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I really do not think so. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.
I've restored it yet again. -- Ronz ( talk) 02:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Skomorokh, his quote can be interpreted as insulting to wiki-anarchists and create poisonous atmosphere. -- Vision Thing -- 18:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that Wikipedia has no mechanism to prevent stonewalling and obstruction, whereas most systems have features to address that issue. I think this problem is endemic. Entrenched parties, particularly POV warriors, are widely recognized as damaging to the wiki. Outside of other "violations" the behaviour is commonly seen as unsanctionable, despite the common acceptance of the harm it causes. Basically, Wikipedia utterly lacks a mechanism to force people to seek consensus or bow out. On the contrary, much of this negative behaviour is encouraged as unobjectionable "good faith", "defending" Wikipedia, and myriad related excuses. Stonewalling and obstructionism with the intent of blocking any consensus or progress contrary to an entrenched position should be clearly enforceable as disruptive editing and a form of edit warring. This serious issue has infected not only a broad swath of article space (notably many nationalistic and religious articles), but also plagues policy and process discussions as the climate of tolerance has encouraged such counter-consensus behavior. Consensus is a fundamental part of the wiki process (if not the fundamental part). Allowing people to act in a way counter to reaching consensus breaks the wiki process at its root. Thoughts? Vassyana ( talk) 21:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, WP:BRD is the main anti-stonewalling tool, that I know of. I'm not particularly happy with ever using it at all... but there you go -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The most effective method I've seen to prevent stonewalling is to have the article fully protected at WP:RFPP, and then strictly follow WP:DR, WP:TALK, and WP:CON. WP:DE provides further guidelines that are often helpful. -- Ronz ( talk) 20:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Page protection does not prevent the issue, it simply prevents it from being an edit war. WP:BRD and WP:DR are both useless if someone refuses to compromise or seek consensus. The inherent problem is that people can block or refuse to work towards consensus without violating any particular behavioral guideline. I agree that solutions to the issue could potentially be used to just enforce "majority rule", but we trust our sysops to make judgment calls on a regular basis for grey areas. For example, judging sockpuppetry (both whether it is occurring and whether it is an unacceptable form of it) is a very complex issue the community trusts with admins. I don't see how a provision allowing sysops to enforce the basic wiki process would be any different, except that preventing disruption of the root processes of the wiki is even more important than preventing abusive sockpuppetry. Vassyana ( talk) 23:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
For a perfect example, folks, see this nonsense:
Wikipedia talk:There is no credential policy
I posted my page on WP:VP and a fair amount of editors saw it. They just didn't feel the need to comment on the talkpage. Then, a tiny swarm of editors who apparently misunderstood the page came along and mostly one of them, Penguin, refused to let me tag it as a policy supplement.
Our conversation went roughly like this:
(paraphrase)
"There's no consensus."
"Yes, but why? What's the opinion in the essay?"
"The opinion is that there's no consensus."
"That doesn't logically follow. It's a red herring. There is no opinion in the essay."
"It doesn't matter if there's no opinion. There's still no consensus."
"You're not really adding anything to the discussion, here."
"I'm not required to discuss."
"WHAT opinion or advice am I putting forth?!"
"The opinion that there is consesnsus, look I'm done discussing this with you!!!"
This kind of thing happens often, because good editors don't have as much of an incentive to "put up a fight" against editors with bad arguments, as vice-versa. Something needs to be done about this.
Based on empirical evidence laid out in WP:FAIL, I recommend that English Wikipedia and all wikis investigate the policies of German Wikipedia and try to mimic them, since they clearly work, something even WP:NOTFAIL acknowledges. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
<-- Note also, re these off-the-wall comments, that userZenwhat earned themself a good holiday (blocked), for actions taken in these disputes with a number of editors, who attempted to help Zenwhat see reason. Oh, and ZW then got blocked again for "trolling" user:Jimbo's talkpage. There are two sides to every coin, but one editor trying to enforce some opinion onto a number of other user's can be quite irritating, for a while. And it undermines the credibility of that editor, as in this case, until they can come to see reason. Newbyguesses - Talk 18:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Kim, if you are saying that ZW did eventually come to see reason, funnily enough, I agree with you. The actions at the time were disruptive, some good followed, admittedly, and now ZW is putting in a better effort I think. I learned from the episode too, but, not enough it seems. Maybe I should check out Dmcdevit's essay? Newbyguesses - Talk 19:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Note that some people seem to edit war, and then pages get locked. This only actually assists those people who are blocking consensus. For a different approach, see User:Dmcdevit/On edit warring especially the section on usefulness of repeat protections. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
In light of recent events, I take great offense to being called "disruptive" I was labelled this (and indeed blocked for a day) because I was disruptive. Did I vandalize a page? No. Did I go to another user's page and tell them how awful they were? No. Instead, I had a list of users on my user page that I didn't like. Is this nice? No. Is it disruptive? Absolutely not.
The definition of "disruptive" needs to be changed and/or defined. I did not disrupt anything. Was my list a good thing? Probably not, however it certainly was not disruptive, and it should not be treated as such.
A user's User Page is similar to a workplace cubicle. I may have a picture or something that you don't like or that you disagree with, but it doesn't disrupt you. You can just look at it and move on. In fact, it's in my cubicle so you probably won't even know it is there. If it is truly offensive, you should tell me to take it down. Call me offensive, but don't call me disruptive.
I would like comments on this. I take pride in my contributions to WP, and I find it ridiculous that someone calls me disruptive when none of my actions were disrupting. Maybe they weren't nice, and I have resolved this — but i was never disruptive. Timneu22 ( talk) 10:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I did a major overhaul of this section, making it more "step by step" and adding in links to other areas of dispute resolution that have become available. I also attempted to address one of the key concerns that has come up via my involvement with the Working group on cultural and ethnic edit wars. One of the most common complaints I've been hearing is, "Okay, we're supposed to get an admin, but what do we do if no admin responds?" So I tried to add in some wording to address that eventuality, as well as add common-sense advice on how to get attention at ANI. I've shown the draft to a few other admins (off-wiki) and the feedback was good. If anyone else here has opinions or feedback, I look forward to hearing it. The new section is at: Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors. -- El on ka 08:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm all for the changes that were made here as the expansions were greatly needed. Instead of being a page that is not often sourced, I believe the flowchart appeal of this new layout will this a much better resource for new users as well as established editors. Clear-cut procedure can only help in the aims of pointing those in need in the necessary direction as well as preventing a backlog at avenues that should be reserved for higher-escalation. the_undertow talk 17:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I have heard this page's acronym being thrown out a lot over the years in edit wars, but I never actually read this page. I am really troubled by the contents as it relates to the title. The title is over broad. People with minority views are not the only editors who disrupt.
I think portions of this page should be moved to a page such as Expert retention and general comments about disruption should remain.
In the United States and most other countries "disruption", in the form of laws such as "disturbing the peace" has been historically used to crack down and brutally silence dissent. I am not surprised that Wikipedia has its own dubious "disruption" page.
I wouldn't even dare to attempt to modify this article as I described above. I am sure, like most policy pages, there are a handful of veteran editors and administrators who vigorously guard any changes to this page.
So I am simply launching my feeble protest here.
I am also sure many of these page guardians will quickly shoot down this idea. So be it. Inclusionist ( talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I've opened this section to discuss an idea posed above at #Do we really need Sanger's quote? Ashanda pointed out that an effective tactic against Disruptive Editors is to deny them recognition; I suggested that one way to do this was for editors to agree not to answer the Disruptive editors posts on article talk pages. This would be something short of a ban, since the Editor would be free to edit, but would not be able to engage in the lengthy debates about the subject of articles that some of them seem to enjoy.
The model I had in mind was the classic one of the Boycott, which was described by an Irish MP in 1881 in this fashion:
That seems to be the goal we have with Disruptive editors -- at least with incorrigible ones. We want them to feel that their activities make them unwelcome.
On a minor point of terminology, Ashanda suggested the term Shunning rather than Boycott. I know that Boycott has now acquired the sense of economic activity but Shunning has a religious connotation of cutting off communications with unrepentant members of a sect. I don't think Wikipedia has gone to the level of enforcing orthodox teachings ;) so I prefer Boycott in its classical sense.
As to implementation, we need do nothing more than post on affected talk pages a statement something like this (somebody who knows syntax could probably design a template box to go near the head of the talk page):
Any user who agrees with the Boycott could add his name to the list. Once a significant number of the active editors on a talk page have given such notice, the Disruptive editor will have lost his debating partners.
I can anticipate a number of objections so this proposal may need refinement, but it would put effective community action against one kind of Disruptive editing at the level of the effected articles. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
New editors may not know how to find talk pages or even that they exist. Re this sentence: "Consult Do not bite the newcomers, and be aware that you may be dealing with someone who is new and confused, rather than a problem editor." I suggest appending to the end: "provide, in the edit summary, a link to the article talk page." ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 13:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi, we are inviting interested editors to participate in the writing of the Wikipedia:Tag team essay. It would be good to get as many eyes as possible, so we have our best shot at adequately defining the scope of the problem, as well as offering suggestions for remedies. Right now the essay is heavily in flux, so feel free to jump in and make changes. -- El on ka 23:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The current definition of a disruptive editor in this project is crucially unclear about whether it is one who must satisfy all of the four conditions listed, or else just at least one of them, or else some other minimal number of them from 1 to 3. Which is it ? -- Logicus ( talk) 17:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
DE is a serious problem here; this should be a policy. I do however think it needs a little work first. For one thing, as the quote from Larry Sanger suggests, DE is in effect an "operationalization" of trolling and we should perhaps have a little more discussion of how to recognize a troll because i think a lot of the signs are related to disruptive editing. Crucial and I think this needs discussion in the policy (or guideline) itself, is that a pattern of edits can be disruptive even if no single edit is clearly disruptive. In fact, I think this is a very serious problem facing Wikipedia, when no single edit violates any other policy - the comments, at least out of context, may appear to be civil - yet the pattern is disruptive.
Another thing, under definition we already call attention to the fact that a DE may not respond to other people's questions or requests for explanations. Just as telling is an editor who disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.
So these are two areas I think need filling in and developing in what we have. Bu then I would support proposing this as a policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Here is a good example of what I mean: each individual edit is civil. The user appears to care about policy. But the pattern is trollish. I think we need to find more such examples and really come up with a good list of diagnostics of the pattern. I think repeating the same questions rather than responding to another user's answers may be one sign. It has a lot to do with not explaining one's own reasopnign AND a pattern of ignoring the reasoning provided by others. But I think there is more to it. I really hope other experienced eidtors will join in here!! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The problem is, if policies are descriptive and not prescriptive, this is true for CIV as well. The real point is that community consensus is constantly evolving. I know that there are those who consider the identification of a troll uncivil; I am calling for discussion that is open to the other view, one which guided Wikipedia for many years, and one with many people continue to hold to, which is that trolling is a great threat to Wikipedia, and that trolls need to be identified and blocked or banned. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
One issue if we are to propose this as a policy is effective enforcement. One of the candidates for ArbCom suggested this, in answer to another question: "On the other hand, the community could develop a strategy, perhaps based on tendentious editing warnings, issued by admins, with say three warnings in three months leading to a block." This sounds reasonable to me. Can we have some discussion? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Signs of disruptive editing currently calls out inappropriate use of reference-related templates is a sign of disruptive editing. It seems strange to me to say that slapping {{ unref}} on a dozen stubs is disruptive, but that (for example) doing the same thing with Template:Globalize/US to every article in Category:Federal courthouses of the United States is perfectly acceptable. Fundamentally, it's the narrowness of the existing text that I want to address, but because {{ fact}} tagging is a large problem, I propose leaving that statement as it stands, and adding something along these lines to the guideline:
I am entirely open to suggestions on how to best present the idea. Does anyone have any comments? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
While Catherineyronwode's intent was clearly WP:POINTy, I do think there is a germ of truth here. While removal of unsourced material should not (per WP:BURDEN) be considered disruptive editing, removal of sourced material without a good explanation, and particularly persisting in attempts to remove it without a consensus on talk, is generally considered disruptive (and not-infrequently as outright vandalism).
On 'tag-bombing', I've actually been criticised in the past for what amounted to a 'failure to tag bomb' -- for deleting chronically-unsourced material on the basis of an article-wide 'unreferenced' tag, rather than tagging each and every unsourced statement first. In response I've tended to become more heavy-handed with tagging in recent months. Either way however, I think it is a matter of mutually agreed wikiquette, not disruption. This is of course for tags for which prima facie justification has been established. Tags that are clearly inappropriate (per above Globalize example) or unsubstantiated (POV-tags just because the editor says that the article is 'biased and horrible', without any further detail or evidence) would always be disruptive. Hrafn Talk Stalk 10:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Didn't have this on my watchlist, it is indeed odd wording which seems to conflict with WP:V, so I've changed it as follows:
changed to:
In my opinion that's an improvement, discussion and improvements welcome. . . dave souza, talk 17:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
In my experience, disruptive fact tagging is hard to nail down as being disruptive. There are many things that don't need to be fact tagged, simply because they are common sense. It's very possible for an editor looking to "stick it" to another editor, to go to articles that other editor is involved in editing, and then start tagging everything. When questioned, the person could say, well I don't find it to be common sense and disputed facts can be tagged. When questioned about the coincidence of happening to edit some articles that s/he normally doesn't edit, s/he can say, oh I happened to take a look at the articles you were working on and I noticed they are in horrible shape so I wanted to help clean them up. There is really no way you can stop this kind of behavior or pin someone down for doing this. Indeed, if I were to make a guide on how to disruptively edit, this would be near the top of the list of how to do it. It takes very little time and energy on the disruptive editor's part, but can cause a lot of problems for the other editor. -- C S ( talk) 20:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
<ud> That brings up a couple of good points. Maybe "A disruptive editor is an editor who:" is too specific, not sure of a better phrasing, maybe "A disruptive editor typically:" Also, it's a good point about not just citation needed tags, so maybe rephrase as:
* Engages in "disruptive tagging"; adds unjustified tags to an article, such as adding {{ fact}} tags when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is questionable.
Just my opinion. . dave souza, talk 09:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I saw this edit -- the article is in formal mediation right now -- and thought of this page. Here we have an example of an editor that is marking up most paragraphs on a page with {{ who}} and {{ dubious}} instead of {{ fact}}. Does anyone consider this type of tagging to be less disruptive than adding {{ fact}}? Can we PLEASE agree to use more general language on this page, instead of calling out cite-tagging as the only kind of disruptive tagging? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
dave souza; Would you call this an example of WhatamIdoing using blitz krieg editing where more than 20 templates and 60 "citations needed" etc. have been added to the Da Costa's syndrome sub page draft on a "cut and pasted" sandbox here [2] which I have responded to here [3]; Regarding my response see also [4] Posturewriter ( talk) 08:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
dave souza; The point I was making was that WhatamIdoing is using multiple templates etc to disrupt editing, while criticising Guido den Broeder for doing exactly the same thing in the fourth paragraph here [5], and I have suggested in the past that double standards need to be addressed in Wikipedia policy compliance in various sections on the RFC page here [6].. I find that WhatamIdoing will change sourcing policy from "must be independent sources one week, to must be secondary sources the next, to must be published within the past five years etc here [7], for the sole purpose of "moving the goal posts" to be disruptive. WhatamIdoing is such a biased an inconsistent and unreliable source of policy advice that I simply ignore it and go to other similar pages for layout ideas and section headings etc. It seems to be that policy is being interpreted this way . . . if WhatamIdoing does something it is OK, but if another editor does exactly the same it is a violation of policy X paragraph Y???? Posturewriter ( talk) 10:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
WhatamIdoing; Avnjay is already aware that Paul Dudley White's book is relevant here [17], so I don't have to convince him of anything. This page is about disruptive editing Posturewriter ( talk) 07:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
Please also note that Gordonofcartoon has stated that " Da Costa's syndrome "is" a historical ME-type disorder" here [23], and note that ME is also called CFS according to WP:MEDRS here [24] , so you should be trying to convince him that it is not a "type of CFS" Posturewriter ( talk) 07:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
dave souza; About 12 months ago WhatamIdoing accused me of giving too much space, WP:UndueWeight to my own research, and deleted it, so I abbreviated it, and it was deleted again, and told me to support information from independent sources, and then removed WP:Synth, and said the sources must be secondary, not primary etc etc. and then went back to the defeated COI number one to start COI number 2. That process is called “arguing in circles” and has been done twice. It is also called setting up a “wild goose chase”. which is recommend as the name of a type of Disruptive editing that should result in blocking because the purpose is to stop a new contributor from adding information to Wikipedia that discredits WhatamIdoing’s POV Posturewriter ( talk) 12:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
As I mentioned before, I have never said that DCS is the same as CFS, mainly because DCS is precisely defined, and CFS is not, however WhatamIdoing has been trying to create that false impression for the sole purpose of blocking my contributions. Nevertheless please note that Melissa Kaplan’s webpage refers to it as a synonym for CFS here [25], and WhatamIdoing’s tag teamer for the past 12 months, Gordonofcartoon, has agreed with this statement here [26]
Please also note that WhatamIdoings tag teamer for the past 12 months, Gordonofcartoon, has been creating the fake impression of consensus by arguing “we” think this and that etc. to control the content by deleting virtually all of my contributions, and replacing them with theirs on the DCS page. Tag teamers who push the same POV are disruptive editing and should be perma banned from editing on the same page.
Also note that since I started on the Da Costa's syndrome pages, I have provided 90% of the useful information, and the tag team of WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon have been doing 90% of the disruptive editing here [27] and here [28]. My solution is to perma ban them on all Da Costa's syndrome and fatigue related pages, and to ban them from commenting on any of my contributions anywhere in wikipedia. There are supposed to be several million other pages for them to edit in wikipedia, and unless they have very strong “hidden”, “surreptitious” COI’s, they should be happy with that, because their are plenty of other editors in wikipedia who have genuine NPOV and could co-operate constructively on the DCS page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Posturewriter ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-26T12:56:20
There is a distinction between disruptive edits to an article and disruption on an article's talk page. Some editors may do primarily one or the other. This article, WP:DE, could do more to distinguish between these two types of disruption. -- Slim five ( talk) 22:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm talking about the following behaviour, which I feel may be a case of gaming the system.
Editor 1 makes 5 different, unrelated edits to an article;
Editor 2 strongly disagrees with one of them;
So Editor 2 reverses all of Editor 1's edits, even those that are not controversial.
Is this disruptive editing? Gaming the system? or else? Ninguém ( talk) 10:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
The editor in question is User:Opinoso. It is a systematic behaviour. See, for instance, White Brazilian. Ninguém ( talk) 10:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this bit:
"Wikipedia is based upon collaborative good faith editing and consensus. When a stance passes the point of reasonableness, and it becomes obvious that there is a willful refusal to 'get the point' despite the clear statement of policy, and despite reasoned opinions and comments provided by experienced, independent editors, administrators or mediators, then refusal to get the point is no longer a reasonable stance or policy-compliant – it has become a disruptive pattern, being used to make or illustrate a point."
But how can a "stance" (i.e. a view point) possibly be "non-compliant" with policy? It is actions on the Wikipedia that policy governs, not what opinions or view-points you can/can't hold. Wikipedia is not a "thought police" or something. There's got to be a better way to write this. What do you think? Also, I'm not sure of the difference between this and WP:Tendentious editing. mike4ty4 ( talk) 22:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Can I get some opinions on this:
I started working on evidence here, but here are a few diffs were he is trying to get material remove by criticizing the sources/journalists/google:
Thanks visit my work page for more details. BBiiis08 ( talk) 19:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Where can I find some help with a disruptive editor. I've been trying to integrate some of the changes of this editor, but all they do is full reverts, 3 a day. I've tried to engage them in discussion, but they basically blow off the points I'm trying to make with smoke and mirrors. Could somebody familiar with patterns of disruption look in at Thelema and Talk:Thelema? Will in China ( talk) 19:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest it would be helpful to recognize repeated use of straw-man tactics and misrepresentation as another sign of disruptive editing. I've noticed it going on. It can consist of paraphrasing something posted by another editor in an unfaithful way, often in a way that introduces flaws not in the original, or that exaggerates those arguably there, followed by a challenge against the whole or an attempt to refute the whole, based partly or wholly on the introduced matter that was not in the original.
This can strongly hinder consensus-building and tends to provoke or inflame dispute, in part because it can naturally be upsetting to reasonable editors to have mis-statements and defective arguments attributed to them which are not theirs, and which they have not expressed.
This activity can also obfuscate and complicate more fundamental and perhaps basically simpler points of difference, including some that might well become easier to solve in the absence of this activity.
On the other hand, making a faithful paraphrase of anything is not an easy task, especially when the subject-matter is in any dispute, and it can happen inadvertently. So it would no doubt be appropriate to point out initial mis-statements that might appear to be of this kind in a gentle way, initially assuming good faith and inadvertence. It might be helpful in many cases to advise the direct use, or direct quotation, of the actual words, whether of the other party to discussion, or of the text in question. This is often safer and preferable to a paraphrase, by reducing the risk of inaccuracy or distortion and of the inflammation of any dispute. Please forgive my posting without logging in. 80.195.182.68 ( talk) 11:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
After using the word "disrupting" in an RFC comment with regard to suggesting we stop disrupting the dialogue with off-topic chat that could be held elsewhere, another user (not the one I was replying to) accused me of making a personal attack as I had accused someone of violating this policy on "disruptive editing". Is there any truth to be had in this, has it been agreed that the very word "disrupt" and its variants is now reserved for WP:DE rather than allowing Plain English to take precedent?— Teahot ( talk) 02:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
If you wish to examine the context of the above claim of DE, you can see this diff.— Ash (previously Teahot) ( talk) 07:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. 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 really do not think so. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.
I've restored it yet again. -- Ronz ( talk) 02:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Skomorokh, his quote can be interpreted as insulting to wiki-anarchists and create poisonous atmosphere. -- Vision Thing -- 18:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that Wikipedia has no mechanism to prevent stonewalling and obstruction, whereas most systems have features to address that issue. I think this problem is endemic. Entrenched parties, particularly POV warriors, are widely recognized as damaging to the wiki. Outside of other "violations" the behaviour is commonly seen as unsanctionable, despite the common acceptance of the harm it causes. Basically, Wikipedia utterly lacks a mechanism to force people to seek consensus or bow out. On the contrary, much of this negative behaviour is encouraged as unobjectionable "good faith", "defending" Wikipedia, and myriad related excuses. Stonewalling and obstructionism with the intent of blocking any consensus or progress contrary to an entrenched position should be clearly enforceable as disruptive editing and a form of edit warring. This serious issue has infected not only a broad swath of article space (notably many nationalistic and religious articles), but also plagues policy and process discussions as the climate of tolerance has encouraged such counter-consensus behavior. Consensus is a fundamental part of the wiki process (if not the fundamental part). Allowing people to act in a way counter to reaching consensus breaks the wiki process at its root. Thoughts? Vassyana ( talk) 21:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, WP:BRD is the main anti-stonewalling tool, that I know of. I'm not particularly happy with ever using it at all... but there you go -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The most effective method I've seen to prevent stonewalling is to have the article fully protected at WP:RFPP, and then strictly follow WP:DR, WP:TALK, and WP:CON. WP:DE provides further guidelines that are often helpful. -- Ronz ( talk) 20:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Page protection does not prevent the issue, it simply prevents it from being an edit war. WP:BRD and WP:DR are both useless if someone refuses to compromise or seek consensus. The inherent problem is that people can block or refuse to work towards consensus without violating any particular behavioral guideline. I agree that solutions to the issue could potentially be used to just enforce "majority rule", but we trust our sysops to make judgment calls on a regular basis for grey areas. For example, judging sockpuppetry (both whether it is occurring and whether it is an unacceptable form of it) is a very complex issue the community trusts with admins. I don't see how a provision allowing sysops to enforce the basic wiki process would be any different, except that preventing disruption of the root processes of the wiki is even more important than preventing abusive sockpuppetry. Vassyana ( talk) 23:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
For a perfect example, folks, see this nonsense:
Wikipedia talk:There is no credential policy
I posted my page on WP:VP and a fair amount of editors saw it. They just didn't feel the need to comment on the talkpage. Then, a tiny swarm of editors who apparently misunderstood the page came along and mostly one of them, Penguin, refused to let me tag it as a policy supplement.
Our conversation went roughly like this:
(paraphrase)
"There's no consensus."
"Yes, but why? What's the opinion in the essay?"
"The opinion is that there's no consensus."
"That doesn't logically follow. It's a red herring. There is no opinion in the essay."
"It doesn't matter if there's no opinion. There's still no consensus."
"You're not really adding anything to the discussion, here."
"I'm not required to discuss."
"WHAT opinion or advice am I putting forth?!"
"The opinion that there is consesnsus, look I'm done discussing this with you!!!"
This kind of thing happens often, because good editors don't have as much of an incentive to "put up a fight" against editors with bad arguments, as vice-versa. Something needs to be done about this.
Based on empirical evidence laid out in WP:FAIL, I recommend that English Wikipedia and all wikis investigate the policies of German Wikipedia and try to mimic them, since they clearly work, something even WP:NOTFAIL acknowledges. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
<-- Note also, re these off-the-wall comments, that userZenwhat earned themself a good holiday (blocked), for actions taken in these disputes with a number of editors, who attempted to help Zenwhat see reason. Oh, and ZW then got blocked again for "trolling" user:Jimbo's talkpage. There are two sides to every coin, but one editor trying to enforce some opinion onto a number of other user's can be quite irritating, for a while. And it undermines the credibility of that editor, as in this case, until they can come to see reason. Newbyguesses - Talk 18:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Kim, if you are saying that ZW did eventually come to see reason, funnily enough, I agree with you. The actions at the time were disruptive, some good followed, admittedly, and now ZW is putting in a better effort I think. I learned from the episode too, but, not enough it seems. Maybe I should check out Dmcdevit's essay? Newbyguesses - Talk 19:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Note that some people seem to edit war, and then pages get locked. This only actually assists those people who are blocking consensus. For a different approach, see User:Dmcdevit/On edit warring especially the section on usefulness of repeat protections. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
In light of recent events, I take great offense to being called "disruptive" I was labelled this (and indeed blocked for a day) because I was disruptive. Did I vandalize a page? No. Did I go to another user's page and tell them how awful they were? No. Instead, I had a list of users on my user page that I didn't like. Is this nice? No. Is it disruptive? Absolutely not.
The definition of "disruptive" needs to be changed and/or defined. I did not disrupt anything. Was my list a good thing? Probably not, however it certainly was not disruptive, and it should not be treated as such.
A user's User Page is similar to a workplace cubicle. I may have a picture or something that you don't like or that you disagree with, but it doesn't disrupt you. You can just look at it and move on. In fact, it's in my cubicle so you probably won't even know it is there. If it is truly offensive, you should tell me to take it down. Call me offensive, but don't call me disruptive.
I would like comments on this. I take pride in my contributions to WP, and I find it ridiculous that someone calls me disruptive when none of my actions were disrupting. Maybe they weren't nice, and I have resolved this — but i was never disruptive. Timneu22 ( talk) 10:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I did a major overhaul of this section, making it more "step by step" and adding in links to other areas of dispute resolution that have become available. I also attempted to address one of the key concerns that has come up via my involvement with the Working group on cultural and ethnic edit wars. One of the most common complaints I've been hearing is, "Okay, we're supposed to get an admin, but what do we do if no admin responds?" So I tried to add in some wording to address that eventuality, as well as add common-sense advice on how to get attention at ANI. I've shown the draft to a few other admins (off-wiki) and the feedback was good. If anyone else here has opinions or feedback, I look forward to hearing it. The new section is at: Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors. -- El on ka 08:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm all for the changes that were made here as the expansions were greatly needed. Instead of being a page that is not often sourced, I believe the flowchart appeal of this new layout will this a much better resource for new users as well as established editors. Clear-cut procedure can only help in the aims of pointing those in need in the necessary direction as well as preventing a backlog at avenues that should be reserved for higher-escalation. the_undertow talk 17:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I have heard this page's acronym being thrown out a lot over the years in edit wars, but I never actually read this page. I am really troubled by the contents as it relates to the title. The title is over broad. People with minority views are not the only editors who disrupt.
I think portions of this page should be moved to a page such as Expert retention and general comments about disruption should remain.
In the United States and most other countries "disruption", in the form of laws such as "disturbing the peace" has been historically used to crack down and brutally silence dissent. I am not surprised that Wikipedia has its own dubious "disruption" page.
I wouldn't even dare to attempt to modify this article as I described above. I am sure, like most policy pages, there are a handful of veteran editors and administrators who vigorously guard any changes to this page.
So I am simply launching my feeble protest here.
I am also sure many of these page guardians will quickly shoot down this idea. So be it. Inclusionist ( talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I've opened this section to discuss an idea posed above at #Do we really need Sanger's quote? Ashanda pointed out that an effective tactic against Disruptive Editors is to deny them recognition; I suggested that one way to do this was for editors to agree not to answer the Disruptive editors posts on article talk pages. This would be something short of a ban, since the Editor would be free to edit, but would not be able to engage in the lengthy debates about the subject of articles that some of them seem to enjoy.
The model I had in mind was the classic one of the Boycott, which was described by an Irish MP in 1881 in this fashion:
That seems to be the goal we have with Disruptive editors -- at least with incorrigible ones. We want them to feel that their activities make them unwelcome.
On a minor point of terminology, Ashanda suggested the term Shunning rather than Boycott. I know that Boycott has now acquired the sense of economic activity but Shunning has a religious connotation of cutting off communications with unrepentant members of a sect. I don't think Wikipedia has gone to the level of enforcing orthodox teachings ;) so I prefer Boycott in its classical sense.
As to implementation, we need do nothing more than post on affected talk pages a statement something like this (somebody who knows syntax could probably design a template box to go near the head of the talk page):
Any user who agrees with the Boycott could add his name to the list. Once a significant number of the active editors on a talk page have given such notice, the Disruptive editor will have lost his debating partners.
I can anticipate a number of objections so this proposal may need refinement, but it would put effective community action against one kind of Disruptive editing at the level of the effected articles. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
New editors may not know how to find talk pages or even that they exist. Re this sentence: "Consult Do not bite the newcomers, and be aware that you may be dealing with someone who is new and confused, rather than a problem editor." I suggest appending to the end: "provide, in the edit summary, a link to the article talk page." ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 13:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi, we are inviting interested editors to participate in the writing of the Wikipedia:Tag team essay. It would be good to get as many eyes as possible, so we have our best shot at adequately defining the scope of the problem, as well as offering suggestions for remedies. Right now the essay is heavily in flux, so feel free to jump in and make changes. -- El on ka 23:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The current definition of a disruptive editor in this project is crucially unclear about whether it is one who must satisfy all of the four conditions listed, or else just at least one of them, or else some other minimal number of them from 1 to 3. Which is it ? -- Logicus ( talk) 17:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
DE is a serious problem here; this should be a policy. I do however think it needs a little work first. For one thing, as the quote from Larry Sanger suggests, DE is in effect an "operationalization" of trolling and we should perhaps have a little more discussion of how to recognize a troll because i think a lot of the signs are related to disruptive editing. Crucial and I think this needs discussion in the policy (or guideline) itself, is that a pattern of edits can be disruptive even if no single edit is clearly disruptive. In fact, I think this is a very serious problem facing Wikipedia, when no single edit violates any other policy - the comments, at least out of context, may appear to be civil - yet the pattern is disruptive.
Another thing, under definition we already call attention to the fact that a DE may not respond to other people's questions or requests for explanations. Just as telling is an editor who disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.
So these are two areas I think need filling in and developing in what we have. Bu then I would support proposing this as a policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Here is a good example of what I mean: each individual edit is civil. The user appears to care about policy. But the pattern is trollish. I think we need to find more such examples and really come up with a good list of diagnostics of the pattern. I think repeating the same questions rather than responding to another user's answers may be one sign. It has a lot to do with not explaining one's own reasopnign AND a pattern of ignoring the reasoning provided by others. But I think there is more to it. I really hope other experienced eidtors will join in here!! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The problem is, if policies are descriptive and not prescriptive, this is true for CIV as well. The real point is that community consensus is constantly evolving. I know that there are those who consider the identification of a troll uncivil; I am calling for discussion that is open to the other view, one which guided Wikipedia for many years, and one with many people continue to hold to, which is that trolling is a great threat to Wikipedia, and that trolls need to be identified and blocked or banned. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
One issue if we are to propose this as a policy is effective enforcement. One of the candidates for ArbCom suggested this, in answer to another question: "On the other hand, the community could develop a strategy, perhaps based on tendentious editing warnings, issued by admins, with say three warnings in three months leading to a block." This sounds reasonable to me. Can we have some discussion? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Signs of disruptive editing currently calls out inappropriate use of reference-related templates is a sign of disruptive editing. It seems strange to me to say that slapping {{ unref}} on a dozen stubs is disruptive, but that (for example) doing the same thing with Template:Globalize/US to every article in Category:Federal courthouses of the United States is perfectly acceptable. Fundamentally, it's the narrowness of the existing text that I want to address, but because {{ fact}} tagging is a large problem, I propose leaving that statement as it stands, and adding something along these lines to the guideline:
I am entirely open to suggestions on how to best present the idea. Does anyone have any comments? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
While Catherineyronwode's intent was clearly WP:POINTy, I do think there is a germ of truth here. While removal of unsourced material should not (per WP:BURDEN) be considered disruptive editing, removal of sourced material without a good explanation, and particularly persisting in attempts to remove it without a consensus on talk, is generally considered disruptive (and not-infrequently as outright vandalism).
On 'tag-bombing', I've actually been criticised in the past for what amounted to a 'failure to tag bomb' -- for deleting chronically-unsourced material on the basis of an article-wide 'unreferenced' tag, rather than tagging each and every unsourced statement first. In response I've tended to become more heavy-handed with tagging in recent months. Either way however, I think it is a matter of mutually agreed wikiquette, not disruption. This is of course for tags for which prima facie justification has been established. Tags that are clearly inappropriate (per above Globalize example) or unsubstantiated (POV-tags just because the editor says that the article is 'biased and horrible', without any further detail or evidence) would always be disruptive. Hrafn Talk Stalk 10:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Didn't have this on my watchlist, it is indeed odd wording which seems to conflict with WP:V, so I've changed it as follows:
changed to:
In my opinion that's an improvement, discussion and improvements welcome. . . dave souza, talk 17:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
In my experience, disruptive fact tagging is hard to nail down as being disruptive. There are many things that don't need to be fact tagged, simply because they are common sense. It's very possible for an editor looking to "stick it" to another editor, to go to articles that other editor is involved in editing, and then start tagging everything. When questioned, the person could say, well I don't find it to be common sense and disputed facts can be tagged. When questioned about the coincidence of happening to edit some articles that s/he normally doesn't edit, s/he can say, oh I happened to take a look at the articles you were working on and I noticed they are in horrible shape so I wanted to help clean them up. There is really no way you can stop this kind of behavior or pin someone down for doing this. Indeed, if I were to make a guide on how to disruptively edit, this would be near the top of the list of how to do it. It takes very little time and energy on the disruptive editor's part, but can cause a lot of problems for the other editor. -- C S ( talk) 20:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
<ud> That brings up a couple of good points. Maybe "A disruptive editor is an editor who:" is too specific, not sure of a better phrasing, maybe "A disruptive editor typically:" Also, it's a good point about not just citation needed tags, so maybe rephrase as:
* Engages in "disruptive tagging"; adds unjustified tags to an article, such as adding {{ fact}} tags when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is questionable.
Just my opinion. . dave souza, talk 09:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I saw this edit -- the article is in formal mediation right now -- and thought of this page. Here we have an example of an editor that is marking up most paragraphs on a page with {{ who}} and {{ dubious}} instead of {{ fact}}. Does anyone consider this type of tagging to be less disruptive than adding {{ fact}}? Can we PLEASE agree to use more general language on this page, instead of calling out cite-tagging as the only kind of disruptive tagging? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
dave souza; Would you call this an example of WhatamIdoing using blitz krieg editing where more than 20 templates and 60 "citations needed" etc. have been added to the Da Costa's syndrome sub page draft on a "cut and pasted" sandbox here [2] which I have responded to here [3]; Regarding my response see also [4] Posturewriter ( talk) 08:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
dave souza; The point I was making was that WhatamIdoing is using multiple templates etc to disrupt editing, while criticising Guido den Broeder for doing exactly the same thing in the fourth paragraph here [5], and I have suggested in the past that double standards need to be addressed in Wikipedia policy compliance in various sections on the RFC page here [6].. I find that WhatamIdoing will change sourcing policy from "must be independent sources one week, to must be secondary sources the next, to must be published within the past five years etc here [7], for the sole purpose of "moving the goal posts" to be disruptive. WhatamIdoing is such a biased an inconsistent and unreliable source of policy advice that I simply ignore it and go to other similar pages for layout ideas and section headings etc. It seems to be that policy is being interpreted this way . . . if WhatamIdoing does something it is OK, but if another editor does exactly the same it is a violation of policy X paragraph Y???? Posturewriter ( talk) 10:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
WhatamIdoing; Avnjay is already aware that Paul Dudley White's book is relevant here [17], so I don't have to convince him of anything. This page is about disruptive editing Posturewriter ( talk) 07:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
Please also note that Gordonofcartoon has stated that " Da Costa's syndrome "is" a historical ME-type disorder" here [23], and note that ME is also called CFS according to WP:MEDRS here [24] , so you should be trying to convince him that it is not a "type of CFS" Posturewriter ( talk) 07:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
dave souza; About 12 months ago WhatamIdoing accused me of giving too much space, WP:UndueWeight to my own research, and deleted it, so I abbreviated it, and it was deleted again, and told me to support information from independent sources, and then removed WP:Synth, and said the sources must be secondary, not primary etc etc. and then went back to the defeated COI number one to start COI number 2. That process is called “arguing in circles” and has been done twice. It is also called setting up a “wild goose chase”. which is recommend as the name of a type of Disruptive editing that should result in blocking because the purpose is to stop a new contributor from adding information to Wikipedia that discredits WhatamIdoing’s POV Posturewriter ( talk) 12:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)posturewriter
As I mentioned before, I have never said that DCS is the same as CFS, mainly because DCS is precisely defined, and CFS is not, however WhatamIdoing has been trying to create that false impression for the sole purpose of blocking my contributions. Nevertheless please note that Melissa Kaplan’s webpage refers to it as a synonym for CFS here [25], and WhatamIdoing’s tag teamer for the past 12 months, Gordonofcartoon, has agreed with this statement here [26]
Please also note that WhatamIdoings tag teamer for the past 12 months, Gordonofcartoon, has been creating the fake impression of consensus by arguing “we” think this and that etc. to control the content by deleting virtually all of my contributions, and replacing them with theirs on the DCS page. Tag teamers who push the same POV are disruptive editing and should be perma banned from editing on the same page.
Also note that since I started on the Da Costa's syndrome pages, I have provided 90% of the useful information, and the tag team of WhatamIdoing and Gordonofcartoon have been doing 90% of the disruptive editing here [27] and here [28]. My solution is to perma ban them on all Da Costa's syndrome and fatigue related pages, and to ban them from commenting on any of my contributions anywhere in wikipedia. There are supposed to be several million other pages for them to edit in wikipedia, and unless they have very strong “hidden”, “surreptitious” COI’s, they should be happy with that, because their are plenty of other editors in wikipedia who have genuine NPOV and could co-operate constructively on the DCS page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Posturewriter ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-26T12:56:20
There is a distinction between disruptive edits to an article and disruption on an article's talk page. Some editors may do primarily one or the other. This article, WP:DE, could do more to distinguish between these two types of disruption. -- Slim five ( talk) 22:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm talking about the following behaviour, which I feel may be a case of gaming the system.
Editor 1 makes 5 different, unrelated edits to an article;
Editor 2 strongly disagrees with one of them;
So Editor 2 reverses all of Editor 1's edits, even those that are not controversial.
Is this disruptive editing? Gaming the system? or else? Ninguém ( talk) 10:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
The editor in question is User:Opinoso. It is a systematic behaviour. See, for instance, White Brazilian. Ninguém ( talk) 10:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi.
I saw this bit:
"Wikipedia is based upon collaborative good faith editing and consensus. When a stance passes the point of reasonableness, and it becomes obvious that there is a willful refusal to 'get the point' despite the clear statement of policy, and despite reasoned opinions and comments provided by experienced, independent editors, administrators or mediators, then refusal to get the point is no longer a reasonable stance or policy-compliant – it has become a disruptive pattern, being used to make or illustrate a point."
But how can a "stance" (i.e. a view point) possibly be "non-compliant" with policy? It is actions on the Wikipedia that policy governs, not what opinions or view-points you can/can't hold. Wikipedia is not a "thought police" or something. There's got to be a better way to write this. What do you think? Also, I'm not sure of the difference between this and WP:Tendentious editing. mike4ty4 ( talk) 22:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Can I get some opinions on this:
I started working on evidence here, but here are a few diffs were he is trying to get material remove by criticizing the sources/journalists/google:
Thanks visit my work page for more details. BBiiis08 ( talk) 19:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Where can I find some help with a disruptive editor. I've been trying to integrate some of the changes of this editor, but all they do is full reverts, 3 a day. I've tried to engage them in discussion, but they basically blow off the points I'm trying to make with smoke and mirrors. Could somebody familiar with patterns of disruption look in at Thelema and Talk:Thelema? Will in China ( talk) 19:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest it would be helpful to recognize repeated use of straw-man tactics and misrepresentation as another sign of disruptive editing. I've noticed it going on. It can consist of paraphrasing something posted by another editor in an unfaithful way, often in a way that introduces flaws not in the original, or that exaggerates those arguably there, followed by a challenge against the whole or an attempt to refute the whole, based partly or wholly on the introduced matter that was not in the original.
This can strongly hinder consensus-building and tends to provoke or inflame dispute, in part because it can naturally be upsetting to reasonable editors to have mis-statements and defective arguments attributed to them which are not theirs, and which they have not expressed.
This activity can also obfuscate and complicate more fundamental and perhaps basically simpler points of difference, including some that might well become easier to solve in the absence of this activity.
On the other hand, making a faithful paraphrase of anything is not an easy task, especially when the subject-matter is in any dispute, and it can happen inadvertently. So it would no doubt be appropriate to point out initial mis-statements that might appear to be of this kind in a gentle way, initially assuming good faith and inadvertence. It might be helpful in many cases to advise the direct use, or direct quotation, of the actual words, whether of the other party to discussion, or of the text in question. This is often safer and preferable to a paraphrase, by reducing the risk of inaccuracy or distortion and of the inflammation of any dispute. Please forgive my posting without logging in. 80.195.182.68 ( talk) 11:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
After using the word "disrupting" in an RFC comment with regard to suggesting we stop disrupting the dialogue with off-topic chat that could be held elsewhere, another user (not the one I was replying to) accused me of making a personal attack as I had accused someone of violating this policy on "disruptive editing". Is there any truth to be had in this, has it been agreed that the very word "disrupt" and its variants is now reserved for WP:DE rather than allowing Plain English to take precedent?— Teahot ( talk) 02:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
If you wish to examine the context of the above claim of DE, you can see this diff.— Ash (previously Teahot) ( talk) 07:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)