Wikipedia:Shoot yourself in the foot

It appears that you have shot yourself in the foot!

On numerous noticeboards, particularly the incident noticeboard, editors open up threads about someone else, when really the original poster is at fault. Most of the time, this ends up bringing sanctions against the reporter instead of the reportee. This is often advised and warned against; however, doing something like this is sometimes a good thing.

Why this is a good thing

There are about 121,121 active contributors to this site. Naturally, most people are not keeping track of all of them. Also naturally, some of these editors are disruptive; they may be edit warring, inserting their own point of view, not getting the point, or not editing in the interests of the encyclopedia. As the community might not notice some of these disruptive editors, they are often seen only by reporting to the incident noticeboard—even if the disruptive one is the reporter. Thus, reporting to ANI as a disruptive editor may be better for the encyclopedia, as one's disruption will be noted and the user dealt with before it becomes a larger problem.

See also

• Wikipedia:Don't shoot yourself in the foot, the essay on which this is based
• Wikipedia:ANI advice
• Wikipedia:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you