Grants:IdeaLab/Find ways to identify and define "playing the victim"

Inspire campaign

Find ways to identify and define "playing the victim"

There is a group of users who actually harass others, yet manage to do so pretending they are actually not doing. A common approach would be to flood the talk page with criticism on relatively minor glitches (say "you made the grammar error, you have made the second edit to correct it, grammar errors are bad, repetitive edits also, and this is already not the first time I am reporting this to you"). That are they waiting for is to provoke a few words of angry reaction - they they are victims, and report being so in all possible places over the project. They also carefully check the edit history of the actual victim, watching for already reverted issues and tend to declare that saying "sorry" is never enough (as this would end they attack).

idea creator• Audriusa

volunteer• Tiến.Dolce

this project needs...

volunteer

created on19:26, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Playing the victim is a powerful attack that may go as far as demoting unwanted administrators. It is important to address this problem when preparing means for dealing with harassment.

What is your solution?

Define "playing the victim" behavior so it could be referenced. Understand this possibility when demanding stricter punishments for harassment.

Get Involved

Participants

• Volunteer 0982921228 Hoa lộc - hậu lộc - thanh hóa Tiến.Dolce (talk) 05:39, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Endorsements

• Good idea. We need this, although it is not too important. Calicodragon (talk) 21:40, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
• Could you expand on this a bit.*Updated*I just noted the text box on the right hand side of the page where you clarified what you are referring to. I am not sure if what you describe is considered the most serious form of harassment. First, there are editors who have a personal beef against some common grammatical correction, such as an editor who has made 47,000 corrections when it comes to changing "comprised of" to "composed". There are some editors who have quirks and administers are probably able to deal with petty complaints. My day-time job involves includes listening to complaints from the public, and there are many people who report minor complaints all the time. If it is minor corrections, if someone is correcting multiple pages you've worked on and no one is reverting the other person's edits, then you need to get thicker skin.

However if you are saying that you are responding with a few angry words, then you are making the issue worse. In some ways, if you respond with anger, then you are the aggressor. Yes, it is irritating when someone say "you made this mistake and that mistake, and you misspelled this common word", but if someone is just being irritating, then there are a few things to do such as taking a break from Wikipedia and responding the next day, asking advise from other editors as to whether these are valid corrections, and providing a non-emotional short response that says something like "message received. Leave me alone". Being irritating is not harassment. Harrasment is death threats and rape threats, not constant notes regarding misspelled words.DivaNtrainin (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• Finally. Sanjev Rajaram (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

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