Wikipedia:Duty to comply

{{Wikipedia essay|interprets=Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines and the Wikipedia:Edit filter guideline|WP:COMPLY|WP:DTC|WP:DUTYTOCOMPLY}}

{{nutshell|Editors have duties to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.}}

Although Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, editing is a privilege, not a right. Therefore, editors have a duty to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, unless the policies and guidelines would not allow an action, where Wikipedia:Ignore all rules would apply. Policies and guidelines that have strong consensus are often the most strongly enforced. Edit filters are in place to enforce these duties. Prohibited behaviors, such as vandalism, sockpuppetry, and edit warring, are usually driven by emotion. Users who commit these behaviors may be blocked, banned, or both.

Rationale

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines govern how users must edit. Policies tell users what they must do, and guidelines tell them how to handle situations. Editors have duties to comply with these policies and guidelines, except in unusual circumstances, where Wikipedia:Ignore all rules would apply. Edit filters are in place to enforce these duties and to find patterns in harmful behavior. Kantian ethics dictate that duties come from deontological ethics, and following duties results in good behavior.{{Cite journal |last=Misselbrook |first=David |date=April 2013 |title=Duty, Kant, and Deontology |url=https://bjgp.org/lookup/doi/10.3399/bjgp13X665422 |journal=British Journal of General Practice |volume=63 |issue=609 |pages=211–211 |doi=10.3399/bjgp13X665422 |issn=0960-1643 |pmc=3609464 |pmid=23540473}}{{Cite web |title=BBC - Ethics - Introduction to ethics: Duty-based ethics |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/duty_1.shtml |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=BBC}} Duties also come from reason.{{cite wikisource |title=Critique of Practical Reason |wslink=Critique of Practical Reason |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |authorlink=Immanuel Kant |translator-last=Abbott |translator-first=Thomas Kingsmill |date=1788}}{{cite wikisource |title=Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

|wslink=Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

|last=Kant |first=Immanuel |authorlink=Immanuel Kant |translator-last=Abbott |translator-first=Thomas Kingsmill }} If a user were to apply Kantian ethics, the policies and guidelines exist to facilitate building an encyclopedia, and the edit filters exist because of the policies and guidelines.

In a legal sense, willfulness is "the voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty",{{cite court |litigants=Cheek v. United States|vol=498|reporter=U.S.|opinion= 192|court=Supreme Court of the United States|date= 1991 |url= https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/498/192/}} and it is "intentional, or knowing" instead of unintentional.{{cite court |litigants=United States v. Murdock|vol=290|reporter=U.S.|opinion=389|court=Supreme Court of the United States|date=1933|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/290/389/}} Wikipedia's policies, such as those involving vandalism and sockpuppetry, show that these violations involve intent. In addition, the principle of Ignorantia juris non excusat holds that nobody is excused from not knowing policies, and that policies guide behavior.{{Cite journal |last=Rowell |first=Arden |date=2019 |title=Legal Knowledge, Belief, and Aspiration |url=https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Rowell-Final.pdf |journal=Arizona State Law Journal |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=225–291 |via=Academic Search Complete}} Policies and guidelines are available for people to read. This supports the principle of constructive knowledge, even if a user cannot prove that another user actually knew the policies and guidelines at hand. If a user makes a disruptive edit, another user typically reverts that edit and uses a warning template, such as Template:Uw-disruptive1, telling the user to look at the policies and guidelines, and to ask for help from the user who posted that message. The fact that this template and similar templates have these notes and links supports the maxim that users are presumed to know the policies and guidelines, and users who reasonably believe that other users posted disruptively can prove that those other users should have known the policies and guidelines, but chose not to search for them or read them.

For citing reliable sources, editors should try to cite academic journals first, as they have the most rigorous review processes and cite many sources.{{Cite web |last=Library |first=A. C. Buehler |title=A.C. Buehler Library: Source Evaluation and Credibility: Journals and Magazines |url=https://library.elmhurst.edu/credibility |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=library.elmhurst.edu}} :Template:Talk header lists examples of sites editors can look for academic journals on, such as Google Scholar and JSTOR. Extended confirmed users may have access to the Wikipedia Library, provided their accounts are older than six months. Other reliable sources include academic books, trade sources, and periodical articles, such as those from magazines and newspapers.{{Cite web |title=How to Identify Reliable Information |url=https://www.stevenson.edu/online/about-us/news/how-to-identify-reliable-information/ |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=Stevenson University}}

Prohibited actions

Actions Wikipedia prohibits include, but are not limited to, the following.

{{bulleted list|Vandalism.|Censoring Wikipedia.|Disruptive editing.||Spam, because the intent would be to advertise or promote oneself.|Edit warring instead of using the talk pages to discuss controversial edits, because the intent would be to win. Wikipedia is not a battleground.|Sockpuppetry, because the intent would often be to influence votes, win edit wars, and circumvent policies and guidelines.|Failing to cite reliable sources when adding new content that could be challenged or where a citation is expected. If an editor is not sure if a source is reliable, that editor should review Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources and any other applicable guides, such as WikiProject-specific reliable source guides.|Original research.|Using talk pages as forums.|Writing about oneself.|Conflict of interest editing. If that happens, an editor with the conflict of interest should ask another editor to write or edit the topic instead.|Copyright violations, as Wikimedia takes them seriously.|Personal attacks.|Harassment.|Willfully triggering edit filters.|Willfully not adhering to the Manual of Style, as this manual aims to standardize article format and appearance.|Choosing defamatory, impersonating, profane, libelious, offensive, or otherwise harmful usernames.|Not adhering to neutral point of view.|Not being here to build an encyclopedia.|Consistently performing poorly in certain subjects instead of letting more knowledgeable people handle those subjects.|Willfully providing false information.|Attempting to own pages.|Threatening legal action, because the intent is to avoid civility and treat Wikipedia as a professional service rather than a volunteer one.}}

These behaviors are usually driven by emotion, such as pride, selfishness, ambition, or deception.{{Cite journal |last=Yip |first=Jeremy A. |last2=Lee |first2=Kelly Kiyeon |date=December 2022 |title=Emotions and ethics: How emotions sensitize perceptions of the consequences for self and others to motivate unethical behavior |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2352250X22001853 |journal=Current Opinion in Psychology |language=en |volume=48 |pages=101464 |doi=10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101464}} Any editor who persistently engages in these behaviors may be blocked, banned, or both. That editor is consequently blocked or banned because of what that editor did, and that editor cannot blame other users. Other users can incite that editor to act, but ultimately, that editor chooses to act.

Bare URLs

Users should not cite bare URLs. Instead, they should take the time to fill out the citation templates and insert as much information as they know. Doing so adds credibility to articles and allows readers to examine sources more thoroughly. They have basic templates available in the editing screen, or they can use tools such as ProveIt or reFill, to add citation information. A list of citation tools is available at Help:Citation tools.