User:ToxiBoi/Sandbox

“

Civility, Maturity, Responsibility

”

Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.

— Larry Sanger, Wikipedia:Etiquette

Disruptive changing is when many of a user's changes put together stop other users from improving pages, or causes other effects that stop people from achieving our purpose of building an encyclopedia.

Summary

Wikipedia works because it is a very open place that anyone can change. However, that openness sometimes means that people who come here to promote themselves, a single point of view or original research find it easy to do so. While different viewpoints are welcome when backed up by reliable sources, and constructive users occasionally make mistakes, sometimes a Wikipedia user creates long-term problems by changing a page or set of pages with information which can not be backed up by reliable sources over and over again. This also includes giving too much attention to a view that is not held by most people over and over again.

Put together, disruptive changes harm Wikipedia by making it less reliable as a reference source. They also harm Wikipedia because productive users might want to stop changing Wikipedia when they spend energy trying to improve Wikipedia and see disruptive people go unpunished.

It is very important to recognize patterns of disruptive changing. Our policy on multiple reverts already acknowledges that one act, by itself, may not violate policy. When it is part of a series of acts that form a pattern, it can still violate policy. Disruptive changes may not occur all in one day. They may not be the same thing done over and over. This does not have to mean that the user's changes are any less disruptive to the project.

Disruptive users may seek to make their behavior look like productive changing. Certain marks separate them from productive users. When discussion does not help the problem, or when a group of fair users from outside the argument agree (through requests for comment or similar means), any more behaviour of the kind that was being disruptive can lead to blocks through the administrators' noticeboard or to more serious disciplinary action through the dispute resolution process. In extreme cases this could include a site ban by the agreement of the community.

The three revert rule, if observed, must not be used as a defense against action taken to enforce this policy. As stated in that policy:

This does not imply that reverting three times or fewer is acceptable. In excessive cases, people can be blocked for change warring or disruption even if they do not revert more than three times per day.

How disruptive users avoid getting spotted

Disruptive changing is against our policies. Certain users might not be spotted as disruptive for many reasons:

• Their changes are spread over a long period of time; in this case, no single change may be clearly disruptive, but the overall pattern is disruptive.
• Their changes are mainly found on talk-pages, such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other users from agreeing on how to improve an article.
• Their changes often avoid being too harmful, especially by avoiding personal attacks, even though they mess with changes that are meant to improve the article.
• Their changes remain limited to a small number of pages that very few people watch, or spread over a wide number of pages.

Signs of disruptive changing

This guideline talks about gross, obvious and repeated violations of basic policies, not subtle questions about which reasonable people may disagree. A disruptive user is a user who:

• Is tendentious; continues changing articles to make a certain point for an extended time, ignoring other users in the process. Tendentious changing is not just adding material; some tendentious users engage in disruptive deletions as well.
• Can not follow Wikipedia:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites sources that aren't encyclopedic, shows reliable sources as unreliable, or creates original research.
• Engages in "hostile cite-tagging"; adds a lot of tags to an article. Sometimes announces an intention to delete large portions of the article if other users do not immediately find citations to support the tagged material. In worse examples, proper citations already appear at the end of a paragraph and the cite-tagger inserts the tag at the end of each sentence within the paragraph.
• Does not engage in consensus building;

• repeatedly disregards other users' questions or requests for explanations concerning changes or objections to changes;
• repeatedly disregards other users' explanations for their changes.

• Rejects community input; resists moderation and/or requests for comment, continuing to change pages to make a certain point despite opposing agreements from users and/or administrators.

In addition, such users may:

• Campaign to drive away productive contributors; act in spite of policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, engage in sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry, etc. on a low level that might not exhaust the general community's patience, but that operates toward an end of exhausting the patience of productive rules-abiding users on certain articles.

Distinguished from productive changing

Users often add minority views to articles. This is fine so long as the contributions are verifiable and are not given too much attention. The burden of evidence rests with the user who initially provides the information or wishes the information to remain.

From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view:

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should represent each viewpoint based on how much is it supported. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all.

Verifiable and noteworthy viewpoints include protoscience--an unscientific field of study which later becomes a science--as noted in good peer-reviewed journals. Users may add active public disputes or controversies which are documented by reliable sources. This exemption does not apply to settled disputes. For example, adding claims that the Sun revolves around the Earth would not be appropriate today, even though this issue was active controversy in the time of Galileo.

Sometimes well-meaning users may be misled by small publications. Sometimes, they make honest mistakes when representing a citation. Such people may talk for their positions for a short time, then talk against the issue when they encounter better evidence or fair feedback. Articles are acceptable which document widely contested hypotheses (and/or their advocates) which have an organized following, such as the Flat Earth Society. However, claims that the Earth is flat would be inappropriate in articles such as Earth or geography, even if presented as a minority opinion.

In order to protect against joke accusations and other potential exploitation, no user shall be blocked for being disruptive until after neutral parties has agreed that a user has behaved in a disruptive manner. This consensus can be achieved through requests for comment, third opinion, wikiquette alert, or similar means. This does not include users whose changes constitute violations of probation or other change restrictions, who may be blocked for such changes independent of this guideline.

Dealing with disruptive users

Following is a model for fixing, though these steps do not necessarily have to be done in this sequence. In some extreme circumstances, a rapid report to WP:ANI may be the best first step. In others, a fast track to a community ban may be in order. But in general, most situations can benefit from a gradual escalation, with hope that each step may help resolve the problem, such that further steps are not needed:

• First unencyclopedic entry by what appears to be a disruptive user.

• Assume good faith. Do not attack the author who you think is disruptive. However, revert uncited or unencyclopedic material. Use a change summary which describes the problem in calm terms. Stay very civil. Post to talk page asking for discussion and/or sources. Remember, do not bite the newcomers. Be aware that you may be dealing with someone who is new and confused, rather than a problem user.

• If user unreverts:

• Revert again if they haven't responded at the talkpage. Ensure that a clear explanation for the difference in opinion is posted by you at the article talkpage. Refer to this thread in your change summary. If possible, suggest compromises at the talkpage.

• If the reverting continues, and they are inserting unsourced information:

• Revert, and request an administrator via Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents (ANI). Provide diffs of the multiple reverts by the tendentious user. Keep your post short (no more than 250-500 words), well-diffed (multiple diffs showing evidence), and focus on user conduct issues (the tendentious user is not engaging in discussion/is inserting unsourced information/is ignoring talkpage agreements). Try to avoid going into detailed article content issues at ANI, as it may reduce the likelihood that an admin will understand the complaint. Note: To be most successful at ANI, your own history must be clean. At all times, stay civil, and avoid engaging in multiple reverts yourself.

• If the tendentious user is using sources, but if the sources are bad or misinterpreted:

• Do not go to ANI yet.
• Review Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.
• File a report at the Reliable Sources noticeboard, if appropriate.
• Continue attempts to engage new user in dialogue. Refer to policies and guidelines as appropriate.

• If only two users are involved, seek a Third Opinion.
• If more users are involved, try a Request for comment.

• Suggest Mediation.
• If mediation is rejected, unsuccessful, and/or the problems continue:

• Notify the user you find disruptive, on their user talkpage.
  Include diffs of the problematic behavior. Use a section name and/or change summary to clearly indicate that you view their behavior as disruptive, but avoid being too irritating. Remember, you're still trying to de-escalate the situation. If other users are involved, they should post their own comments too, to make it clear that the community disapproves of the tendentious behavior.

• Tendentious user continues reverting.

• Assuming that it's one user against many at this point, continue reverting the tendentious user. If s/he exceeds three reverts in a 24-hour period, file a report at WP:3RR (but be careful you don't do excessive reverts yourself!). However, one tendentious user cannot maintain problematic content in the face of multiple other users reverting his/her changes.

• If the tendentious user is not violating 3RR, or there aren't enough users involved to enforce Wikipedia policies:

• File another ANI report.

• If for some reason administrators do not respond:

• File a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, but only if you have multiple diffs to show that you have tried to address the problem via other means, and you have at least one other user who has attempted to resolve the problem, and will help certify the RfC.

• User continues to ignore consensus of the RfC.

• Again request assistance at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for administrator intervention, point to consensus from the User Conduct RfC. An admin should issue a warning or temporary block as appropriate.

• If blocks fail to solve the problem, or you are still unable to obtain attention via ANI, and all other avenues have been tried:

• File a case for the Arbitration Committee to review. Base it strictly on user conduct, and not on article content.

Wikilove

It is important to be as patient and kind as possible. Techniques such as reverting need to be combined with sincere efforts to turn the user toward productive work. Users should only be regarded as irredeemable if they show themselves unwilling or unable to set issues aside and work with others. These users are, for the benefit of the project, politely but firmly removed.

Wiki philosophies

See also - meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies (try to look on your actions and actions of others from philosophical point of view)