Wikipedia:Tag team
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: A "tag team" is a Disruptive editing technique, where two or more editors work in concert in a disruptive way, on multiple articles |
Tag team characteristics
A Tag team is when editors work together in a way which is disruptive to the project, such as to push a POV, or circumvent normal consensus-seeking methods. They tend to work in the same topic area, suddenly appearing at disputes where one of their teammembers may be engaged, even if they have never edited that article, and have not been visibly notified or invited.
Tag teams are typically characterized by:
- wanting to push a non-mainstream POV (often a tiny-minority or a fringe POV), in disregard of the Neutral point of view policy
- a refusal to engage in serious research (for example, disregarding major peer-reviewed journals when researching articles on academic topics)
- a tendency to view all sources as equal, in disregard of the reliable sources policy
- sometimes, expressing explicit contempt for mainstream scholarship
They may also use aggressive tactics including:
- Name-calling and personal attacks
- Attempts to discredit their opponents' character or motivations
- harassment and intimidation tactics, such as showing up on multiple articles on an opponent's watchlist. Tag-teamers may make coordinated attacks at "dissenting" editors, not just on the talkpage of an article in dispute, but also at the user's talkpage, and sometimes at other unrelated articles where the targeted editor may be working, in an attempt to distract them from another dispute.
- Baiting techniques, trying to provoke opponents to incivility or other rash actions. Tag-teamers may make unfounded charges and uncivil comments, in an attempt to goad their target into responding with incivility. Any negative reaction by the target is then picked up and amplified in further attacks ("Remember when you did this? You're obviously unstable..." )
- Consensus-blocking. Tag-teamers are usually reluctant to compromise, and resistant to requesting opinions from the wider community. They may refuse to "let the matter drop" at article talkpages. They may continue to bring up the same matters again and again, usually agreeing with each other.
- disregard for the explanations and sources provided by other editors
- an unwillingness to explain or provide sources for their own edits
Other identifying characteristics
Tag team members may have:
- Long block logs
- Very few actual article edits, and instead a large number of talkpage edits, as they jump from dispute to dispute, with a great deal of wikilawyering language
- Or if they do edit articles, tag-teamers may just be edit-warring in support of one of their teammates.
- Tag-teamers may have limited participation in other articles, except for those in the area of dispute, and the related admin board discussions
Tag-teamers may also use intimidation tactics towards administrators, to defend each other against admin actions. For example, when one teammember is blocked, other members may immediate attack the credibility of the blocking admin, and/or start threads at administrator boards to challenge it. Then even if the community backs up the admin's action, tag team members may continue to forum shop, challenging each of the admin's future actions. Other tactics include:
- Attacking the administrator's "uninvolved" status
- Denying the existence of consensus, and/or an admin's ability to declare consensus
- Repeatedly starting administrator threads to challenge any admin's action
- Threats to de-sysop an admin