. A policy that says that something is discouraged is going to be difficult to enforce. There are times when this kind of conduct is vastly worse than "discouraged", and there are other times, not necessarily "unusual", where off-wiki contact is entirely benign.
Thanks, Tryptofish. Obviously consensus will determine what is changed so if my thoughts aren't supported then I'll accept that. I don't understand how stating that uninvited contact is, in fact, uninvited precludes or prevents an "I thought they wouldn't mind" response, but I do agree that details dictate whether the contact is harassment. As for enforcement, the only way to make it simple is a bright line "no contact" policy, which I think would be ridiculous. I think the recent fracas over off-wiki contact became far too focussed on the contact being off-wiki rather than on the nature of the contact / discussion... but mine may be a minority view. I'm glad you like the change at the end, which is meant to highlight the response to inappropriate conduct in off-wiki contact, rather than on simply the fact of off-wiki contact without considering its content. EdChem (talk) 11:02, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for following up on this. I agree that there needs to be a change, but I'm still at sea as to what the change should be. The difficulty with "depending on context" is that it leaves the door open to contact that is intended to be benign but is received badly by the other party; at that point, the damage has been done. The very situation that kicked off this whole process could easily be cast in this light; Jytdog's intentions in contacting another editor were all good but the conversation went badly, the recipient was upset by it and Jytdog has been indeffed as a result (or that is my reading of the situation; I was inactive for the majority of it and didn't follow it closely). I think even the language about disputes may not have stopped this from happening; the line being between being in a dispute and trying to help a new user understand how their editing doesn't line up with the community's expectations is a pretty grey one. Leaving what is an isn't okay up to administrators means dealing with many of these situations after the fact by (essentially) punishing the wrong-doers, rather than having a very clear expectation about what is and isn't acceptable and preventing the harm from being done. The simple fact of the matter is that some editors find being contacted off-wiki about things on-wiki perfectly normal and unremarkable and other editors find it very creepy and threatening. There is, in general, no way to predict which reaction you're going to get.This is why I prefer a blanket ban with specific, narrow exceptions. GoldenRing (talk) 11:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, both of you, for the gracious and thoughtful replies. I notice how EdChem refers to "a bright line 'no contact' policy, which I think would be ridiculous" and GoldenRing says "I prefer a blanket ban with specific, narrow exceptions". To some degree, we all agree about that, and to some degree there are differences of opinion about how extensive the exceptions have to be in order not to be ridiculous, and we are never going to achieve perfection on how to delineate that. (Maybe a future dispute over administrative judgment about context will illuminate the next round of revisions – nothing we do now needs to be permanent, of course.) I'll give this another day or so, mainly to preclude any complaints that we didn't listen to editors who oppose making any change. But then, I think it's going to be time to make the revision and move on. Thanks everyone. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I also think the important thing here is that what we currently have is not sufficient and it needs to be replaced. I suggest we implement the latest proposal and we can always revisit it should a situation arise that we never considered, or editing activities become disrupted. I expect this policy will continue to evolve, especially since harassment law is undergoing massive Common law reform. Mkdwtalk23:40, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
English Wikipedia and elsewhere in Wikimedia projects there are various processes by means of which the wiki attempts to match a Wikimedia user account with some other off-wiki identity.
I am collecting whatever practices, guidelines, or essays exist on wiki processes for examining off-wiki identity. If anyone has something then please share at
I am posting here because I have observed that when subjects of articles write to WP:OTRS to complain of harassment, defamation, or libel (these things in the colloquial sense and perhaps not in the sense of legal terms), then the following conversation includes requests for identity verification. OTRS agents may do this, or the client may request this, or there can be requests in other directions.
Sometimes user accounts do inappropriate things which are not harassment. What is the word for things like blockable 3RR, COI without disclosure, spam, use of proxy, or test edits?
Abuse
Misconduct
Error
Transgression
Misuse
Offenses
Misbehavior
When we talk about the wiki justice system, what is the general term for what we try to prevent? If anyone can point me to policy pages for the umbrella concept then thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk)00:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Could we add a clause that more explicitly states the policy (as agreed to by all members of ArbCom who were elected last year, virtually all members of the 2015 ArbCom, and pretty much every other long-term contributor I've talked to on the matter) that it is not hounding to go through another editor's contributions if one believes there are serious issues with textual plagiarism, misreading of sources, etc.? Use of wording like "an apparent aim" and so on implies we are starting out with the assumption that hounding is taking place, since in common parlance that word implies something that appears to be the case, whether or not it actually is, and "usually for collegial or administrative purposes" seems to imply that anyone who is engaged in malicious POV-pushing or the like can just say they don't feel comfortable with User X monitoring their edits and it is therefore not "collegial", when I'm pretty sure that doing so for the good of the encyclopedia is not considered hounding whether or not the offending party considers it to be collegial; how about "usually for purposes of improving the encyclopedia" or the like? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:20, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
I think we need to be careful about making any such changes, because they can potentially open up a lot of opportunities for wikilawyering by users who actually are hounding someone. I'm not aware of bogus accusations of hounding being a problem; such accusations happen, but they are usually recognized for what they are. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Tryptofish:I'm not aware of bogus accusations of hounding being a problem See the most recent ANI archive; the accusations were recognized, but not before a bunch of users showed up and said "well, the accusations are bogus, and ongoing despite multiple warnings, but let's not warn them this time and see if it works out better". See also the 2015 Hijiri88/Catflap08 case, where a bogus hounding accusation went so long with only the long-term allies of the victim (me, in case I need to explicitly disclose that) noticing it that it led to an IBAN, which in turn went all the way up to ArbCom, where ArbCom said pretty clearly "No, that wasn't hounding" -- and yet people were still trying to pretend that wasn't what they said as late as summer of last year.[1]Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:39, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
I didn't want to find the "summer of last year" diff, but then the "people" in question showed up again below (I'm sure by complete coincidence[2]) and I needed to track it down for a post elsewhere, so I figured I might as well add it to the above. The other comments immediately before and (I think..?) after also contain the same kind of content. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
I actually am aware of those various things. It's not up to me, and if other editors want to pursue this further, I'm happy to follow the discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Actually, someone just tried to do exactly that ^^^, they were in violation, but tried to claim they were being helpful, citing the fact that those of us who clean up after vandals and copyvios etc do have to follow contribs. It didn't fly. I added the following before seeing the above, so I'll go take another look and see if I think it needs any more tweaks.
@CorbieVreccan: Are you referring to the thread you recently opened at ANI? That was not "exactly that"; following around editors you don't like for the purpose of harassing/intimidating/whatevering them, and not directly reverting their edits but making it clear you are monitoring their edits without good reason is not at all even comparable to following the edits of a disruptive editor and reverting those edits because those edits are disruptive. It's practically the opposite: if the person claimed they were monitoring disruptive editors, that claim could be easily refuted by pointing out that if their "followees"' edits had been disruptive they would have reverted them.
I was hounded once in 2012/2013 by an editor behaving in the above-described manner, but I've encountered far more bad-faith hounding accusations, so I really don't think editing this policy page to make it harder to violate this policy in the former but easier to violate it in the latter. I don't mind the recent additions overall, but I think such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict definitely needs to be discussed: any disruptive POV-pusher can claim to be "in conflict" with an editor who is protecting the encyclopedia from their disruption. Believe me, when you edit in topic areas like I often do, proving consistent violation of our content policies to the community at ANI or to ArbCom is extremely difficult, and making this policy more permissive of their argument that it's "just a regular conflict between Wikipedians" is not likely to help improve the experience of building the encyclopedia. Pinging User:Curly Turkey and User:Nishidani, who can vouch for what I'm talking about: a certain disruptive editor whose username was 11 characters long created massive problems for our Japanese history articles over a period of more than three years. (It wasn't anyone I've ever been IBANned with -- I'm not naming them because I suspect both the pinged editors could name the editor in question off the top of their head without needing to look it up despite how long ago it was, because that's how bad it was.) The user frequently made bad-faith hounding accusations, and was for a time able to get a sympathetic ear at ANI from those members of the community who looked at the content of their edits and couldn't tell immediately that they were disastrous for the project. We still have not fully cleared up all of the messes they caused. And I've encountered similar problems with other editors more recently -- serial plagiarists, POV pushers, and generally tendentious editors don't want their disruptive editors monitored and reverted, but the harassment policy is not meant to enable them.
The proposed wording would make them technically right to say that editors who were "in conflict with them" were hounding them by going around reverting their edits, even though this was never the case -- they made disruptive edits, and knowledgeable and diligent Wikipedians went to the effort of undoing those edits.
The user hounding me did try to claim they were just following me to be helpful to the 'pedia. They tried to claim they didn't know about the Recent Changes or Random Page functions so had to use other editors' contribs as their watchlist. As someone who's also had to clean up against long-term vandals, and those who've flown under the radar for years as citespammers, or those who've used the wiki to push POVs or even perpetuate hoaxes, I deeply sympathize with not having this abused against those of us who have to use a disruptive user's contribs to clean up their mess and abuse. I am open to whatever we need to do to keep it clear that cleaning up after disruption is completely different from a creep stalking a constructive editor. - CorbieV☊☼17:41, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
I see Hijiri 88's point about (such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict). Let me suggest tightening it up as either (such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict in order to harass that editor) or (such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict in order to further that conflict). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure what wording would do away with the accusations. I'm in the habit of checking the contribs of those I interact with, and when I see MOS non-compliance (for example) in the articles I'm skimming through, I fix them. This has led to an accusation of hounding with someone I was in conflict with, even though the edits were unrelated to the dispute and not directed at the other editor (say, a MOS:LQ fix when the dispute has to do with an unrelated grammar or usage issue). Curly "JFC" Turkey🍁¡gobble!00:25, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that you RfC this proposed change before there is any consideration of altering the wording of the policy accordingly. This would be a not-insubstantial change to key wording in one of Wikipedia's most important behavioural guidelines--indeed, after WP:NPA, perhaps the single most important policy on the project with regard to restraining bad acts and maintaining a hostility-free environment for all editors. I therefore do not think three editors (two of whom are currently involved--as either party or commentator--in a live and as yet unresolved ANI about this exact behaviour, who therefor have skin in the game as regards what this policy currently says) bouncing around a prospective change is sufficient indicia of community will to change the policy without a broader effort at securing consensus on the matter. I think it's entirely possible that the policy reads as it does because the community embraces a precautionary principle on such matters and does in fact prefer (or even expect) that editors will not follow other parties with whom they have conflicted on one issue to additional spaces, no matter how convinced they are that the other party "needs to be restrained"; at the very least, I think this point is deserving of further and broader discussion than has yet taken place before the proposed change is seriously considered. Snowlet's rap08:10, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
@Snow Rise:who therefor have skin in the game as regards what this policy currently says Not really -- the precise wording used on this policy page does not affect what the actual policy is, which has never been ... well, the way you've interpreted it in virtually all of my prior encounters with you. ArbCom and community consensus have been clear about this over and over and over again, and everyone here (both those who have recently been falsely accused of hounding -- me and Tryptofish -- and those who have recently accused others, who used "good edits" as an excuse, of hounding -- me and Corbie), not mention everyone in the thread you refer to who isn't either (a) a new user unfamiliar with policy or (b) a tendentious editor themselves engaged in hounding behaviour, agrees that monitoring the problematic edits of problematic editors is not hounding. What's more, I opened this section discussion before that ANI thread was filed, and the amended wording came from people who actually disagreed with my original proposal.
Moreover -- would it be okay if I asked how you found this discussion? You say this is a very important policy page, but you've never edited here before yesterday, and given how you were the "people" I was referring to above it seems highly suspect that you would show up here to oppose amended wording that would make this policy more clearly out-of-line with your somewhat idiosyncratic interpretation of it. (Not to mention that "coincidentally" showing up to accuse someone of "hounding" literally every time they notice a problem editor like the 11-character one above has something of a WP:KETTLE flavour about it.)
A) Insofar as you opened this before the ANI thread, that's a fair point, but clearly this suggested change of wording does not come out of nowhere, and you are in fact highly motivated to see the wording of this policy changed for reasons that go beyond an abstract interest in the topic. In other words, you are not the most neutral of parties. You might rightly respond "I don't need to be neutral--it doesn't matter what context gave rise to my interest, I have a concern about the policy language and think it should be changed." And fair enough, if that were your position.Even so, this is a not-insignificant change to policy language that is vital as a bulwark against harassment and disruption on this project and I simply do not think it is appropriate to change the language without broader indication that this represents true community consensus rather than the perspective of a handful of contributors whose outlook on the issue is currently coloured by their present disputes concerning the matter. Even if we give you every benefit of the doubt and assume that the person currently accusing you of stalking is exactly who you say they are--a histrionic problem editor, abusing the wording of the policy to give you headaches for your good faith efforts to clean up his mess--the circumstances could still blind you to consequences of changing the language in other contexts, where hounding being reported is genuine.
I'm sorry, but I'm just not comfortable as a community member (with a decade of experience understanding how these issues impact dispute escalation and editor retention) having that change made without RfCing it, ideally at WP:VPP, for the wider community to validate or reject. And let me be clear: I am not even saying that your position is without merit or out of nowhere--I get the argument you are advancing, but I think there are a lot of consequences to changing this language which may not be immediately obvious from your own personal experience and that it ought to benefit from more than a couple of days haggling between a handful of editors (some of them incensed by their own recent interactions involving issues covered under the wording) before the language of this policy is changed; said language is too important to project integrity and an open and inclusive community to have it altered in a fly-by-night fashion.
B) I am here on this talk page responding to the RfC in the thread above, a link to which you can find on my talk page, where it was posted three days ago. A minimal amount of review/a simple ctrl-f search of this page might have saved you the trouble of making a baseless and paranoid accusation which is surely doing nothing to augment your position here. And I'll thank you kindly to strike your smarmy little "I'm sure it's just coincidence" comment further up the thread. I don't know why you would think that my comments (as a non-involved community member) at your ANI threads in the past would evidence some sort of preoccupation with your activity on this project, but I assure you, I have zero personal interest in your comings and goings. If I were involving myself now out of some ulterior motive involving you, I'd be at the ANI, where your conduct is being reviewed. But I don't care about the outcome of your dispute, other than to say that I hope the community volunteers there get it right. However, I am quite concerned about issues that might be implicated by changes to this policy--and it is that and that alone that spurred my comment when I saw this thread. I don't know if you are still of the belief that you are being persecuted by an organized effort involving various editors, as you have expressed in the past, but I can assure you (not for the first time, but hopefully for the last) I am no part of any such supposed effort.
So please, let's keep this clinical and wiki-professional: if you think my concerns about the policy are exaggerated with regard to how the larger community would feel about it, the solution is simple enough--solicit such opinions. My cup does not exactly floweth over with regard to time for the project right now, but I do recognize that insofar as I've raised the procedural/scale of consensus issue here, I've inherited a certain small burden of reciprocal responsibility for advancing and defending the precautionary position, so if you would like to collaborate on co-authoring an RfC, I'll make the time to do so. Indeed, if you are of the opinion that it's my responsibility alone since I raised the need for broader community discussion, I'll do all of the leg work if that is your preference. Again, I do not reject your position wholesale, but alterations of key policy language ought to be done slowly and methodically and (where our policy regarding harassment is concerned in particular) with a full and detailed contemplation of possible unintended consequences. We can stand to talk about this a little longer and with the benefit of more voices, is what I'm trying to say. Snowlet's rap05:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Well, I never implied I was "neutral". My initial replies to both Trypto and Corbie made direct reference to my interest in this matter. But my interest in this matter is what gives me an awareness of prior community and ArbCom rulings on the matter; you're every bit as non-neutral as me but your history on the matter shows you consistently in the minority (virtually everyone who at one time agreed with you in this or that discussion later recanted upon seeing the evidence, was banned, or was given a limited sanction and left the site). Any addition to policy wording that is simply making clearer an overwhelming community consensus on what the policy actually is does not need a prior VPPRFC, especially when the only editor opposed to the simple talk page discussion has a demonstrated history of counter-policy statements on the matter. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:09, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Forgive the painfully long response: it may be a day or more before I can respond further, and I wanted to be as plain and detailed about my concerns here as I could:
You're purporting to know my position on this better than I do, because I don't recall any instances in which I have previously commented anywhere on this project (at least at any length) concerning the particular issue raised in this thread. You'll have to refresh my memory if you think I have previously weighed in on the topic before, and who these other editors were who I was supposedly in alignment with. For the record, my opinion on the matter today, based on the change you propose in the abstract, rather than particular conduct, is that it is a situation-contextual call, when someone follows someone another editor to numerous spaces and engages in either combative exchanges or undoing/thwarting the other person's work. There are occasionally good faith reasons to do this, but there are also a bevy of ways in which it can represent thoroughly inappropriate harassment--either transparent or thinly disguised as being in the project's best interests, even where taking the issue to a central discussion space specializing on the relevant content or administrative issues would have been far more appropriate (and cost the community far less time) than going off to engage the vandal/bad actor in one-on-one editorial combat. On the whole, I think the policy ought to lean to the side of encouraging people away from following other editors with whom they they have recently conflicted, at least as far as "following" includes actively reverting them or commenting upon their contributions in diverse areas, rather than including wording which will definitely be perceived by some problem editors as saying "Go ahead, track someone like a bloodhound, provided that you feel you can make an argument that to (and you alone) sounds honest that what you are doing is in the best interests of the project."
That's an incredibly low threshold for some people to meet, particularly if we adopt the breadth of the standard you propose above, where concerns about the "misreading of sources" would be substantial enough grounds to stalk someone's edits (here meaning the party would be reverting at least some of them across disparate pages. In my opinion, that kind of activity definetly falls solidly within the category of behaviours this policy is designed to prevent; and if you want to establish consensus otherwise, I suggest you are going to need to get more specific about where you think ArbCom has expressed differently or who exactly these large numbers of editors are who agree that we should adopt a more laissez-faire standard to permitting editors to decide for themselves that they should undertake a unilateral chain of actions to stopping and editor who they perceive as a net negative, rather than bringing serial issues to the attention of an appropriate workspace--which it seems to me is the usual and most stable response to problem editors. Greenlighting a policing instinct may seem like a good idea to you from where you are standing now, but this would open up a huge can of worms regarding two classes of problem editor: the outright harassing troll and the (possibly well-intentioned) overzealous editor looking to throw their weight around regarding particular content or meta issues.
And look, clearly this is an area where the particular facts and nuances make a lot of difference. At one end of the spectrum you have blatant vandals: no one is going to have a problem if a regular good-faith contributor follows this person from page to page reverting 50 instances of "Eat more spam." We rely upon such attentiveness, though it's worth noting that most of this work is undertaken within task forces dedicated to these simple calls, with clear rules urging caution on even borderline cases. Then you have situations where one might perceive a common thread of an obvious content issue running through a series of edits; in rare instances, this might be an acceptable response if you think the other editor is going to be receptive to your edit summary and comport accordingly, rather than reverting and/or continuing on with the activity--either way, as soon as it's clear that you are not having a meeting of the minds, it's time to take it to a community space or process. Towards the other end of the continuum is when someone has had a disagreement and continues to engage with the editor they perceive as a problem in a unilateral fashion, particularly over a significant period f time, dropping in to discussions they are involved in across disparate subjects or doing serial reverts of content that that are unrelated to a very specific common mistake--at that point, red flags ought to be going up for everyone, including the person doing the commenting/reverting.
Now obviously, the issues are always judged on a case-by-case basis, either by an admin, the community at large, or (in extremis) ArbCom. And generally the requisite amount of attention to the details is made. The question is, what default standard here best serves the community's wishes and interests best here? And let's be honest, we pretty regularly find every possible way to excuse an editor with a positive track record from even the hint of a sanction, so long as it is clear that they were operating from legitimate editorial/community concerns. We typically take no action even where there were clear issues with over-zealousness or a needlessly aggressive approach. So we are then left to ask which is the greater harm: 1) Preserving the traditional wording and having some editors continuing to have to account for why they are following someone else around, undoing their edits without community involvement even where they are not obvious vandalism, even if it occasionally leaves some of those editors feeling burned by what they feel is unkind or unwarranted scrutiny (sometimes a very legitimate complaint, sometimes not), or 2) Changing the wording uncarefully and end up greenlighting the most aggressive instincts of some of our more disruptive editors, and providing a rhetorical safe harbor for those looking to outright harass, so long as they can argue that they had a concern about an editor that seemed legitimate to them.
Now, this is not necessarily a zero-sum argument: there may be wording that is both nuanced and concise enough to be added that would address both areas of concern. But to the extent there is a conflict between addressing these two harms, I know which one I think is of deeper concern and greater scope for this project and which I think the policy ought to be engineered towards more, where there is a conflict. And I'm not at all convinced that the community is as supportive as you believe it to be of the notion of being more permissive about letting editors follow eachother around, engaging in unwanted interactions, provided they can argue they were doing it for the project. That just seems like an untenable standard to me. I'm willing to be proven wrong by a community discussion, of course. And genuinely, I am curious to hear what ArbCom rulings you feel are most on point here and which arguments from others you have found most compelling. But at present, I remain concerned about putting language expressly allowing or encouraging following behaviour into the policy, due to the forgoing concerns. Snowlet's rap07:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Myself, the accusation of hounding was leveled by the person who actually was hounding me, and the whole thing was reasonably quickly resolved, so I've been experiencing it from both sides – but I really do not see the issues in these edits here as having anything to do with my personal experience, and I'm not approaching it that way. I don't think it's productive to keep discussing the personal aspects anyway, because we need to consider the general case. I'm friendly to having an RfC, but I think it would be useful to have some more local discussion first, in order to give the future RfC the best possible focus.
It seems to me that the specific thing that might benefit from wider discussion would be the part about "such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict". Am I right about that, or is there anything else? I assume (but could be missing something) that the rest of the recent changes are things like this: [3], which seem noncontroversial to me. I'd like to identify locally, first, what specific language is in question, and what possible fixes to it there might be. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Comment: I like the above "addition" (support) for clarification. If "hound" was meant literally not to follow any editor it could hinder many forms of maintenance on Wikipedia so the wording "for no overriding reason" seems important. Otr500 (talk) 13:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)]]
Comment: No matter how perfectly we manage to word this, there will always be disruptive editors who gaslight, DARVO, wikilawyer, and, to be blunt, just out and out LIE. There will always be cases that wind up at ANI. This is the current wording of the final paragraph:
The important component of hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or disruption to the project generally, for no constructive reason. Even if the individual edits themselves are not disruptive per se, "following another user around", if done to cause distress, or if that following is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.
I think it's about as clear as we can get without further introducing issues per WP:BEANS. If you really want an RfC, you can go ahead, I guess. But I don't think we're going to manage to really improve it. (ETA: If we are discussing adding a bit at this point, I have lost track of which bit it is. It needs to be proposed in a clearer manner after so many long comments.) - CorbieV☊☼20:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
I also am not particularly alarmed by anything that has been suggested, but if an RfC would calm any concerns, I'm friendly to that, too. As far as I can tell, the only part that really lends itself to an RfC is this: [4], with variations like this: [5]. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm more amenable to the first of those options than the second, personally: the second option is about as paradigmatic an example of begging the question as I can imagine; of course following someone around "in order to harass them" is impermissible, but that's a pretty clearly circular description. The entire purpose of this policy (and that section in particular) is to try to describe what harassment/hounding looks like and what behaviours the community expects editors to avoid. So, again, saying "following someone around for the purposes of harassment is hounding, and hounding is a form of harassment" gets us nowhere and is in fact a form of syllogistic fallacy that is going to clarify nothing for anyone trying to act in good faith, while also simultaneously giving problem editors all kinds of cover whenever the community tries to hold them accountable for stalking behaviour, because they will be able to (quite honestly) state: "Well the policy says I can follow them around so long as I wasn't doing it to harass, and I give you my solemn vow that I wasn't doing this to harass and here's my "proof": [insert five issues they pull from the other user's edit history in order to justify the stalking].
In contrast, I believe the community actually does feel that editors should not be following one-another around when they have recently conflicted, reverting eachother on articles or responding on talk/project spaces that are unrelated to a common issue. If an editor comes across someone who is (just as an example) changing the formatting of a template across twenty different articles, such that is is not transcluding properly, and the reviewing editor makes an effort to discuss the changes, but sees no reason to wait to revert the clearly harmful effects, per WP:BRD, by all means they should be able to do that without too much worry about accusations of bad faith behaviour--because that is clearly not hounding. However, suppose the problem editor then responds tersely or antagonistically to the correcting editor, and two days later, the correcting editor decides to follow this person to an RfC, a village pump discussion, and an AfD, despite never contributing to any of the involved articles/spaces, and then corrects three edits of the other editor that were made at unrelated articles, without a common underlying editorial issue. I believe that crosses into the kind of behaviour the community definitely expects this policy to prevent. Because at that point, the reacting editor, no matter how good faith their intentions, has appointed themselves chaperon, judge, and gatekeeper with regard to another editor and their contributions, in contravention of all of this project's norms on dispute resolution.
If a community member believes there are issues with core competency in another editor, there are spaces on this project set aside specifically for addressing such concerns. And if there isn't an over-arcing WP:CIR concern, they can raise the individual issues on talk pages (which, frankly, they should be doing anyway). Deciding instead to revert numerous unrelated edits of another editor without consensus discussion in that context is just never going to be an appropriate means of controlling the problematic edits, and at that point, no editor should be trying to face down the situation as a self-appointed Wikipedia policeman. For one thing, it almost always creates more work than it saves for the community, when the other editor pretty invariably feels hounded and lodges their own complaint and/or ends up feuding with their "persecutor". Put otherwise, following this impulse to shadow someone almost always ends up being a net negative for the project, even if it let's you clean up a larger number of problem edits a couple of hours earlier. We have a consensus-based approach to disputes on this project for a reason, and our policies are expressly designed to edge editors towards consensus processes, rather than deputizing themselves to review another editor's contributions whole-cloth and act unilaterally in reverting all that they find to be in error.
Personally, I think the language of the policy is already well-balanced to neither encourage improper following nor hinder appropriate following, and my first choice would be to leave it as is in this regard. After that I would support your re-phrasing here as a second most desirable choice. I believe introducing this wording would be a huge mistake, as it would add almost no real clarity for good actors and would become a rhetorical shield for parties engaged in harassment, who would also be more than happy to engage in gamesmanship surrounding the ambiguity that the "you following is only hounding (a form of harassment on this project) if you are doing it to harass" standand would open up. Of course, we shouldn't paint ourselves into a corner here: there are probably many more workable options than these three, and that's exactly the kind of thing an RfC can help to shed light on. Snowlet's rap23:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Your whole comment, when read together, doesn't make sense: you say it is circular and begging the question to say that following around for the purpose of harassment is a form of harassment, but then your counter examples are all cases where the following is clearly done for the purpose of harassment. What has the rest of us concerned is cases where the following around was not done for the purpose of harassment but for the protection of our free encyclopedia's integrity, but that this fact is only "clear" to someone with a knowledge of the subject matter, thus making it much too easy for the self-proclaimed "houndee" to convince a significant portion of the community to sanction an editor for doing the right thing.
AGF says that an ANI contributor (or an Arbitrator, for that matter) should not assume that harassment was the intent if they do not understand that, for instance, our original Battle of Shigisan was an OR nightmare compiled of a bunch of obscure references in ancient primary sources that contradict both each other and the known facts about the geography of that part of Japan, but the sad fact is that they sometimes do assume that, which is why this policy page should be worded in a manner that does not make it easier for such accidents to happen. The 11-character editor probably should have been sitebanned immediately following that Shigisan incident in 2013, but instead it took a long three years because the rest of us were afraid of being accused of "hounding" him (or at least that was what I was afraid of).
(As an aside, I've found that about 90% of the time when editors claim they are being hounded when in fact what they are trying to do is violate policy while avoiding scrutiny, they are themselves also engaging in clear harassment of the party they claim is hounding them: case in point at the current ANI, how did some I first interacted with a month ago know about a conflict I had had with another editor more than six years ago? That is what WP:HOUND is meant to be condemning.)
There is such a thing as trying to do the right thing, but going about it in the wrong way. I don't believe that its an omission that this policy language imparts the idea "Avoid following editors with who you have recently conflicted." rather than "Avoid following editors you have recently conflicted with (unless you are of the opinion that they are really in the wrong about something)."; I think that's entirely by design and reflects community consensus to discourage such behaviour. Or at least, I'm convinced enough that I'm willing to test the belief against community feedback.
Regarding AGF, I couldn't agree more as to its crucial role here, and I would expect anyone actually analyzing user conduct to apply it liberally in a community discussion. But we're not evaluating any actual user's conduct here at the moment; we're considering what proscriptive language will better serve the community's interests and guard against more serious harm, and ideally best serve to prevent conflict in the first place. I understand your argument, but, at least where the second of the proposed changes is concerned, I believe such an alteration would admit a much greater harm for the community (particularly for those who face inordinate amounts of harassment to begin with) than would leaving the language as it stands. Though again, we shouldn't necessarily limit ourselves to just the three options that have been considered thus far; there may be wording that threads the needle to address all concerns.
I will say though, that I don't share your perspective on the likelihood of a some slick troll managing to hoodwink a 'significant enough portion' of the community at ANI such that they manipulate the community into sanctioning a completely innocent editor who in no way even so much as brushed up against violating a policy themselves. That strikes me as a phantom concern. Wikipedia brings together experts from the entire span of human endeavour and inquiry--we don't all have to know eachother's fields of expertise inside and out in order to recognize whose behaviour is more wp:disruptive--because that question is more about out standards of conduct than it is about an interpretation of any particular area of content. Experienced community members are pretty good, if imperfect, at sniffing out the bull and reconstructing a chain of events--that's one of the virtues of our systems: nothing said is lost from the record completely. Collectively, we usually manage to identify the one troll (if there is one in a given conflict--more often there is a mix of poor behaviour and blame to go around for all involved parties). Beyond all of that, as I noted above, we are, if anything, immensely predisposed to giving free passes at ANI these days for petty lousy behaviour, when we see that there was a significant enough underlying editorial issue. I'm struggling to think of anyone who ever got CBANned (or even faced a block of significant length as the result of an ANI consensus) who did absolutely nothing wrong in my eyes; I don't think I've ever seen that. I've seen plenty of sanctions that were more severe than I thought were warranted in the circumstances, but that's another thing entirely.
But it's always nice to end on some degree of agreement, and as to your last point there or hounders being prone to the loudest complaints of being hounded, I think that's essentially correct. But in my view that's all the more reason not to allow the waters to be further muddied by introducing language that would let both sides (whoever is "more" in the right/the original "victim"/whatever) be more liberal in following eachother around and refusing to disengage. It's actually one of the more compelling reasons for why adding "unless you think they are a problem" type language (into the statements in HOUNDING that otherwise just plainly discourage following between parties recently in conflict) would spur more disruption overall. Snowlet's rap05:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't share your perspective on the likelihood of a some slick troll managing to hoodwink a 'significant enough portion' of the community at ANI such that they manipulate the community into sanctioning a completely innocent editor who in no way even so much as brushed up against violating a policy themselvesHe hoodwinked you, didn't he? honestly, it doesn't really matter whether you share my perspective on the likelihood of something that actually happened over and over again. (FWIW, I'm not so much talking about successfully getting the so-called "hound" sanctioned as successfully avoiding sanctions for themselves by playing on the sympathy people might have for an editor who claims to have been hounded and can present clear evidence of having been followed; neither I nor any other user was ever sanctioned as a direct consequence of CurtisNaito's hounding accusations, at least not by the community, but there was also this case where an editor who repeatedly inserted OR, unverifiable content, fake citations, and BLP violations with virtually every mainspace edit he made, and I was sanctioned as a direct consequence of trying to clean up the messes he made and his convincing enough of the community I was "hounding him" that no one was willing to sanction him, eventually leading to an IBAN.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't think its particularly helpful to rehash a five year old discussion, and re-litigate particular points where you think the community let you down. I will say that this much is not only clear in my memory, but also the closure summaries of the numerous ANIs you two filed against one-another: there was blame to go around there, and that was definitely an example of a situation which would not have been helped by either one of you feeling more free to follow, revert, and comment upon eachother. I've been trying to avoid reference to any particular editor or episode in this discussion for a number of reasons, but if you are going to make your years-long issues with Catflap08 the platform upon which we test your proposed change, I'd say it very much highlights why it is a bad idea, because what was needed there was definitely not for both parties to have more license to argue you were in eachother's business for good reasons. And anyway, surely from your perspective you must feel that ANI got the situation more right than wrong, insofar as it ultimately removed Catflap from the project, and not you? All of that said, I think you ought to try your best to consider the implications of your proposed change from a wider perspective than your own personal experience; I won't waste my time telling you to try to put it from mind altogether--if its still so fresh in your mind all these years later, that's clearly not happening any time soon. But this section of this policy is critically important to protecting open-access to this project, and it deserves to have you examine it from all angles and consider the likely flip-side consequences of what you are proposing.
Anyway, maybe we're at an impasse. I still believe there could be wording to side-step the apparent conflict of factors here and leave all concerns addressed but perhaps its time to step back and see if anyone can put something feasible forward. Failing that, I still favour the status quo version, am open to Tryptofish's first proposal, but opposed to the second/reworded proposal, for reasons discussed at length above. If we can't find a reasonable middle-ground or simply all-around superior wording, it's probably time to consider how to neutrally format the prompt and arguments for an RfC, but I'm not keen to leap at it today. Snowlet's rap07:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm not talking about the community letting me down (I'm fine, and basically always have been). I'm talking about the community letting the encyclopedia down. As I said above, CurtisNaito's mess still has not been cleaned up.[6] Given that, it seems a bit disingenuous to talk about it as "rehashing a five year old discussion". Anyway, you are the one who brought Catflap into it by honing in on the "hoodwink the community to sanction an innocent editor" point that I was never trying to make. I could name easily a half dozen editors but chose CurtisNaito because his disruption was more widespread and insidious. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Anyway, you are the one who brought Catflap into it by honing in on the "hoodwink the community to sanction an innocent editor" point that I was never trying to make. No, I didn't. Own your own decisions. I purposefully avoided referencing any particular editor or situation and kept all of my arguments rooted in abstracts for a number of reasons. Do no attribute you to me your decision to bring your own history into this: that was 100% you. I advanced the argument that your hypothetical scenario of someone convincing the community to ban someone at ANI who had done absolutely nothing wrong was unrealistic; you and you alone chose to present your history with Catflap as a counter-argument to that situation.
And for the record, it's a really bad example. First off, Catflap "hoodwinked" pretty much no one: he came in for a lot of criticism in those threads, including from yours truly, as best I can recall. It's just that he wasn't the only one. Indeed, not even he and you were the only ones: as I recall there was a whole cluster of you, multiple parties on both "sides", who were far too incapable of leaving eachother's orbits, ultimately necessitating an ArbCom case to separate you all, and (just like those of us who had tried to contain the spiraling fiasco at ANI over the course of years) ArbCom found there was plenty of blame to apportion between you; they very clearly did not find that you were a completely innocent bystander. That whole situation is just bad ground for you to stake your argument for liberalizing these rules on, considering the findings of that case and the consensus of many of those ANI threads.
But once again, I strongly urge that we discuss these matters in more generalized terms rather than examining them through the lens of your past conflicts. It's not going to make you any happier examining the issue in only that light and it won't be good for discussion and isolating and addressing the broader issues here. We can examine the policy implications of this proposed change without using the names Hijiri88, Catflap08 and CurtisNaito as subject matter, and I strongly, strongly urge that we use such an approach. Snowlet's rap08:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I think we need to boil this down to a reasonably simple set of decisions. Until the most recent edits, this was the stable version of the Hounding section: [7]
Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Hounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.
Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in mediation, incidents, and arbitration cases. Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or meritless complaints about another editor.
The important component of hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason. If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.
Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Hounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.
Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in mediation, incidents, and arbitration cases. Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or meritless complaints about another editor.
The important component of hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or disruption to the project generally, for no constructive reason. Even if the individual edits themselves are not disruptive per se, "following another user around", if done to cause distress, or if that following is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.
In my opinion, the changes (all in the third paragraph) leading to the present version are fairly trivial and should be noncontroversial. Does anyone else see anything there that needs to be put to an RfC?
Then, the lengthy discussion above focuses on the following addition to it (shown in green):
Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Hounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.
Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in mediation, incidents, and arbitration cases. Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or meritless complaints about another editor.
The important component of hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or disruption to the project generally, for no constructive reason. Even if the individual edits themselves are not disruptive per se, "following another user around", if done to cause distress (such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict in order to further that conflict), or if that following is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.
Based on the preceding discussion, "in order to further that conflict" is the version that all three editors seem to prefer or at least object to the least, so that's how I presented it. Would it be best to (1) leave the entire parenthetic phrase out, thus maintaining the present-day wording? Or should we (2) have an RfC over whether or not to add that phrase? Personally, I don't care, although when I look at the section as a whole, the green part actually seems somewhat redundant to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Current Version (no parenthetic) is fine with me. I am the editor who first added the stuff about "in conflict", but I now see it's not necessary, and could lead to misinterpretation. This is fine as it is. (P.S. But I really don't care. If others really want the green clause, I will not try to block consensus.) - CorbieV☊☼22:17, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
CorbieVreccan: Courtesy ping, I think you are supporting what Tryptofish proposed as option one, but with an !vote that flags 'Version 2'; was this an error or am I misreading? I'd like to format my own response below as a formal !vote as well, but before I do that, I'd like to make sure we are all using the same scheme for what option 1 and 2 are. Snowlet's rap22:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't usually reply mid-stream like this, but so it doesn't get lost: Oh, OK, I see what you mean. I was referring to the middle version above, that shows as Diff 2 in the preview. The Current Version. I spaced that Trypto was calling that "option 1". So, yeah. Option 1, no parenthetic, which to simplify matters I'll leave all numbers out and just call Current Version. Editing my comment for (hopeful) clarity. - CorbieV☊☼22:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Current/Status quo version. Thanks for putting in some time to simplify matters, Tryptofish. One of the benefits of your having repeated the entire three paragraphs is that it helps to emphasize that there's a lot of content around the proposed change that helps clarify what this section of the policy means (both for editors acting in good faith/in a non-disruptive, and those who are going beyond their remit)--I'm sure that was probably the major reason you decided to approach it like that, and its effective in reducing my concerns some at least. That said, I'm in agreement with you that the green portion is at best redundant, though I would personally argue that the "in order to advance the conflict" bit introduces an issue into the wording and encourages bad acts/gives rhetorical safe harbor to those who actually do hound; it is ever-so-slightly less problematic than "in order to harass that editor", but insofar I feel this section is intended to discourage certain classes of aggressive engagement between editors, I don't like either proposed additional caveat. So, my hierarchy of preference (in descending order) of proposals to date:
Status quo version (do not add any of the additional text highlighted in green in Tryptofish's post above)
"(such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict)"
"(such as following an editor with whom the user is in conflict in order to further that conflict)"
I'm really only keen on the first option, but if it will resolve the issue to everyone's satisfaction, I can see myself embracing the second. The third is a shade farther than I can see myself supporting, but it may be worth waiting to see what other people think of it. The variation of the third option that would have ended in "in order to harass", I definitely cannot support. I gather from your last message that your preferences are similar, except in that you don't see a hugely problematic difference between choices options 2 and 3? Snowlet's rap22:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks both of you! I want to wait until we hear from Hijiri, but I tentatively think that we may be able to resolve the whole issue simply by leaving things as they are now, without adding the green part and without any need for an RfC: just declare victory now, and be done with it! I think the present-day version is my first choice, and it sounds like both of you feel the same way. Hijiri reverted the "green" addition back to the present-day version, but also expressed support for the version with "in order to..." while opposing it without a modifier. I think that means we are all satisfied with leaving things as they are, and I'm crossing my fingers that that's really the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Great, who'd have guessed we were so close to a version that was acceptable to everyone all along? There's probably a lesson in that. But any thread that ends in solid consensus is a good one I suppose, compared against alternatives. Thanks again to Trypto for putting a point back on things. Snowlet's rap10:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
The recent death of User:Shock Brigade Harvester Boris caused me to wonder: If a Wikipedia editor has died, and that person's real-world identity is not publicly known (not really an issue for Boris as he previously edited under his real name, although the Wikipedia article on his real-life identity still does not mention this), does it violate OUTING for someone who knows the connection between their Wikipedia identity and their real-world identity to make it public? Or does OUTING only apply to still-living Wikipedians? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I would say yes - treat it like BLP, in that there are certain things we shouldn't do in the 6 -24 months after the death of a person. --Masem (t) 00:29, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm hard pressed to say it's outing. It's normal to link to a real-world obituary (which will invariably include the person's real name), and many deaths are reported by family members, who will usually include the editor's real name. Let's just say I wouldn't normally consider it a blocking offense except in rather extreme circumstances. Risker (talk) 18:04, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I think its best to use common sense. If a family member or someone else close to the deceased editor links to an obituary then that's going to be fine in most circumstances. However just because they are deceased doesn't give you permission to make the connection public without a reason. It will also depend how private they were about their real life identity - if it was an open secret (for want of a better term) then making the connection public isn't going to harm, but if they are very careful about keeping the two parts of their life separate then I'd be very wary of saying their death changes that without knowledge of any explicit wishes or knowledge of why they kept their real name very private. Thryduulf (talk) 20:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes, of course it applies, let's say per WP:BDP. If the deceased editor's family posts an obituary or otherwise intentionally reveals their identity, well then fine, WP:OUTING already really covers why that's not forbidden by the policy. But discovering and revealing a deceased editor's identity when they had not disclosed it themselves is indeed outing, and there could very well still be BLP-level implications for the editor's family. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:38, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes. For those of us who live, work or travel outside the relative safety of the West, editing according to our policies & guidelines is not necessarily an apolitical act, and can create a degree of risk. In particular locations, such risk does not expire with the death of the individual editor, but extends to friends, family & associates. - Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'01:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
No, if the purpose of the identification is to let wiki-friends and colleagues know that a beloved wiki-colleague will no longer be editing. This has happened numerous times, with the details of the wiki-colleague's identity and real-world accomplishments in the area of their wiki-expertise also being denoted. See for instance User talk:Viva-Verdi#Rest in peace, Viva-Verdi, a tireless long-term contributor to opera articles all across Wikipedia. Harassment is harassment; caring memorialization and community notification is not harassment. Softlavender (talk) 03:43, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Comment I am concerned that wikipedia editors may mention a real-world relationship with another editor, without either one disclosing anything else personal like location, but if one of them dies and is posthumously "outed" this could risk outing of the still living editor. Tornado chaser (talk) 23:58, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes: Echoing Thryduulf above, use common sense. Remove/revision-delete "outing" material that was posted without the obvious consent of the family. Remove/revision-delete information that was posted with the consent of the family if there is good reason to believe that it puts other living people at risk of harm or would otherwise violate WP:BLP - family members may innocently post materials that put other editors at risk of real-world harassment or other harm. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:28, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
