Disruptive editing is a pattern of editing that disrupts progress toward improving an article or building the encyclopedia. This may extend over a long time on many articles. Disruptive editing is not always vandalism, though vandalism is always disruptive. Each case should be treated independently, taking into consideration whether or not the actions violate policies and guidelines.
Editors should take care to not wrongly label disruptive situations as vandalism as it drives away others and especially newcomers.
Disruptive editing is not always intentional. Editors may be accidentally disruptive because they don't understand how to correctly edit, or because they lack the social skills or competence necessary to work collaboratively.
Wikipedia's openness sometimes attracts people who seek to exploit the site as a platform for pushing a single point of view, original research, advocacy, or self-promotion. While notable minority opinions are welcomed when verifiable through reliable sources, and constructive editors occasionally make mistakes, sometimes an editor creates long-term problems by persistently editing a page or set of pages with information which is not verifiable through reliable sources or insisting on giving undue weight to a minority view.
Collectively, disruptive editors harm by degrading Wikipedia's reliability and/or by exhausting the patience of other editors, who may quit the project in frustration.
An edit which, in isolation, is not disruptive may still be part of a pattern of editing that is. A group of disruptive edits may be close together in time, or spread out; they may all occur on a single page, or on many pages; they may be all very similar, or superficially quite different.
Disruptive editors may seek to disguise their behavior as productive editing, yet distinctive traits separate them from productive editors. When discussion fails to resolve the problem and when an impartial consensus of uninvolved editors agree (through requests for comment or similar means), further disruption is grounds for blocking, and may lead to more serious disciplinary action through the dispute resolution process. In extreme cases, this could include a site ban, either through the Arbitration Committee or by a consensus.
The three-revert rule, if observed by disruptive editors, is not to be construed as a defense against action taken to enforce this policy against disruptive editors. As stated in that policy, "The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times." The three-revert rule should not be broken, even by editors attempting to revert disruptive edits. While vandalism is always disruptive, disruptive editing is not always vandalism; it is better for editors to follow the process suggested below than to break the rule.
This guideline concerns gross, obvious and repeated violations of policies, not subtle questions about which reasonable people may disagree.
A disruptive editor often exhibits these tendencies:
In addition, such editors might:
When one becomes frustrated with the way a policy or guideline is being applied, it may be tempting to try to discredit the rule or interpretation thereof by, in one's view, applying it consistently. Sometimes, this is done simply to prove a point in a local dispute. In other cases, one might try to enforce a rule in a generally unpopular way, with the aim of getting it changed.
Such behavior, wherever it occurs, is highly disruptive and can lead to a block or ban. If you feel that a policy is problematic, the policy's talk page is the proper place to raise your concerns. If you simply disagree with someone's actions in an article, discuss it on the article talk page or related pages. If mere discussion fails to resolve a problem, look into dispute resolution.
Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus, rather than trying to sway it with disruptive tactics.
Note that it is possible to make a point, without disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate it.
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Sometimes, editors perpetuate disputes by sticking to a viewpoint long after community consensus has decided that moving on would be more productive. This is disruptive.
Believing that you have a valid point does not confer the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told otherwise. The community's rejection of your idea is not because they didn't hear you. Stop writing, listen, and consider what the others are telling you. Make an effort to see their side of the debate, and work on finding points of agreement. Do not confuse "hearing" with "agreeing with".
Sometimes, even when editors act in good faith, their contributions may be time-wasting, especially if they can't understand what the problem is. Although editors should be encouraged to be bold and just do things if they think they're right, sometimes a lack of competence can get in the way. If the community spends more time cleaning up editors' mistakes and educating them about policies and guidelines than it considers necessary, sanctions may be imposed.
Editors often post minority views to articles. This fits within Wikipedia's mission so long as the contributions are verifiable, do not give undue weight, and where appropriate, comply with WP:FRINGE. The burden of evidence rests with the editor who initially provides the information or wishes the information to remain.
From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view:
Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views.
Editors may present active public disputes or controversies documented by reliable sources; citing a viewpoint stated in a mainstream scholarly journal, textbook, or monograph is not per se disruptive editing. This exemption does not apply to settled disputes, e.g. that the Sun revolves around the Earth. (The dispute itself is notable.)
Sometimes well-meaning editors may be misled by fringe publications or make mistakes. Such people may defend their positions for a short time, then concede the issue when they encounter better evidence or impartial feedback.
Bad-faith disruptive editors attempt to evade disciplinary action in several ways:
Nonetheless, such disruptive editing violates Wikipedia policy and norms.
The following is a model for remedies, though these steps do not necessarily have to be done in this sequence. In some extreme circumstances, a rapid report to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents may be the best first step; in others, a fast track to a community ban may be in order. But in general, most situations can benefit from a gradual escalation:
All edits on April Fools' Day must continue to adhere to all applicable policies and guidelines, including (but not limited to) edit warring, no personal attacks and the biographies of living persons policy. With the exception of the Main Page, all edits that are intended to be humorous should be kept out of the article and help namespaces, as well as their respective talk pages; and be tagged with {{Humor}} (or equivalent template, such as the inline {{April fools}} or {{4-1}}) to avoid misleading users.