no Legal Threats

This page is a policy on the Simple English Wiki Simple English. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard idea that all users should normally follow. When changing this page (except for minor errors like typos), please check that other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to suggest a change.

Making legal threats will not help the problem, and may get the person blocked. This is because legal threats:

1. Make a bad situation even worse by bringing real life concerns into it.
2. Add stress to the community and especially to administrators, who have to decide what to do about it.
3. Stops people from working on articles, especially from keeping then neutral. If one side is afraid of the other, it is hard to find a compromise.

Legal threats are very serious. If someone threatens to sue Wikipedia, they may actually do it. This would cause Wikipedia a lot of trouble and cost a lot of money. Making a legal threat can make other users afraid to change pages, or make them angry at you. There are almost always better ways to solve the problem.

If you see something on Wikipedia that is breaking the law, remove it with a clear explanation in your edit summary of why you are removing it. If other users do not know why, they may put it back.

There are two main ways things on Wikipedia could break the law. If there is a page that needs to be deleted because it is a copyright violation, then tag it with {{qd|g12|(name of site)}} so that an administrator can delete it. If it is libellous, do the same with {{qd|g10}}. Raising the issue on the administrators' noticeboard should usually work to get attention. If there are concerns that need to stay private, please email Wiki Simple English.

Saying that you will sue Wikipedia will not help things. It will make things worse, because it will raise the tension. If you ask politely and explain what needs to be fixed, people will listen to you. If you are threatening, you may be blocked for disruption.