Unfortnately, that isn’t true. The Wikipedia community has at several points attempted to create a hard policy to address death threats, but in each case have been foiled by administrators and others who consider it inconvenient.

Thanks, Arnold. How do you know that?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Threats_of_violence#Guideline for a relatively recent example. One administrator claims “Getting involved in the real world is outside the scope of what we do at Wikipedia” while another administrator claims that reporting would “provoke drama” and a third states bluntly “I don’t think any ol’ threat should be reported”. It’s very clear that Wikipedia administrators treat threats of violence in an extremely cavalier manner.

Indeed, even the discussion of this particular incident was quickly closed on Wikipedia’s internal discussion boards, with a note that “No further edits should be made to this discussion.”

That’s great info. Thanks. What are these “internal discussion boards” you referenced? Can you include the link?

That’s just scratching the surface. I have much more. This has been an issue for years.

The discussion on this incident was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN/I#School_closed_due_to_wiki_threat.
and was closed with a dismissive “No need to create a song-and-dance which just encourages silliness.”

These kinds of reactions are exactly the silliness, we try to avoid. I reported the incident, because it was not known “widely” within in the community, and I thus could not be sure wether the Foundation had been notified. As soon as I reported it, it was stated that the Foundation was already dealing with it (for several hours), and that indeed closes the issue for all other editors. (especially if it has been several hours since the incident, like in this case) If the situation is being dealt with, then we don’t need to drag it along all day (create a song-and-dance).

One of the reasons we try to be relatively quiet about things like this, is that kids should not start using Wikipedia as a “sure” way to close their school down for a day. Those kids are out there, and we don’t want to encourage them, while we also don’t want to miss any real threats of course. People say the weirdest things all around the Internet, and if a Wikipedia editor thinks that someone needs to be notified, then authorities are usually notified. As far as I know, this has happened only a few times, esp. because such claims are, luckily, relatively rare. As far as I’m aware all such cases have been pranks, but I’m not sure, you should ask Jay Walsh if you really want to know (though I doubt he will tell you).

The one rule we do have however, is inform our Foundation when you inform anyone else, and don’t get involved after authorities are dealing with the situation if you don’t (or no longer) need to. In this we basically follow general rules of thumb that are present in society. Not everything has to put in fixed guidelines on paper for it to be a common practice. And the people who won’t do this, are also not likely to start doing so after reading a guideline/policy. The same people that walk around your street walk around the Internet, and in general, you can expect them to react in similar ways.

Contrary to DJ’s claim, death threats are quite common on Wikipedia. See this link for example to the archives of one of the admin discussion boards: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%22death+threat%22+prefix%3AWikipedia%3AAdministrators%27+noticeboard&ns0=1&fulltext=Search

I’m sure that there are many death threats made that are simply deleted and go unreported to anyone, including Wikipedia admins. While I’m not suggesting that all death threats made anonymously on the internet should be taken seriously, it is clear from the discussions linked to in these comments that there is no consistent handling of them on Wikipedia.

Further to my comment above, it should be obvious by looking at the link I provided that Jay Walsh is shining you on. Unless he takes “infrequently” to mean “frequently”, much as “inflammable” means “flammable”. Perhaps you should follow up with him on this?

I note David Hunn’s first reaction to legitimate comments made here is borne with skepticism. “What?! Could it possibly be that the Wikimedia Foundation is not a perfect organization? Did Jay Walsh smooth over serious problems for me?”

Mr. Hunn, I kindly suggest that you educate yourself (and then hopefully your readers, in turn) of the irresponsible and unprofessional characteristics of the Wikimedia Foundation, through history. If you’d like, I will give you a few links to begin your educational journey.

http://news.cnet.com/1606-2-6233396.html

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23166

http://www.mywikibiz.com/Top_10_Reasons_Not_to_Donate_to_Wikipedia

If the media is unwilling or unable to perform its necessary role of investigative journalism (as opposed to swallowing hook, line, and sinker what PR flaks feed them, then it is no surprise to me that so many newspapers are going belly-up these days.

(This comment has been edited to remove inappropriate content.)

Mr. Kohs, I was simply asking for proof. I’m sorry you were offended by the question. And thank you for your note; it does help in my education.