Wikipedia talk:Responding to threats of harm/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merge

There is significant overlap with Wikipedia:Potentially suicidal users. I suggest merging and upgrading the result to guideline or policy. - Jehochman ^Talk 17:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that the high overlap probably calls for a merger, although I think a title along the lines of "threats of violence" encompasses more scenarios than "threats of suicide," if we go that route (which seems to suggest merging to here, rather than from here). – Luna Santin (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe that would be the case. We need to explain to the editors of the article that we like their work so much we want to generalize it. That page may need to be trimmed. The goal should be to make it sleek enough that it can be promoted to policy. - Jehochman ^Talk 19:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In order to reduce the WP:BEANS component when I wrote a related essay I referred to an even broader subject: real world emergencies. Durova^Charge! 22:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Endorse merge (which way, doesn't matter to me), and possibly suggest renaming to something such as Durova suggested. Perhaps "Responding to threats of harm", or some such, which would cover both self-harm, and threats to harm others. While I generally agree that the majority of such posts are likely nothing more than vandalism, I also think that we are not in a position to assess the validity of them, nor should we be expected to, or held accountable for such actions. Any threat should be treated seriously, passed on to local authorities if possible, and let them deal with the validity of the threat. Ariel♥Gold 13:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I also endorse the merge and feel that responding to threats of harm as the merged name is fine. SorryGuy  Talk  06:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ThreatsOfViolence

There's a new proposal at the above link, intended to become policy if at all possible - some work is required to sift through the intentions of this, and that page to separate what fits best as policy, and what as essay - there's also WP:FIRE to consider, as well as the pages linked above.

I think there's some important material here, but we do seem to have some unnecessary redundancy, and I think one essay, and one policy will probably best cover all aspects of this sensitive area.... all help is most welcome! - Privatemusings (talk) 05:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Closing the merge

There's been a long-standing merge proposal between Wikipedia:Potentially suicidal users and Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. I've drafted a merged page at User:Luna Santin/sandbox (permalink). Feel free to modify the page or to suggest any desired changes. If there's no feedback within a reasonable timeframe, I'll complete the merge. I'll be posting this identical notice to both talk pages, and will try to check both for comments; realistically, though, it may help if we direct comments to Wikipedia talk:Responding to threats of harm, where old discussion on the merge proposal took place. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:49, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Waited long enough, perhaps? I've gone ahead with the merge. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I have done a history merge on the two pages. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Well done

As the user who started the failed policy attempt, I’m very happy to see that we finally have a great essay about this subject! I have now dealt with several suicide threat incidents on Wikipedia. Please, if you see such a comment and don’t want to or can’t handle it yourself for some reason please send me a email and I will respond as quickly as I can. For general reference I general use this post as a temple and modify it according to the situation. --S.dedalus (talk) 02:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

New policy threats and suicide - please comment

I've proposed a new policy at the village pump. See WP:VPP#Policy proposal on dealing with threats of violence and suicide.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Username vs. IP threats

If the person making the threat is logged in, then there's nothing we can really do, can we? Evil saltine (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that in that case, a CheckUser provides the IP address directly to the authorities (either after contacting them, or after someone else has initially contacted them.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

update

I've updated the WMF emergency contact section. The previous version could have been interpreted to discourage contacting us outside business hours. The new version makes it clear that the WMF will respond to reports at the emergency contact address at all hours, not just business hours. Also, I'm about to clarify it further that by "contacting the WMF" the best route is through that emergency email; other methods will simply be delay the report from reaching the proper people.⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 22:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Block user, lock pages

"Potentially suicidal or violent users may be further aggravated by further interaction, whether by discussions or by misguided attempts to help."

I'm not sure whether this is the best advice we can give. I would speculate that suicides happen mainly because people are desperate and isolated. People who communicate, in whatever form, are probably less likely to terminate their own life. Even users who threaten to harm others are less likely to actually do so as long as they are busy typing comments on Wikipedia. As this is a real life issue, I'd suggest that the Foundation asks for professional advice on what general guidelines we should follow in such situations.  Cs32en Talk to me  16:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we (WMF) should get professional advice on this. Also I would like some disclosure on how the foundation handles these things. Is it 24x7? One is reminded of recent incidents in the news where passing the problem to the supposed responsible authority within an organisation proved "sub-optimal" for all concerned. Rich Farmbrough, 20:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

Feedback from WMF is very positive about the temporal and geographical coverage. Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

More concise

WP: VIOLENCE redirects here. You may be looking for WP:WikiViolence.

---

I think this page should be more concise, since in the event of a real suicide threat, every second counts. I think it should read just like that and remove the rest of the content on the page, just a concise template. If there is no opposition, I will go about doing that edit. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 01:42, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I do oppose that. Because of the need for conciseness, that template is there. However, the rest of the page is needed to elaborate on the rationale behind and the details beyond what the template says. For just one example, as an administrator, that last sentence ("Consider blocking...") is not really helpful for me. I want the extra stuff below to tell me what to consider when making that decision. I will note that the "Contact authorities" subsections are all somewhat redundant and can be taken out, if the Wikimedia foundation will really take care of that for us once we e-mail them.--Aervanath (talk) 03:52, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

That's what I noticed too. I also found that the sections with "Note: The Wikimedia Foundation will handle this when you notify them of a threat of harm." are not necessary because the "Contact the Wikimedia Foundation" section already covers that, if the Wikimedia Foundation already has got everything in those sections covered why do we need to have it written there? Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 14:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Just putting this up here, but I also don't like this idea, and have the intent to comment, just trying to find the time. Hopefully this weekend at the latest. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 04:25, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

can we improve the response

I'd like to comment on this section and the one above it, by saying that yes, every moment counts, and yes threats need to be taken seriously. Blocking the user is as much a response which can have an adverse effect as talking to the user. The more appropriate thing to do is to direct those threats to trained people who are online. There are plenty of people trained in suicide counselling, and tools can be made, to alert them audibly, so they can leave their computers on just in case, and tools so that what the editor is typing is not made public, but just the same, the user is not deliberately given the impression that nobody cares and they are indeed unwanted and worthless to the wikipedia community. An instant response by suicide counsellors is a lot better than the delay, inaction, or inability to find the person by authorities.

The present suicide template sounds like a customer service helpline "Hello, we are sorry to hear about how you are feeling at this time. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not able to provide counselling services or professional referrals." People in a normal state of mind get frustrated and despair when they encounter such scripted hollow sentiments over the phone or net, so I do not feel this is the best that the community or the foundation can come up with. Penyulap ☏ 22:24, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and one more thing, we can bet their lives that this template will not get improved for months if not years, if ever. That's wikipedia for you. Penyulap ☏ 20:54, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Again the WMF response is that generally blocking the suicidal/self harming is not a good idea. I have changed the page accordingly. Moreover it seems clear that anyone threatening physical harm to others should be immediately blocked. Since we have such a mix of people I would not say "indefinitely blocked and banned" since one person's deaththreat is another's gentle chiding. Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Looks a lot better now, a good move in the right direction which heads off the most serious problems, hopefully improvements to handling suicide matters on wiki can go further at some point. Penyulap ☏ 19:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition of a link

Wikipedia:Requests for oversight is an official policy that says, in part that a "true emergency" can be reported to the Stewards over IRC and Meta says that Stewards should get involved in emergencies. I suggest adding the following link to the article where it suggests that users contact an admin over IRC: #wikimedia-stewards ^connect Andrew³²⁷ 00:18, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Block email or not?

"Threats of violence to others should be met with blocking, generally including user talk pages. "

Should administrators block the email function as well? If not, an explicit statement saying so would be helpful. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Please be mindful WP:SUICIDE also redirected to this essay, should en.wp Admins block people who need help?--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 13:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

It still does redirect here. I'm not sure what the best solution is. Perhaps a hat-note directed at such individuals which links to a list of international suicide telephone numbers? Hopefully this is a very rare occurrence. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Err, yes it's rare occurrence, but perhaps we should make exception for suicide cases, although I'm not so sure Wikipedian working in capacity of volunteers can help with this. I don't know what should we do about this, perhaps more opinion from other users, until then, please do not block people who making a suicide threat, those people need help.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 22:04, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Essay

I restored the essay template that was in the essay until it was removed in 2012. It is an essay, and it should be identified as such, which is standard for all essays.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe this is the real process, as described in this article. --Elitre (talk) 11:43, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I would prefer that the essay template - if it must be on the page - not be at the top. This page contains critical suggestions for actual life-and-death emergencies - I think those should have priority in the viewer's sight, not a template explaining that this is an essay. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 12:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Two responses. Elitre, you say it's a "process". We have to identify it somehow; how do we do that? Philippe (WMF), it's standard to put it at the top of the page. If we were going to put it somewhere else, where would it go? Another idea is not to use the standard template. We could perhaps put in a footnote. How does that sit with people?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd be totally fine with a footnote. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 02:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I put the footnote inside the hatnote at the top - seemed like a good place for it. I used the identical language from the essay template. Is the placement of the footnote good? I wouldn't object to small tweaks to the language in the footnote if you want to make it more clear what this page is. We're not obligated to use the standard language as long as the identification of the page is not misleading.--Bbb23 (talk) 05:13, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Contact an administrator privately

I recently came across a threat and have followed the steps from this page, but found that some aspects of this process may not be clear/easy especially for new users or people who are unfamiliar with wikipedia. I saw the threat in the text of an article, and I had never read this page before. I happen to have used the prefix WP: before, and thought emergency would make sense. But I don't think most people would think to do this. When contacting an administrator privately, I thought to look at the Special:RecentChanges because someone there would be more likely to be online and respond. I was able to find an administrator from the userboxes on their userpages. I don't think most people would know/think to do this.

• Finding WP:Emergency should be easier, and more instinctive.

Would it make sense to have a link to this page on Wikipedia:Contact us? and perhaps on Emergency?

• Instructions on WP:Emergency to contact an Administrator should be more explicit, and address the potentially time-sensitive nature of the situation.

Is there/could there be a way to for someone to use WP:Emergency to contact user with administrator rights, who has made an edit within the last few minutes, so they don't have to search amongst non-administrator users or have to post to a noticeboard (not-private) and wait for a response?WyattAlex (talk) 09:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Question

How does blocking the user attempting to commit suicide help in preventing his/her death? I think it will just make the user more desperate as they come here in the hope that someone will listen to them. IMO, admins should refrain from blocking users threatening suicide or blanking their user pages, while notifying WMF as soon as possible. Any ideas? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 05:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I removed the text suggesting that suicidal users should be blocked back in 2012. The current text leaves the matter to admin discretion. It's clear that threats of any kind, can't override editorial integrity in the long run. If someone is just having a weep on their talk page, at the other end of the spectrum, blocking would be churlish to say the least. (However we do a good line in churlishness sometimes.)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

18 U.S. Code § 875 - Interstate communications

Why does the Wikimedia foundation not make it explicit when you create an account that you agree your edits are contributions covered under the title 18 § 875 - Interstate communications clause of the United States code of law, and you agree by creating a user id that “any threat to injure the person of another” is punishable by law. There could be a click “I agree” box to continue. It would certainly make it easier to stop the threats of harm from people like this guy. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, in a way they do. With every edit you make you agree to the Terms of Use ("By clicking the "Save page" button ..."). The Terms of Use states, You are legally responsible for your edits and contributions on Wikimedia Projects, so for your own protection you should exercise caution and avoid contributing any content that may result in criminal or civil liability under any applicable laws. For clarity, applicable law includes at least the laws of the United States of America. Mike V • Talk 19:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

And you know the law applies whether you agree to it or not. That's one reason I oppose ToS bloat itemising all the illegal things you are not allowed to do - not just on WMF ToS but on many others. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

reporting other violence

While I find the article good the title covers more than the content.

The article is about Responding to threats of SELFharm while there are unfortunedly also other kinds of harm.

I was reading Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations#Quick CheckUser requests and that linked to this page while I guess it should have linked to another page (but which one?)

I am not sure what the best solution is (a hat note, renaming ,something else) and I am also not sure about other links, and did not want to do a bold edit to the article but I lets talk on (small) improvements. WillemienH (talk) 11:33, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Report about deleting on Czech wikipedia

Analogic article on Czech wikipedia was deleted by pseudoconsensus. See deleted discusion. Twice deleted by User:Zdenekk2, after protest on Administrators' noticeboard. --Kusurija (talk) 16:01, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Kusurija, Having had need of the advice on this page I'm sorry to hear that. BUT, this wiki has its ways of doing things, and the Czech wiki have theirs. You'll need to start a discussion on cs: somewhere. Bazj (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Obvious trolling

Should one email emergency@wikimedia.org any claims of self-harm even if one considers it obvious trolling? If this is the case, would you please add this to the Treat all claims seriously section? Thanks Jim1138 (talk) 21:33, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jim1138, thanks for asking. The phrasing on the page currently (“Though many threats are empty or hoaxes, Wikipedians are not in position to make such evaluations, and should treat all such threats seriously and as an emergency”) does ask that contributors forward threats even if they doubt their veracity. So, I think the answer is "yes":)

However, we should emphasize that there does need to be a clear threat. For instance, someone might place the word “DEATH” on their userpage. This is not a clear threat, while “I will bring Death to (x)” or “I am choosing death tonight” would be. Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@PEarley (WMF): My chief concern what it sounded like the anon might have been given some drug w/o their knowledge. Thanks for the reply. Do you think "trolling" should be added to "empty or hoaxes"? Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 21:40, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@Jim1138:, we have a "yo" template now? Cool! As this is a community page, improvements and edits are open to all. We in the Support and Safety team of course would have strong opinions about edits that endanger a clear understanding of the protocol around these situations, but I don't think your suggestion falls into that category :). Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

"Experts recommend urging..."

We currently have

Experts recommend urging such individuals to seek professional care immediately, typically at a hospital emergency department.

But here's the thing: the rest of this page tells us not to try to play therapist, rather email emergency@ and leave it to them. I wonder if we should remove or modify this. EEng 02:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting point EEng. Maybe we could have this at the start (getting rid of all of the lead and replacing it with this): "Although experts recommend urging potentially violent or suicidal individuals to seek professional care (typically at a hospital emergency department), Wikipedia editors receive no special training in dealing with such individuals. Nobody on Wikipedia is under any obligation to deal with threats of harm, although should a user wish to do so, here are the recommended steps". That may be a little clumsily worded, feel free to make it more concise - I am typing purely what comes to mind. Patient Zero^talk 11:05, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

What? Now the Patient Zeroes are running the asylum? EEng 13:39, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Haha, good one EEng :-). Do you have any thoughts on the wording or suggestions to improve it? If you are in agreement I'll change the wording per WP:BOLD I guess. Patient Zero^talk 14:25, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, didn't you notice? [1]. EEng 15:41, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't EEng - thank you very much! :-) Patient Zero^talk 08:47, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

'Threat of harm' template

I recently moved the hatnote on "Threats of harm" to {{Threat of harm}}, so that it could be used elsewhere as well as here. I have been twice reverted, the first time apparently because it's better to have "two things to edit instead of one" the second apparently on the grounds that "you created template and set this "two copies" up".

Neither of those reasons is justification for a revert; and neither is justification for keeping the text locally rather than in a template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Bbb23 says, "just two things to edit instead of one" and Pigsonthewing says, "Absolutely not necessary to keep two or more copies of same notice". This confuses me because it seems both users prefer to have one copy instead of multiple. I also prefer one copy.

I think that the base text should be in one place, {{Threat of harm}}. If it is in that template then it can be reused anywhere. That is not to limit anyone from making forks if they must. This does seem like good text to be able to post elsewhere and it is nice to have one standard version of it.

Bbb23 - can you say something more about how you feel about standard text in a template like this? I fail to follow your objection. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Originally, the suicide project had a link to the Threat of harm page. Andy decided to change that to the text we're discussing. Because it would then be in two places, Andy created a template to be transcluded in both places. From one perspective that may be reasonable, but there's no doubt that the Threat of harm page is far more important than the suicide project. A link from the project was good enough. It doesn't require that the same "nutshell" text be reproduced. If the template remains in both places, then when one wants to edit the Threat of harm page and change both the top text and other text, one has to do it in two places. If someone else disagrees with the changes, they have to undo in both places. The argument that if it is in a template it "can be reused anywhere" is pure speculation. First, why does this text need to be copied all over the encyclopedia? It's reserved for a very narrow and important scenario. Second, even if it is absolutely needed to use it in another place in the future, at that time we can consider putting the text in a template. Doing it pre-emptively makes no sense.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

"can be reused anywhere" is not "pure speculation", it is indisputable fact. And the template is already used elsewhere, as can easily be checked, so your at that time is now. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I fail to understand what is happening here. It seems that it is proposed that text appear in at least two places -

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Suicide task force
• Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm

To standardize the text, it is proposed to copy it into a template, so that the text actually is in one place only. Is it not preferable to just have the text in one place, and not in multiple places?

Or is it argued that this text should not be permitted to appear outside the context of this one page? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:37, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Standardizing text and copying that text into a template is logical. The objections really, to that, don't make sense to me. Our policies, templates, etc are in a sense, best when created preemptively. The time to create something is not in the middle of a problematic situation but as we see those situations developing or even before. (As an aside: Its actually quite problematic to develop any kind of Wikipedia "guides" for dealing with the encyclopedia once embroiled in a situation since as we all know neutrality easily disappears at that point and a more all encompassing vision can be lacking.) The template if fine. (Littleolive oil (talk) 17:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC))

Per the above consensus, I've restored the template. I've also updated it to take into account the recent changes made here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:46, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Calling 911 (or whatever your local flavor is)

I hate to point this out, but the instructions as they stand could be interpreted as discouraging someone from calling their local emergency #, as if emailing WMF is always the only thing to do no matter what. I wonder if we should add something like If you believe that you are in danger of immediate physical harm, contact your local authorities. Or is that overworrying? EEng 14:37, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: Going off of this related meta page which has the exact wording If you are injured or in immediate danger, call your local emergency services (usually by dialing 112 to 911 depending on your country), I think it would be worth adding -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 15:21, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I added If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency services. I think we have to leave people to know their local emergency number, and if someone thinks they should email emergency@wmf when they're actually injured, then they deserve to die anyway. EEng 18:35, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Treat all claims seriously or not?

Treat all claims seriously

This address is for true emergencies only

These statements contradict each other. If I'm to treat all threats seriously, then I should email the emergency address even for vague unsubstantiated claims. But if I should reserve the address for true emergencies, then I obviously shouldn't.

Also, please provide an email address for non-emergencies. I don't have time to search for an administrator's email address, or download an IRC client. --ChiveFungi (talk) 13:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The context shows true emergency is intended as the opposite of non-emergency rather than the opposite of hoax emergency. It could, and should, be better phrased though.

For non-emergencies, why would you want to email an admin? What's wrong with one of the many notice boards such as WP:ANI? Cabayi (talk) 14:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Abusive usage of E-Mail

Hello. How does Wikipedia deal with people, who abusively utilise the given address, which is supposed only to be used for emergencies? --84.147.38.84 (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• @84.147.38.84: this geolocation (Northern Rhine-Westphalia) and this ISP (Deutsche Telecom) have reminded me a banned notorious long-term COI sockmaster who has been disrupting/vandalising WP since at least 2011. Editing on wiktionary is an another similarity. Anyway, i am assuming good faith, in case you are a different person. This is from WP:OUTING and may be helpful: "...Nothing in this policy prohibits the emailing of personal information about editors to individual administrators, functionaries, or arbitrators, or to the Wikimedia Foundation, when doing so is necessary to report violations of confidentiality-sensitive policies (such as conflict of interest or paid editing, harassment, or violations of the child-protection policy)." 115.79.137.39 (talk) 21:39, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I am not hacking anybody. Telekom is located and a major ISP here. And I can't see any previous edits from my IP address. Northern Rhineland has 17 million inhabitants. It's definitely possible that somebody out of them hacked Wikipedia. --84.147.38.84 (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Emergency role account

Resolved

 – Y It's snowing and there's no foreseeable opposition to the proposal. Winged Blades^Godric 17:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm

As discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), I propose the creation of a role account to allow users to quickly contact the emergencywikimedia.org address through the Wikipedia email system rather than through external email clients that can potentially reveal information about users.

The account would be essentially identical in scope to User:Oversight and User:Arbitration Committee, and therefore, User:Emergency would be an appropriate name. This username is currently occupied by an account on the French Wikipedia that is indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet; therefore, that account could be renamed or a different username could be selected for the role account. Home Lander (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support The WMF has indicated they’d be ok with operating this account, so I really can’t see any reason not to do it. Technically the blocked French account may not meet the standards for usurpation, but I have to believe if both the en.wp community and the WMF ask them to make an exception they will do so. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:00, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support. This would make it easier and quicker to report what are potentially very serious situations. I recently had to report just such an issue, and was surprised that there was no such role account, as I am used to finding at Oversight. DuncanHill (talk) 01:16, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support Uniformity good. EEng 01:23, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support as long as the direct email is still shown. If someone has to deal with this more than just once, it is honestly easier just to type it into email, but for those who would prefer a form, I'm all for this role account. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:12, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: Important point, TonyBallioni. It needs to remain not just for this reason, but also for those who don't have Wikipedia email enabled. Home Lander (talk) 03:32, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support I've encountered cases where an editor cannot access their e-mail client, having only the option to submit their report through Wikipedia e-mail system. This will certainly be helpful. Alex Shih (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support as a common-sense quality-of-life option for those seeking to contact the emergency address. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:33, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support Nothing bad with this proposal. !dave 08:46, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Sure; looks like a good idea. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:52, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support and snow close No need for an RfC and centralised discussion notice for such an obvious and non-contrversial action. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:34, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • The Foundation representative int he initial discussion asked for this, they wanted a consensus before they did it, which is a good thing. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
    • No; what he said was "I would probably suggest an RfC or something similar". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:13, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support Since the WMF have indicated that they're happy with it then it makes sense to do this. My only concern is that it might be abused/more easy to use in non-emergency situations that might increase the noise on the channel, but that's something that will best be determined by giving it a go. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:43, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support This is a great idea. Right now, there is no obvious way to do user account to user account reporting of emergency situations. This is a natural sort of communication channel to establish. It would be nice if the WMF can staff an account for this purpose. If the WMF does not wish to establish an account for this purpose, then I might support the establishment of a grassroots community group to set up and crowdsource the management of such an account. Although it would be totally bonkers to leave this function and its responsibilities to the crowdsourced community, coordinating crowdsourced community response seems better than taking no action and avoiding experiments to address the identified challenges we have. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support Why not? Do we even need a discussion for this? --Joshualouie711^talk 16:05, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • In the initial discussion, a representative of the foundation asked us to this, so they wouldn’t be doing something here without consensus. We should do everything we can to encourage that attitude. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:41, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Not so, see my reply to Beeblebrox, above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:14, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Very important distinction, thanks for making such a point of it. 10:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support as a straightforward idea with no apparent downside. -- LWG ^talk 19:33, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support Having a normal RfC (without snow close) will raise awareness about this account and thus IMO is perfectly okay. Excellent idea by the way. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:31, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • We do not hold RfCs "to raise awareness", we have other - and better - tools for that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:15, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support - such a list would tend to speed up sending the message to the relevant powers - something we absolutely want to do in an emergency. We have such accounts for other important groups of users (Arbitration Committee,Bureaucrats) for less urgent issues, we should certainly have this one. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:51, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Alternative formatting

I was inspired by the formatting on the page Wikipedia:Five million articles, so as an experiment, I made some modifications to the layout of this page to make it stand out more while still trying to avoid clutter: see User:Mz7/sandbox/emergencies redesign. It's a more "to the point" alternative to the current formatting, so I thought I'd throw this out there. Mz7 (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

You better review the edit history. There's been some high feeling about the formatting here (esp. something to do with a template) so tread carefully. EEng 02:25, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

*shrug* I am merely offering this as an alternative, and I won't do anything unless there's a consensus. The way we currently have it has been up for a while now and seems to work fine to get the point across, so I'm not really pushing hard for anything. It just seems to be rather cluttered to me. In the revision history, there was a small series of reverts over {{threat of harm}}, but that seemed to be over whether it should be an {{ambox}} here or an {{ambox}} in the template-space. A part of the goal with this was to hopefully de-clutter the presentation in a way that doesn't need the template at all. Mz7 (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the concern was that if the template isn't here then whatever is here may get out of sync with the template, which apparently is used elsewhere. I just wanted you to know there may be more to this than you thought. EEng 03:08, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I see. If we remove the template from this page, one solution is to replace the instructions within the template with a simple link to this page. I took a look, and it seems the only other page that transcludes the template is Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Suicide task force, which seems to be a low-traffic content group. Mz7 (talk) 03:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

As another alternative, here's how the same reformatting would look with the current {{threat of harm}} template at the top: User:Mz7/sandbox/emergencies redesign with template. Mz7 (talk) 03:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. I suggest we let this sit until mid-week, and if there's no objection by then go ahead and install. EEng 04:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

His favorite color was maroonish

– EEng

Thanks. I've also now added a maroonish border to the design to make it stand out a bit more, let me know if that's overkill. I think I'm going to ask for more feedback before installing just yet, however. Mz7 (talk) 05:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. I wouldn't go to too much trouble about feedback. The information is the same either way, and if someone doesn't like the new format we can always revert back. EEng 06:34, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

 Done Mz7 (talk) 02:43, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Template, again

Per the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Responding to threats of harm/Archive 1#'Threat of harm' template I have restored the template version of this page, albeit using the new-style content. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:15, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Message box templates such as {{ambox}} are not visible to users editing from the mobile interface

@Pigsonthewing: I think this needs to be reverted immediately because message boxes like {{ambox}} disappear completely when viewed from the mobile web (to test this, click the “Mobile view” link at the bottom of the page). Moreover, I’m not really sure why this needs to be in a template. The only other place that currently transcludes the template is WP:WPSUICIDE, which is a content group for articles about suicide, not for editors responding to real threats of suicide. I understand that this information is of critical importance, but in every case that I can think of, a link which points directly to this page is preferred over using a template, especially in discussions at places like WP:ANI and user talk pages. Mz7 (talk) 22:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Given the importance of this information and the fact that a significant portion of our userbase reads and edits using the mobile interface, I've gone ahead and boldly reverted this change. I apologize for skipping discussion, but I hope you can understand the necessity for the time being. I've also changed Template:Threat of harm to use a link instead of content: see it in action at Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Suicide task force. I hope this is an acceptable compromise. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 23:16, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

As per the previous discussion, this needs to be in a template, because the same content is needed in more than one location; the recent changes made here illustrate that need very well - they were not replicated in the second location. The nature of that location is immaterial - who knows where else the content might be used in the future? If the particular base template does not show in mobile, then it should be avoided, and a plain template used instead. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:22, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I read the previous discussion, and I don't think it adequately shows that the same content is needed in more than one location. I have just changed {{threat of harm}} to point a link to the instructions at the one location this template is now being used (Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Suicide task force). Is there another place where the content of these instructions need to be? If not, I don't think any further changes are necessary at this point in time. Mz7 (talk) 02:44, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Reporting someone who supports terrorism

Does email you provided in this tip includes people who supports terrorist groups? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 21:09, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@SpinnerLaserz: Super late response, but as I understand it, it is for threats of imminent physical harm, for example someone threatening to commit an act of terrorism. An editor expressing support of a terrorist group is very problematic, however, so you should report such a user to Wikipedia administrators when you spot it (not necessarily the WMF per this page, unless there is an imminent threat)—see also WP:NONAZIS. Mz7 (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Integrating this page with the "contact us" menu

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Contact us#Responding to threats of harm?. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

What's a "true emergency"?

I added a hidden note here [2] but I'll raise it here as well. We tell the reader not to try to make an evaluation as to whether a threat is real or not, but then later we say that the email address is for "true emergencies only". Those seem to pull in somewhat opposite directions. What exactly do we mean? Obviously we want the reader to err on the side of contacting, but what exactly is this saying? EEng 23:09, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• Agree. Self-contradicting. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

  Maybe the key is the gravity of what's being threatened (physical harm of some kind) without trying to evaluate the probability of it actually being carried out? So maybe instead of the current:

This address is only for true emergencies ...

we mean

This address is only for threats of real-world harm ...

But ruining someone's rep by posting their naughty photos could be real-world harm, so maybe we mean

This address is only for threats of physical harm ...

or

This address is only for threats of violence ...

or

This address is only for threats of physical violence ... (since I was once told that using the wrong pronoun was an act of violence)

but now I notice that actually nothing on the page says anything like those, just threat of harm (including self-harm), though over at ANI the header says threat of violence, suicide, etc (and it's possible I wrote that myself, or condensed it from something longer). So now I'm completely flummoxed. (Note: not a threat of self-harm.)

Maybe we need WMF guidance? Only thing is, the way things have been going, if we ask for help we might end up blocked for some crazy reason. EEng 00:08, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

• @EEng: I think your first interpretation is correct. As I understand it, the bullet point is there because people kept sending non-emergency complaints to the emergency email address, e.g. issues with article content (see [3], the paragraph beginning with "Sometimes people misunderstand or misuse the system."). The idea is to be liberal about reporting threats of harm, but also be serious about directing less-serious complaints elsewhere. With that in mind, I don't see why we couldn't just repeat the line at the top: This address is only for threats of harm (including self-harm). As far as what constitutes "harm", I am also unsure—is it just physical harm, or does it also include things like blackmail or extortion? That would indeed be a question for the WMF. Mz7 (talk) 02:14, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  I have implemented your brilliantly simple suggestion [4]. That still leaves the question of what constitutes "harm" exactly, but as currently written it allows a broad interpretation, which is what we want in the absence of further guidance. If they're getting too many spurious emails, they can let us know here, I guess. EEng 05:00, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Requested clarification: physical harm

Hi folks. The Trust & Safety team would like to ask for a tweak to this guideline to clarify the types of situations we handle via the emergency@ workflow. Specifically, we'd like the guideline to say that it is about threats of physical harm (including self-harm) - we're trying to avoid confusion that leads to things like "an article containing incorrect information harms my livelihood, I shall therefore email this emergency address!" (yes, really, we get those) or, less absurdly, "This on-wiki event is causing me psychological harm" (which is 100% a problem, but is not something we can handle via escalating to the police, as this workflow does, unless it involves threatened self-harm). I'd make the edit myself as staff, but since this is a guideline, we wanted to get consensus for the change. The exact changes we'd like to see made are:

• If you see a threat of harm (including self-harm) --> "If you see a threat of physical harm (including self-harm)"
• This address is for threats of harm (including self-harm) only. For other concerns, see Wikipedia:Contact us. --> "This address is for threats of physical harm (including self-harm) only. For other concerns, see Wikipedia:Contact us."

Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like a no-brainer to me - obviously this page should not mislead readers about the kinds of situations in which they might or might not be able to obtain support by contacting this address. Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Section 3 is unclear, what's the recommended contact path?

First of all, there's no emergency. I'm not asking this as part of responding to any ongoing threat, it's just a concerned question.

Section 3 leaves the issue about how to contact admins a bit vague. It says not to use ANI and other big pages - understandibly so, but then how? How am I supposed to contact "administrators (plural) privately"? Do I... just pick a handful few from the list at random and post to their talk pages? The IRC is mentioned, but does that means it is the optimal and preferred way of notifying about emergencies?

In short, the text makes it really unclear about how to go about step 3, and unclarity is really not what an unfamiliar editor needs when human lives are on the line. So I'm asking if someone familiar with situations like this could perhaps explain it to me, and then reflect it in the article? Gaioa (T C L) 14:51, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Gaioa, I would recommend joining the IRC channel #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect as the primary method. The main reason we ask you to contact administrators is because oftentimes whenever a user is threatening physical violence, the threats need to be revision-deleted (i.e. redacted from the page history), and the user may need to be blocked, and administrators are best positioned to do these things, rather than the Wikimedia Foundation. The #wikipedia-en-revdel IRC channel is optimal for this because it is a private location specifically tailored for requesting revision deletion.

I would recommend IRC over your suggested alternative of posting on administrators' talk pages at random. Many editors put administrators' talk pages on their watchlists, so those talk pages are still a relatively visible location. If there is a particular administrator that you trust and is active, you could alternatively try emailing them using Special:EmailUser. If all else fails, you can also send an email to oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org, which is the email address of the oversight team. Mz7 (talk) 18:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Mz7, Okay, thanks for the info. I updated the page in accordance with your advice. Gaioa (T C L) 08:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Quality of advice

I find this page of variable quality. I followed its advice - remember, I am not qualified to judge what is serious/real/whatever so I am going to go for an urgent option if I am appalled by what I read. I found myself arguing with stewards whose main desire seemed to be to point out, in language unfathomable to nonexperts, that I was invoking the wrong procedure. Maybe the next time I see disgusting death threats, I just shouldn't bother? It's hassle for me and I am at work. Someone else might do it for me, I guess? Great. Thanks guys. I feel a lot like my username right now. DBaK (talk) 08:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: I'm sorry you had to go through this. I can't really respond without knowing the specifics of your case, which of course you can't provide. The most important part of the advice on this page is to send the diffs to the WMF emergency email address, treating all claims as serious. Contacting administrators and stewards is generally secondary to that, but it exists because most threats of harm like this need to be hidden from public view per the revision deletion policy (WMF staff will defer the hiding to local administrators in most cases). The stewards generally won't take actions on the English Wikipedia unless there is a true emergency (e.g. an administrator account is compromised and is leaving death threats on the Main Page), so I suspect that is why you received some pushback—they will also want to defer to local administrators in most cases. Perhaps we should change the advice about contacting #wikimedia-stewards on IRC with that in mind. Mz7 (talk) 09:06, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I know I thanked you at the time but I didn't want to / couldn't comment further on any of it. I have carefully stayed away from this for some time. I am delighted to see that the problematic parts of the page have now been sorted out and it makes much more sense; my very unfortunate experience simply could not now be replicated by someone following the instructions. Well done and thanks. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 09:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Removing suicide threats

TheresNoTime, re [5], is it really true that suicide threats should be routinely (and, the implication seems to be, immediately) removed? Isn't the point about "discretion" provision, where there's no threat against others, that want to avoid, where possible, making the person feel no one wants to listen? EEng 14:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 1) @EEng: I would hope discretion, and by extension pure common sense, would trump anything in this guideline. I've simply updated this to reflect current practice - threats are more often than not oversighted, and to be oversighted they need to be removed first, ergo "It is generally accepted that specific threats should be removed". A suicide threat can, for some editors, be incredibly distressing to read. ~TNT (she/they • talk) 14:10, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Try this [6], where I try to keep the discretion on the same par as the generally, and added a bit about edit summaries. EEng 17:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

A related question

Should we be careful of including content that is seen as suicidal?

This relates to the article Etika, a YouTuber that committed suicide last week. He posted a video to his channel the night he disappeared, which clearly is filled with suicidal thoughts. It clearly does not show any attempt at suicide, just the prelude/motives to it. The video is well noted by the coverage, including some of the things he said, so not including the description of the video would be improper. But as the video was uploaded under the CC-BY license at YouTube, it is possible (and some user has already) included this video on the page. (We were prior only using a still image).

Is this video a problem under our concerns for issues related to suicide on WP? I'm just making sure - I know, for example, YouTube actually bars such videos being posted because of their concern others that are similarly suicidal will react from it. Does WP have a comparable consideration? --Masem (t) 22:17, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Good question, tough question, Masem, but I don't think this is where to find an answer. Maybe start at VP? Of course if such a discussion yields new guidance, some of that we'd want to reflect here. EEng 23:13, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Suicide content in articles

At private WP:OTRS ticket:2019090110001034 a reader asks for an amendment to celebrity suicide Michael Hutchence. They make the argument that certain ways of talking about celebrity suicide encourage suicidal ideation.

This argument comes up a lot; I do not think we store these claims anywhere in particular. I do not know where to post this so I am posting here. Eventually we should develop a policy. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:53, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure this has been discussed at length. NOTCENSORED and all, that, but I've always felt this is a special case. I can't think where to point you, however. Perhaps someone watching here will recall. EEng 05:01, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Repinging this in the hope someone will have ideas as to where this can be raised. I think it's a discussion that needs to be had. EEng 00:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Repinging AGAIN! EEng 14:06, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@EEng: My proposed solution to this challenge is that the Wikimedia Foundation somehow fund a combination of researchers and a Wikimedia community organization to collaborate in documenting the problem and possible solutions.

Wikimedia Foundation staffperson Sherwin Siy took this issue up and was assisting me and others in meta:Wikimedia LGBT+ in including a long and serious suicide talk at meta:Queering Wikipedia 2020, but that was cancelled due to COVID. I talked with Sherwin earlier this year about resuming talks, but then he unexpectedly died last month.

In Wiki LGBT+ we get reports of a lot of big problems, including suicidal ideation, harassment, death threats, and major life stress. I am not sure what the solution is, but I do believe that the Wikimedia community could develop responses with appropriate funding to organize community discussion with expert academic and counseling partnerships. The Wikimedia Foundation has not yet funded community responses to these issues.

If anyone wanted to help or get involved, they could draft a standing funding request to the Wikimedia Foundation to help the negotiation among the WMF, experts, and the community to decide what should happen next. I think asking for US$100k to design a serious response is merited; to date I think the public evidence is that the WMF's budget allocation for community participation in the issue is $0. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:34, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but that kind of ponderous proceeding isn't my thing. But I'd be happy to participate in taking whatever recommendations come out of it and turning them into guidelines here on the project. Masem, you opened this, so might be interested. EEng 03:18, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Question

Does a email that simply says 'i know who you are' count as a threat of harm? --Trade (talk) 21:58, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

If that is the sole content, then I would say that is not necessarily a threat of harm. Creepy and inappropriate, sure, and if you do feel threatened there is no harm in forwarding it to the Trust & Safety team. I would also suggest forwarding to ArbCom so they can evaluate the situation, assuming you know the sender (i.e. they include their username and/or send it through the Wikipedia Email interface). Primefac (talk) 22:01, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Samaritans & co

WP:SUICIDE and similar redirect here; there should be a hatnote linking to agencies that support the suicidal, such as the Samaritans. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I moved the existing link to nearer the top [7] EEng 19:16, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I missed that, so I'm sure someone in crisis would have done so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:29, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

emergency@wikimedia.org connections are refused

Last night I encountered an IP user who threatened two other editors. One was threatened "...I will kill you..." while the other was threatened with being stabbed in the chest. An email to emergency@wikimedia.org was immediately returned as "Connection refused due to abuse". (The threatening editor and his/her sock has since been blocked and the offending editorial summaries redacted.)

With the emergency@wikimedia.org email account essentially shut down how should threats of physical violance be handled? Blue Riband► 21:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Can you email cawikimedia.org to ask about this? (You can think of that email address as the "non-emergency number" for essentially the same team.) Mz7 (talk) 06:56, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mz7 - I took your advice and emailed ca@wikimedia.org but that also immeditely bounced back "due to abuse":

The following addresses had permanent fatal errors
- ca@wikimedia.org (reason: 550 5.7.1 <ca@wikimedia.org>... H:MB[wikimedia.org]Connection refused due to abuse) (expanded from: ca@wikimedia.org)

Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to localhost: >>> RCPT To:<ca@wikimedia.org> <<< 550 5.7.1 <ca@wikimedia.org>... H:MB[wikimedia.org]
Connection refused due to abuse 550 5.1.1 ca@wikimedia.org... User unknown Blue Riband► 15:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

My initial impression is that this is likely to be an issue between your email provider and the WMF servers (or somewhere upstream). Possibly your provider (not you personally, but someone using or spoofing the same provider) has been used to send a large amount of spam and so has been added to a list. If this is the case then the best thing to do is to raise the issue with your provider (giving them the full unredacted email headers) so they can get themselves removed from the relevant list. If you have another email account you could also try making ca@ aware of the issue, again giving them the full email headers - it might be possible for them to do something. Thryduulf (talk) 22:44, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

@Thryduulf - that appears to be the case. When I ran the address for my email host through mxtoolbox it came up on a Blacklist UCEPROTECTL3. Blue Riband► 04:20, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Another bounce-back problem

Data point: today someone again reported email to emergency@ bouncing back. [8] EEng 01:19, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Could we not have an alternative means, such as a mobile number used only to receive text messages, something of that sort? I guess various social media alternatives are possible with suitable privacy settings. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:58, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Texts are a bad idea for many reasons. These two recent incidents are the first ever, from what we know. My thinking is we might just add a note to the instructions to the effect that if your email bounces back you move on to the "Notify admins" step, mentioning that your email bounced back. Something simple like that. EEng 15:50, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Would email an arbcom or steward be a viable step? Slywriter (talk) 16:29, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if the best option is to suggest if it bounces back to email oversight via the contact form? AFAIK the oversight list tends to be monitored fairly well even at off hours in the US and Europe as it's covered by several people compared to the risk of trying to contact a single editor. (That includes both that the editor will be unavailable or won't see the message, but also that it might be transparently hidden or rejected. At least with the WMF they seem to be sending bounce back emails so people know their contact attempted failed even if they probably shouldn't be doing that.) Also since you're using the contact form, I wonder if the risk of it bouncing is lower although there might be some risk a bounce will be suppressed. Yes, editors won't be able to add images or other attachments, but the idea is for this to be a first step in cases where stuff has broken down. Probably should explain to the people on the oversight what we plan to do and why first though in case they have objections although I assume they've already got some experience with people contacting them with stuff which they feel needs to be passed on to the emergency team, and the emergency team is also used to contacting them when stuff needs suppression. Nil Einne (talk) 04:24, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I really think we're overreacting. We have no idea whether this is going to be some kind of chronic problem, or is just some blip. So far it's a blip. EEng 04:36, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I just realised one thing is the contact form can't be used by editors without an account or without an address on their account or who aren't willing to share this address. There is the oversight-en-wp email address but if it has the same filters and sensitivity won't be useful. Also the form thing is perhaps a moot point since there is Special:EmailUser/Emergency as well. So on further consideration, not sure my suggestion is very helpful. Nil Einne (talk) 09:38, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean about filters for the OS email, but anyone can email us, and unless it gets blocked by the spam filter (which given how much spam gets through, is pretty unlikely) it will show up. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Plan

I think that we need to have a proper contingency plan in place for this. I do not know if there have been any threats to commit suicide on this site; since this article exists, I would presume so. The fact of the matter is that suicide threats can, of course, be distressing. Some editors might be making their first ever suggestion in a talk page, when they see that a new message has come in two minutes ago of somebody threatening to commit suicide. Can you imagine how distressing that would be? Now imagine this on a high traffic page, maybe even the main page. All hell would break loose. My idea is that we have a group working alongside the emergency response team, made up of mainly admins and other trusted/often online individuals. It could also be possible, although difficult, to have a bot (a webcrawler, if you like) that searches talk pages for certain keywords: suicide, kill you, kill myself, etc. When these are detected, it is deleted and the revision is deleted, it is filtered through a group of people (or more precisely, whoever is online in that group) who can decide if it is plausible and/or specific. They can then work out the person's general area and contact local authorities if it is one or both, or discuss on their talk page or in a more private way. The other option is that there is no bot, but an post detailing the threat and the url is sent to a talk page containing people in the group mentioned above. They can then take necessary action, described above. I hope these contingency plans/ideas help you. Crystalpalace6810 (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

This is pretty much how we operate at the moment. Primefac (talk) 17:29, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Please elaborate, CrystalPalace6810 described two options, and I want to use my own recent experience (see my block log) as a case study so i can better understand what to do next time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:27, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Right, and both options are pretty much how we operate. The VRTS OS queue receives tons of emails per day, some of which involve this subject matter. There is also #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect, where we get plenty of requests daily (less often for this type of material, but it does happen). The third option, which generally is more on the "dealing with the individual" side of things, is to email T&S directly; they don't tend to deal with the on-wiki stuff themselves but will often let an OSer know there's something that needs hiding. Primefac (talk) 15:23, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Primefac, I'll work on aborbing all this.... and thanks for the link to VRTS which I never heard of before (probably because it just didn't register) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:42, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac.... Never heard of T&S... I want check so I read the right things... Please confirm you mean Trust and Safety? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Primefac (talk) 14:19, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Suicidal ideation via talk page comments that stop short of explicit imminent threat of *physical* harm

The project page seems to instruct us to report explicit threats of imminent physical harm. What should we do when an editor reveals that they simply feel depressed enough to consider suicide? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Tamzin your input here would be welcome NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:32, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The word "imminent" is not used at all on this page - any and all threats of self-harm should be dealt with in the manner described on the page. If you are indeed taking your example statement seriously (step #1), then you should contact T&S (step #2) for the user and an admin (step #3) for the content. Primefac (talk) 15:26, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused because at my usertalk [9], admin Tamzin explained that I'm afraid no, we don't have a good comprehensive set of options for dealing with suicidal editors. For outright suicide threats (not "I've been suicidal lately" but "I'm going to do it tonight"), the WMF takes jurisdiction under WP:EMERGENCY, and local oversighters support by suppressing the threats themselves (both to avoid suicide contagion and because a suicidal person can't be said to have meaningfully consented to saying that.) But for things that aren't really an imminent threat, it's more an ad hoc mixture of administrative actions. @Primefac (or anyone else too), do you agree that "I've been suicidal lately" or things "aren't really an immient threat" do not t qualify for reporting to WP:EMERGENCY? The more certain we are that we are on the same clearly-articulated page, the better we'll be at helping editors in need, and that's the reason I'm trying to get my brain around this topic.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:56, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I believe that your quote and what you are asking are not as directly connected as you think. What Tamzin is saying is that we have no one-size-fits-all answer to every solution; the clear-cut cases are clear-cut but everything outwith that ends up being down to discretion and circumstance. However, the same steps should always be taken; the outcome, particularly whether to remove/RD/OS/etc, is really the only thing that will change.

What you are asking (or rather, asking me to agree with) is that the imminence of a threat determines what course of action we take, and I would argue that it doesn't (all but the aforementioned "last step" of whether to remove/RD/OS something of course); Tamzin correctly points out that even someone saying content like this can be distressing and cause a cascade effect for other editors who might be triggered by such statements, and so we need to approach each situation with the care and diligence it requires. We are volunteers on this project, and the instructions provided here are provided so that we do not have to deal with any more than strictly necessary; in other words, our main "job" in these situations is to let someone who knows how to deal with this stuff handle it, or at the very least pass it up the chain so that it can get there. Primefac (talk) 16:44, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

In a nutshell, I arrived here confused about three things. We have resolved two.

1. "imminent" (resolved, that's not a factor)

2. "explicit threat of physical harm" (resolved, EMERGENCY is not limited to such statements)

3. take all threats seriously.... I am still confused. If an editor says "I'm really hating myself these days", "Having a really hard time, wonder what's the point" or "I hate my fucking life" or "even thought about suicide" or other vague expressions of "being really down", is the foundation and/or community hoping any editor seeing such remarks to implement WP:EMERGENCY? Or do those sorts of comments fall in a grey "judgment call" category? Or something else?

Thanks NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:24, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Or do those sorts of comments fall in a grey "judgment call" category - yes, in short. I say this often when people request oversight, but it's better for the team to decline to act on something than not know about something important in the first place. If you are in doubt, ask someone (discreetly). Primefac (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) So it's not a matter of whether it's an imminent threat: It's a matter of whether it's a threat at all. "I've been suicidal lately" is not a threat, even if it's deeply concerning. In this case, the remark in question was called in to -en-revdel. I made the initial assessment that no admin action was needed, but that monitoring was; no one challenged that assessment. I watched all of GoodDay's edits for the subsequent 24 hours or so, until I was satisfied the statement wasn't going to morph into a threat. I stand by that decision, because, again, "threat" is the operative word here. Once we start taking administrative action against vaguer statements, where do we draw the line? What do we do about someone with a "This user sometimes struggles with suicidal ideation" userbox? Never mind that this page also covers non-suicidal self-injury, something that between 10% and 30% of young Westerners will engage in at some point in their lives; do we take action against "sometimes I self-harm"?

I agree that a better-defined course of action for non-threatening-but-still-troubling references to suicide (and NSSI, and violence against others) would be beneficial. The revdel/OS side is primarily about protecting people from the consequences of things said while not able to consent to those consequences, but I don't think that's the issue here. Perhaps a template to email someone saying, essentially, "I hope you're okay, and please let me know if I can help [in the form of directing you to appropriate resources because I am a volunteer administrator and not a mental health professional, or, if I am the latter, not your mental health professional], but also, going forward, could you please not discuss things so bluntly on-wiki? It may negatively affect other editors."

I will shill briefly here for User:Tamzin/Guidance for editors with mental illnesses, and also note User:Tamzin/Discretionary admin things § Self-requested blocks, which specifically concerns mental health. Also, N&EG, I saw your email. I hope to find time to respond today. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 17:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Tamzin, no hurry on the email followup. For that matter I only check the account every couple of days. I'd rather use myself as the test case or invent a fictious one. Like in fire fighting, you sometimes think the fire's out but it flares up again. My apologies to User:GoodDay, I didn't mean for your situation to be further aired here, as I try to get up to speed with how Wiki handles these things. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:57, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

No problem & I feel no shame. GoodDay (talk) 17:59, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm 'no longer' suicidal. But, I will try & help here, anyway I can concerning mental health. GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

May you never have to go through it again! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:02, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Fresh start to kick around ideas

A worthy topic has emerged from all this.... could we formulate any better ways handle "non-threatening" cases?

For starters, I'd like to restate what I think I have learned above, so if I miss the mark here someone please correct me. As I understand the status quo, we conceptualize these cases as falling into one of two sub-groups

• Where editors retain Agency (psychology), i.e., the mental capacity to make reasoned decisions, and
• (More seriously) when they don't.

As I understand it, we think of the first group as still having sufficient presence of mind to give "consent", and their comments about suicide are not considered a "threat" as that word relates to the protocols in Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. In contrast, the inability to give consent (e.g., during times of incapacitating mental or emotional anguish) lowers the threshold for what sort of comments will be considered a "threat" and thereby open the door to intervention by authorized community members.

I'm going to pause now, to invite a checkin...... I've tried to re-state my education on this stuff. How am I doing so far? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:41, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I kinda have an idea concerning how to 'lower' the stress of a Wikipedia editor, aside from walking away from the project. As we know, sometimes content disputes can get heated. But, I think such 'heat' can be avoided, if one or more editors involved in a content dispute, stuck to the topic at hand. We all must avoid personal attacks in content disputes, of course. A kinder, gentler discussion, is the best environment for all editors. GoodDay (talk) 01:09, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Isn't that already covered by WP:NPA ? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:36, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

So it is. Gosh, I am getting old. GoodDay (talk) 02:46, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Heh, I thought it was just me with that problem. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:45, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

• needs discussion This is the kind of issue where we need a highly organized, global and multilingual, well documented public discussion. Wikimedia Foundation staff have made presentations about this at Wiki conferences, but those generally are not well documented and also the discussion takes a different tone when it is staff organized versus community led. The response that I would want is a community led planned discussion with parts on various language Wikipedias and other parts in coordinated public video chats recorded and published on wiki and in accessible platforms like YouTube.

In Wiki LGBT+ we are dealing with some other big issues which are beyond what volunteers can manage, and beyond what can be resolved with in-person conference meetings. Part of the response we proposed to address this is requesting Wikimedia Foundation sponsorship to organize discussions which take everyone's comment and also summarize the results. I have a grant proposal here -

• meta:Wikimedia LGBT+/conversation series proposal

I think the same kind of response could work for addressing suicide. Some barriers to this include 1) we have no identified wiki community members available for hire to take money to organize discussions 2) it is unprecedented and we lack social structure to manage more professional conversations like this 3) there are some social barriers between what Wikimedia Foundation does and what the Wikimedia community does, and we need more discussion on who sets values and ethics and how and 4) conversations like this are bigger than Wikipedia and we need better planning for presenting any practices we develop to the public.

In the case of both LGBT+ issues and suicide response, if the Wikipedia community were to take positions, then probably journalists would report that and other communities would copy us. We have some really powerful advantages that we have an engaged community who will discuss such things and also that we are stakeholders in these issues who actually have great experience with these challenges.

If anyone can think of a way to turn money and sponsorship into planning and written best practices, then I support them in apply for grants. I do not want to do this myself, but I would support others in doing this. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:19, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much Bluerasberry. If I don't comment substantively soon, this was great and I'm already thinking about it. Good luck with the LGBT+ issues you are trying to address. A young half clone of mine thanks you and everyone trying to healthily address that topic. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

@Blueraspberry:, I've read through your comment a few days and I'm still uncertain that it is you think needs discussion. Are you referring to the existing process described on the project page attached tot this talk page (shortcut WP:EMERGENCY)? Or to the idea of building on that for instances of editor's admitting suicidal thoughts/feelings of a less "emergency" nature? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:42, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment. Understanding human nature a bit, I don't want to see Wikipedia becoming a psychiatric monitoring service that helps locking up, drugging, or treating people against their will. Thinker78 (talk) 20:35, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:COMPULSORY applies. PRAXIDICAE🌈 21:00, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

This is useless

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

ARen't we supposed to contact the emergency email if a user seems to have intent to commit suicide? Cause I just did so and guess what? Absolutely nothing happened. I had emailed the Trust and Safety team as well as the emergency email regarding a user who seemed to want to commit suicide right then and there. And yet nothing ever happened, and now it appears that they have gone ahead and done so. This angers me greatly, what the hell is the point of this even existing if they're going to do nothing about it. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:25, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

You make the assumption that nothing was or has been done, but you quite literally know nothing about the situation other than a couple of talk page posts. You assume something has happened, but you do not know.

You are supposed to contact T&S, but T&S is not empowered with magical fairy dust that allows them to stop someone doing something. Hell, at best they can contact local law enforcement, and even then it's hit or miss whether anything can be done. Primefac (talk) 18:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

And how the hell would you know? You're not someone who has seen multiple people kill themself while just sitting helplessly. No one does. No one ever will. YEs i Know that they can't guarantee they will stop someone, however I Figured they would at least try to talk to the user, rather than just let everything fricking happen. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm on ArbCom. I'm an Oversighter. ArbCom had a phone call with the WMF last night. Should I continue? Primefac (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't see what ArbCom having a phone call with the WMF last night has anything to do with this at all. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

ArbCom has a monthly call with the WMF to discuss issues related to the English Wikipedia, including issues that cannot be otherwise discussed in an open forum. If you will not read between the lines on this, please at least check your email. Primefac (talk) 19:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Sadly, it is unclear if law enforcement or mental health professionals do more good than harm to people who seem to have intent to commit suicide. A trip to a mental health hospital can destroy the life of someone who could have just been joking or written something without actually intending to do it. And mental health "treatment" can actually violate fundamental human rights in many occassions and countries.

Wikipedia should extraordinarily limit what it involves itself in law enforcement cases. Or else it could end up having in-house cops to monitor talk pages or being governments' informant. Thinker78 (talk) 03:24, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• Agree, inadequate I know nothing about this particular case but I advocate for general reform because I have community involvement in other general cases.

We the wiki community of editors and the general public require public, de-identified information about crisis processes. Neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor anyone else has ethical or moral standing to claim exclusive management of our crisis responses or for judging the extent to which they are correct and sufficient. Here are some starting requests:

1. How many suicide reports do we get in a year
2. What data do we have about the outcomes
3. Where is the response process documented, when will a rationale be published for why it needs to be private, and what third party has critiqued its appropriateness
4. Who decided the resource allocation for suicide response, and when can this investment be discussed in public with the wiki community
5. Where is community participation in this process? Community members bear the burden of outcomes, but are not obviously represented in the Wikimedia Foundation's design and management of the process.

At meta:Talk:Private_Incident_Reporting_System#Get_data_to_third-party_researchers I request de-identified data for incidents to go to third party researchers. That applies to suicide also. Among other stakeholder groups for this data, meta:Wikimedia LGBT+ wants representation in this general discussion. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, you're going to have a lot more luck asking the WMF directly. Posting it here is unlikely to be seen by them, much less to get a response. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The WMF prefers to get requests in the form of grant proposals and I have one at meta:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conversation series - LGBT+. If they give the money then I will coordinate with Wikimedia LGBT+ to hire someone to ask the question to WMF, the community, and the world, and publish the result.

These kinds of questions take ~100 hours to ask and 1000 hours for a first answer. I am not sure that I can get an answer but I want to get someone to scope the issue.

As an aside, ArbCom needs a paid secretary from the Wikimedia community because it is a waste of labor to elect 10 super skilled Wikimedia volunteers, have them meet with WMF staff who each consume US$200,000+/year, then not publish public reports of the outcomes. I appreciate ArbCom a lot and things used to be run by volunteers but somewhere along the way the WMF started bringing in $200 million / year and the investment in ArbCom needs to be increased from $0 to more than $0. That money needs to go to community because WMF lacks standing of community stakeholders. Bluerasberry (talk) 22:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: Here is a blog post from 2014 giving a little bit of detail of what happens behind the scenes. FWIW I've sent maybe 5-10 emails to emergency@ and always received a "we'll look into it" response within a few minutes. If you didn't get that, there may have been a technical glitch, and one that should be looked into before it happens again. But you won't necessarily get anything more. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.