Wikipedia:Grief
This is a humorous essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously. |
There are
The five stages of grieving are:
- Denial: "This is not spam. My website/article is important/relevant/useful/reliable/unique/spectacular."[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
- Anger: "How dare you do this to me?! You have no right to censor me! I am going to report you!"[8][9][10][11] [12]
- Bargaining: "Well, if I can't have my site/article here, neither should that other guy."[13][14]
- Depression: "It's very sad to see that a great site like Wikipedia is so very unfair."[15][16][17]
- Acceptance: "I am leaving Wikipedia forever. It's your loss. Goodbye, cruel world."[18][19][20][21]
Tips for spammers
If some of the statements in the list above look familiar, you may be grieving. Don't worry: there is help available.
- If promoting your site is your highest priority, you can buy banner ads through many commercial vendors.
- Since everyone knows who you are (because of your persistent attempts to link to your own company), you may wish to preserve a modicum of dignity by moving straight to the acceptance stage on your own. You can save a great deal of face—not to mention good will towards the company you represent—by simply accepting that your link will never be appropriate here, acknowledging your initial confusion, and moving on with your life. Posting requests on policy pages or noticeboards will only embarrass you, whether you realize it or not.
- If you are stuck on step one or two, and find that you simply can't resist re-inserting your link or vandalizing pages to get even, fear not: 'help' will be with you shortly.
Tips for Wikipedians
It is the job of every Wikipedian to help grieving spammers move through the process and arrive at the fifth step as quickly as possible. Without your help, they may find themselves unable to move past a particular step, which will only prolong the pain. Being stuck on step one can lead to protracted discussions and edit warring. Step two can cause retaliatory vandalism and sockpuppetry. Too much of step three invariably causes excessive whining on noticeboards and the village pump, which really just heaps embarrassment on the already-grieving spammer. And allowing step four to go on for too long leads to ineffectual, maudlin rants on the spammer's userpage or, sometimes, on the actual website in question.[22]
Directing spammers to our guidelines for
Eventually, though, every spammer will move on to stage four. They will express their disappointment at the heavy-handedness of Wikipedia, the bias of its editors, the short-sightedness of the policies, and your own worth as a Wikipedian. It is quite likely that references will be made to fascism, communism, or George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Take heart, and remember that this is only a natural part of the healing process. You are a good person. Be strong. If you are exceptionally lucky, Nazism will be mentioned early, thus removing from you the need to further humor the spammer. Victory is yours; hold your head high.
Eventually, they will make the move to acceptance. This is most often announced by a sudden silence on their talk page. Much like the
See also
- WikiProject Spam
- Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
- How spamming can hurt your company image, an article from the Wikipedia Signpost
- For an example of the five stages on a single user talk thread, see User talk:Nabaker § Your recent edits.
- Wikipedia:Griefing
- The dark side — your fame will live on!