User:9cfilorux/Behavioural pitfalls

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

If you are being bullied

If you are being bullied, the most important thing you can do is to stay calm. The bully's goal is most likely to see you get angry; if you get angry and show it, they have won. If you manage to behave egregiously enough, you are also at risk of making others think that you are the one at fault, which hurts your chances of having action taken against the bully. This is mainly because you will tend to do one or both of two things: try to block the person, and try to play their game.

'Blocking' in this case is used to mean not only literally blocking someone through Special:Block^[1] but any way of interfering with what they are doing. This includes removing their comments from talk pages, removing any user rights they may have, and destroying their sandcastle. If you find that you absolutely must revert a bully's comments, do not use rollback; rollback is intended for blatant vandalism,^[2] which bullying is not. Leave an explanatory edit summary, preferably polite and/or humorous. Avoid saying things like 'Sod off' or 'You suck'. Removing user rights and destroying sandcastles is very rarely, if ever, justified.

'Playing their game', or sinking to their level, is pretty self-explanatory. It is an easy trap to fall into because you find yourself wanting to get revenge and even the score, and you will probably think that if they are getting away with it you should be able to do likewise. However, this assumes that you can play their game as well as they, which is very likely not to be the case. Firstly, most bullies are experienced at what they do, and if you are an honest, timid sort of person (which you most likely are if you have become the victim of bullying) you are almost undoubtedly not.^[3] Secondly, the bully is calm and you are probably not, which makes it harder for you to judge what you are doing. This brings us back to the original point: if you remain calm, you would not attempt this course of action in the first place. Yelling at the person, snapping about them on talk pages and forums, and throwing insults at them such as 'your responses are a load of cow pies' or 'your mom eats worms for supper' are all symptoms of trying to play their game. If you find that you must respond to what they say, give a polite and/or humorous response. For example, 'I love you, sweetie' or 'If you don't stop throwing eggs at my house, my pet shoggoth will come and eat you'.

If you encounter a situation you dislike

If you encounter a situation you dislike for whatever reason, and you have not been explicitly provoked but you feel the need to do something about it anyway, try to stay calm and not act confrontational. This really ought to go without saying, but it doesn't seem to occur to some people.^[4] There is no glory in being the one who starts a fight; fights tend to be messy and disgraceful, and turning a peaceful situation into a fight is not something that should be done without a really good reason.^[5]^[6]

If everything is basically fine and you have no need to get involved, it may be advisable to simply do nothing about it and work on something else. If, however, after devoting a sufficient amount of thought to the matter, you are still convinced that you must do something, it is probably best to start out by using words. Talk to someone (or comment in some kind of public forum) about your concern, and of course do your best to be polite and non-confrontational about it.

This is somewhat related to assuming good faith. You may simply be assuming bad faith rather than perceiving an actual problem; think about whether this is what you are doing, and if you are unsure, ask someone else for an explanation.

If you are considering bullying someone

If you are considering bullying/trolling someone -- i.e. bothering them with the sole intention of making them angry, often by means of lies or otherwise incorrect statements -- don't. As good as it may make you feel, whether you are successful at it or not, whatever your goal is, there is always a better way to handle things. Directly telling the person what you perceive to be their shortcomings or objectionable actions, for example; if you fear they will not listen, tell someone else who will. If it is their (perceived) superiority to you that you take issue with rather than their inferiority, concentrate on improving yourself. If there is nothing at all about the person or their actions that you find to be a real problem, find something else entirely to do.

Footnotes

^ This is not covered here, but is also probably inadvisable for the reasons given here as, if you are considering a block, you are probably thinking in terms of retaliation or punishment which is not proper grounds for a block. Even if your wiki does not have an equivalent policy section, it is still inadvisable because retaliatory blocks or blocks made to 'shut someone up' tend to be perceived negatively by other editors. If talking to the person is ineffective, and you are able to remain calm and think clearly but you still believe a block is necessary, it probably is; however, make sure to find a part of your wiki's policy that supports the block and cite it in your summary.
^ There are other uses for rollback floating around, but they are not relevant to this essay as well as probably being somewhat controversial.
^ There is a saying: 'Never argue with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.' It applies to bullies as well as idiots, though successful bullies are not idiots in the usual sense.
^ I.e. me.
^ If a vandal is peacefully making hash out of the wiki, that's a really good reason. Otherwise, you'll have to do a bit more thinking.
^ Starting an argument may be something like having a lot to drink: you feel good about it when you're doing it, but when it's all over you regret it.

[1] This is not covered here, but is also probably inadvisable for the reasons given here as, if you are considering a block, you are probably thinking in terms of retaliation or punishment which is not proper grounds for a block. Even if your wiki does not have an equivalent policy section, it is still inadvisable because retaliatory blocks or blocks made to 'shut someone up' tend to be perceived negatively by other editors. If talking to the person is ineffective, and you are able to remain calm and think clearly but you still believe a block is necessary, it probably is; however, make sure to find a part of your wiki's policy that supports the block and cite it in your summary.

[2] There are other uses for rollback floating around, but they are not relevant to this essay as well as probably being somewhat controversial.

[3] There is a saying: 'Never argue with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.' It applies to bullies as well as idiots, though successful bullies are not idiots in the usual sense.

[4] I.e. me.

[5] If a vandal is peacefully making hash out of the wiki, that's a really good reason. Otherwise, you'll have to do a bit more thinking.

[6] Starting an argument may be something like having a lot to drink: you feel good about it when you're doing it, but when it's all over you regret it.

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