Wikipedia talk:Stalking

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Ok, it's highly discouraged to follow someone, according to editing here?

Um, you know, user contributions is a page there for a reason, are folks making this page advocating it should be removed? In that case, shouldn't this be a request on our bug tracking software, and not a wikipedia page?

In any case, I don't understand, and this page doesn't really establish reasons why or why not. Please clarify! Kim Bruning 07:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)


When I created this page I meant for it to refer to hostile stalking as in the type that users complain about on RFC's and RFA's but it needs to be clarified, I've been trying to figure out how to do this but so far have come up blank. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 08:42, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
Well, my attempt at a "Bad Stalking" section is a start to that goal, if nothing else. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 09:08, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I think you're going to have a hard time, because imvho wikistalking simply isn't ^^;; Maybe as you try to build this page you'll find out that this is the case as well. Let's hope so! :-) Kim Bruning 13:29, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] essay

I'm moving this essay here from the main page. This is one editor's view. -Willmcw 19:23, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

  • While I don't disagree with that, please note that the entire page is one editor's view (or a few editor's views, at any rate) and that there is no policy or guideline (or even an official definition) regarding Wikistalking. Radiant_>|< 23:53, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
    • Greetings - The paragraph in question here was authored by me for my user page. Another user informed me of this article's existence and his desire to use the material, which I am supportive of if he and others agree. In the interest of full disclosure however, it should be noted that User:Willmcw, the editor who removed this paragraph, is currently involved in a contentious dispute with myself (presently in the mediation stage) over the subject of this article. He has engaged in extensive wikistalking of both the "good" and "bad" types here. As such, I believe his edits should be considered a conflict of interest and would accordingly ask that a more collaborative approach be taken in deciding the placement or use of this material than the objections of a single user whose motivation for removing it is directly tied to his own partaking in the same behavior described there. Rangerdude 07:02, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Oh dear. Maybe you should get a Third Opinion (tm). By the way if you two are serious about a Wikipage on stalking, I'd recommend listing it on Requests for comment to get community feedback. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean nobody else will :) Radiant_>|< 08:12, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
        • I don't think Will read it, he just saw my chat to Rangerdude on his talk page. If will had read it then he would have seen that it does not mention him -- that's I think what he was worried about. ChoobWriter 14:30, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


Definition - Wiki-stalking occurs when an editor abusively trails another editor around wikipedia by way of his or her user contributions page. It entails an evidenced distinctive editing pattern in which one user intentionally follows another editor around wikipedia for purposes that are not constructive to the encyclopedia's content or conducive to its collaborative environment. It occurs when one editor continuously and repeatedly follows another editor between multiple unrelated articles over an extended period of time and a wide variety of unrelated subjects for the purpose of making excessive "followup" changes to the original editor's work - often for the purpose of harassment, disruption, or deconstructing the stalked editor's work for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines.

Why it's a problem - Wiki-stalking is an abuse of the user contributions function on wikipedia. This is a tool that otherwise serves valuable purposes in combatting vandalism and problematic users, but like any tool it can be abused when used in excess or with malicious intent. Stalking is problematic because it exhibits incivility, subjects individual editors to unwarranted harassment, and violates the request that all wikipedians should Wikipedia:Assume good faith about other editors. Often times a stalker conducts himself with the intent of driving another editor away from Wikipedia through a series of harassing and hostile behavior. The most notorious case of wiki-stalking to date involved a user who consciously trailed another well established wikipedian's edits with daily "followup" work conducted to the same articles, most of it minor and unnecessary.[1] Even though the stalker edits were minor, the behavior was deemed to be harassing because it was done intentionally to harass the victimized editor. The case was settled by direct intervention from Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, who permanently blocked the stalker for "making a pest of himself" and disrupting the encyclopedia.

[edit] How you can help

Stalking problems

  1. If you are being stalked in a harassing manner by another user, the first thing you should do is politely approach him/her about it. Inform that editor of your concern and objections and ask him/her politely to stop.
  2. If step 1 doesn't work, inform the stalker of the anti-stalking precedent cited above.
  3. If the stalking continues make a log of it! Document the cases of stalking on your user page with sourced diffs to show its extent and problems.

[edit] Description of edits

I reformatted and added to the article to improve its organization. Since the recent Arbcom definition of wiki-stalking is probably the most substantive definition of this term, so I moved it to the top under a "Definition" header. I also reorganized the subsequent descriptions of stalking both from this page and the material that's from my user page into a general header on Wikipedian viewpoints about stalking to differentiate them from the official Arbcom ruling. I also copyedited the article in general to give it a better flow and add clarifications. Rangerdude 18:39, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] guideline tag

The guideline tag probably isn't appropriate for use yet since this has not been generally noticed nor has it been accepted by the community as a guideline. (when people quote it on RFA, RFC, and RFAr then you know the community has noticed it, for the moment it's probably best just to keep the tag off. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 07:54, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I generally agree that this article is something with potential to become a guideline in light of the fact that two strong precedents have effectively defined wiki-stalking's abusive forms and classified it as an offense with very stiff penalties. In accordance with the developments of the two noted precedent cases it is probably wise to update Wikipedia's guidelines to reflect them, and this can be done over time as awareness grows regarding the outcome of those cases. I concur that it is probably a little premature to add the formal guideline tag right now, though we are quickly approaching that stage and in the meantime an informal tag of some sort indicating that nature is appropriate. As an aside, it is also inappropriate that editors who have engaged in Wiki-stalking themselves (and thus have a conflict of interest in which they stand to lose as the Wikipedia community's awareness of this article grows) should be involved in "policing" the edits to this article as it develops. As noted above, this includes User:Willmcw who currently has wikistalking complaints pending against him and whose edits here thus far have been conducted for the purposes of removing content and/or diverting community attention away from this article as it develops. At minimum, any maintanence activities of the sort this and other conflicted editors have thus far been engaged in should be conducted by a more neutral party. Rangerdude 20:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Does the charge of potential conflict of interest also extend to you, as the person who is pursuing the "wikistalking" charge against User:Willmcw? · Katefan0(scribble) 21:02, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Katefan - I have not engaged in the practice of wikistalking and therefore do not stand to gain by obstructing the development of this article as he does. As the article's provisions do not apply to an activity I have engaged in no comparable conflict of interest exists. Rangerdude 21:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Aha. That's interesting logic. Don't you think that anybody involved in a current case of "wikistalking" who is tinkering with a proposed policy on the phenomenon could reasonably be seen to have a conflict of interest? I don't see how being the perceived aggrieved party in this case makes it less of a conflict of interest for you. Some might suggest that a person in your situation might have a keen interest in seeing this policy developed in such a way as to help their case. I am not suggesting any nefarious motives necessarily on your part, only point out how it could reasonably be suggested that you might have a conflict of interest too. If there are two parties involved in a case that bears on this under-development policy, it would seem that both could equally be seen to be having a potential conflict of interest. As such, I'd expect both to recuse themselves. · Katefan0(scribble) 21:12, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
By your rationale, Katefan, any editor who has ever been harmed by personal attacks, legal threats, vandalism, 3RR, or any number of other similar problems that many editors encounter regularly on Wikipedia is also conflicted from contributing to the development of any policy or guideline regarding the same offenses. But that would be an absurd stipulation that ultimately inhibits the development of those policies since every editor encounters one or another sometime on wikipedia. Those editors contributing constructively to the development of the said policy or guideline gain nothing more than the cumulative outcome of its application to wikipedia in general as a preventative measure against future disruption. Policies and guidelines do not apply ex post facto, Katefan, so no - my case against Willmcw's past stalking does not "gain" as you suggest, and indeed the object of a guideline proposal such as this is entirely for future occurrences that violate what are now two well established precedents by the Arbcom and Jimbo Wales. Those editors who have engaged in the discouraged activity in the past, however, do stand to lose from a restriction being placed against a favored inappropriate pattern of behavior in the future because it makes their future abuses subject to repercussions if they continue. Rangerdude 21:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure what purpose you think this pseudo-legalese serves; all I'm saying is that if you think one party to the dispute could have a conflict of interest, then logically the other party could as well. Nobody has ever "decided" this dispute in either editor's favor (your failed RFC notwithstanding), so to suggest that you should be able to develop the policy while Willmcw can't is proceeding from rather shaky ground. Either both of you can, or both of you can't, for the exact same reasons. Maybe we should try RFC and see what others think. · Katefan0(scribble) 01:48, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

If it will help even things out I will bring a charge of wikistalking against user:Rangerude. ;) -Willmcw 22:56, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately for your cause, Will, that would be a WP:POINT disruption on your part, having arisen out of stated objections to your conflicted interest in the efforts to develop this article. Rangerdude 23:42, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing your opinion. However the fact remains that we all have an equal right to edit this project page. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:18, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
You're free to edit, Will, but I'm just as free to point out that you are doing so with a substantial conflict of interest for having previously engaged in the same behavior that is the subject of this article and the Wales and Arbcom precedents. I'm also free to ask you to refrain from certain editing practices where that conflict of interest is apparant - particularly in avoiding procedural edits that modify the guideline proposal and its requests for input. Thanks. Rangerdude 00:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you are free to ask anything you like. However you are wrong that I have "engaged in the same behavior that is the subject of this article and the Wales and Arbcom precedents." Are you going to move straight from accusation to judgement to punishment, all on your own? Maybe this proposed guideline should have a section on false accusations. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:37, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The evidence has been documented for anybody who wishes to see, Will, but that is a matter for other places than this page. This discussion is about developing an article on the subject of wiki-stalking per two applicable precedents that deem it a bannable offense. Good faith efforts are being made here to define the article's subject and accomodate the Arbcom's recent definition of it. The fact that it casts disfavor upon a behavior in which you regularly participate is not a basis to disrupt its development. Rangerdude 01:42, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Since I don't engage in harassing behavior, you are incorrect. But I certainly have been accused of wikistalking, most prominently by User:Thodin. (He also accused half of the admins of being my sock puppets - does that mean I can't participate in discussions of sock puppet policies too?) If it is a matter for other pages, then why do you keep bringing it up here? It is funny that you are participating in writing the (proposed) guideline at the same time as you are building an attack page accusing me of violating it. Doesn't the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Is this when you are going to tell me to assume good faith? -Willmcw 22:15, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Guideline proposal discussion

Greetings - I added a proposal tag to this guideline for the purpose of aiding in its development and to gather community assistance and input on its contents. For wikipedians who are unfamiliar or unaware with this article or its subject matter, it was created recently for the purpose of reflecting two recent Wikipedia dispute resolution precedents in which the Arbcom and Jimbo Wales determined that certain harassing forms of wiki-stalking are bannable disruptions carrying substantial penalties for abuse. The aim of this article is accordingly to explain and clarify the concept of wiki-stalking in light of these decisions. New contributers should take a moment to review these precedents, which are described and linked to here. Suggestions pertaining to this article's proposal tag and recommended changes should be discussed in the area located below this header, as should questions or comments regarding clarification and formatting. Thank you for your input! Rangerdude 21:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:How to create policy. It takes more than adding a "proposed" tag. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:59, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, Will, the page you cite is just a guideline of methods on how to propose a policy. This is under consideration for a guideline, which is established by consensus, and is tagged accordingly as one of many ways to do so. The article itself, which "sprung up organically" from repeated precedents and developing consensus, is a sufficient and developing draft for the guideline and plenty of explanations for its need (e.g. the recent Arbcom decision) may be found here on the talk page. I've also added some links to it on the Village Pump for contributions by any interested editors. Rangerdude 23:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
I've added a section at the Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy) to explicitly notify the community of your proposal. The link you added did not mention that there was a guideline proposal, if I read it correctly. Oh, and Wikipedia:How to create policy also covers guidelines. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:29, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
It appears we were both working on the Village Pump posting at the same time. I put together a more detailed description of the issues & replaced your text with it. Since you are opposed to this article, Will, and are conflicted in it as the subject of pending wikistalking allegations against you, it is more appropriate that editors supporting the proposal make the applicable requests for input. Thanks. Rangerdude 23:39, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Also, per Wikipedia:How to create a policy "The following general principles were gathered together following the implementation of several policies across the encyclopedia. As you will see from the guidelines themselves, these points are guidelines, not rules. You know best what will work in your case." IOW, there's more than one way to do it and no strict procedure. Rangerdude 23:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinions, but I am neither "opposed to this article" nor "subject of pending wikistalking allegations". If you'd made the request when you said you had then I wouldn't have had to go add it myself. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:43, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Deny whatever you want, Will, but the fact that you've been specifically accused of harassment by wikistalking is recorded. Furthermore, if you'd wait more than two minutes between posting a demand and then taking it upon yourself to do it in absence of a response despite standing objections to your conflicted interest here, you might find other editors are much more accomodating to the initial demands than you think. Rangerdude 23:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Open to abuse

Having been seriously harrassed by a user who accused me of cyberstalking him because I used his contribs to check his edits given the extreme POV nature of his edits (eg sticking paternity rights all over the opening paragraph of abortion). I think the page in it's present form is wide open to abuse by people who have good reasons not to want their edits scrutinised, eg POV warriors etc. Not enough attention is given to this and I fear it will be another tool whereby bad users can harrass good ones, SqueakBox 23:47, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Squeakbox - Thanks for the comments. Do you have any suggestions on how to resolve this potential problem? I am of the belief that providing better clarification between legitimate forms of following other users and the type of harassment that has led to Wales' and the Arbcom bannings of abusive wikistalkers could actually reduce the number of bad editors who harass good ones over stalking allegations. The Arbcom's definition of wikistalking is IMO the best starting point for this and seems to be a neutral basis for a guideline definition. Rangerdude 23:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] User:KingOfAllPaperboys stalking of User:neutrality is another precedent

Is there any way of figuring out the status of that account BTW? It is under a permanent block without an arbcom decision?--Silverback 23:53, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

That looks more like a case of a block due to ordinary harrassment, rather then WikiStalking per se, AFAICT. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 23:02, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] highly subjective is highly problematic

Two cases, one by arbcom and one by Jimbo Wales. That should say something. The manhours of work this policy will generate will be massive. many editors tend to stick to a set of articles defined by their watchlist, which means overlap with other editors must occur. Then if a new article is linked to an existing article, many editors from the old article will move to the new one. Cries of "stalking" will be heard throughout the land. From a purely objective view, it will appear to be true. one editor started editing an article, and suddenly a number people he knows are editing it too. Sorting out the editor histories will be a pure effort of manual labor. There will be no other way to figure out any charge of "stalking". You can't just look at edit timestamps in contribution histories and compare, you've got to determine a pattern of edit-response, edit-response. You then have to determine that it isn't really bad edit-response, bad edit-response. And it comes down to a subjective interpretation. It will be extremely easy to accuse someone of wiki-stalking, the number of hours that people will have to put into determining it to be true or false will be huge. I keep hearing that arbcom is behind on its cases; this will make it worse. Even worse, the accusation is as difficult to disprove as it is to prove, which means that RFC's charging editors with "wiki-stalking" will be an excellent way to game the system, make an accusation that is impossible to disprove in any objective way, and get a bunch of allies to swamp the certification/endorsement section with signatures. Any policy that encourages cliquish behaviour and even rewards it is seriously asking for wikipedia trouble. Unless someone can convince me these issues are invalid, I strongly oppose this idea. FuelWagon 23:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

FW, I agree. It's a wholly impossible task. Beyond which, it would have to be extraordinarily carefully crafted in order to prevent people with a POV agenda or axe to grind to cry "wiki-stalking" when their edits get extra scrutiny from good faith editors, as SqueakBox mentioned above. · Katefan0(scribble) 01:53, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I suspect dropping the whole policy idea is the best way to deal with cyberstalking. The whole watchlist system and open contribs is to some people a licence for others others to stalk them, while for others these are a sign of our openness, and should not be abandoned in the name of cyberstalking. Did I mention the above mentioned stalking accuser in my example was using a sockpuppet, and therefore did not want any scrutiny of his acts, for this reason particularly. Do we want people to be able to hide what they are doing by demanding others don't get involved in the articles they are editing ("you can't edit this article, Englishperson, its about the States, and this is the proof that you are stalking me"). I fear this policy in anything like its current form will, if enacted, lead to disaster. There are other ways to stop negative cyberstalking than this one, hence the 2 successful arbcome cases already, which to me indicate we don't need a policy page on this. I can well imagine 9 out of 10 cases brought under this policy being false claims, esp as most genuine cyberstalkers break the rules in some other way, whereas the bad faith editor who has nothing to pin on a good faith editor will probably use this to latch onto, SqueakBox 02:17, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

SqueakBox - While your concerns with making a policy that is not prone to abuse are valid, simply omitting wikistalking from the realm of Wikipedia policies and guidelines is no longer a viable option now that both Jimbo Wales and the Arbcom have made very specific statements classifying it as a major breach of WP protocol and in the case of the Arbcom defining what it is. Both have effectively said of wikistalking "do this to another editor and you will be banned for a long time." It's great that the Arbcom and Wales have set these precedents, but they alone are not sufficient for the purpose of informing general wikipedia users of what's acceptable and what isn't. For starters, most wikipedians aren't even aware of these decisions and may not even know they're doing something wrong (or worse, some may know they are doing something wrong but continue to do it because they think they can get away with it since there's no written update in the rules to reflect these outcomes). Also simply saying that the arbitration process will take care of things is insufficient because arbitration is a long drawn out procedure that already has a huge backlog of cases. We can't honestly expect that every single case of genuine wikistalking that emerges should have to work its way through the arbitration process or personally get Jimbo Wales involved like these ones did. In that respect, having a guideline that editors could direct abusers to with a simple note to "knock it off" would probably avert 99 out of 100 wikistalking cases. Also please note that this is a proposed guideline that advises wikipedians how to behave and informs them of the consequences that have been imposed against abusive wikistalkers - not a policy that mandates that they conform to a spelled out code. It is also worded in such a way to explicitly exempt a wide range of properly following vandals and the sort from what constitutes a stalking violation, so it seems to me that concerns of such cases being labelled improper stalking are unfounded if you read the actual description of what is and isn't stalking. Rangerdude 03:30, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Given what you say I have started to edit the page, SqueakBox 04:37, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, if it were viable to ignore the issue I'd VFD this page right now, however since the arbcom and Jimbo have specifically mentioned stalking on the wiki and on the mailing list it is better to have a policy, albeit one that definately needs improvement then to not have one at all. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 04:41, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Just because arbcom and Jimbo mention wikistalking doesn't mean it needs to be codified into policy. WIkipedia is not following a "rule of law". It is a benevolent dictatorship at the head, and a rule of law for admins to enforce. If the admins can't handle something with objective policy enforcement, then the executive decisions and subjective interpretations should be kicked up to arbcom and/or jimbo. Making this a policy will make matters worse, not better. The fact that it will be almost impossible to clearly prove an accusation to be wrong should be red-flag enough. You accuse me of violating 3RR, I can easily prove it wrong. You accuse me of stalking, and show edits that happen on common pages, there is no straightforward way to prove it wasn't stalking, even if it really wasn't stalking. That is not good policy because it isn't straightforward and it doesn't have an objective application. Combine this with the user-enforced RFC system, and you've got problems. This will create more problems than it will solve. The number of false accusations, and the number of manhours needed to sort them all out, will far out-weigh the few real cases of wiki-stalking that can be handled by arbcom and Jimbo. Leave the executive decisions to them. FuelWagon 18:28, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
SqueakBox - looks good so far! I also added a couple sentences encouraging new users to politely contact other editors and try to figure out exactly why it is they're being followed before shouting at them with an allegation of "you're stalking me." I think anything that could be done to discourage or avert the frivolous stalking allegations while simultaneously making it clear that genuine ones carry a stiff penalty is an improvement to the article. Thanks again for the additions. Rangerdude 04:50, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
What stiff penalty? This is only proposed as a guideline. If penatlies are involved it should be cast as a policy. -Willmcw 07:18, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The penalties have been applied by Wales and the Arbcom, not something prescribed by the guideline itself. One purpose of the guideline is to inform users that Wales and the Arbcom have applied stiff penalties for wikistalking. Rangerdude 17:55, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
This seems to be the core definition: "an evidenced distinctive editing pattern in which one editor continuously follows another editor over an extended period of time and a wide variety of unrelated articles for the purpose of making excessive "followup" changes to the original editor's work"; so tag teams (or the gang-bang) remain legal. nobs 15:58, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Description of edits

Edits I just made and their purposes:

1. I added links to specific Wikipedia policies that may apply under the "good" stalking section (e.g. Vandalism, NPOV) and sentence encouraging editors to familiarize themselves with these if they are following for that reason. The purpose of this is to augment and clarify the previous sentence "it is a good idea to have a justification for such activity."

2. I removed the phrase "POV pushing" from "bad stalking" section and replaced it with a reference to violations of "Wikipedia policies and guidelines." This includes the NPOV policy, which I believe to be the object here. My concern is that while WP:NPOV is spelled out as a policy, the term "POV pushing" is not and is subjectively applied. It concerns me that the addition of this term may have been to create a loophole by which an otherwise discouraged type of stalking could continue so long as the stalker simply declares "But you're a POV pusher" in his/her own judgment. A loophole of this type is very dangerous because it provides an easy out for otherwise abusive stalkers while in reality doing very little to enforce the real POV policy at WP:NPOV.

I'd just point out that this entire proposed guideline provides an easy out for anybody wishing to advance an agenda of any type, including vandalism. · Katefan0(scribble) 18:41, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

3. I restored another editor's deletion of disruption and deconstruction of work for reasons other than WP policies and guidelines as potential types of wikistalking. The Wales precedent explicitly named disruption as a type of stalking. Deconstruction is self evident and applies to the type of stalking in which a stalker goes through and reverts or deletes his subject's edits for reasons other than those permitted by WP policies and guidelines. Rangerdude 18:17, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Deconstruction is a literary phrase. It means, essentially, a type of literary criticism. I don't see how you can include "deconstructing" (i.e. criticizing) someone's edits in a definition of "bad stalking." Anybody is free to express an opinion, as long as it isn't a personal attack. But this can't be written into a guideline in the fashion in which you suggest; it's essentially meaningless. · Katefan0(scribble) 18:39, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
And "deconstructionism" is also a philosophical phrase, but in its most common usage "deconstruct" is a verb meaning simply "To break down into components; dismantle" (American Heritage Dictionary). In its literary/philosophical use the term is not commonly employed as a verb but rather as a school of thought called deconstructionism. If you prefer though, I'll gladly change the wording here to a synonym such as "dismantle" or "delete." Rangerdude 18:49, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
It already says vandalize, which is arguably what deleting would be. I'd prefer it just be removed. · Katefan0(scribble) 18:54, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Not all deletion and not all disruption is vandalism though, and deconstructing a stalked subject's work is a particularly stalker-prone area. Editors who go around dismantling somebody else's work for non-policy related reasons may not necessarily be adding content that is vandalism to an article and in fact may not even get noticed, especially if they do so a few minutes or hours after the contribution was made. Since wikipedia is "written to the masses" so to speak, I don't believe the risk of a deconstructionism/Derrida confusion with the more common usage definition of the verb "to deconstruct" is a particularly high risk - especially given that there is no link to deconstructionism here. Rangerdude 19:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
If someone's edits aren't vandalism or otherwise a violation of policy, then there's no problem, right? So if they are vandalism or otherwise a violation of policy, then punitive actions should be able to be pursued as a violation of that policy. I just don't see how a case can be made for this "guideline;" all it's doing is creating something with which bad faith editors can bludgeon someone else. · Katefan0(scribble) 20:08, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Not necessarily. Vandalism is not the only type of disruption on Wikipedia. In fact the Wales precedent on stalking found that an editor's behavior was disruptive - even though that editor was only making minor changes such as wikilinking that would otherwise go unnoticed - because those changes were made specifically for the purpose of harassing another editor's work. Rangerdude 20:14, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
And those two isolated cases were dealt with appropriately, proving the current system works. · Katefan0(scribble) 20:16, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
That's a circular argument, comparable to citing the conviction of a single child molester as "proof" that child molestation is not a problem anymore. The standing precedent of Wales with The Recycling Troll obviously did not deter Skyring from stalking only a few months later. Instead we got a repeat of the same, and it required a drawn out arbitration process that occupied the time and attention of the already backlogged arbitration committee to effectively decide the exact same thing Jimbo Wales had already found to be a violation before. The entire point of a guideline is to inform Wikipedia editors that certain behavioral conventions exist on wikipedia, and that harassment of editors by stalking them is not tolerated here. This in itself is a deterrant to potential stalkers by way of providing information about its nature and consequences. IOW a stalker can no longer claim ignorance of two certain but relatively hard to locate precedents as a defense, and a potential stalking may be deterred from the offense if he or she is directed to the guideline in the early stages of the act before it becomes a problem requiring Arbcom intervention. Rangerdude 07:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Your arguments aren't parallel with mine. I never suggested that the current system means it's "not a problem anymore." (Personally I never felt it was a problem to begin with.) Regardless, I simply said that the current system is adequate for dealing with problems when they arise. There have only been two arbcom cases dealing with this pseudo-issue so far, and I don't see any great backlog of people crying for a new guideline preventing "wikistalking," so I'm inclined to think that what we have now isn't really broken enough to warrant this guideline, particularly when it's so problematic. · Katefan0(scribble) 19:53, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
When Wales or the Arbcom determine that "deconstructing" edits is against policy then we can add that here. -Willmcw 20:35, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Round two

  • These changes are done for the purposes of harassment, disruption, and dismantling legitimate contributions of the stalked editor for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines.

This text, particularly the part about "dismantling edits", goes way beyond the precedents set by the ArbCom and Wales. They both talk "wikistalking" as following an editor with an intent to harass, not with an intent to "dismantle the edits". There is nothing wrong with dismantling the edits of another editor. If the problem is not obeying other policies and guidelines then we don't need to repeat them here. Wikistalking, plain and simple, is following an in order to editor to harass them.

[edit] redundant policy

So, the proposal talks about the difference between good stalking and bad stalking. The proposal says it's ok to follow someone around and fix their bad edits. That's good stalking. This means that what's left is bad stalking. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean that the proposal is trying to make a policy that says it is against policy to follow someone around and break policy? The more I think about this, given the can of worms this "stalking" policy would open, I am more and more of the mind that existing policy should handle the problem editor. And problematic edge-cases should be left to arbcom and jimbo to make a command decision. FuelWagon 19:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Leaving aside the question of guidelines vs policy, there are many edits which, in isolation are unnecessary but either unobjectionable or only mildly objectionable, but if made repeatedly on articles that a particular User has edited become harrassment. The same goes for comments on Talk pages. If I see that a user has introduced a certain PoV, or a spelling or grammatical mistake, or a vanity link, or a style that goes against MoS, I might check her other edits to see if she's done it elsewhere; no problem. If someone irritates me and I go to every article that she's edited in order, for example, to change all her dashes to hyphens, or all her correctly formatted links to redirect-links, then there's a problem; doing that on one article would be an annoyance, but nothing to get steamed up about; doing so on all the articles edited by a certain person, and it becomes stalking. It may be that such behaviour wouldn't bother you, but it can be infuriating (for example, it means that when you check your watchlist, you find that every article on it has been edited. You can ignore them all, but then that means you no longer have a functional watchlist (and after all, you don't know what the edit was just before the stalker's...). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:56, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Frustration aside, functionally wouldn't that be handled under grievance policies dealing with vandalism? · Katefan0(scribble) 22:02, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Mel - the example you describe is very similar to what happened in the case with "The Recycling Troll" (TRT) that caused Jimbo Wales to ban him. Essentially TRT was going around to virtually all the articles that the other editor he was stalking had made additions to. When TRT went to each he would then rearrange dashes, periods, wikilinks and the sort as a "followup" edit, knowing it would force the editor he was stalking to keep checking his watchlist pages and cause general annoyance. TRT's actions were NOT considered vandalism because the changes he was making - e.g. adding wikilinks - didn't damage the content of most of the pages themselves but rather simply harassed the guy he was stalking. That's the basis that Jimbo Wales decided the case on - TRT's edits were not a bannable offense because they vandalized something, but rather because they were disruptive in that he made them to intentionally pester another user. Rangerdude 07:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
I hear you, Mel, but, if the articles are made better, then the editor who did it shouldn't be punished for "stalking". Really, the articles must get highest priority. And if the "stalker" goes around and makes the articles worse, then isn't that just more evidence to throw on an RFC? If someone is doing bad-faith edits, and if they're doing them all to one person just to harrass them, then it should quickly accumulate to enough bad-faith edits to get an RFC certified. And I get that this is something that an editor can "game", stalk someone and edit within policy in an attempt to annoy another editor, but I think creating a "no stalking" policy could be far more "gamable". I'm not saying that stalking couldn't be a problem, but I think a vague policy that is hard to define and hard to disprove just creates an easier way for a would-be stalker to harass an editor. Rather than stalk someone, accuse them of stalking you. Force them to spend hours and hours defending themselves in an RFC. All it takes it 2 to certify. Without the policy, a 'stalker' could harass someone if they can carefully follow them around and change their edits within wikipedia policy. That makes the stalker do a lot of work. With this policy, rather than stalk, all the guy has to do is accuse someoen of stalking, get one other editor/ally to certify, and the accused will spend hours defending themselves against the RFC trying to prove he isn't stalking and tryign to prove the other editor is filing a bad-faith RFC. It seems to me to make it harder for the bad-faith editor this proposal should NOT be adopted as a guideline or policy. That doesn't mean arbcom or Jimbo can't choose to give someone the boot for whatever reason they choose. But it keeps the subjective decisions out of the hands of bad-faith editors. FuelWagon 22:56, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
But there aren't only two possibilities: make better or make worse. There are countless edits that can be made that merely change things (differences in style, arrangement, etc.), without improving or detracting from what's there. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:38, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Mel, I know, but if it's a bad proposal with only two possibilities (make better/make worse), it will only be worse with all the real-world possibilities. It just makes it that much harder to disprove that you are innocent. That's the fundamental problem I see here. It makes it un-friggen-believably easy to accuse someone of stalking. I mean, I could just pick someone, start going to the articles that they edit, let them do what they do, and odds are that you'll find a point where it looks like there's a pattern where the other guy is responding to my edits. File an RFC, and it will be impossible to disprove in any easy way. That's what a lot of this policy crap comes down to: how much time will innocent poeple have to spend fighting a bad RFC? I think this will make it easy to file a bad-faith RFC, and it will make it damn difficult for an innocent editor to clearly disprove it without spending days combing through diffs and histories. FuelWagon 20:14, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I see your point. I think that checking the history of the articles would normally (at least) bring out what had really happened, though; one would just have to look to see which of the two had edited each article first. A pain, perhaps, but do-able.
As I'm being subjected to a minor bit of stalkking at the moment (by Coqsportif (talk · contribs)), I may be overly sympathetic to this proposal, I suppose. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
If I read the two precedents correctly, the key difference between bad stalking and good following is intent to harass. In both cases that intent was determined by first demonstrating a lack of good faith or useful contributions, and a presence of other trolling or abusive behavior. In neither case did they indicate that the simple behavior of following another's edits is, in and of itself, abusive without an overall intent to harass. -Willmcw 23:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Difference between Policies and Guidelines

Since there continues to be confusion over this matter with some editors, please see Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

  • A policy is something that "has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow."
  • A guideline is something that "illustrates standards or conduct that are generally accepted by consensus to apply in many cases."
  • Policies are not guidelines and guidelines are not policies. Policies are an official set of rules that editors are required to comply with. Guidelines are an officially recognized set of editing conventions that editors should be aware of and try to abide by at all possible times, but are not enforced upon editors as a rule would be.
  • This particular article is being proposed as a guideline, not a policy.

Thanks. Rangerdude 20:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Even as a guideline, I think this creates the same problems of making it easy for bad-faith editors to make false accusations and making it hard for innocent people to disprove them. FuelWagon 22:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Precedents

The "Precedents" section had a lot of POV interpretation so I have tried to make it NPOV by simply quoting the applicable decisions. The final guideline, if approved, probably should only footnote the precedents. Their place here is perhaps best considered as an aid to guideline-making. -Willmcw 23:03, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I reverted your edits to the "precedents" section as I see nothing even remotely approaching POV in it. If anything, your chopped up edits to it simply made it hard to read and reprinted large segments of text that are better represented through a simple link and excerpts. If you wish to contend that there is a POV in this section, please state the specific examples of what you object to before declaring without specification that it has a "POV" and rewriting the entire thing absent consensus to do so. Rangerdude 07:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
All we need are the precednets, not any editor's interpretation of them. I didn't re-write the interpration, I removed it and left the simple language of the ArbCom and Wales. -Willmcw 07:19, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
Wales and the Arbcom decisions are already extensively quoted and linked to in the text. The only "interpretation" given is to state the outcome of each case, e.g. that TRT was banned for good and Skyring was banned for a year. For the purposes of making a concise and readable guideline, that is more than sufficient. That's not to say that there isn't valuable knowledge to be gained in the Wales and Arbcom decisions - only that it isn't necessary to reprint those decisions in full in an article summarizing them when that article clearly links to where they may be found. Also, given that conflict of interest concerns have been raised about your contributions in this article, I will ask that you abstain from making major changes to the proposed text unilaterally as you have been doing recently. Deleting and completely rewriting large paragraphs of text and altering the meaning and application of existing provisions within the guideline proposal should be discussed here first, Will. In your recent edits you have not provided adequate descriptions of your rationale, evidence of your claims such as section POV, or sufficient discussion of the material where your changes are disputed on the talk page. This sort of behavior runs against Wikipedia's consensus-oriented and collaborative processes. Please take greater care to remedy these issues in your future edits. Rangerdude 07:33, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
The only reason to include the "precedents" is to indicate exactly what the ArbCom and Wales said. Your spin on the material by, for example, makes it seem that both cases were solely about wiki-stalking, which skews the interpretation. In reality, wikistalking was only one component of the cases. Let me ask you, why do you feel it necessary to provide an interpretation of their clear text? The precedents are what they wrote, not what you say about them. If you like, we can have a section labeled, "Rangerdude's interpretation of the precedents". But if the section is going to be called "precedents", then let's limit it to precedents. -Willmcw 08:04, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
Will - once again please describe the purposes of your major rewrite of the precedents section here before unilaterally doing so. Please do not revert to your own version when standing and stated objections to it exist and when explicit requests for you to discuss the issues surrounding it first have been posted. Doing so constitutes revert warring and is generally contrary to the principles of Wikipedia:Consensus. Rangerdude 07:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
I didn't re-write it, I removed the editor's opinions and stripped it down to the words of the sources. I've posted several explanations of that fact. As for revert warring, when are you going to explain the need for adding your own spin to what Wales has said? Are you smarter or more authoritative about what he thinks than he is? As I said befire you want to add a section clearly labelled as your opinion then I won't object. But please don't masquerade your own opinion as that of Wales or the ArbCom. Thanks, -Willmcw 08:04, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
You've given absolutely no examples or evidence of what you believe to be my "opinions" in the original version, Will, despite multiple requests to do so. You keep asserting that it contained POV and now call it "spin" yet you will not even be bothered to cite what you consider an example of either. You've also given no sufficient explanation of why a simple link to the rulings - which is more concise and makes for a better read - won't work. And most of all, you've conducted yourself in a manner that is highly uncooperative with the purpose of developing this guideline proposal - a proposal which you've indicated your opposition to, BTW, thus also raising the issue of whether it is even appropriate for you to be making major changes to it while the proposal remains. Please address the issues with your rewrite that I have stated below. Otherwise the POV tag remains and outside assistance will be requested regarding your revert warring and anti-consensus behavior. Rangerdude 08:16, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section POV tag on precedents

Will - Please address the following issues with your proposed rewrite.

  1. You have claimed that the existing section had "POV" problems yet you refuse to specify any. What are they?
  2. Why is it necessary to reprint entire decisions when a simple link suffices for purposes of being concise?
  3. Why is it innappropriate to state the outcomes of the two cases as they occurred, and how is doing so "interpretation" when the penalties are clearly stated?

Please address these concerns and please conduct yourself in a manner that is more conducive to Wikipedia's consensus policy. Rangerdude 07:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Please conduct yourself in a more civil manner too. That would really be appreciated.

As for the pov, there's a lot!

  • Abusive forms of stalking on Wikipedia have been deemed inherently disruptive in the past

"Deemed inherently abusive"? Cite please. They've never deemed any such thing. What they actually deemed is in the original text.

  • and have resulted in penalties against the editor engaged in stalking.

We need to mention that these editors were also engaged in other trolling or unhelpful behaviors.

  • Wiki-stalking has been the subject of at least two major dispute resolution proceedings, both of which have resulted in severe penalties being applied against the stalker.

"Against the stalker"? So now we're calling them stalkers? Whatever happened to "users" or "editors"?

  • The most notable case to date happened from February to March 2005.

Notable Aaccording to whom?

He was banned for a variety of offenses.

  • in which the former trailed the latter's edits on a daily basis, making subsequent and mostly minor changes to his work for the purpose of harassment. After a contentious arbitration dispute over the proper way to handle TRT's behavior, Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales intervened and permanently blocked TRT.[2] According to Wales' decision, "the Recycling Troll was making a pest of himself by harassing RickK."

Wales decision said much more than that. By cherry picking quotes a false impression of the case is being presented.

Wales himself says all of this in a much simpler, clearer, and more authoritative manner.

  • In a similar case,

The cases were not similar at all. Who says they were similar?

What's the idea of all the easter egg wikilinks? He was penalized fora variety of offenses.

  • According to the decision adopted unanimously by the participating arbitrators, Skyring is "banned from Wikipedia for one year for wiki-stalking and acting in bad faith towards other contributors."

If we quote them here, why don't we just quote them all the way along? These are "precedents", not "interpretations".

In sum, there are so many problems with the interpretation text that it's just easier, and better, to simply list the actual words of the authorities, rather than Rangerdude's spin on them. Also, I agree that once (if) this is adopted then we should reduce the precednets down to links. Until then it is helpful to see the actual texts in order for the Wikipedia community to evaluate the material for themselves. -Willmcw 08:20, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've been sufficiently civil with you to date, Will, and asked only that you abide by consensus principles when engaging in a major rewrite. Regarding your claimed POV issues:

1.You complain ""Deemed inherently abusive"? Cite please." My citation is Jimbo Wales' ruling, which stated of TRT's behavior of following RickK constituted "disrupting wikipedia to illustrate a point."[3]

2. You object to "and have resulted in penalties against the editor engaged in stalking." This is a simple matter of fact, Will, not a POV. The stalking behavior of both users were specifically identified in the bannings and was a primary offense in both. Skyring was banned "for wiki-stalking and acting in bad faith towards other contributors" and TRT was banned for "Going around pestering RickK pointlessly and writing inane messages to the mailing list."

3. You assert that quoting the passage from Wales on TRT's stalking is "cherry-picking" and assert that "Wales decision said much more than that." The remainder of Wales' decision pertained to the ongoing dispute about the David Gerard block and the arbitration. There is no need to quote all that. If you wish to add that Wales also cited TRT for "writing inane messages to the mailing list" in addition to stalking why not simply add that quote? I would not object, and doing so would not unnecessarily reprint an entire decision that is easily found by a link as you seek.

4. You complain of the case's described similarity "The cases were not similar at all. Who says they were similar?" Now you're just being difficult, Will. Both cases involved a user who was stalking another user's edits, got taken to dispute resolution for that stalking, and got banned for that stalking - that is the similarity.

5. You say of Skyring "What's the idea of all the easter egg wikilinks? He was penalized fora variety of offenses." Actually, no Will. He wasn't. The final decision of the Arbcom against Skyring stated only two reasons for his banning - one specific one (wikistalking) and one about his behavior in general (acting in bad faith). That is not a "variety of offenses." The bad faith stipulation was also quoted in full in the original version. Rangerdude 08:45, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I will only respond by saying that in each and every case the answer lies on the source material, not in our own interpretations. Add more source material and add a separate section of your own interpretations, but do not remove the actual text or the precedents, or include your own spins without labelling them as such. Regarding the numbered points:
1. Wales never wrote the phrase "inherently disruptive". Who came up with that text? Regardless, anything that is abusive is disruptive, that's a tautology.
2. No, I complained of calling editors "stalkers". Sorry if I was unclear.
3. The point of giving a fuller Wales quote is to show the totality of TRT's situation. He was not banned solely for following an editor, and his other behavior was crucial in determing his bad faith and intent to disrupt the encyclopedia.
4. Saying they are similar is "spoonfeeding". Just list the two precedents.
5. Easter egg links are non-obvious links. Rather than simply listing the name of the decision, and linking it directly, it's confusing and misleading to link it under a different name :wiki-stalking. More spin. Let's just lay out the simple facts of the two cases and let other editors make up their minds.
6. Why do you keep mentioning a consensus for retaining your version? What consensus? The only consensus seems to tend toward dropping the entire proposal.
7. Have a nice day. -Willmcw 09:06, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
Question: Being a newbie w/a dumbass question, am I reading this correctly [4], proposed finding states " While it is not possible to fully assess intent", yet action was taking against the editor. This policy proposal refers to "intent" several times, which may be a stricter standard than already in place. nobs 15:17, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, that's precisely the point. Edit logs are public record, so reading them and following users around can hardly be a problem. The issue is with systematically undoing that user's work, or insulting them, or being otherwise disruptive (which was the case with Recycling Troll and Skyring). Radiant_>|< 15:34, August 19, 2005 (UTC)



[edit] RfC on precedents

Question: Should the precedents section of this article summarize the two cases or reprint their rulings in full? Please post applicable comments here. Rangerdude 18:36, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

And if the material is not simply reprinted, how should it be summarized so that bias is not introduced? -Willmcw 19:20, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Has this actually been listed on RFC? Because I don't see it on the page anywhere. Nevermind. I see it on the surveys page. · Katefan0(scribble) 19:45, August 18, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Question to Willmcw re: previous opposition to a Wikipedia guideline on stalking

According to the following text by Willmcw posted on July 5th regarding the establishment of guideline provisions of the same purpose as this for wikistalking, he wrote:

A problem with this proposal is that it assumes bad faith on the part of the accused stalker. That seems entirely at odds with the overarching policy. It goes to the intent of the user, which is unknowable, rather than the value of the edits themselves. We already have a policy about personal attacks that covers incivility. If being simply being corrected is harassment then everybody on Wikipedia is continually harassed. If an editor is making substantive contributions in a civil manner it should not matter what articles are being edited. -Willmcw July 5, 2005 22:00 (UTC) [5]

As these sentiments convey a position of opposition to the establishment of an anti-stalking guideline to reflect the Wales and Arbcom decisions, as is the purpose here, and as Willmcw is actively editing this guideline proposal and, of recent, denying his opposition to it, he is requested to clarify the above comments from last month, indicate if he still believes in them and if so in what way, and state whether he supports or opposes the guideline proposal that is the object of this discussion. Thank you. Rangerdude 19:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

No, that text (why is it even here?) referred to your attempt to add wikistalking to an existing guideline, Wikipedia:assume good faith. Please stick to drafting and seeking approval for the current proposal, not a different proposal in a different place from a month ago. -Willmcw 20:08, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
Will - I'm asking you specific questions to clarify your position regarding this guideline proposal based on your previous expressed opposition to similar proposals. The statement from you that I quoted above expresses open hostility to the idea of having a wiki-stalking guideline provision. Since you have been engaged in heavy editing of this article after the proposal was anounced and since you opposed its provisions previously, it is in the interest of this discussion's participants to know whether you support or oppose the current item on the table. If you support it you should state so openly. If you oppose it then you should refrain from making major revisions to the proposal as they could be seen as attempts to weaken it, vandalize its text, and obstruct its consideration by the Wikipedia community. You're free to comment on this proposal, Will, and make good faith contributions to it but you are not free to disrupt or vandalize it with bad faith edits done for the purpose of disrupting its consideration. So I'll ask you once again, Will. (1) Do you support or oppose this proposal? (2) Do you or do you not still agree with the position you took on this subject in July as quoted above? (3) If you still agree please clarify in what way, and if you have changed your mind please indicate the reasons why. Thanks in advance for answering. Rangerdude 22:42, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Interesting questions, Rangerdude. It is curious why Willmcw refuses to answer. Personally--shifting gears, natch--I wonder if what I call "gadfly-ism" ought to somehow be incorporated into any definition of stalking. I wonder if Willmcw's repeated attempts to delete my own entry and then to keep inserting the strange POV note that my article against intellectual property "is copyrighted," as if he caught me in some inconsistency--would count as mini-examples of wiki-stalking. We probably need a wikistalking committee to decide such matters. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 05:05, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not a good guideline

After reading over the guideline and this talk page in full, I have come to the conclusion that this is not a good guideline. The points that have been made about how effetively impossible it is to disprove mean that, while the concept may be relevant as further evidence of disruptive behavior, it is not sufficient to be a stand alone, seperate guideline. If the page was rewritten to specify a clearer way it could be disproven, then it might be valuable, but, until and unless that happens, I do not consider it a good guideline. JesseW 07:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I concur. The ArbCom's definition of stalking is reasonable and rarely used. This guideline, however, seems to have the intent of discouraging people from reading other people's edit logs (which, after all, is what most accusations of 'stalking' are about). While following is not necessarily a nice thing to do, contrib logs are public for good reason. Radiant_>|< 13:44, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
I take offense at this, I've been avoiding get involved in this conflict but I take offense at you unsuing that I started this in bad faith as your last statement appears to say. I started this because there was no policy on stalking on wikipedia and it appeared that since stalking was becoming more and more of an issue it might be appropriate to have one, I was wrong it seems but this has never been meant to be in bad faith and if you disagree with the policy nothing is stopping you from putting this up on VFD. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 18:52, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have not used the words "bad faith" and indeed am not assuming any (had I considered this proposal bad faith I would have nominated it for deletion). Nor was I referring to your initial version, but to the version as it stands now. The suggestion that people shouldn't be following other people's contributions is what I'd call misguided. What I think Wikipedia needs is a short essay that defines stalking, not a policy or guideline aimed at preventing it. Radiant_>|< 08:06, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll time?

I believe it's time to put an end to this discussion, as it's not going anywhere. Like the earlier "Wikiblower protection" and "Forbid infobox standardization" proposals, it is something that is vehemently pushed by one editor, and perceived as a patently bad idea by just about everybody else. But since polls are evil, let's make it a bit simpler. Within the next couple of days, I'd like to see three signatures here of users who think this proposal is, in principle and possibly with objections to the current wording, a good idea. If such people cannot be found, this proposal will be summarily rejected. Radiant_>|< 14:01, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Hoooooom, why so hasty, little one? We can leave this page to be discussed in the entmoot for a long,long time, and perhaps something shall yet come of it, who knows? Kim Bruning 15:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  • W00t! Trees are too sl0w to ke3p up with cyb3ring. Because everybody discussing this proposal seems to think it's a silly idea? Because eventualism doesn't work for policy proposals? Because slapping {{rejected}} on it will cause people to stop worrying while still allowing for debate? Because sentences should start with because? Because if not even three people can be found that think this is a good idea, then however will the consensus accept it? Radiant_>|< 15:49, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
Radiant - I strongly disagree. The proposal tag has been up for less than a week and new editors are making contributions to the article on an almost daily basis. Far from going stale, there have already been good edits to it made today. The request for input was posted to facilitate the development and improvement of the article with community input, not to slap a poll on it three days later and round up a band of trolls, usual suspects, and habitual naysayers to kill the thing before most people have even had a chance to review it. Give it time and exercise a little patience. Rangerdude 18:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I'd say that this is a good (or at least decent) idea, since wikistalking is now a bannable offense. I can't speak to the current version of this being a good representation of that idea, though. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 16:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Okay, that's three people who think this page may be useful. That's all I wanted to know. Radiant_>|< 07:44, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dangerous trollss

I would like to know why Rangerdude just wrote asking the sockpuppet and dangerous troll Agwiii (talk · contribs) to contribute. Agwiii is a sockpuppet of RexJudicata (talk · contribs) who hjas been permanently blocked for making death thjreats. By inviting bad faith users to participate in this page we will end with a bad faith page, SqueakBox 19:33, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

He says he didn't know anything about Agwiii, and I have asked him to remove it, SqueakBox 19:42, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

SqueakBox - I just removed the note to Agwiii. It was a generic message inviting editor input on this page. His page appeared on the hits when I searched for editors and I did not read into his background before adding the note. Rangerdude 19:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Cheers, much appreciated, SqueakBox 19:49, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The parts of this guideline that are not redundant are harmful

Following someone's edits and making useful changes to every article they changed is a good thing. I like the fact that I can create seeds, come back after a while and read new and interesting things about subjects I care about. There are already guidelines that say not to making changes that are bad changes or pointless changes. Further, one person's "bad" change is another person's "good" change and throwing around yet another wiki-personal-insult (stalking) doesn't help sort out which POV was most NPOV. (you're stalkimg me. YOU'RE INSULTING ME. stop yelling - that breaks the civility rule. stop wiki-lawyering. that's just your POV.) WAS 4.250 19:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with this. I don't think the reason why someone makes edits should matter; it's only the individual content of the edits themselves that's important. If someone follows me to every single page I touch on Wikipedia, ruthlessly editing my every word as their brutal revenge for murdering their father or whatever, I would see them as doing me a favor as long as their edits are good--and if the edits aren't good (in other words, if they're disruptive) then they're already blockworthy under existing Wikipedia policy. There is no need to make a specific policy to fight stalking, because the only time when stalking is a problem is when it violates policies that we already have in place. Aquillion 04:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A poor direction for policy

Reviewing another editor's contributions only becomes problematic when the ensuing changes are in and of themselves problematic. The examples cited above all involve other violations of Wikiquitte, notably WP:NPA and WP:FAITH. I believe we should enforce those policies rather than creating this one.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with reviewing another editor's contributions and correcting them when a pattern of errors exists. This is done all the time by people who find that a particular contributor:

  • is making edits that are biased rather than NPOV
  • has a history of making valid edits that lack proper wikimarkup
  • often makes mechanical errors (spelling, grammar)
  • is engaging in link spam

Some problems such as link spam and bias may seem innocuous when viewed one article at a time but present a much different picture when viewed in the context of an editor's overall contributions.

Having a policy against reviewing another contributor's edits would be a gift to trolls and POV pushers, who would happily take it as a means to amplify their usual chorus of compliants against The WikiManagement. By means of a concrete example, would draw everyone's attention to the matter of User:Wikinerd's contributions and the careful work User:Texture and I have done to review them and remove link spam. Wikinerd, upset by our work, responded with the usual barrage of withering criticism: an RFC, a mailing list post, a request for mediation, &c &c &c. I am absolutely sure that User:Texture and I would have been accused of Wikistalking if we had a policy forbidding it.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

UninvitedCo - please take a moment to review the actual text of the proposal. You will find that virtually all of the problems you describe above are accounted for in the proposal, which distinguishes between valid following as you describe and the type intended strictly for harassment - which is bannable per the Arbcom. Rangerdude 19:55, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I would not presume to comment upon the merits of a proposal I have not read.  :-) Let's consider this phrase: "Following editors who don't have track records of vandalism or other editing in violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines could be viewed as an inappropriate or disproportionate response to their actions." It's overbroad. I follow around editors who make well-meaning, good faith edits. I do this all the time and encourage others to do the same. To draw a corollary from WAS 4.250's comment above, those parts of the policy that are not harmful are redundant. I don't believe that there is any activity that we actually wish to curtail that is covered by this policy but not covered elsewhere. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the sentence you quote, are you following editors for purposes of correcting problems with Wikipedia policies and guidelines? If so then that would be covered. Spelling errors, grammar, vandalism and most of the examples you give are parts of Wikipedia policies and guidelines and as a result would fall under this stipulation. If they are not though, then some of what you do might constitute harassment in the eyes of the Arbcom - especially if it is unwanted and hostile. Also - stating "but I do it all the time" is not a defense against inappropriate stalking any more than it's a defense for personal attacks or bank robbery for that matter. If you object to that sentence though let's consider examining its wording or coming up with an alternative. The purpose of this proposal is to update Wikipedia guidelines to reflect two recent cases where the Arbcom and Jimbo Wales both deemed that wikistalking was a major bannable offense. If this were being proposed out of the blue and without those precedents some of what you say about this proposal's need would be true. But now that the Arbcom and Wales have both weighed in and even given a definition of what wikistaling is and is not it has become increasingly difficult to simply ignore it and simply refer everything to the already backlogged Arbcom. The purpose of having a guideline noting what is and is not "wikistalking" is to sort out the frivolous cases from the genuine abuse. Right now absent a guideline, frivolous allegations of wikistalking are made unimpeded while the genuine ones have to through a lengthy arbitration process that's having to be repeated each time a case arises. Rangerdude 20:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I read through the TRT and Skyring cases you mention. In Jimbo's comments on TRT, he goes to some length to make it clear that it is the totality of TRT's behavior and TRT's lack of constructive edits that led to the block. In the case of Skyring, there was clearly problematic behavior other than "Wikistalking," and the very brief decision the arbitrators approved when the case was reopened should not be taken as an attempt to make policy. These are textbook examples of good cases that set bad precedent, because absent the aggravating factors, neither of these users would have been disciplined for Wikistalking alone. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:02, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Uninvited Co - The Arbcom decision in the Skyring case was explicit that wikistalking was the main charge, entitling their remedy "Skyring banned for wikistalking." The statement of that remedy similarly read "User:Skyring is banned from Wikipedia for one year for wiki-stalking and acting in bad faith towards other contributors, as demonstrated in evidence. Any attempt at sockpuppetry shall, as per policy, result in this ban being reset." This final ruling stated no other charges. [6] Wales' case is similarly explicit that it was proper to ban TRT because he was "pestering RickK pointlessly and writing inane messages to the mailing list" and "was making a pest of himself by harassing RickK and hammering the mailing list." These statements both refer to the wikistalking harassment as one of the two charges against TRT, and Wales details no other besides them. To suggest that either of these cases were not directly about wikistalking is misleading, and in both the alleged other "aggravating factors" were secondary at best - particularly the Arbcom's which stated wikistalking by name in its final ruling as the main reason for the ban. Far from being good cases setting bad precedents, the two are actually reaffirmations of the same thing: wikistalking conducted for the purpose of harassment is a bannable offense. Rangerdude 21:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to see this was brought up. I was about to talk about it. In "Following editors who don't have track records of vandalism or other editing in violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines could be viewed as an inappropriate or disproportionate response to their actions." - it talks about "track records of vandalism..." - this doesn't even attempt to handle rotating IPs or first edits. The two situations mostly likely for a spammer, vandal, or uninitiated user. (The last is wiggle room for Wikinerd since I don't want to label the user.) How would these be handled? - Tεxτurε 22:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] rejected

Just saw this edit. Just wondering if there's any guideline for when a proposed policy can be marked "rejected". The support for this proposal appears to be limited to the people who proposed it. Everyone else seems to be against it in one form or another. Maybe I'm reading the comments wrong. FuelWagon 22:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

From [[Category:Wikipedia rejected policies]]:
Policy is adopted by consensus decision making. Although the threshold of acceptance is informal, usually "unanimity minus two" applies in practice, meaning, any pair of people who can hold up a substantial dialogue on the problems of the proposal can block it, with only nominal or tacit support, i.e. the comments are allowed to stand rather than be reverted or challenged, or, an uninvolved third person says "yes I agree", and that is enough to block the proposal.
In some cases, users may follow a proposal that does not have consensus support, and may even cite it. It has been the case, for instance, that the arbitration committee has made rulings that invoke policies that have not passed, as in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Irismeister 2. Opinions can of course, always be cited, but such citation does not make those opinions policy, anymore than, e.g., asserting that Kings rule by Divine right makes it so.
It is worth noting that many Wikipedia users, including Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee, have asserted that there are binding rules that are not elements of policy, but rather of tradition or of common sense. That is to say, all that is not expressly prohibited is not necessarily condoned.

· Katefan0(scribble) 22:29, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

The way I read this, the policy is defeated. There are more than three people here who dissent. · Katefan0(scribble) 22:37, August 19, 2005 (UTC)


I believe your reading is mistaken, Katefan. According to what you quote the informal 3 people provision refers to a situation where the opponents "hold up a substantial dialogue on the problems of the proposal." While several editors have voiced disagreement with the existing text over issues within it, none so far has held up the dialogue and in fact many of the opponents of its current or earlier forms have actively made edits to it in the last 2 or 3 days to bring it closer to something they would accept. Lack of consensus refers to an impass, not a work in progress where voiced problems still remain but are being addressed. Rangerdude 22:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
According to the provisions of a proposed tag, it is appropriate for articles "still...in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption." Development and discussion are still ongoing on this article and edits to its content have been made as recently as this morning. The personal opposition of the proposal by Uninvited Company is insufficient to declare the article "rejected" when these activities are still occuring, and in absence of polling and wider community consideration. This proposal has been up for only a few days now. Attempts by Uninvited Company to add the rejected tag appear to be for the purpose of promoting his POV against this proposal and accomplish nothing for the process of taking Wikipedia community input. Rangerdude 22:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I would argue that we are at an impasse. The only person really modifying the proposal at this point is you. That other people are modifying your edits speaks to how they feel about your additions; they are by and large not adding substantive information themselves. · Katefan0(scribble) 00:59, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Clearly Uninvited has people in agreement with him/her, SqueakBox 22:44, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

That may be so, but rejection according to the passage quoted by Katefan occurs at an impass from making any further progress or reaching any further agreement - not simply when editors voice complaints. This proposal was edited as early as this morning demonstrating that this impass has not been reached. Rangerdude 22:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for amendments to existing text

This request is for editors who object to particular parts of this article as it is currently phrased. Please state the sentence or sentences you disagree with in numbered quotations as well as a summary of reasons and what you changes you would prefer for purposes of discussion. I believe that doing so would provide greater clarity as to what further changes, if any, can and should be made to bring this proposal closer to a level of obtaining consensus. Editors are also asked to place their numbered sentences in a subheader (three equal signs) and to sign their comments with 4 tildes. Thanks. Rangerdude 22:55, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reject or Support

This poll shall last for a week (i.e. until 23:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)).

[edit] Who rejects this proposal?

  1. Aquillion 05:49, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  2. reject. Too easy to accuse and extremely difficult for an innocent editor to prove their innocence. FuelWagon 15:02, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  3. Reject' As FuelWagon. Also impossible to enforce. · Katefan0(scribble) 15:17, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
  4. Reject. In theory, a stalking proposal could work, but hammering out the exact definition and enforcement is nearly impossible. Carbonite | Talk 15:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  5. SqueakBox 21:30, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
  6. Pot. Kettle. Black. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:39, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Too hard to distinguish "stalking" from legitimately watching dodgy editors or coincidentally working on same articles, both of which would lead to the situation FW suggests. Clair de Lune 02:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  8. I would reject this; it seems more likely to be invoked by the evil people in order to prevent others from cleaning up their filth. It is good that bad people are stalked. -Ashley Pomeroy 18:17, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  9. Reject. Contrib logs are public for good reason. I don't have anything to hide in mine, and neither should you in yours. Those rare cases where people stalk to make a point or to be disruptive are already caught under WP:POINT and WP:VAND. Radiant_>|< 07:48, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
  10. Reject. No more ammo for POV pushers who rightly should, and are followed around by dilligent people, who are promptly accused of "stalking." Hipocrite 18:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  11. Reject - Tεxτurε 19:27, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  12. Reject as too likely to be misused and fundamentally impossible to disprove. JesseW 23:59, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who supports this proposal?

  1. Rangerdude 23:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  2. Strong support. I was wikistalked in my first few days as new member. My stalker followed me to 5 sites to revert everything I did. This policy is long overdue.--Agiantman 21:14, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  3. --66.176.137.204 23:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC) There needs to be more protection on wikipedia for people being harrassed by gangs of bullies. I am new and I have seen very little of wikipedia, but what I have seen so far is very ugly.
  4. Strong support. Having had one (now banned) user focus 100 of 102 continuous edits against me, many of them abusive, because I was one of the ones who refused to allow him to POV a page, and then see him try to wikistalk someone else who complained about his wikistalking of me, and had emails from people saying they were afraid to comment about him openly on Wikipedia in case he wikistalked them too, I know from personal experience that this is a real problem. That user already managed to drive one user away from Wikipedia with his antics. (He also personally abused and slandered people he clashed with on Wikipedia on an off-Wikipedia site.) We need to have a firm policy to stamp out this harrassment. It has the potential ability to do enormous damage to the project if such individuals are allowed to wikistalk people, or where even the threat to do it (and that user openly threatened to do it) can silence other users through fear of becoming their victims. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 23:54, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
    "Having had one (now banned) user focus 100 of 102 continuous edits against me, many of them abusive...". If your cause was a good one, then the fact that the other editor was allowed to continue making malicious edits for so long - assuming that they were malicious - speaks more of the ponderousness of Wikipedia's disciplinary system than stalking. The other party should have been banned sooner. -Ashley Pomeroy 18:27, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Other users afterwards were apologetic about not raising the issue sooner. But then the first user to draw attention to what was going on was then themselves stalked (until he got tired of trying to stalk two people simultaneously) and harrassed, with abuse about her being written on an off-wiki site. The whole issue highlights how the ArbComm have too much on their plate. The user was so difficult to deal with on other issues that others did their best to avoid him like the plague. It took the intervention of Jimbo, who imposed a temporary ban to give the ArbComm to review the case (they had just finished one case against him!) and ban him for a year. BTW since my first vote a series of sockpuppets suspiciously like Skyring appeared and again targeted pages I had edited (and no other pages). (And while I was typing this the asshole appeared again under an IP!!!) FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 23:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Further up to date evidence: User:Skyring has used at least 6 sockpuppets on this page. Most were caught and reverted instantly so their contributions aren't on the page but User:Halfinch and User:Lackaday-oh and User:FamousRay are strongly suspected of being his too. So far tonight I came across 14 of his sockpuppets, all targeting stuff I had edited, adding in claims about me here and elsewhere, and other such antics. A whole series of users have had to devote hours dealing with the asshole!!! FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 02:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  1. Weakly support, I weakly support only because this hasn't had enough time to mature yet and I think that it should at least be given a little time to see if this can be made into a viable policy or not. Even though I started this page not realizing that it would cause problems I still have slight hope that this can be made into a viable guideline. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 02:50, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support. There has been a great deal of obfuscation in the discussion here. It is clear that there is potential for abuse, but it is also clear that WikiStalking is a symptom of a larger disease (which may be incurable, but at least we might mitigate the symptoms): organized and pervasive POV warfare, perpetrated by the aforementioned "gangs of bullies." These gangs are usually quite adept at navigating Wikipedia's complex system of rules and administration, so that the discussion and/or enforcement of any procedure may quickly degenerate into a nightmare of Byzantine intriguing. I think that one metric for differentiating between "good" and "bad" WikiStalking is that the "bad" WikiStalker often blunders into situations where he winds up editing incompetently, because his animus leads him into articles where he is out of his element (see this post and ensuing discussion involving Willmcw. It was the contention of Willmcw and his POV posse that any edit I made was ipso facto "LaRouchean," so Will took it upon himself to remove references to Agape and Friedrich Schiller from the article on Classical music.) Hopefully, in such instances, there will be plenty of experienced editors watching such an article, but you can't count on that being the case. I think that it were important for Wikipedia to, at the very least, take a strong position against WikiStalking, even if the mechanisms to enforce a prohibition, like all the other administrative machinery at Wikipedia, may be highly imperfect, and subject to abuse. --HK 06:53, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternatives

TEMPLATE FOR ALTERNATIVE PROPOSALS

[edit] Proposal by Username

{Add sentences, summary, and/or links to revisions here}

(sign with ~~~~)

[edit] Proposal by Rangerdude

{Add sentences, summary, and/or links to revisions here}

  1. Proposed revision to start anew. See Wikipedia_talk:Stalking/Revision1

Description - The revision at the above link is a "bare-bones" version of a proposed wikistalking guideline. It contains only the official definition of wikistalking agreed to by the Arbcom and links to the two wikistalking precedents. I posted this to form the basis of building the guideline from the grounds up in light of stated objections to the current text and interpretations within it on this proposal. Comments and additions to it are welcome by clicking the above link, or may be discussed here. Rangerdude 23:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. Tεxτurε 19:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC) - The bare bones has my support.

[edit] Precedents, again

Why do we keep fighitng over the precedents? I thought that several editors had talk about and edited them on the main page. Why does a proposed draft start by overriding that consensus? I don't really see the purpose of a second draft anyway. Let's work on the one, main draft. -Willmcw 00:21, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I proposed that revision with the explicit purpose of starting from the ground up with just the link listings - not cut and pasting the same material already found here. If you like your version of the precedents, advocate it here or create your own revision instead of disrupting the one I'm working on. Rangerdude 01:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realize it was your private draft.( "Revert. If you want to propose a revision w/ that version of precedents, make your own."). When, if ever, it becomes a public draft let me know. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:17, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
It is posted to the public for purposes of community comment and suggestions, Will. It is not posted for you to cut and paste your revisions here into it or to play disruptive revert games over. As noted, you are free to propose your own draft should you desire. Rangerdude 01:20, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Are Willmcw's reverts inherently different than yours? Because I believe I've seen quite a few reverts coming from your corner today. · Katefan0(scribble) 01:49, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
Apparently I'm not "free" to edit the main draft eith, unless my edits are deemed "friendly" by Rangerdude. -Willmcw 01:53, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think it is important, indeed vital, that everyone is free to edit this public draft. If anyone wants to work on a private, second, possible alternative draft they can do so within therir user space, SqueakBox 01:57, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

There are several editors with whom I share interests in various topic areas and whose work I am generally interested in a postive way (editors who focus on Canadian politics for instance). I will, from time to time when looking for things to contribute to, check out their user contributions and edit some of the articles they've been editing (or particularly new articles they've begun). I rarely reverse their edits, usuaally I'll do simple copy editing or make the odd correction if I notice an error in factt, and generally I will add information to the articles if I can (most often I just read the article for my own interest). No one has ever complained about my doing this, indeed, from time to time one of these editors will put a message on my talk page asking me to review an article they've written and, from time to time I'll do the same for them. My point is we have to be careful when talking about "Stalking" to make the point that checking "User contributions" can be a tool in collaborative editing amongst those editors who have similar interests - of course the crucial matter is whether or not one is acting in "good faith". Homey 00:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "solely for the purpose of harassment"

Personally I like the general idea of rules aimed at limiting "stalking" type behavior. But it's difficult to define. In this case, I think the definition is actually too restrictive: "The term wikistalking or wiki-stalking describes a pattern of editing behavior in which one contributor intentionally follows and makes changes to the edits of another solely for the purpose of harassment or disruption."

The term "solely" is too limiting. Statutes rarely use such language when attempting to regulate conduct. Rather, it should be sufficient to classify an action as stalking if "one of" its "primary" purposes is harassment or disruption; or, perhaps, even if this is one of its "significant" purposes.


[edit] How can I help?

I was wikistalked and harrassed when I first joined wiki slightly more than one month ago. I am still being harrassed by bullies who are trying push their POV. It is important that there be protection from wikistalking, esp. for new users. I fully support the effort here. If there are any votes or if my assistance is needed, please let me know. Thanks!--Agiantman 05:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you can help. Please describe your wikistalking incident. Perhaps your experience can help inform the guideline-making process. Thanks, -Willmcw 05:14, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
Agiantman - thank you for lending your support. The best way to assist is to recommend specific changes and additions that you believe would make this a better guideline. In the event that the persons harassing you engage in the same here for your contributions, do not let it deter you. It is only expected that an editor who spends his day wikistalking and harassing other people would find a proposal of this sort very objectionable even though the Arbcom and wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales have made it clear that harassment by wikistalking is not to be tolerated. More responsible editors who are both in favor of and opposed to certain provisions in this article have generally concentrated their efforts on resolving differences and proposing changes to the text to better it. If you have any ideas in this regard, or wish to lend favor to a proposal of another, your input would be welcome so please do so. Thanks. Rangerdude 05:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Good idea, bad implementation

  • Oppose -- Instruction creep. That said, bad editors, editing badly in bad faith, should be dealt with harshly. Bullies should be beaten.

(Why is it that I see things differently from so many others? The Republicrats and the Demicans slug it out on teevee sponsored by the DAR and I just fall asleep. I just came back from BAR Camp and I confess, I didn't see the point of 3/4 of the conversation. Maybe I'm just getting old.)

This proposal is focusing on the wrong thing and trying to make an impossible distinction.

I don't care who reads my edits; and if those edits suck, I don't care if the same editor follows me all over the project fixing my boo-boos. At some point, I expect, he'll get tired of cleaning up my mess and contact me directly on my talk page. If not, then may all the gods bless him. I'll just keep on editing sloppy and he can just be the man with the broom behind the elephant.

On the other hand, if my edits don't suck, then I really get hot when other editors screw my work up. If I see it happen, I'm quite likely to notice the offender on his talk page. If he won't stop, I'll drag his butt to whatever forum I think will give me satisfaction soonest.

It's the gray area that gives trouble. I have my opinion, you have yours. Fine. Maybe we work it out on the side, maybe we work it out in talk, maybe we have a little revert war and both go on a few days' block. I think every member should get blocked once in awhile. It's good for the soul, encourages humility, gives you a chance to get up from the screen and shoot some hoops, and shows you're not afraid to stand up for your principles and get your knuckles dusty. Of course, a little goes a long way.

"Stalking", as a pattern of behavior, is the same in wikispace and meatspace; it is always victimization of the weak by the weak. The stalkee is weak, because a strong person cannot be stalked; he knows the ropes and has the means to fight back -- stalking implies the stalkee is running away. The stalker is weak, because a strong person will opt for more effective and honest methods of discrediting or abusing an enemy.

Thus, any discussion always implies a third party, stronger than those involved, who is to step in and halt the behavior. Well, if I'm called upon to be the third party, I really don't need to be given a special definition of stalking, or try to figure out whether the questionable behavior fits yet another technical box. I just ask: Is the action in policy? If the accused "stalker" is making good edits politely, then that's fine. If not, then I don't need to label that party; his edits (or edit summaries) suck, that's all; and I'll revert them. Soon, the stalker will be the stalkee; and perhaps yet another party will wonder if my edits are any good. And that's the way it should be.

We should make a special effort to welcome newcomers, and not with a big ugly boilerplate box. We should watch for new, well-intentioned editors, assume good faith, and help them adjust to the way we do things around here. When some questionable member starts following the noo guy around with stupid reverts or other pettifogging edits, we should not only revert those specifically to the noo guy; we should take the time to explain, personally, to the noo guy directly; that nothing is ever really lost around here, that we're watching the watcher; and that all will be well.

I don't disagree that stalking is a problem -- it certainly is! But all stalking is also another kind of problem -- bad editing, personal attack, or both. It's much easier to define and identify these actions, and censure them, than to define and identify yet another boundary of acceptable action.

So: First, identify bad action; then take counteraction. If somewhere along the way you want to guess at the actor's intent and label it, fine -- but don't start on those shifting sands, and don't waste too much effort in such amusement.

And don't let anyone bully you! — Xiong熊talk* 10:38, 2005 August 20 (UTC)

[edit] An opinion

I think the section that prohibits "disruption, and dismantling legitimate contributions of the stalked editor for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines" absolutely needs to be in there. I am reverting it.--24.55.228.12 11:16, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Why do you think that? Why should we ban "dismantling" edits in this guideline? Thanks, -~~
Don't mistate the prohibition by reducing it to just two words. The section prohibits "disruption, and dismantling legitimate contributions of the stalked editor for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines." If an editor is being stalked and his legitimate edits are being dismantled for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines, why should that be tolerated?--Agiantman 14:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
When you revert, please make sure that you're not reverting more than you intended to. If you wish to add (or reinsert) something to the proposal, feel free to do so, but try not to simply revert. Thanks! Carbonite | Talk 14:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
If an editor is stalking then that is the offense, not stalking and dismantling edits. Stalking is defined by the Arbcom as "following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor." They don't mention anything about "disruption, and dismantling legitimate contributions of the stalked editor for reasons that are not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines." What does that add to the guideline and why do we need it? And what does it mean to dismantle an edit? -Willmcw 14:53, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
More importantly, what does it mean by "reasons not in compliance with Wikipedia policies or guidelines?" Last time I checked, Be Bold was a policy; that means you don't need to go through seventeen pages of other policies just to edit an article. If there's a dispute, users can hammer it out on their own; but we always want to encourage people to make that first edit when they see what they think is a problem. Wikipedia is a collaboration, and the more people each article gets attention from, the better. Aquillion 21:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Following vs. Stalking

I added a real life example for following vs. stalking. I'm really depressed about a something personal and I don't know if it came out right. Can someone provide another example? I won't edit again for a while ChoobWriter 17:17, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Your real life example felt like it was straying from the point too much. given the controversial nature of the page it seems especially important not to do so, SqueakBox 17:22, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikistalking psychology

The case of Skyring and jtdirl is interesting. Skyring has explained his behaviour several times, most recently here. A look through his contributions at the relevant times bears this out. He made a large number of good edits on various articles (many sourced from Recent Changes) before checking on user:jtdirl, whose raw material is error-ridden and often overly prolix, notably in his trying to cram too many concepts into a single sentence. All edits on jtdirl's material were good ones, and many corrected some major errors.

However, there is something in jtdirl's psychology that makes it hard, if not impossible, for him to admit to any errors. His typical response to correction is reversion followed by disputation and he exists at the centre of an ongoing series of lame edit wars. He is reminiscent of the Soup Nazi except that his soup isn't that good; most of his edits are based around templates or repeating the same information across various articles and then linking it. He could best be described as anal-obsessive with a touch of paranoia. Wiki-follow him for a while and you'll see this in operation. --Halfinch 19:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Now let me see, who could this Halfinch be? Deb 21:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

He is now regarded as a sockpuppet of banned Wikistalker User:Skyring. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 20:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess people will have to trace Halfinch and if it turns out to be Skyring, under the ArbComm ruling, restart his one year ban from 20 August 2005. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 22:59, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. That'll stop him. You must have been really upset when he changed your "President of the United Kingdom" to "President of the United States", eh? And when he kept on fixing glaring errors it must have really lit your fuse. FamousRay 00:24, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh lookie. Another Skyring sockpuppet above. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 20:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
It is ironic, or at least curious, that so many sock puppets new users are showing up to work on this obscure proposal. All input is welcome, but it makes the determination of consensus difficult. -Willmcw 00:41, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed the point. Imagine yourself stumbling across someone who criticised every edit you made and abused you savagely. Out of curiosity, you turn to look at their contributions. You find this, an article that doesn't represent the highest standards of Wikipedia, to be polite. Leaving all else aside, what editor wouldn't start correcting the obvious mistakes? That red-linked President of the United Kingdom kind of jumps right out at you, doesn't it?
This isn't wikistalking, it's civic duty. Look at those infamous "100 edits" that Jim Duffy keeps on talking about. Go on, have a look at them. They are all good edits.
Imagine your feelings if these edits were seized upon, used against you, used to suspend you for a year, used as the basis for a continued tirade of verbal attacks, and used as the basis for policy, all backed up from the very highest levels. What would you think about Wikipedia, its leadership and its standards? Lackaday-oh 03:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
and another. This page seems to attract Skyring sockpuppets (at least 6 tried to edit this page. 3 were caught) the way cow-dung attracts flies. But then it is debating wikistalking, and the most notorious wikistalker on Wikipedia right now *surprise, surprise* Skyring. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 20:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
User:Willmcw writes that there are "so many sock puppets new users" working on this proposal. I count exactly one admitted new user who voted in our poll. Which ones are you counting, User:Willmcw? In the interest of full disclosure User:Willmcw should at least acknowledge that he has been accused of wikistalking and is currently the subject of an arbcom proceeding for his actions. I should also mention that I have been the recipient of several unwelcome messages on my talk page by User:Willmcw--Agiantman 01:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Among others, FamousRay and Halfinch have only a couple of edits apiece. Apparently some editors, including those who have been around longer, are adding their input though not explicitrly participating in the poll, which makes the poll less of an indicator of consensus than it might otherwise be. So, as I said before, it makes it harder to determine the consensus. Most of the active admins on Wikipedia have been accused of wikistalking. [7][8] I invite anyone to read the "unwelcome" messages that I left for you. [9][10] -Willmcw 03:08, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
I think you could also count Lackaday-oh. Deb 16:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not a problem in and of itself?

Remember that message at the bottom of the edit box? If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it.

If one user follows another and their edits do not diminish the quality of Wikipedia or extend a problem further or intentionally create more disputes with the user being followed [such as by indiscriminant reversion of their changes], then on what basis are the edits a problem? A person followed may be annoyed by minor changes to their work which might not seem to be either an improvement or a diminishment, but this does not mean they should be considered an abuse.

If a user is making abusive or useless edits, then it is primarily the quality of Wikipedia that they are hurting, and the quality of all other contributions -- not just that of the person who happened to be the most recent editor to the article. The following is just a possible modus operandi of the kind of abuse that should already be in violation of other policies, and need not be a specific breach of policy just by itself -- although it is true that following may exacerbate a situation, if a dispute has already arisen between a user and a follower.

I think these may be circumstances which can only really be dealt with fairly on a case-by-case basis, and the primary offense is the abuse, and ruining of the other user's work if that is what is happening, not the actual following. --Mysidia (talk) 01:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Mysidia's carefully written critique. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:56, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revision at 02:50 by Uninvited Company

Though many changes made in this revision are good, a couple have some problems and take the guideline down a path that I do not believe it should go.

1. The opening paragraph added to viewpoints on stalking should be substantially revised to make it more neutral and informative or removed entirely - "The presence of the "User Contributions" page for each user was, at the time of its introduction, unique to Wikipedia and not used by other wikis then extant. Together with the watchlist feature, it set the stage for what has become the world's largest wiki. The easy ability of any user to review the contributions of any other user was among the defining features of the project, making it distinct from other wikis." The paragraph appears to be simply one editor's POV on the virtues of the user contributions page and promoting it as the defining essence of wikipedia. I don't see what place this has in an article on wikistalking.

2. The sentence "even though the practice of monitoring user contributions has proven vital in maintaining a quality encyclopedia" is problematic for similar reasons. It's one thing to tell editors that they can follow a user contribution page when they aren't doing it for harassment, it's an entirely different thing to be an advertisement to promote the following of user contributions. We should inform editors that they can indeed use the user contributions feature, but we shouldn't be running around promoting it as if it were some end-all "defining" and "vital" tool when that's just the opinion of an editor who likes it as a tool.

3. The change of describing the user contributions feature as a "tool that otherwise serves valuable purposes" to "a tool that most often serves valuable purposes" again seems to introduce a strong POV favoring the user contributions feature. A more neutral wording may be in order that neither promotes nor discourages its value, e.g. "a tool that can serve valuable purposes"

4. A strong interpretive sentence was added to the "precedents" section, changing it from a neutral "Wiki-stalking has been a part of at least two Arbitration Committee proceedings" to "Wiki-stalking has been mentioned in at least two Arbitration Committee proceedings. The degree to which this establishes any meaningful precedent is disputed, because both cases had many non-stalking elements." It was urged at the time that this section's description was changed to quoting the precedents directly that doing so would allow the reader to come to this judgment about what the cases entailed him or herself. UninvitedCo's addition indirectly takes a position with phrases such as "many non-stalking elements," which are debatable contentions in themselves. This is particularly the case for the Skyring decision in which the Arbcom was explicit in stating its remedy that wikistalking, which the Arbcom also defined, was the main offense: "Skyring banned for wikistalking."[11] A more neutral way of approaching this would probably be to restore the previous version that makes no attempt at interpretation if this is the way we're going to approach the precedents section. Otherwise the stated purpose of quoting the cases in full rather than simply summarizing is defeated. Rangerdude 04:19, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The opening paragraph is history. While there may be a variety of points of view on role of User Contributions and Watchlist in the Wiki today, the historical role is clear. These features were developed for Wikipedia as extensions to the Usemod wiki originally in use here, and were retained when Usemod was replaced by the MediaWiki software now in use.

I believe that most Wikipedians would agree that "the practice of monitoring user contributions has proven vital in maintaining a quality encyclopedia" and believe that the statement belongs here to better frame the limits of use of user contributions in a reasonable way. I also believe that most Wikipedians believe that User Contributions is "a tool that most often serves valuable purposes." If we're going to have a wikistalking policy, we should make it clear that the extensive legitimate use of these features is not its target.

Regarding the precedents, the cases are quoted selectively, which is why I added the interpretive note. I read through the cases and neither of them, read in its entireity with all evidence and opinions, is chiefly about stalking. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gaming the system

My chief concern here, which I started to bring up with RangerDude, is that someone might try to change the definition of "stalking" so that it includes legitimate attempts by sysops and others to prevent systematic damage to this project.

Particularly, they might get people to say "stalking" as a synonym for "reviewing my contribs".

This already happened with "POV" being used as synonym for "bias" or "biased" - which is really harmful and disruptive to the project. Because people automatically assume that "POV" is the opposite of NPOV and hence "obviously bad for articles". The result is that people often completely ignore Jimbo's idea that a balanced, neutral article SHOULD INCLUDE MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEW.

I beg you all to review Wikipedia:POV and see that "POV" is not bad. The controversial subjects must include multiple POV's. So please stop using "POV" to label sections of text you want left out, deleted or censored. Say "biased" instead, and try to make suggestions on how we can correct bias by attribuiting POV to its advocate.

Likewise, I beg you not to create yet another buzzword that makes it harder for Admins to identify patterns of disruption. Please do not let "stalking" get redefined so that systematically correcting another contributor's edits becomes grounds for RFC'ing or RFArb'ing someone.

This is worse than feeding trolls. It's growing the food for them!! Uncle Ed 02:19, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

  • I entirely agree. Radiant_>|< 07:57, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed, also. JesseW 23:59, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've already seen people successfully

[edit] In light of the mounting criticism...

In light of the mounting criticism for a guideline that, at first sight, seems perfectly rational, I propose we merge this page with Wikipedia:Harassment to set the proper tone. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 02:28, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, please merge it. The aim of that page seems to be the same as this one, and there's no point in repeating the arguments here once more. Radiant_>|< 07:57, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree that it should be merged. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 21:23, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, lets merge Wikipedia:Harassment into this page until the discussion here is more complete. JesseW 23:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
    I'd suggest doing it the other way around (merging from here into Harassment). Other then that, I have no objection to this proposal. Thanks,
    Luc "Somethingorother" French 06:22, 23 August 2005 (UTC)