Wikipedia:Disruptive editing

This page documents an English Wikipedia consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Editors who persistently disrupt Wikipedia, knowingly or unknowingly, may be blocked or banned indefinitely.

Disruptive editing is a pattern of editing that disrupts progress toward improving an article or building the encyclopedia. The editing pattern may extend over a long time on many articles. Disruptive editing

Disruptive editing is not always intentional. Editors may be accidentally disruptive because they don't understand how to correctly edit, or because they lack the social skills or competence necessary to work collaboratively. The fact that the disruption occurs in good faith does not change the fact that it is harmful to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia owes much of its success to its openness. That very openness, however, sometimes attracts people who seek to exploit the site as a platform for

Disruptive editors may seek to disguise their behavior as productive editing, yet distinctive traits separate them from productive editors. When discussion fails to resolve the problem and when an impartial consensus of editors from outside a disputed page agree (through requests for comment or similar means), further disruption is grounds for blocking, and may lead to more serious disciplinary action through the dispute resolution process. In extreme cases, this could include a site ban, either through the Arbitration Committee or by a consensus.

The

This guideline concerns gross, obvious and repeated violations of fundamental policies, not subtle questions about which reasonable people may disagree.

A disruptive editor is an editor who exhibits tendencies such as the following:

1. Is tendentious: continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors. Tendentious editors not only add material; some engage in disruptive deletions as well, e.g. repeatedly removing reliable sources posted by other editors.
2. Is unwilling or unable to satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research.
3. Engages in "disruptive cite-tagging"; adds unjustified {{citation needed}} or {{more citations needed}} tags to an article when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is disagreeable or problematic.
4. Fails to engage in consensus building:
   1. repeatedly disregards other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits;
   2. repeatedly disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.
5. Fails to recognize, rejects, or ignores community input: resists moderation and/or requests for comment, continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain point despite an opposing consensus from impartial editors.

In addition, such editors might:

6. Campaign to drive away productive contributors: act counter to policies and guidelines such as
   meatpuppetry
   that might not exhaust the general community's patience but still operates toward an end of exhausting the patience of productive, rule-abiding editors on certain articles.

Point-illustrating

When one becomes frustrated with the way a

Such behavior, wherever it occurs, is highly

Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus, rather than trying to sway it with disruptive tactics.

Note that it is possible to make a point, without disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate it.

Failure or refusal to "get the point"

Sometimes, editors perpetuate disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the

Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point must be accepted by

Sometimes, even when editors act in

From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view:

Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views.

Editors may reasonably present active public disputes or controversies documented by reliable sources; citing a viewpoint stated in a mainstream scholarly journal, textbook, or monograph is not per se disruptive editing. This exemption does not apply to settled disputes, e.g. that the Sun revolves around the Earth. (The dispute itself is notable.)

Sometimes well-meaning editors may be misled by fringe publications or make honest mistakes when representing a citation. Such people may reasonably defend their positions for a short time, then concede the issue when they encounter better evidence or impartial feedback.

Bad-faith disruptive editors attempt to evade

• Their edits occur over a long period of time, in which case no single edit is disruptive but the overall pattern clearly is.
• Their edits are largely confined to talk pages; such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve it.
• Their comments may avoid breaches of
  personal attacks
  but still interfering with civil and collaborative editing and discussion.
• Their edits are limited to a small number of pages that very few people watch.
• Conversely, their edits may be distributed over a wide range of articles to make it less likely that any given user watches a sufficient number of affected articles to notice the disruptions.

Nonetheless, such disruptive editing violates Wikipedia policy and norms.

The following is a model for remedies, though these steps do not necessarily have to be done in this sequence. In some extreme circumstances, a rapid report to

• First unencyclopedic entry by what appears to be a disruptive editor:
  • Do not bite the newcomers
    , and be aware you may be dealing with someone who is new and confused, rather than a problem editor.
• If editor restores, or unreverts:
  • If sourced information appears this time around, do nothing; if not, revert again if they haven't responded at the talkpage. Ensure a clear explanation for the difference in opinion is posted by you at the article talkpage. Refer to this thread in your edit summary. If possible, suggest compromises at the talkpage.
• If reverting continues, and they are inserting unsourced information:
  • Revert, and request administrator assistance via
    your own history must be clean
    . At all times, stay civil, and avoid engaging in multiple reverts yourself.
• If tendentious editor is using sources, but if the sources are poor 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 the editor in dialogue. Refer to policies and guidelines as appropriate.
    • If only two editors are involved, seek a
      Third Opinion
      .
    • If more editors are involved, try a
      Request for comment
      .
• If attempts at dispute resolution are rejected or unsuccessful, or the problems continue:
  • Notify the editor you find disruptive on their user talkpage.
    Include diffs of the problematic behavior. Use a section name and/or edit summary to clearly indicate that you view their behavior as disruptive, but avoid being unnecessarily provocative. Remember, you're still trying to de-escalate. If other editors are involved, they should post their own comments too, to make clear the community disapproves.
• If tendentious editor continues reverting:
  • Use templates {{
    subst:uw-disruptive4
    }}.
  • Assuming it's one editor against many at this point, continue reverting the tendentious editor. If they exceed three reverts in a 24-hour period, file a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring (but be careful you don't do excessive reverts yourself!). However, one tendentious editor cannot maintain problematic content in the face of multiple other editors reverting their edits.
• If tendentious editor is not violating the three-revert rule (3RR), or there aren't enough editors involved to enforce Wikipedia policies:
  • File a report at ANI, even if you have already filed one or more.
• If editor continues to ignore consensus of any decision reached at ANI:
  • Again, request assistance at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for administrator intervention, and point to consensus from earlier talk pages or noticeboards. 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.

Blocking and sanctions

• Disruptive editing may result in warnings and then escalating blocks, typically starting with 24 hours.
• Accounts used primarily for disruption will most likely be
  blocked indefinitely
  .

All edits on

• Wikipedia:Avoiding talk-page disruption
• Wikipedia:Disruptive sanctions
• Wikipedia:Don't ignore community consensus
• Wikipedia:Griefing
• Wikipedia:Hate is disruptive
• Wikipedia:Just drop it
• Wikipedia:Tag team
• Wikipedia:Talk
• Wikipedia:WikiBullying
• Wikipedia:You are not irreplaceable