Wikipedia:No sorcery threats



As global Internet access continues its relentless expansion into the most remote corners of the world, by 2020, less than half of all people online are from the WEIRD ("Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic") world. Usually, when trolls living in predominantly white middle-class suburbs get angry, they resort to standard four-letter obscenities or sometimes legal threats. But as participation expands from around the world, angry trolls may come from places where legal systems are practically non-functional or even non-existent. As a result, they may resort to bizarre means of harassment such as threats of involving African spirits summoned by village sorcerers.

While traditional African religions and animistic traditions are by large peaceful and involve benevolent spirits, certain disgruntled Wikipedia editors may attempt to invoke malevolent spirits in order to gain an upper hand.

While this may seem bizarre and at best comical to the average person from a developed industrialized society, threats involving witchcraft, witch doctors, juju, sangoma, black magic, and other scientifically questionable phenomena may be distressful to people from societies where witchcraft is literally still widely practiced and feared, such as parts of rural Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, or India. Some Pentecostal Christians or New Age sect practitioners may also find such messages to be unsettling. These stories are nothing to fear, but should be considered at a more serious level only if they venture outside the fictitious supernatural realm and contain threats of, for example, libel, outing, or physical violence. In such cases, please refer to How to deal with harassment and Responding to threats of harm.

Example
A disgruntled undisclosed paid editor once actually claimed to have hired a witch doctor. That time, said to an admin:

";Forest spirits now protect us

Voodo-altar.jpg but our African ancestors know better ooo.]] You are indeed an idle oyibo mugu [fool] with the evilness of a bloodthirsty Fulani herdsman. We have had enough of you deleting prominent Nigerian businessmen and enterprises for years and years. Oyibo always like legal threats but we adhere to WP:NOLEGALTHREATS and instead use our own time honoured traditions in Nigeria.

Thus we have consulted a juju priest and master witch doctor who instructed us to partake together in his powerful secret rituals and sacrifice bush animals and use magic potions. The priest has summoned powerful protective spirits from the forest to protect us and our pages from so he shall not be able to find our accounts and delete our pages. can tell you how scary our Nigerian juju can be. Abeg [I beg] stop this nonsense or next calamity shall fall upon you and you will be posessed with Nigerian forest spirits that no oyibo mugu can ever cure oooooooooooo."

Needless to say, none of this has ever been scientifically proven, so there is nothing to worry about.