User blog:Bluebunny507/Harassment and How It Affects Our Community

Hello my fellow wikians. This is RedBomb1 here today with my very first blog post. In this blog, I will be discussing a common infamous topic that has been a problem here ever since FANDOM (at that point known as Wikia) launched: harassment.

What is harassment?
Harassment is the act of saying deliberately offensive/inappropriate remarks toward users as a means to destroy their confidence and discourage them from being themselves. Such reasons people resort to it may include to use it as retaliation against a person, they want to give others the impression that they are better than anyone else and do so by putting themselves above everyone, or they are simply trolls or bullies.

How does it affect our community?
Harassment is unacceptable because it often destroys the confidence of a certain user, leads them to thinking that they aren't important, and overall can discourage others from helping the community. At FANDOM, we are all here to come together and help grow the communities on subjects that we love. Not only that, but it could also affect them as a person in real life and lead them to depression, which is a very serious mental health disorder that has often been caused by harsssment, bullying, and discouragement.

Should one ever resort to harassment?
The answer is simply no. While it is okay to hold a distaste against a certain user for their behavior, as long as the reason isn't derogatory/chauvinistic, exhibiting your distaste through harassment won't get you anywhere, for it violates the Terms of Use and could potentially land you in the block zone depending on how severe the harassment is and how long it's gone on for. It is best to keep your offensive comments to yourself. If you're that infuriated with a certain user and feel that they are breaking the rules, it is best to use Special:Contact and discuss it with FANDOM Staff to see if they find their behavior a blockable enough offense, and if you are an admin on a certain wiki and a user is bothering you there, it is best to warn or block them if they are violating the policy and then be done with it.

Long story short, harassment is never the answer. Hope you guys enjoyed reading!