This page documents a procedural policy of Wikipedia. This page is also a Wikimedia official policy, established by Jimmy Wales and endorsed by the Foundation as necessary for the operation of the sites under its jurisdiction.

Shortcuts: WP:OFFICE WP:OA

This page in a nutshell: Sometimes the Wikimedia Foundation has to delete, protect or blank a page without going through the normal site/community process(es). These edits are temporary measures to prevent legal trouble or personal harm and should not be undone by any user.

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Office actions are official changes made on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, by members of its office. These are removals of questionable or illegal Wikimedia content following complaints. Office actions are performed so that the end result is a legally compliant article on the subject. Neither this policy nor actions taken under it override core policies, such as neutrality.

The most common complaints are defamation, privacy violations or copyright infringement.

Contents 1 Short explanation 2 Process 3 Who initiates office actions 4 Currently under scrutiny 5 Originalia

[edit] Short explanation

Because "official edits" may seem strange in the context of an openly editable encyclopedia, some common causes for confusion should be clarified:

• Office actions are extremely rare.
• Office actions only occur by formal complaint made off-wiki (e.g. postal mail, electronic mail, telephone, or personal meetings).
• Grievances must be grounded in the law or be violations of Wikimedia standards. Requests for preferential treatment or attempts at intimidation are not heeded.
• The vast majority of cases are: libel, unjustifiable invasion of personal privacy, and copyright infringement. Since these are all inappropriate on Wikimedia anyway, office actions are preventable: if you see such a violation on a wiki, correct it or delete it and there will be no cause for complaint and no need for an "office action".
  • {{blp}}, {{db-attack}}, and {{db-copyvio}} templates have been established for the correction of these problems and are useful for this.

[edit] Process

Office actions will be clearly indicated both during and after to prevent ambiguities. Office actions may be authorized by any representative or delegate of the Wikimedia Foundation – such as its chair (currently Michael Snow), a member of the Foundation Board of Trustees, the Foundation's legal counsel, or a member of the Foundation office.

When a page is modified under this policy, the template "{{pp-office}}" will be placed prominently on the page and the page will be protected. An article may be reduced to a few sentences to remove questionable content, and people then invited to build it up to a more reputable state. This will be indicated by the template {{reset}}. In either case, the instructions on the template should be followed by everyone.

Administrators, who have the technical power to undo protections and deletions, are strongly cautioned against modifying these edits. Official statements and past incidents indicate that such unauthorized modifications will be actively reverted, and possibly the rights of the modifier will be revoked. When in doubt, consult the user applying the protection/template, or the Wikimedia Foundation.

[edit] Who initiates office actions

1. Cary Bass (Volunteer Coordinator), staff member of the Wikimedia Foundation Office and Mike Godwin, the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel.
2. Other staff members of the WMF Office
3. Members of the Board of Trustees, and particularly Jimbo Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and founder of the Wikimedia Foundation.

[edit] Currently under scrutiny

For images that have been deleted for copyright reasons, enter the name/description into a search engine to see what they looked like. If you see similar images bring them to the attention of the Office.

Page name	How to edit	Date added
Texas Instruments signing key controversy.	Article is available to edit except for inclusion of signing keys. If you'd like to appeal, please contact Mike Godwin	2009-10-07

For an automated, up-to-date list derived from {{Pp-office}}, see Category:Wikipedia Office-protected pages.

[edit] Originalia

Jimbo's original comment, from 6 February 2006

In particular,

• "Please note that this is official policy, and reverting a WP:OFFICE may be grounds for blocking. I do not recommend that admins block for this, I'm just saying... don't revert a WP:OFFICE edit unless and until you've asked and know what you are doing. There may at times be legal reasons for this."
• "This quick action is in no way meant to override or replace the process of community consensus. There is still plenty of time, and there are still plenty of places, for the community to discuss and replace articles in due course."

Relevant mailing list discussions

• Jimbo's clarification ^{[citation needed]}
• I am Danny
• Phone calls
• Apology
• Libel chill
• (Relevant selections from these discussions are available at /Originalia)