On 10/16/07, Avi avi.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
With the couple of suicide notes in the past few weeks, and now this issue about school violence threats (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden... )
I think it would be prudent if there were an "official" or semi-official policy/How-To set up, similar to the revised WP:SUICIDE.
Thoughts?
--Avi
I just posted on-thread there, but I think I generally agree that it would be a good thing.
For many of the same reasons as with potentially suicidal users, we're not equipped or trained to make a judgement as to the credibility of an apparent death threat. Punt to the authorities, notify the WMF Office, notify on ANI, revert the edits and block the user.
If it turns out to be a joke in poor taste and no actual threat of violence, we have at least minimized drama here that way. If it was credible, or somewhat credible, we may have avoided something really bad happening.
I tend to agree that in this particular case the odds appear high that it's just a bad joke, but I think that the punt to the school and police was still entirely appropriate.