I've been fairly involved in discussions relating to Guido den Broeder (which I'll leave to that, and other pages...) - but something has come up which I think warrants attention.
I believe in the spirit of this policy, and believe it's likely that here on en we should apply it foundation wide (bear with me - that's a bit of a side issue too!) - however, I'd like to suggest the policy move to what I believe is a far better name.
For me, the pronouncement 'No Legal Threats' is useful in some sort of blunt situations, where the application of what I've seen referred to as a 'cluestick' actually helps the editors involved (don't like that metaphor either really... but now I'm just grumbling!) - but in nuanced or more serious situations, it actually serves to escalate the situation unduly, and causes problems. People are entitled to seek legal redress per the laws of their respective jurisdictions - they're just not allowed to participate on wikipedia while they do so. This is quite genuinely a great idea to protect all parties, but I think the subtext of the title 'no legal threats' is different - saying that you're 'not allowed' to do something that might quite clearly be something you should in fact do (seek legal redress to repair damages under libel / defamation law for example).
I would suggest Wikipedia:Participation prohibited during discussion or action in legal matters - it's a ton less snappy, but kinda says almost enough on the tin to not have to read much more - I'd support keeping all shortcuts in place, and could go on for a country mile about why titles matter, but won't..! - thoughts most welcome... Privatemusings ( talk) 06:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Guidance as to how long an IP can/should be blocked for making legal threats would be appreciated by this admin. Toddst1 ( talk) 06:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
We should do this while there is no pending dispute. We should define what is a legal threat. I am sure there are talented lawyers who could offer advice.
With most regulations, the offense is defined. Not here. Spevw ( talk) 23:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
This is a thankless job but something that could be useful in the future.
Commentary: If someone says "you keep on editing like that and I will have you banned" would not be a legal threat. Nor would "I know who you are and if you don't pay the rent, I will sue you" (though it may violate privacy rules and be subject to blocking). How about "keep this up and we will report you to the school principal"? This is not a legal threat per the above first draft. Should it be? Spevw ( talk) 01:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the definition here is being too specific. If you announce _anywhere_ that you're going to sue Wikipedia, you shouldn't be editing on Wikipedia; given that this is a volunteer organization, you shouldn't be suing yourself. If you announce on Wikipedia that you're going to sue anyone else on Wikipedia, for any reason, perhaps you're using Wikipedia as a battlefield, perhaps you're trying to intimidate another editor; neither of these is conducive to creating an encyclopedia. The offender should of course be given the opportunity to clarify their intent, after being advised of the consequences. Usually the outcome of such an opportunity is the editor rescinding the offending comments. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 03:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
A legal threat is a stated active written intention on wikipedia.org or in any other source to file a complaint in a court against another Wikipedia user or Wikipedia Foundation alleging unlawful conduct related to written contents in the wikipedia.org website. It excludes non-judicial actions including, but not limited to, reporting alleged misconduct to a school principal or librarian or threats which are withdrawn.
It's good to see that we're discussing this before any active problem. We can then consider everything slowly and carefully. Spevw ( talk) 23:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Once someone (maybe more than once) threatened suicide and editors said they would call the police. By blocking people for making threats for this, then we would be blocking helpful people. Therefore, I think that reporting to the police should be exempt from the legal threat. Since JP suggested spelling out what does not constitute a legal threat, then this should be one. Reporting things to the police is not a legal threat. The police tend to be practical as they don't arrest people over civil matters, like website language.
Better now than when there is a crisis or dispute. Spevw ( talk) 22:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
(Copied from Talk:Main Page) Hey, the Hebrew wikipedia is threatening to sue us as seen here—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hadseys ( talk • contribs) 22:31, 25 August 2008
What do you lot think about this policy?I like it since it strictly enforced that legal action is not tolerated. User:Agent008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
The policy "it is required that you do not edit Wikipedia until the legal matter has been resolved" is too broad, and should be replaced with a more careful and nuanced policy that distinguishes baseless legal threats from actual protection of legal rights, and that takes into account the impact of the specific case on Wikipedia. For example, suppose that user A unlawfully posts B's credit card number on Wikipedia. If B sues A for invasion of privacy, then B would be blocked (or otherwise required to refrain from editing Wikipedia) for years until the matter is tried and A's appeals are exhausted. I do not see how such blocking would help Wikipedia. Worse, if Wikipedia editing is very important to B, then A can act unlawfully with impunity since B will not bring any legal action for fear of being blocked.
Dmytro (
talk)
16:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I've added a new paragraph captioned "perceived threats" based on a principle in an ongoing arbitration case and my experience that there is a recurring issue arising from users alleging that another user's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous." I've added the paragraph to the policy page, as I trust the essence of it should not be controversial, but of course I would welcome discussion here and any improvements to the wording. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
current version reads as follows: While such comments may not be per se legal threats, they may fall under the scope of the aforementioned policies and repeated or disruptive usage can result in the user being blocked.
Could be interpreted was "such comments are legal threats...and can result in blocking".
So someone might be blocked when there is no reason. Suggest a minor clarification as follows: While such comments may not be per se legal threats, they only fall under the scope of the aforementioned policies if they become repeated or if the legal threat becomes clear at which time the user can be blocked.
The old version makes it too easy for someone to say "you are disruptive, you are blocked". The new version may result in a response "let's try to work this out. Your messages sounds like a legal threat. If this is not intended, let me know. Otherwise, legal threats are subject to block per Wikipedia policy." Spevw ( talk) 02:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Unlike other policies, we must be very specific to what a legal threat is just because it deals with laws. Disruptive editing is very vague and can be interpreted to mean almost anything. Sometimes there are suicide threats and others respond to notify officials. So sometimes we threaten back. There are also other examples. What we need to do is define what a legal threat is exactly. It is a threat to sue. Simple as that. It is not a threat to report someone. If it is, then we need to state it. I get the feeling that we are commenting about different things so we may not be in disagreement. Spevw ( talk) 23:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
An IP of the previous user Disneysuit, none other than Royce Mathew. He has been giving legal threats (he has surely sent one to Wikimedia Foundation) against me for asking him to abide by policies, concocting false claims against me. He has been blocked, several times, but he won't stop. I don't want to lose my position at Wikipedia as an experienced editor; the only reason this is happening is because he is not willing to accept that he isn't following policies! A little help would be greatly appreciated. The link I gave you for "Royce Mathew" above has the IP address he is using. BlackPearl14 talkies! 23:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Often, and especially with biographical articles, the subject of the article, after multiple vain attempts to correct what he or she perceives as libelous attacks, may reference a lawsuit or legal counsel. When this subject is a "wikinovice," it isn't always the best route to automatically block. Rather, the editor should be informed about this policy, and given the opportunity to use other channels ( WP:ANI, WP:BLPN, or even m:OTRS) to solve the issue. I've emphasized the block's non-mandatory nature in the opening of the policy (together with a prose and grammar tweak). Thoughts? -- Avi ( talk) 23:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely disagree. The blocks are temporary, and they're preventative, and they allow the subject to be talked to in a controlled environment through OTRS, or even through his attorneys. All of which serve to chill them out. What doesn't help is that a person can threaten another editor with a law suit and the threatened person sees nothing done about it, thinks that nobody is going to protect them and quits. It doesn't matter if they are a novice or not. You lose that protection when you start threatening other people. It doesn't matter if it's your first time in Walmart: If you go up there and start threatening the employees, you're going to get kicked out -- no exceptions. Speaking as an editor who has received a legitimate legal threat, seen that editor not get blocked for it, and very nearly permanently quit the project, as well as having seen in great detail the process which follows a block for a legal threat and subsequent communications, I highly recommend that the current procedure continue. ⇒ SWATJester Son of the Defender 01:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
As an aside, the current language does not actually mandate a block it says you will typically be blocked. It does not say absolutely. And furthermore, if the issue here is seriously to protect newbie editors who have not read the policy (and thus will not see this change and not know anyway), then why change its application to long-term editors who have read the policy. As changed, now we lose the expectation that long-term editors cannot do it either. ⇒ SWATJester Son of the Defender 01:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
One Wikipedian, a lawyer, set forth a legal argument about something or
other. Copyright or whatever.
Someone else questioned the validity of the argument, using languages that was well within the bounds of normal debate. This user was also, in my opinion, correct on the substance of the matter.
The first user, the lawyer, went ballistic and threatened a libel lawsuit. Calling into question her legal skills in a public forum, she said, was libel. Some googling suggested to me that she might actually follow through with such a suit. (She didn't, as I calmed everyone down.)
I blocked her from editing and established the principle that, gee, we are not the kind of a community where people are going to be suing each other over arguments... and if you have a fight that has gotten thatserious, then you need to take it outside Wikipedia.
You have made a threat of legal action, this is in breach of Wikipedia's Policies. Please either retract this or contact the Wikimedia Foundation. If you proceed with legal action, the editing privilages of this account will be suspended until the issue is resolved. Please respond within 24 hours of this message (Date&time) or it will be assumed you intend to proccede and editing privilages suspended.
I know it might be heresy on today's Wikipedia, but why don't we just kinda sort things out on a case by case basis? If a BLP subject makes a legal threat, we can talk to them about it. We can say "Well, we don't want to libel you, but we think that, given there's a reliable source, we're being duly diligent. Is there anything in particular that you think is false and actionable?" And then if they persist in being obnoxious about legal threats, sure, block them. But putting people through the rigours of a process for the sake of it isn't going to help. Get cool heads involved, sit down and talk it over.
It's rather amusing that we prohibit legal threats because they escalate conflict, but people want to solve it by putting people through a process that involves lots of blocks and scary threats of blocks – which will escalate the conflict, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid! — Werdna • talk 12:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
My intention with the original edit (changed back by Swat) was not to make a sea change to the policy. Rather, it was to emphasize the approach we sysops need to take when dealing with legal threats. At the risk of oversimplification, there are two classes of legal threats on wiki: those made out of exasperation and those made out of forethought.
The latter needs to be dealt with posthaste as we do now. We do not need our editors using wikipedia as either a source or a support for legal actions. Litigation is a necessity at times, but it is between people and should not involve wikipedia.
The former, however, is what we often see in the WP:BLP area; someone, usually a wikinovice, comes across their bio article, and notices mistakes or worse. First they attempt to change it on their own, and often they get trout-slapped and reverted due to WP:COI. As an aside, COI is an important protection, but it does not prevent article subjects from editing their own articles, but requires extreme care. There is truth to the idea that the subject of the article, while inherently partial, is also the most knowledgeable about him or herself, and we should not throw out the resource of the subject her or himself simply due to their being themselves. Back to NLT, so they find they are reverted, often by some anonymous editor. Understandably, they get upset. The next thing they know, they are played right into a 3RR block. So, first they may have been told they cannot fix their own articles, and even if they can, they get hit with a block. Now they are hopping mad, and do what many people do when they feel their character is being defamed; they threaten legal action.
In my opinion, and I believe it shared by many others, the above should not be met with an NLT block and a "don't let the door hit ya where the good l-rd split ya" message. These people should be met, at least initially, with understanding and compassion for there situation, and directed to appropriate resources ( WP:ANI, WP:BLPN, and m:OTRS come to mind). Educate them into the byzantine workings of wikipedia that we wikiexperts take for granted, but make the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles look like the express line at the local Waldbaums by comparison.
Don't get me wrong, Swat or anyone else, I know that a good percentage of the people issuing these types of threats eventually get fed up with the process, continue to threaten action against editors and the foundation, and need the NLT block, but this needs to be a last resort, not a first resort. Further, established wikieditors, who know the rules and the ropes, understand these ramifications, and similar to 3RR, if we know that the threat was issued by someone who understands our system, the above does not apply (AGF and suicide pacts, etc.).
Thus, perhaps we do not need to change the wording of the opening, but it would be beneficial, in my opinion, to somehow codify the need for understanding, because, unfortunately, eventually, someone is going to rely on the strict wording of the policy and this is one of the cases where the spirit of the law is more important than the letter. Thanks. -- Avi ( talk) 15:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
(<-)I agree that the option to levy a block immediately needs to remain; however, I think that an immediate block should not be levied automatically in cases where the person threatening action does not understand the wiki process. I think (unsubstantiated by statistical analysis) that there may be a predilection to "block first ask questions later" too often, and sysops need to use common sense here. -- Avi ( talk) 00:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you understand that legal threats can sometimes be used in a way that's not bad for the community. For instance, the BLP issues above. Certainly, we'd rather they didn't make legal threats, but blocking them for it when they see legal threats as their only recourse against Wikipedia having poor information on them is a terrible way to treat an article subject. — Werdna • talk 09:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
(<-)Guido, in this regard Swat is completely correct. As an OTRS volunteer, I can say that there are many times whe the ability to block threats is necessary. My point starting this section was specific to the newbie BLP issuer of a threat. Unfortunately, as often as not, threats are issued on wiki or via e-mail by sophisticated users, and the wikimedia projects need to be protected. -- Avi ( talk) 00:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
This page is about legal threats, but what about non-legal threats like:
AFAIK there is currently no guideline or policy for such cases, although this may be hidden in more general policies. Should they be treated the same way as legal threats? And if so, should this page be renamed to deal with all threats? Guido den Broeder ( talk, visit) 10:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
There is a huge difference. You can ignore "Ill tell on you using wp forums" as that is the proper process. Verbal chat 18:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
What if I want to sue wikipedia. It was my idea first. They done goned and stoled it from me! Hip2BSquare ( talk) 13:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
See here. Comments? -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 19:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposal, extend WP:NLT to cover threats that whilst not directly involving law enforcment officals or the courts, may involve an 'offical' hearing or an offical body intervening, such as for example threats to:
NLT should also be extended or a new guideline drafted to cover the situation of contributors making allegations about another contributor being involved in criminal activity. Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 15:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
To clarify the scope of the policy, I intend to edit the "What is not a Legal Threat" section by inserting the following:
I am posting it here first to find out if this represents the community consensus. As it stands, the article is ambiguous about what legal threats are covered. However, after reading the discussion, I saw that the examples of legal threats are all about present or potential future content of Wikpedia, and I am convinced that this is the community's intent. This is confirmed by the article's suggestion to use Wikipedia dispute resolution instead of lawsuits.
An alternative is to read the policy broadly to include all lawsuits about past behavior on Wikipedia. However, this is unreasonable as the credit card number example shows. Such a broad reading will not offer significant additional protection for Wikipedia editors. In fact, it will do quite the contrary. In the credit card number example, if Wikipedia editing is important to B, then A can act unlawfully with impunity since B cannot file a lawsuit out of fear of being blocked for years while the case is resolved and A's appeals are exhausted. That cannot be the policy of Wikipedia.
Dmytro ( talk) 00:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Picture this hypothetical: An editor writes a painstakingly thorough and well-researched article on an obscure species of moth, or the like, and a particularly destructive vandal were to decide to have some fun attacking that article. The vandal, for whatever reason, fixates on the article and begins attacking it on a regular basis, inserting gibberish, vulgarity, moving the page, etc., using a variety of sleeper accounts set up just to ply this vandalism. When the article finally gets protected, the vandal moves on to other related articles using the same motif - never does anything constructive (except maybe a few minor edits for show before launching into an attack). Now, suppose our decent hardworking editor, instead of making "legal threats" against said vandal, were to march down to the nearest courthouse and file a John-Doe complaint on the theory that a banned vandal is a trespasser when he returns to vandalize more. Would the taking of legal action, as opposed to mere threats, still constitute an offense against policy? bd2412 T 10:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Doing this would seem to be a good idea--otherwise, an aggressive user could wreak havoc on the creation of the site during pending or threatened action. The only discussion I've seen along these lines is Wikipedia_talk:No_legal_threats/Archive_2#Off-wiki_threats, but I think I disagree with this extremely brief conversation. If User:A threatens User:B with action or threat of action on-wiki, A is blocked indefinitely until rescinding. This does nothing of course, beyond removing their editing here--even if they rescind on-wiki it's certainly not binding if they actually sue. However, if A threatens or serves B, we let A continue to edit during the process? It seems nonsensical. I seem to recall at least one instance of someone being blocked while a threat of a case or an actual case was running entirely off-wiki. Why don't we include this sort of thing explicitly in NLT? You issue a threat, or go through with one, related to WP, you should be removed from WP for the duration.
Thoughts? rootology ( C)( T) 19:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
As a practicing attorney, my first thought was that this policy was misguided when it came to actual legal actions (as opposed to threats). It seemed unfair to me to bar a person who has been actually and improperly injured by another user merely because they have filed a lawsuit to terminate or compensate the injury. It's not all that easy or inexpensive to file a lawsuit willy-nilly and a person who has gone to the expense and trouble of doing so over the kind of dispute that will arise here will usually have some real justification for doing so. Most legal systems now have procedures in place to punish litigants and lawyers who file totally baseless lawsuits. Indeed, in many cases the effect of the policy will be to punish the innocent. But... (1) Baseless and frivolous lawsuits do still get filed (though not as often as popular opinion might suggest). (2) It is wise for Wikipedia not to align itself with one litigant or the other (with no "exception for the most clear cut of cases," since the dividing line between those which are clear cut and those which are not clear cut can be wide, fuzzy, and gray). The wisdom should arise, however, from neutrality and avoidance of public conflict, not from fear of becoming a party in the litigation. And (3) my main point: Lawsuits are a form of self-defense and much is to be learned from the difference of the role of self-defense in, on the one hand, the legal treatment of the crimes of fighting in public and assault and, on the other, its roll in the schoolyard treatment of those same "crimes."
Law: In most US jurisdictions, if A begins hitting B with no legal justification (thus committing an assault), B will usually have the legal right of self-defense to (without either committing a battery or committing the crime of fighting in public) hit A back until A's attack on B stops or until (depending on the jurisdiction) B can run away. If B continues to hit A after the appropriate point has been reached, however, B will lose the right of self-defense and both A and B can be charged with committing a battery on the other and/or if A and B willingly continue the fight both may be charged with fighting in public without either being able to claim self-defense. (Note: WP:NOLEGAL applies to the foregoing analysis and, I individually and personally invoke it as well.)
Schoolyard: On most schoolyards, however, the rules enforced by school authorities (in practice, at least) are much different: if A begins hitting B, B's only legitimate response is to run away and report the assault. If B hits A back, and the school finds out about it, both A and B are almost certainly going to be punished for fighting. If B hits back but claims that B was acting in self-defense, that claim is usually going to fall on deaf ears even if it is absolutely and unmistakeably true.
Both the legal policy and the schoolyard policy are proper and non-contradictory: The legal policy acknowledges the fact that even though public order is both needed and highly desirable in society that even in the best, most peaceful societies innocents will sometimes be attacked without justification or provocation, that police cannot be everywhere all the time, and that if there was no legal right of self defense that a lot of folks would end up seriously injured or dead before they could report the assault; the right of self-defense thus both allows people to protect themselves and also deters assaults. The schoolyard policy focuses on the need for order at school, and is made in the expectation that children at school will be under adult supervision virtually all of the time, that few child-on-child assaults are of the type that will result in serious bodily injury or death, and that in most cases an adult will intervene before serious bodily injury or death can occur. It is also made in the belief that the knowledge that everyone involved in a fight at school will be punished will deter most fights at school, and finally it recognizes the fact that the schools, unlike the police and courts, are ill-suited for fact-finding adjudications and, indeed, have a far more important demand on their time, education, than being a tribunal. Both systems sometimes do or allow injustice, but both also have their desired effect far, far more often. I would suggest to you that the interests of Wikipedia resemble those of the schoolyard far more than they do those of the legal system. The purpose of Wikipedia is to educate, not to maintain public or internal order though it needs internal order and discipline in order to fulfill that purpose, a good system is in place for assaulted persons to report errant behavior, administrators are readily available and have sufficient authority to maintain order before any serious harm is done, and serious bodily injury or death, while possible, is not likely to occur over a dispute. Under those circumstances, discouraging assaults in the form of actual or threatened legal action by barring both participants makes the most sense. TransporterMan ( talk) 18:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Do we currently submit reports to http://www.chillingeffects.org/ ? -- œ ™ 08:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
During a random train of Wiki pages, I happened to be reading this one and noticed that in the What is not a legal threat section, the link for "Wikipedia's policy on defamation" points to the policy on Libel. Later in that same sentence, "libelous material" points to Defamation. This seems like it was probably intended, since the first is clearly a policy, where the second is a standard article, but it does seem rather confusing. I'm just wondering if anything should (can?) be done about it to make it less confusing for readers/editors. It's obviously not a huge deal, but it could possibly spark an inadvertent "correction" at some point. -- RobinHood70 ( talk) 08:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Suppose editor A states to editor B: "If you cannot cite believable evidence that Mr. C. is a civil law violator, then that is a libelous defamation. In theory, you could face a jury in a courtroom." Is this a legal threat? In my opinion this statement could only be interpreted as a threat if editor A is in a position to initiate legal action against editor B, which (assuming editor A is not Mr. C.) is not the case, as only the injured party can do so.
I'm asking because an editor recently got indef-blocked over precisely such a statement; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive560#Legal threats by Milomedes and Milomedes' block log. -- Lambiam 15:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Seems pretty clear to not be a threat. What was threatened? Nothing, one person just gave his opinion as to the merits of a particular claim in a hypothetical situation (i.e. where no evidence is found to support the defamatory statemetn). He did not threaten legal action, meerly said that in a hypothetical situation such a claim could constitute an actionable claim. Additionally, this was exactly what the article mentions as not a legal threat, someone giving there opinion about an issue. The whole thing is stupid anyways as in your situation the editior couldn't have threatened as he had no standing to sue for the alleged defamation of a third person. So it both is explicitly excluded, not within the policy anyways, and impossible to be a coherent threat anyways. I mean seriously, are we to be banned everytime we discuss a legal issue regarding an article? "Hey, I think that example you gave about the DMCA isn't allowed by the section you cite, actually, that would be an abuse of process". OOps, editor banned. "Hey, I think we should remove this image as it has no fair use rational and thus may be a copyright violation". Oops, banned again. Stupid.-- Δζ ( talk) 22:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
We're having an involved discussion over at WT:POLICY#list of pages. Some policy pages seem to change a lot, some don't, and this is one of the ones that doesn't. There have been no significant changes to the text in 2008 or 2009 except the addition of a new section, WP:NLT#Perceived legal threats. Arguably, the other stuff on this page is not only stuff that hasn't changed, but probably shouldn't; OTOH, policy on "how to behave" changes all the time at WP:Civility and WP:Harassment. Would anyone object if we move most of that section to WP:Harassment, leaving a summary sentence or two and a link to that page? WP:Harassment already links to this page. - Dank ( push to talk) 21:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
This page might get a new policy category; the discussion is at WP:VPP#Wikipedia administrative policy. - Dank ( push to talk) 23:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I would like us to think about getting some of the sentiments expressed in the WP:DOLT essay into this policy:
“ | The [No Legal Threats] policy is a good policy, overall, but there is a very unfortunate sequence of events that happens far too often. A BLP attack victim sees something horrible in Wikipedia, and I think we can all acknowledge that they have no moral responsibility to become Wikipedians to fix it. Some of them react in ways that we, as Wikipedians who favor reasoned discourse over threats, find inappropriate. Sure, and why not? They are being unfairly attacked and they are hurt and angry and they have no idea what our rules are. That's not their fault. Banning them on the spot for a legal threat is not a very helpful response, usually. [1] | ” |
There was some interesting discussion about this last year, above under #Block should not be automatic, but I can't see that it led to any changes.
Perhaps we should make some allowances for BLP subjects who are justifiedly aggrieved. Some of our BLPs are rubbish, and we know it. Blocking exasperated BLP subjects for mentioning the word "attorney" under this policy seems like adding insult to injury. There is a potential that sooner or later, if we don't develop a more intelligent way of handling such situations, this thing will hurt this project. -- JN 466 10:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
See [1], and some current discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales. Apparently Larry Sanger claimed that some images on Wikipedia were some sort of "virtual child pornography" (which is invalid, as the Supreme Court struck that down). It might just be a joke, but now someone is saying he ought to be banned for making "legal threats". I think it's pretty clear that this policy only covers litigation (i.e. legal action initiated by an individual at his personal discretion, which can be avoided through arbitration). But in order not to give Wikiphobes any ammunition, perhaps we should make it clear that
(Personally I am not convinced that laws against child pornography are even productive, as they create a black market, but the point we want to make is, Wikipedia isn't Stop Snitchin'. Freedom of speech is for everyone, even people who don't believe in it fanatically.) Wnt ( talk) 08:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
So suggestion is:
and the consequences would be
1. Do not make legal threats on Wikipedia
2. Do not conduct off-Wikipedia disputes on Wikipedia
3. Do not make legal threats about Wikipedia off Wikipedia
4. If you draw someone's attention to possibly illegal content, it should be made clear that this is to explain why it should not be on Wikipedia, not as a plank towards legal action.
The only rider I would add to the above, is that in the warnings, blocks and bans, are not necessarily censure (particularly in case 3).
From an older discussion above about how to define a threat:
Everyone who has ever hired a lawyer just loves them. Personally, I have had 126 of them. (If they each did just one hour of work... you do the math.) Wikilawyers are equally beloved. If I threaten to sue all wikilawyers in wikicourt for a restraining order, will I be blocked? PPdd ( talk) 16:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Ironically, this policy violated freedom of speech since I should be able to say I can sue if I want to sue. Not that I'm threatening to sue, but I'm just saying someone could sue on free speech grounds since they can't threaten to sue. Which seems weird, but it's true. Trust me, my friends. I knwo. Cowback23451 ( talk) 17:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
(This was originally posted to Wikipedia:OTRS noticeboard where it was suggested that I ask at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard and/or Wikipedia talk:No legal threats. I suggest that discussion be centralized at AN.)
I honestly don't know whether there is anything wrong with the following, so I am just going to put it out there and let someone else decide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Joseph_A._Spadaro&diff=prev&oldid=498070661
(Also see User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro#Dispute resolution requested)
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 06:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
It was a recent Arbcom motion that brings me to bring this up, but it seems to me that threats of contacting the police, along with actually doing so and informing someone on-wiki about it should quite clearly fall under NLT. Half the point, if not the whole point of this policy, as stated in the rationale, is to stop the chilling effects of doing as such. Utilizing the police against another user because of something they said on-wiki very clearly falls under such a thing, so it really should be added to this policy. If you're going to conduct these things, conduct them off-wiki. Silver seren C 05:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been following a policy discussion, where a user persists in stating (relatively forcefully) that those who choose to abide by the proposal will be considered legally responsible for the actions of themselves and of others. The underlying point raises a valid question, although it's far too soon to tell if that interpretation is correct. That will have to do for now, I'm trying to be as generic as possible. I guess my question is: at what stage/with what veracity does repeating this point/making it more forcefully stray away from justifiable prudence, and into the realm of deliberately creating a chilling effect? — WFC— 11:21, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been fairly involved in discussions relating to Guido den Broeder (which I'll leave to that, and other pages...) - but something has come up which I think warrants attention.
I believe in the spirit of this policy, and believe it's likely that here on en we should apply it foundation wide (bear with me - that's a bit of a side issue too!) - however, I'd like to suggest the policy move to what I believe is a far better name.
For me, the pronouncement 'No Legal Threats' is useful in some sort of blunt situations, where the application of what I've seen referred to as a 'cluestick' actually helps the editors involved (don't like that metaphor either really... but now I'm just grumbling!) - but in nuanced or more serious situations, it actually serves to escalate the situation unduly, and causes problems. People are entitled to seek legal redress per the laws of their respective jurisdictions - they're just not allowed to participate on wikipedia while they do so. This is quite genuinely a great idea to protect all parties, but I think the subtext of the title 'no legal threats' is different - saying that you're 'not allowed' to do something that might quite clearly be something you should in fact do (seek legal redress to repair damages under libel / defamation law for example).
I would suggest Wikipedia:Participation prohibited during discussion or action in legal matters - it's a ton less snappy, but kinda says almost enough on the tin to not have to read much more - I'd support keeping all shortcuts in place, and could go on for a country mile about why titles matter, but won't..! - thoughts most welcome... Privatemusings ( talk) 06:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Guidance as to how long an IP can/should be blocked for making legal threats would be appreciated by this admin. Toddst1 ( talk) 06:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
We should do this while there is no pending dispute. We should define what is a legal threat. I am sure there are talented lawyers who could offer advice.
With most regulations, the offense is defined. Not here. Spevw ( talk) 23:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
This is a thankless job but something that could be useful in the future.
Commentary: If someone says "you keep on editing like that and I will have you banned" would not be a legal threat. Nor would "I know who you are and if you don't pay the rent, I will sue you" (though it may violate privacy rules and be subject to blocking). How about "keep this up and we will report you to the school principal"? This is not a legal threat per the above first draft. Should it be? Spevw ( talk) 01:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the definition here is being too specific. If you announce _anywhere_ that you're going to sue Wikipedia, you shouldn't be editing on Wikipedia; given that this is a volunteer organization, you shouldn't be suing yourself. If you announce on Wikipedia that you're going to sue anyone else on Wikipedia, for any reason, perhaps you're using Wikipedia as a battlefield, perhaps you're trying to intimidate another editor; neither of these is conducive to creating an encyclopedia. The offender should of course be given the opportunity to clarify their intent, after being advised of the consequences. Usually the outcome of such an opportunity is the editor rescinding the offending comments. -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 03:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
A legal threat is a stated active written intention on wikipedia.org or in any other source to file a complaint in a court against another Wikipedia user or Wikipedia Foundation alleging unlawful conduct related to written contents in the wikipedia.org website. It excludes non-judicial actions including, but not limited to, reporting alleged misconduct to a school principal or librarian or threats which are withdrawn.
It's good to see that we're discussing this before any active problem. We can then consider everything slowly and carefully. Spevw ( talk) 23:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Once someone (maybe more than once) threatened suicide and editors said they would call the police. By blocking people for making threats for this, then we would be blocking helpful people. Therefore, I think that reporting to the police should be exempt from the legal threat. Since JP suggested spelling out what does not constitute a legal threat, then this should be one. Reporting things to the police is not a legal threat. The police tend to be practical as they don't arrest people over civil matters, like website language.
Better now than when there is a crisis or dispute. Spevw ( talk) 22:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
(Copied from Talk:Main Page) Hey, the Hebrew wikipedia is threatening to sue us as seen here—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hadseys ( talk • contribs) 22:31, 25 August 2008
What do you lot think about this policy?I like it since it strictly enforced that legal action is not tolerated. User:Agent008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
The policy "it is required that you do not edit Wikipedia until the legal matter has been resolved" is too broad, and should be replaced with a more careful and nuanced policy that distinguishes baseless legal threats from actual protection of legal rights, and that takes into account the impact of the specific case on Wikipedia. For example, suppose that user A unlawfully posts B's credit card number on Wikipedia. If B sues A for invasion of privacy, then B would be blocked (or otherwise required to refrain from editing Wikipedia) for years until the matter is tried and A's appeals are exhausted. I do not see how such blocking would help Wikipedia. Worse, if Wikipedia editing is very important to B, then A can act unlawfully with impunity since B will not bring any legal action for fear of being blocked.
Dmytro (
talk)
16:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I've added a new paragraph captioned "perceived threats" based on a principle in an ongoing arbitration case and my experience that there is a recurring issue arising from users alleging that another user's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous." I've added the paragraph to the policy page, as I trust the essence of it should not be controversial, but of course I would welcome discussion here and any improvements to the wording. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
current version reads as follows: While such comments may not be per se legal threats, they may fall under the scope of the aforementioned policies and repeated or disruptive usage can result in the user being blocked.
Could be interpreted was "such comments are legal threats...and can result in blocking".
So someone might be blocked when there is no reason. Suggest a minor clarification as follows: While such comments may not be per se legal threats, they only fall under the scope of the aforementioned policies if they become repeated or if the legal threat becomes clear at which time the user can be blocked.
The old version makes it too easy for someone to say "you are disruptive, you are blocked". The new version may result in a response "let's try to work this out. Your messages sounds like a legal threat. If this is not intended, let me know. Otherwise, legal threats are subject to block per Wikipedia policy." Spevw ( talk) 02:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Unlike other policies, we must be very specific to what a legal threat is just because it deals with laws. Disruptive editing is very vague and can be interpreted to mean almost anything. Sometimes there are suicide threats and others respond to notify officials. So sometimes we threaten back. There are also other examples. What we need to do is define what a legal threat is exactly. It is a threat to sue. Simple as that. It is not a threat to report someone. If it is, then we need to state it. I get the feeling that we are commenting about different things so we may not be in disagreement. Spevw ( talk) 23:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
An IP of the previous user Disneysuit, none other than Royce Mathew. He has been giving legal threats (he has surely sent one to Wikimedia Foundation) against me for asking him to abide by policies, concocting false claims against me. He has been blocked, several times, but he won't stop. I don't want to lose my position at Wikipedia as an experienced editor; the only reason this is happening is because he is not willing to accept that he isn't following policies! A little help would be greatly appreciated. The link I gave you for "Royce Mathew" above has the IP address he is using. BlackPearl14 talkies! 23:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Often, and especially with biographical articles, the subject of the article, after multiple vain attempts to correct what he or she perceives as libelous attacks, may reference a lawsuit or legal counsel. When this subject is a "wikinovice," it isn't always the best route to automatically block. Rather, the editor should be informed about this policy, and given the opportunity to use other channels ( WP:ANI, WP:BLPN, or even m:OTRS) to solve the issue. I've emphasized the block's non-mandatory nature in the opening of the policy (together with a prose and grammar tweak). Thoughts? -- Avi ( talk) 23:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely disagree. The blocks are temporary, and they're preventative, and they allow the subject to be talked to in a controlled environment through OTRS, or even through his attorneys. All of which serve to chill them out. What doesn't help is that a person can threaten another editor with a law suit and the threatened person sees nothing done about it, thinks that nobody is going to protect them and quits. It doesn't matter if they are a novice or not. You lose that protection when you start threatening other people. It doesn't matter if it's your first time in Walmart: If you go up there and start threatening the employees, you're going to get kicked out -- no exceptions. Speaking as an editor who has received a legitimate legal threat, seen that editor not get blocked for it, and very nearly permanently quit the project, as well as having seen in great detail the process which follows a block for a legal threat and subsequent communications, I highly recommend that the current procedure continue. ⇒ SWATJester Son of the Defender 01:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
As an aside, the current language does not actually mandate a block it says you will typically be blocked. It does not say absolutely. And furthermore, if the issue here is seriously to protect newbie editors who have not read the policy (and thus will not see this change and not know anyway), then why change its application to long-term editors who have read the policy. As changed, now we lose the expectation that long-term editors cannot do it either. ⇒ SWATJester Son of the Defender 01:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
One Wikipedian, a lawyer, set forth a legal argument about something or
other. Copyright or whatever.
Someone else questioned the validity of the argument, using languages that was well within the bounds of normal debate. This user was also, in my opinion, correct on the substance of the matter.
The first user, the lawyer, went ballistic and threatened a libel lawsuit. Calling into question her legal skills in a public forum, she said, was libel. Some googling suggested to me that she might actually follow through with such a suit. (She didn't, as I calmed everyone down.)
I blocked her from editing and established the principle that, gee, we are not the kind of a community where people are going to be suing each other over arguments... and if you have a fight that has gotten thatserious, then you need to take it outside Wikipedia.
You have made a threat of legal action, this is in breach of Wikipedia's Policies. Please either retract this or contact the Wikimedia Foundation. If you proceed with legal action, the editing privilages of this account will be suspended until the issue is resolved. Please respond within 24 hours of this message (Date&time) or it will be assumed you intend to proccede and editing privilages suspended.
I know it might be heresy on today's Wikipedia, but why don't we just kinda sort things out on a case by case basis? If a BLP subject makes a legal threat, we can talk to them about it. We can say "Well, we don't want to libel you, but we think that, given there's a reliable source, we're being duly diligent. Is there anything in particular that you think is false and actionable?" And then if they persist in being obnoxious about legal threats, sure, block them. But putting people through the rigours of a process for the sake of it isn't going to help. Get cool heads involved, sit down and talk it over.
It's rather amusing that we prohibit legal threats because they escalate conflict, but people want to solve it by putting people through a process that involves lots of blocks and scary threats of blocks – which will escalate the conflict, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid! — Werdna • talk 12:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
My intention with the original edit (changed back by Swat) was not to make a sea change to the policy. Rather, it was to emphasize the approach we sysops need to take when dealing with legal threats. At the risk of oversimplification, there are two classes of legal threats on wiki: those made out of exasperation and those made out of forethought.
The latter needs to be dealt with posthaste as we do now. We do not need our editors using wikipedia as either a source or a support for legal actions. Litigation is a necessity at times, but it is between people and should not involve wikipedia.
The former, however, is what we often see in the WP:BLP area; someone, usually a wikinovice, comes across their bio article, and notices mistakes or worse. First they attempt to change it on their own, and often they get trout-slapped and reverted due to WP:COI. As an aside, COI is an important protection, but it does not prevent article subjects from editing their own articles, but requires extreme care. There is truth to the idea that the subject of the article, while inherently partial, is also the most knowledgeable about him or herself, and we should not throw out the resource of the subject her or himself simply due to their being themselves. Back to NLT, so they find they are reverted, often by some anonymous editor. Understandably, they get upset. The next thing they know, they are played right into a 3RR block. So, first they may have been told they cannot fix their own articles, and even if they can, they get hit with a block. Now they are hopping mad, and do what many people do when they feel their character is being defamed; they threaten legal action.
In my opinion, and I believe it shared by many others, the above should not be met with an NLT block and a "don't let the door hit ya where the good l-rd split ya" message. These people should be met, at least initially, with understanding and compassion for there situation, and directed to appropriate resources ( WP:ANI, WP:BLPN, and m:OTRS come to mind). Educate them into the byzantine workings of wikipedia that we wikiexperts take for granted, but make the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles look like the express line at the local Waldbaums by comparison.
Don't get me wrong, Swat or anyone else, I know that a good percentage of the people issuing these types of threats eventually get fed up with the process, continue to threaten action against editors and the foundation, and need the NLT block, but this needs to be a last resort, not a first resort. Further, established wikieditors, who know the rules and the ropes, understand these ramifications, and similar to 3RR, if we know that the threat was issued by someone who understands our system, the above does not apply (AGF and suicide pacts, etc.).
Thus, perhaps we do not need to change the wording of the opening, but it would be beneficial, in my opinion, to somehow codify the need for understanding, because, unfortunately, eventually, someone is going to rely on the strict wording of the policy and this is one of the cases where the spirit of the law is more important than the letter. Thanks. -- Avi ( talk) 15:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
(<-)I agree that the option to levy a block immediately needs to remain; however, I think that an immediate block should not be levied automatically in cases where the person threatening action does not understand the wiki process. I think (unsubstantiated by statistical analysis) that there may be a predilection to "block first ask questions later" too often, and sysops need to use common sense here. -- Avi ( talk) 00:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you understand that legal threats can sometimes be used in a way that's not bad for the community. For instance, the BLP issues above. Certainly, we'd rather they didn't make legal threats, but blocking them for it when they see legal threats as their only recourse against Wikipedia having poor information on them is a terrible way to treat an article subject. — Werdna • talk 09:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
(<-)Guido, in this regard Swat is completely correct. As an OTRS volunteer, I can say that there are many times whe the ability to block threats is necessary. My point starting this section was specific to the newbie BLP issuer of a threat. Unfortunately, as often as not, threats are issued on wiki or via e-mail by sophisticated users, and the wikimedia projects need to be protected. -- Avi ( talk) 00:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
This page is about legal threats, but what about non-legal threats like:
AFAIK there is currently no guideline or policy for such cases, although this may be hidden in more general policies. Should they be treated the same way as legal threats? And if so, should this page be renamed to deal with all threats? Guido den Broeder ( talk, visit) 10:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
There is a huge difference. You can ignore "Ill tell on you using wp forums" as that is the proper process. Verbal chat 18:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
What if I want to sue wikipedia. It was my idea first. They done goned and stoled it from me! Hip2BSquare ( talk) 13:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
See here. Comments? -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 19:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposal, extend WP:NLT to cover threats that whilst not directly involving law enforcment officals or the courts, may involve an 'offical' hearing or an offical body intervening, such as for example threats to:
NLT should also be extended or a new guideline drafted to cover the situation of contributors making allegations about another contributor being involved in criminal activity. Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 15:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
To clarify the scope of the policy, I intend to edit the "What is not a Legal Threat" section by inserting the following:
I am posting it here first to find out if this represents the community consensus. As it stands, the article is ambiguous about what legal threats are covered. However, after reading the discussion, I saw that the examples of legal threats are all about present or potential future content of Wikpedia, and I am convinced that this is the community's intent. This is confirmed by the article's suggestion to use Wikipedia dispute resolution instead of lawsuits.
An alternative is to read the policy broadly to include all lawsuits about past behavior on Wikipedia. However, this is unreasonable as the credit card number example shows. Such a broad reading will not offer significant additional protection for Wikipedia editors. In fact, it will do quite the contrary. In the credit card number example, if Wikipedia editing is important to B, then A can act unlawfully with impunity since B cannot file a lawsuit out of fear of being blocked for years while the case is resolved and A's appeals are exhausted. That cannot be the policy of Wikipedia.
Dmytro ( talk) 00:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Picture this hypothetical: An editor writes a painstakingly thorough and well-researched article on an obscure species of moth, or the like, and a particularly destructive vandal were to decide to have some fun attacking that article. The vandal, for whatever reason, fixates on the article and begins attacking it on a regular basis, inserting gibberish, vulgarity, moving the page, etc., using a variety of sleeper accounts set up just to ply this vandalism. When the article finally gets protected, the vandal moves on to other related articles using the same motif - never does anything constructive (except maybe a few minor edits for show before launching into an attack). Now, suppose our decent hardworking editor, instead of making "legal threats" against said vandal, were to march down to the nearest courthouse and file a John-Doe complaint on the theory that a banned vandal is a trespasser when he returns to vandalize more. Would the taking of legal action, as opposed to mere threats, still constitute an offense against policy? bd2412 T 10:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Doing this would seem to be a good idea--otherwise, an aggressive user could wreak havoc on the creation of the site during pending or threatened action. The only discussion I've seen along these lines is Wikipedia_talk:No_legal_threats/Archive_2#Off-wiki_threats, but I think I disagree with this extremely brief conversation. If User:A threatens User:B with action or threat of action on-wiki, A is blocked indefinitely until rescinding. This does nothing of course, beyond removing their editing here--even if they rescind on-wiki it's certainly not binding if they actually sue. However, if A threatens or serves B, we let A continue to edit during the process? It seems nonsensical. I seem to recall at least one instance of someone being blocked while a threat of a case or an actual case was running entirely off-wiki. Why don't we include this sort of thing explicitly in NLT? You issue a threat, or go through with one, related to WP, you should be removed from WP for the duration.
Thoughts? rootology ( C)( T) 19:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
As a practicing attorney, my first thought was that this policy was misguided when it came to actual legal actions (as opposed to threats). It seemed unfair to me to bar a person who has been actually and improperly injured by another user merely because they have filed a lawsuit to terminate or compensate the injury. It's not all that easy or inexpensive to file a lawsuit willy-nilly and a person who has gone to the expense and trouble of doing so over the kind of dispute that will arise here will usually have some real justification for doing so. Most legal systems now have procedures in place to punish litigants and lawyers who file totally baseless lawsuits. Indeed, in many cases the effect of the policy will be to punish the innocent. But... (1) Baseless and frivolous lawsuits do still get filed (though not as often as popular opinion might suggest). (2) It is wise for Wikipedia not to align itself with one litigant or the other (with no "exception for the most clear cut of cases," since the dividing line between those which are clear cut and those which are not clear cut can be wide, fuzzy, and gray). The wisdom should arise, however, from neutrality and avoidance of public conflict, not from fear of becoming a party in the litigation. And (3) my main point: Lawsuits are a form of self-defense and much is to be learned from the difference of the role of self-defense in, on the one hand, the legal treatment of the crimes of fighting in public and assault and, on the other, its roll in the schoolyard treatment of those same "crimes."
Law: In most US jurisdictions, if A begins hitting B with no legal justification (thus committing an assault), B will usually have the legal right of self-defense to (without either committing a battery or committing the crime of fighting in public) hit A back until A's attack on B stops or until (depending on the jurisdiction) B can run away. If B continues to hit A after the appropriate point has been reached, however, B will lose the right of self-defense and both A and B can be charged with committing a battery on the other and/or if A and B willingly continue the fight both may be charged with fighting in public without either being able to claim self-defense. (Note: WP:NOLEGAL applies to the foregoing analysis and, I individually and personally invoke it as well.)
Schoolyard: On most schoolyards, however, the rules enforced by school authorities (in practice, at least) are much different: if A begins hitting B, B's only legitimate response is to run away and report the assault. If B hits A back, and the school finds out about it, both A and B are almost certainly going to be punished for fighting. If B hits back but claims that B was acting in self-defense, that claim is usually going to fall on deaf ears even if it is absolutely and unmistakeably true.
Both the legal policy and the schoolyard policy are proper and non-contradictory: The legal policy acknowledges the fact that even though public order is both needed and highly desirable in society that even in the best, most peaceful societies innocents will sometimes be attacked without justification or provocation, that police cannot be everywhere all the time, and that if there was no legal right of self defense that a lot of folks would end up seriously injured or dead before they could report the assault; the right of self-defense thus both allows people to protect themselves and also deters assaults. The schoolyard policy focuses on the need for order at school, and is made in the expectation that children at school will be under adult supervision virtually all of the time, that few child-on-child assaults are of the type that will result in serious bodily injury or death, and that in most cases an adult will intervene before serious bodily injury or death can occur. It is also made in the belief that the knowledge that everyone involved in a fight at school will be punished will deter most fights at school, and finally it recognizes the fact that the schools, unlike the police and courts, are ill-suited for fact-finding adjudications and, indeed, have a far more important demand on their time, education, than being a tribunal. Both systems sometimes do or allow injustice, but both also have their desired effect far, far more often. I would suggest to you that the interests of Wikipedia resemble those of the schoolyard far more than they do those of the legal system. The purpose of Wikipedia is to educate, not to maintain public or internal order though it needs internal order and discipline in order to fulfill that purpose, a good system is in place for assaulted persons to report errant behavior, administrators are readily available and have sufficient authority to maintain order before any serious harm is done, and serious bodily injury or death, while possible, is not likely to occur over a dispute. Under those circumstances, discouraging assaults in the form of actual or threatened legal action by barring both participants makes the most sense. TransporterMan ( talk) 18:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Do we currently submit reports to http://www.chillingeffects.org/ ? -- œ ™ 08:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
During a random train of Wiki pages, I happened to be reading this one and noticed that in the What is not a legal threat section, the link for "Wikipedia's policy on defamation" points to the policy on Libel. Later in that same sentence, "libelous material" points to Defamation. This seems like it was probably intended, since the first is clearly a policy, where the second is a standard article, but it does seem rather confusing. I'm just wondering if anything should (can?) be done about it to make it less confusing for readers/editors. It's obviously not a huge deal, but it could possibly spark an inadvertent "correction" at some point. -- RobinHood70 ( talk) 08:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Suppose editor A states to editor B: "If you cannot cite believable evidence that Mr. C. is a civil law violator, then that is a libelous defamation. In theory, you could face a jury in a courtroom." Is this a legal threat? In my opinion this statement could only be interpreted as a threat if editor A is in a position to initiate legal action against editor B, which (assuming editor A is not Mr. C.) is not the case, as only the injured party can do so.
I'm asking because an editor recently got indef-blocked over precisely such a statement; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive560#Legal threats by Milomedes and Milomedes' block log. -- Lambiam 15:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Seems pretty clear to not be a threat. What was threatened? Nothing, one person just gave his opinion as to the merits of a particular claim in a hypothetical situation (i.e. where no evidence is found to support the defamatory statemetn). He did not threaten legal action, meerly said that in a hypothetical situation such a claim could constitute an actionable claim. Additionally, this was exactly what the article mentions as not a legal threat, someone giving there opinion about an issue. The whole thing is stupid anyways as in your situation the editior couldn't have threatened as he had no standing to sue for the alleged defamation of a third person. So it both is explicitly excluded, not within the policy anyways, and impossible to be a coherent threat anyways. I mean seriously, are we to be banned everytime we discuss a legal issue regarding an article? "Hey, I think that example you gave about the DMCA isn't allowed by the section you cite, actually, that would be an abuse of process". OOps, editor banned. "Hey, I think we should remove this image as it has no fair use rational and thus may be a copyright violation". Oops, banned again. Stupid.-- Δζ ( talk) 22:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
We're having an involved discussion over at WT:POLICY#list of pages. Some policy pages seem to change a lot, some don't, and this is one of the ones that doesn't. There have been no significant changes to the text in 2008 or 2009 except the addition of a new section, WP:NLT#Perceived legal threats. Arguably, the other stuff on this page is not only stuff that hasn't changed, but probably shouldn't; OTOH, policy on "how to behave" changes all the time at WP:Civility and WP:Harassment. Would anyone object if we move most of that section to WP:Harassment, leaving a summary sentence or two and a link to that page? WP:Harassment already links to this page. - Dank ( push to talk) 21:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
This page might get a new policy category; the discussion is at WP:VPP#Wikipedia administrative policy. - Dank ( push to talk) 23:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I would like us to think about getting some of the sentiments expressed in the WP:DOLT essay into this policy:
“ | The [No Legal Threats] policy is a good policy, overall, but there is a very unfortunate sequence of events that happens far too often. A BLP attack victim sees something horrible in Wikipedia, and I think we can all acknowledge that they have no moral responsibility to become Wikipedians to fix it. Some of them react in ways that we, as Wikipedians who favor reasoned discourse over threats, find inappropriate. Sure, and why not? They are being unfairly attacked and they are hurt and angry and they have no idea what our rules are. That's not their fault. Banning them on the spot for a legal threat is not a very helpful response, usually. [1] | ” |
There was some interesting discussion about this last year, above under #Block should not be automatic, but I can't see that it led to any changes.
Perhaps we should make some allowances for BLP subjects who are justifiedly aggrieved. Some of our BLPs are rubbish, and we know it. Blocking exasperated BLP subjects for mentioning the word "attorney" under this policy seems like adding insult to injury. There is a potential that sooner or later, if we don't develop a more intelligent way of handling such situations, this thing will hurt this project. -- JN 466 10:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
See [1], and some current discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales. Apparently Larry Sanger claimed that some images on Wikipedia were some sort of "virtual child pornography" (which is invalid, as the Supreme Court struck that down). It might just be a joke, but now someone is saying he ought to be banned for making "legal threats". I think it's pretty clear that this policy only covers litigation (i.e. legal action initiated by an individual at his personal discretion, which can be avoided through arbitration). But in order not to give Wikiphobes any ammunition, perhaps we should make it clear that
(Personally I am not convinced that laws against child pornography are even productive, as they create a black market, but the point we want to make is, Wikipedia isn't Stop Snitchin'. Freedom of speech is for everyone, even people who don't believe in it fanatically.) Wnt ( talk) 08:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
So suggestion is:
and the consequences would be
1. Do not make legal threats on Wikipedia
2. Do not conduct off-Wikipedia disputes on Wikipedia
3. Do not make legal threats about Wikipedia off Wikipedia
4. If you draw someone's attention to possibly illegal content, it should be made clear that this is to explain why it should not be on Wikipedia, not as a plank towards legal action.
The only rider I would add to the above, is that in the warnings, blocks and bans, are not necessarily censure (particularly in case 3).
From an older discussion above about how to define a threat:
Everyone who has ever hired a lawyer just loves them. Personally, I have had 126 of them. (If they each did just one hour of work... you do the math.) Wikilawyers are equally beloved. If I threaten to sue all wikilawyers in wikicourt for a restraining order, will I be blocked? PPdd ( talk) 16:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Ironically, this policy violated freedom of speech since I should be able to say I can sue if I want to sue. Not that I'm threatening to sue, but I'm just saying someone could sue on free speech grounds since they can't threaten to sue. Which seems weird, but it's true. Trust me, my friends. I knwo. Cowback23451 ( talk) 17:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
(This was originally posted to Wikipedia:OTRS noticeboard where it was suggested that I ask at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard and/or Wikipedia talk:No legal threats. I suggest that discussion be centralized at AN.)
I honestly don't know whether there is anything wrong with the following, so I am just going to put it out there and let someone else decide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Joseph_A._Spadaro&diff=prev&oldid=498070661
(Also see User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro#Dispute resolution requested)
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 06:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
It was a recent Arbcom motion that brings me to bring this up, but it seems to me that threats of contacting the police, along with actually doing so and informing someone on-wiki about it should quite clearly fall under NLT. Half the point, if not the whole point of this policy, as stated in the rationale, is to stop the chilling effects of doing as such. Utilizing the police against another user because of something they said on-wiki very clearly falls under such a thing, so it really should be added to this policy. If you're going to conduct these things, conduct them off-wiki. Silver seren C 05:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been following a policy discussion, where a user persists in stating (relatively forcefully) that those who choose to abide by the proposal will be considered legally responsible for the actions of themselves and of others. The underlying point raises a valid question, although it's far too soon to tell if that interpretation is correct. That will have to do for now, I'm trying to be as generic as possible. I guess my question is: at what stage/with what veracity does repeating this point/making it more forcefully stray away from justifiable prudence, and into the realm of deliberately creating a chilling effect? — WFC— 11:21, 27 July 2012 (UTC)