| The community has the primary role in creating and enforcing policies applying to the different Project editions. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we rarely intervene in community decisions about policy and its enforcement. It is possible to notify us of illegal content, or content that violates our Terms of Use (including all policies and other documents incorporated by reference) for other reasonsby contacting us directly. However, you can typically make a request directly to the Project's community: this may be more efficient, and is more consistent with our Projects' aim to empower the user community. Each Project will usually provide "Help" or "Contact" pages for further guidance, or specific tools for reporting issues. Alternatively – if in doubt – you can ask members of the community for help, by sending an email to info@wikimedia.org or a more language-specific address from theVolunteer Response Team page. Please note that these mailboxes are monitored by users of the Projects, not the Foundation. As a result, they should not be threatened or issued with legal demands. If you contact the Foundation with a problem, we will typically explore whether and how existing community-led mechanisms can investigate and, where appropriate, resolve it. In an unusual case, the need may arise, or the community may ask us, to address an especially problematic user or especially problematic content because of significant Project disturbance or dangerous behavior. In such cases, we reserve the right, at our sole discretion (or where legally compelled), to: - Investigate your use of the Projects or our services (a) to determine whether a violation of these Terms of Use, Project edition policy, or other applicable law or policy has occurred, or (b) to comply with any applicable law, legal process, or an appropriate governmental request;
- Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, false or unverifiable information, security, or technical issues or respond to user support requests;
- Refuse, revert, disable, or restrict access to contributions of any user who violates these Terms of Use;
- Ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access for actions violating these Terms of Use, including repeat posting of unlawful material under applicable law in line with human rights principles;
- Take legal action against users who violate these Terms of Use (including reports to law enforcement authorities); and
- Manage otherwise the Project websites in a manner designed to facilitate their proper functioning and protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and our users, licensors, partners, and the public.
Those Foundation moderation activities may be informed or performed by software (such as traffic flood ("Denial of Service") protection). In those cases human review is normally available,upon request. In the interests of our users and the Projects, in the extreme circumstance that any individual has had their account or access blocked under this section, they are prohibited from creating or using another account on or seeking access to the same Project, unless we provide explicit permission. Without limiting the authority of the community, the Foundation itself will not ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access solely because of good faith criticism that does not result in actions otherwise violating these Terms of Use or community policies. The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies. You agree to comply with the final decisions of dispute resolution bodies that are established by the community for the specific Project editions (such as arbitration committees); these decisions may include sanctions as set out by the policy of the specific Project edition. Especially problematic users who have had accounts or access blocked on multiple Project editions may be subject to a ban from all of the Project editions, in accordance with theGlobal Ban Policy. In contrast to Board resolutions or these Terms of Use, policies established by the community, which may cover a single Project edition or multiple Projects editions (like the Global Ban Policy), may be modified by the relevant community according to its own procedures. The blocking of an account or access or the banning of a user under this provision shall be in accordance with Section 13 of these Terms of Use. If you believe we have not satisfactorily acted on a problematic content report, or if you have been subjected to a Foundation moderation action that you wish to challenge, you may be able tosubmit an appeal. Other information about routes of appeal may also be explained to you at the time, or in Project-specific help pages. We reserve the right to suspend (temporarily, or permanently) our handling of reports or other correspondence from users or third parties, whether about allegedly illegal or otherwise problematic content or conduct, or requesting appeals against moderation actions, if such correspondence was made in bad faith, repetitive, unfounded, and/or abusive. In appropriate circumstances, your email address may even be blocked on our email system(s), and you will then need to contact usat our postal address if you wish to further correspond with us during that block. For less serious cases (e.g. up to three polite emails about one or more meritless complaints), this is likely to be temporary. More frequent or more abusive communications are more likely to lead to permanent measures. |
