Wikipedia:Disruptive editing
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 is not always vandalism, though vandalism is always disruptive. Each case should be treated independently, taking into consideration whether or not the actions violate Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If an editor treats potentially disruptive situations as acts of vandalism when it's unclear or when it clearly isn't, that editor may harm the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away others from contributing. This is especially true if the situation involves editors who are new to the project.
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.
Summary
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 pushing a single point of view, original research, advocacy, or self-promotion. While notable minority opinions are welcomed when verifiable through reliable sources, and constructive editors occasionally make mistakes, sometimes a Wikipedia editor creates long-term problems by persistently editing a page or set of pages with information which is not verifiable through reliable sources or insisting on giving undue weight to a minority view.
Collectively, disruptive editors harm Wikipedia by degrading its reliability as a reference source and/or by exhausting the patience of productive editors, who may quit the project in frustration when a disruptive editor continues with impunity.
An edit which, in isolation, is not disruptive may still be part of a pattern of editing that is. A group of disruptive edits may be close together in time, or spread out; they may all occur on a single page, or on many pages; they may be all very similar, or superficially quite different.
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 three-revert rule, if observed by disruptive editors, is not to be construed as a defense against action taken to enforce this policy against disruptive editors. As stated in that policy, "The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times." Likewise, editors should note that the three-revert rule should not be broken, even by editors attempting to revert disruptive edits. While vandalism is always disruptive, disruptive editing is not necessarily vandalism; it is better for productive editors to follow the process suggested below than to break the three-revert rule.
Examples of disruptive editing
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:
- 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.
- Is unwilling or unable to satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research.
- 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.
- Fails to engage in consensus building:
- repeatedly disregards other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits;
- repeatedly disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.
- 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:
- Campaign to drive away productive contributors: act counter to policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, or Wikipedia:Ownership of articles—or sockpuppetry/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 policy or guideline is being applied, it may be tempting to try to discredit the rule or interpretation thereof by, in one's view, applying it consistently. Sometimes, this is done simply to prove a point in a local dispute. In other cases, one might try to enforce a rule in a generally unpopular way, with the aim of getting it changed.
Such behavior, wherever it occurs, is highly disruptive and can lead to a block or ban. If you feel that a policy is problematic, the policy's talk page is the proper place to raise your concerns. If you simply disagree with someone's actions in an article, discuss it on the article talk page or related pages. If mere discussion fails to resolve a problem, look into dispute resolution.
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"
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Sometimes, editors perpetuate disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has decided that moving on to other topics would be more productive. Such behavior is disruptive to Wikipedia.
Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted. The community's rejection of your idea is not proof that they have failed to hear you. Stop writing, listen, and consider what the other editors are telling you. Make a strong effort to see their side of the debate, and work on finding points of agreement. Do not confuse "hearing" with "agreeing with".
Sometimes, even when editors act in good faith, their contributions may be disruptive and time-wasting, especially if they can't understand what the problem is. Although editors should be encouraged to be bold and just do things if they think they're right, sometimes a lack of competence can get in the way. If the community spends more time cleaning up editors' mistakes and educating them about policies and guidelines than it considers necessary, sanctions may have to be imposed.
Distinguished from productive editing
Editors often post minority views to articles. This fits within Wikipedia's mission so long as the contributions are verifiable, do not give undue weight, and where appropriate, comply with WP:FRINGE. The burden of evidence rests with the editor who initially provides the information or wishes the information to remain.
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.