Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm

This page documents an English Wikipedia behavioral guideline.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts

If you feel you may physically harm yourself or others:
Click here for a list of support resources

If you see a threat of physical harm (including self-harm):

1. Treat all claims seriously

Many threats are empty, but leave that evaluation to Wikimedia Foundation staff.
If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency services.

2. Contact the Wikimedia Foundation

Immediately email emergencywikimedia.org with details of the threat, or click here: Message the emergency team (only works with accounts with email enabled).
These contact methods are for threats of physical harm (including self-harm) only. For other concerns, see Wikipedia:Contact us.
Provide the exact name of the page where you saw the threat and the time that you saw it (including the URL to the page or a diff link with the edit is a better way).
This address is monitored around the clock. Staff will typically acknowledge your email immediately (Check your junk folder).
Do not email other Wikimedia Foundation addresses, or telephone the Wikimedia Foundation, as this creates confusion.
Staff will take appropriate action, such as tracing locations and contacting authorities.

3. Contact Wikipedia administrators privately

Use email, IRC, Discord, or other low-visibility methods, not high-traffic noticeboards or popular talk pages.
If in doubt, the primary method is to use IRC and join the #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect channel. To do this quickly and using your browser, click here: Join IRC channel.
If you need to find an administrator who's active on Wikipedia right now, you can use this tool to locate one.
Even if you are an administrator, notify other administrators.

Advice for administrators

Threats of suicide or other self-harm require discretion on the question of blocking but generally, specific threats should be removed (with a thoughtfully worded edit summary) and revision deleted, pending oversight.
Threats against others should be met with blocking (generally including removal of talk page access) and possibly blocking email as well. Such threats should be blanked; consider applying revdel as well.
Request oversight (suppression) of any post containing personal information.
If in doubt, email the office at emergencywikimedia.org; stay off high-traffic noticeboards.

External links

A behind the scenes look at the Wikimedia Foundation’s emergency response system, User:Mdennis (WMF), September 22, 2014
Threats of harm - global guidance from Meta-wiki