Wikipedia:Disturbing or upsetting content

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

Some pages on Wikipedia contain content that is necessarily disturbing or upsetting, in order to describe historical events and medical conditions. These pages may trigger flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder sufferers, which may be uncomfortable.

[edit] On Wikipedia Pages

Wikipedia tries to describe tragic events and medical conditions, especially those resulting in deformity and subsequent stigma, with due sensitivity towards those concerned and with an eye towards only giving basic facts and not opinion, in line with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. However, sometimes giving disturbing or upsetting details is necessary to the understanding of the article, and is unavoidable in order for Wikipedia to be a comprehensive, quality encyclopedia. Remember, it is the user's choice to view an article.

[edit] Outside Links

In order to describe a medical condition fully, it is sometimes necessary to provide links to pictures which some people may find distressing, which we do not want to show on the main site. Wikipedia cannot be held responsible for the content of these external links. On pages where the Disturbing or Upsetting Content warning is present, we recommend that you exercise your judgement as to whether to click on any links in the article text-usually, details of what the website linked to contains is printed next to the link.

On some pages, such as prank flash, there are links to content that is deliberately designed to be frightening or upsetting. Again, most of the time there are significant indications as to what the link shows in the article text or beside the link, and beyond that we cannot take any responsibility for their contents.