Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Phase one

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The following is the first phase of the RFC, which ran from October 4-28 2012, when a second phase involving a questionaiire was implemented. It is intended to be followed by a third phase in which results of the first two phases are used to present a proposal to the community for evaluation. 18:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Premise of this discussion

One of the five pillars of Wikipedia is "Editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner." This is a simple premise which most everyone believes should be followed. Yet there are constant issues regarding it. This RFC will attempt to determine what the core issues are with civility on Wikipedia, and what the appropriate response is to behavior that does not conform to community standards of civil behavior.

The format will be position statements which may be endorsed and discussed, and an general open discussion as well. Any user is free to endorse as many positions as they wish and to add any new position they wish, but users are asked to please review all existing positions first to avoid duplication. One need not endorse any positions to participate in any of the discussions. Please preface all endorsements with a hash sign (#) and remember to sign all endorsements and other comments.

Positions

Definition of civility

One of the major problems is that civility is not at all easy to define. Context is important. Using a "bad word" is not always uncivil. Conversely, one can be very rude without using strong language. Self appointed civility police tend to cause more problems than they solve, but at the same time some users seem to be able to get away with repeated serious incivility to the point that they are basically unblockable for it. Large portions of the community seem to want more enforcement, but where we draw the line and what we do to those that cross it is not going to be at all easy to determine a consensus on. Right now these incidents are handled on a case-by-case basis. Most of them probably should continue to be handled in that manner, despite its obvious shortcomings, because of the simple fact that no better way of handling it has yet been presented.

Beeblebrox (talk) 04:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Good basis. Endorsed. [geek tangent: incivility(noun) is correct; uncivil and incivil (adjective) are both correct but un- is more common] —Quiddity (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Accurately summarizes the situation and identifies the unblockability issue which I think it is the primary point of frustration for those seeking to enforce civility. The one thing I'm not sure on is the portion of the community that wants more enforcement, may be a vocal minority. Monty ₈₄₅ 05:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Also noting my comments below on Fluffernutter's first statement. Rs chen 7754 05:36, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Good summary. We muddle along. It works. Carrite (talk) 06:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Concur. See my comments below. --Pete (talk) 11:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Good description of the problem. Guy Macon (talk) 20:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, context is very important. CT Cooper · talk 12:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not a simple thing. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Concur. GoodDay (talk) 19:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
"...cause more problems thah they solve" is a stilted opinion, but, in general, I agree. ```Buster Seven Talk 20:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Politely put. Concur. Peridon (talk) 21:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree with the definition of the problem and agree that it should be dealt with on a case by case basis. This does not mean agreement with how it has been dealt with (or not dealt with) in the past and does not mean that written guidance would not be hepful. --Boson (talk) 20:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
This is very well put. Also totally agreeing with Monty's I'm not sure on is the portion of the community that wants more enforcement, may be a vocal minority. Pesky (talk) 07:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
"Comment on the content, not the contributor" is the most clear definition of and most powerful tool we have against incivility. Hyacinth (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Hyacinth, exactly. It's a matter of focus; the edit is the focus -- we improve the Pedia if we focus on the edit, not the editor, it also improves civility. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Describes the fundamental problem very well. If I tell another editor "I do not trust your good intentions", they may well experience this as incivility; nevertheless such things do regrettably sometimes need to be said. If a less articulate editor expresses the same sentiment as "you are a fucking cunt", should we always, automatically, rush to judgement on their choice of language? While civility is something we should all strive for, we should also maintain the hierarchy that it is worse to be dishonest than to call someone dishonest. Otherwise we are trapped in a spiral of political correctness, which will disadvantage us in the future more than a few naughty words will. --John (talk) 11:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Ad hominm attacks and incivility are more often expressed without the use of expletives. Handle on a case-per-case basis. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I know Southern ladies who can demolish an opponent in the politest of terms, and I know soldiers whose every fucken second fucken word is fucken "fucken" but they don't mean anything by it. I agree that we should look at incivility in context rather than impose rules which might be gamed. The criteria in my eyes is not so much being offended as being offensive, and I suggest the "reasonable person" test: "Would a reasonable person be offended by this behaviour?". --Pete (talk) 11:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is all that great of a metric either. I have been screamed at by the civility police because, on one or two occasions, I have told someone persistently posting to my talk page to fuck off. In each case I had already tried telling them nicely to stop posting on my talk page. When that didn't work, it was time to tell them to fuck off. Of course they got offended. In fact they were supposed to get offended, even needed to be offended to realize how far over the line their own behavior had gone. I wrote an essay about this actually. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

User:Mindspillage/disputes is a guide here. Like the little boys rattling the bars of the lion's cage, eventually the lion gets up from its daytime doze, rushes over, roaring and jumping in a most satisfactory and entertaining manner. "Oooh, sir!", they say to the keeper, "The lion's gone crazy and tried to eat us! Shoot it now before it gets out and kills us all!" There are other ways of dealing with trolls, I suggest, rather than feeding them. --Pete (talk) 19:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

My point is that I don't think we can establish a "bright line rule" as we can with less subjective matters like 3RR, that will tell us when someone is ignoring standards of civility to the point where they need to be sanctioned, or even reprimanded. Even in the case of edit warring, we provide an exemption if the other user is trolling or vandalizing. Why? because the context in which the event occurred can be a mitigating factor. The essay you mention is generally good advice but i don't see how any policy could come out of it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

"If you continue after you have been told to act differently by two non-involved editors." kind of thing could be a bright line of sorts. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Uh, no. Two users agreeing does not make a bright line policy that you can be blocked for breaching. What if three more users come along and say the first two were wrong? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Above is no definition of civility, it is more a statement that civility is wide open and no one has yet got to define what it is. I would recommend some sort of workshop activity. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 01:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

@John (11:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)): The problem is focus. "I do not trust your good intentions" is almost meaningless to everyone else (although it does suggest how you feel about them). The focus for others is "Do these comments (or actions) show untrustworthy intentions?" That being the case, it would be better for others, if you began with, "Your comments (actions) show bad (untrustworthy) intentions, because . . ." rather than with how you feel about their intentions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:51, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The kind of civility that should be enforced is not "bad language", but "ad hominems" using both Wiktionary definitions. 88.88.166.230 (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed replacement for the civility policy

User:Mindspillage/disputes is stronger and more concrete than the existing civility policy. It establishes a bright line which is less subjective than the "no personal attack" standard which people often skirt and dodge in rule-evading ways. Replacing the existing civility policy with it and enforcing it only with one-day blocks (i.e., no escalation to longer blocks or compounding punishments) would improve the tenor of discussions here. If editors are unhappy with the results, a future RFC could return to the current status quo.

—Cupco 05:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Note: user is a blocked sock. --Rs chen 7754 17:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
"Comment on the content, not the contributor" is the most clear definition of and most powerful tool we have against incivility. Hyacinth (talk) 08:11, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Bingo! I think "Comment on the content, not the contributor" is part of the solution. When there is a difference of opinion if this was the method of operation then civility would improve greatly. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 00:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

The sentiment in that essay is fine, but it really doesn't help us define what is and is not civil. There are remarkably obtuse ways of insulting others that mask the insult in civility. By way of example someone could say my position is retarded, is stupid, or is tragically misguided. Really all of them are saying my idea is bad and infer that I was wrong to even suggest it, but they do so with varying levels of sophistication, starting at very offensive, blunt and insulting in the middle, and politely insulting on the other end. Would all get someone a block? Where do you draw the line? Also, 1 day blocks without escalation or compounding strike me as retributive justice, as they are not tailored to deter future misconduct. And the community has in most cases been opposed to using blocks for retributive justice. Monty ₈₄₅ 05:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Is a parent giving a child a firm, regular duration "time out" retributive? I think most people can tell the difference between the use of terms like "retarded" and "stupid" on one hand, as obvious incivility, while "tragically misguided" avoids incivility. Are you disagreeing that the Mindspillage/disputes essay is less subjective than the existing civility policy? The one we have now basically punts on a firm stance. If you tell people that some exceptions are okay in some unspecified contexts, then it's impossible to draw a line in the sand. —Cupco 06:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that line is clear at all. "Tragically misguided" is pretty insulting to anyone who puts any decent thought into the intended meaning. I get pretty cross about quite insulting and dishonest posts made here which are deemed OK by many because they use nice language. Couching an insult, or bigotry, or self-chosen ignorance, in otherwise "civil" words should be almost a more serious offence because of its deliberately manipulative nature. HiLo48 (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. The clear cases of incivility are easier to deal with (though these are often not dealt with, either). However, it's the subtle sarcasm and erudite putdowns that are more complicated, (and more common because we're a community of writers/editors...). I'd be equally insulted by all 3 examples. (Possibly even more so by the 3rd! Because the first 2 I can ignore/dismiss as coming from unthoughtful/rude people, whereas the 3rd is implying "a sad pat on the head as I explain that you're never going to be smart enough to understand"...).

How to define, with unanimous-consensus, where the fine-line of "incivility that requires repercussions" lies, is amazingly difficult. —Quiddity (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

"unanimous" is not necessary "Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable)" -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:21, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Completely agreed. But that seems to be what would be required ("near unanimity" at least, as I should have written), in order to make a firm/specific/detailed rule about what exactly counts as uncivil. —Quiddity (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It's an interesting essay. But its central theme—disputes are not resolved by escalating them—fails to point out that disputes are not resolved by ignoring them, either. pablo 08:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much what Pablo said. It is a good behavioural guide but doesn't give advice on what to do once folks have lost their temper. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It is an excellent example of how to behave. However, the general editor is not usually sainted enough to love their enemy. And when they meet someone who is, they probably expect that their offensive behaviour is "mirrored"; that is, they are sure there is a counterattack somewhere in the response, but they cannot identify it. They become perplexed and frustrated. --Pete (talk) 11:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

What everybody else said. Good advice, but not suitable as a policy. To expand on the examples above, I have on occasion described certain proposals as dumb or stupid. I don't think that constitutes incivility any more or less than using other descriptors such as fatally flawed, poorly thought out, utterly incompatible with Wikipedia, and so forth. "Retarded" on the other hand seems over the line to me. To say an idea is stupid is to say that the idea is so bad that it has no reasonable chance of being accepted. To say it is retarded implies that the person proposing it is... well, retarded. Retarded ideas would have to come from retarded people. Stupid ideas can and often do come from people who on the whole are of above average intelligence. But that's just me, some users would have us ban calling an idea stupid as too incivil and not constructive. They think that is a perfectly reasonable position. So where is the line? I don't thinbk we can say with any degree of certainty. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Concur with other detractors. Okay as a first-draft essay that only gets half the picture, but certainly not policy material. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Civility should be enforced

Yes, civility should be enforced in some fashion. Incivility has the potential to discourage editors from editing this site, and hinders a collaborative effort such as building an encyclopedia.
- Postscript: This statement is not intended to be an all-inclusive package. --Rs chen 7754 21:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Intentionally vague, but using this as a starting point to find some common ground. --Rs chen 7754 05:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
—Quiddity (talk) 06:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Kinda. But only if we can agree on an adult, well-though-out way of defining it first. There's a huge gap between deliberate, wilful hurtfulness, with nary as swearword involved, for example, and the odd cussword tossed out in an offhand manner (and maybe because it's actually part of the user's national / regional / cultural background to use cusswords in an offhand manner as normal usage in some situations), with no intent to cause hurt or harm or disruption. In my own view (maybe because of the national / regional / cultural background), wilful hurtfulness without swearing is by far the greater offence. Non-swearing POV-pushingf; making false accusations, bringing the petty into a light where it appears to have the same weight as the really significant – those are worse. Terry Pratchett (The Truth) puts it well. There are big crimes, and little crimes, and sometimes the big crimes are so big you can't even see them. Also, "it's not a crime to own a street full of slums, but it's (almost) a crime to live in one". We need to have a good, hard look at the motives and meanings of what might at first appear to be incivility (to some people) before even beginning to think about enforcement. I used to know a princess who, in that offhand, not ill-meant manner, used to say "Stop being such a cunt!" to members of her set, with exactly the same intended impact as saying "Stop being such an idiot!" in other cultures. A princess, mark you well. And I've also (unfortunately) known (or known of) well-spoken and well-educated people who think nothing of getting an innocent person convicted. Crimes? Compare. Pesky (talk) 08:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
This should be entirely uncontroversial; we're not a collection of savages, and the vast majority of us aren't 14 year old boys. Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
1. I know an editor who is 14, male, and inordinately calm and polite. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I know a calm and polite 14 year old too. However, he doesn't edit here. AutomaticStrikeout 03:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes but this will get a diverse array of interpretations. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Support in principle. Also need to hammer out specific rules as well. --Jayron32 19:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Civility should be enforced. And if you don't agree with that, I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Not that there's a lot of use to the actual issue by going "Yes, we should enforce civility. Somehow. However you define 'civility'," but as a top-level principle, I agree with this. Civility to one's fellow editors is important, and those who have trouble with engaging civilly should be given the choice between adhering to our pillars or not editing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
No point having it as policy if it isn't going to be enforced. What is civility and how should deviations from it be dealt with are the real questions, but there is a large enough minority that thinks they can talk to editors however they like to still make this worth saying. CT Cooper · talk 12:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. Persistent incivility should be treated the same way as persistent disruptive editing of any other kind. Hut 8.5 15:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Incivility, bullying, personal attacks and similar behaviour impede the smooth working of the project. We should be a model for internet behaviour. --Pete (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course. Kaldari (talk) 16:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Hoo ya!! On a sliding scale. So let's leave messages on personal talk pages to get a log going. CarolMooreDC 20:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course it should. If we want to keep the project going we can't continue to tolerate cuntish behaviour. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course it should be enforced. If it is not enforced, it is de facto not policy.--Boson (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Not to do so is bad for business. Civil interaction is one of the "five pillars" and so there is nothing novel here. Note also that ad hominem arguments, even if not uncivil, are typically fallacious, and are unworthy of our community. We can get along fine without rudeness and red herrings drawn into discussions, and those who can't do without them. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Sums it up. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Incivility displays a lack of consideration for others. When stripped to its skeleton its about Power. But, don't call the civility police. Each editor can enforce civility right there, in the moment. One good way is hatting as mentioned by User Wnt below.```Buster Seven Talk 13:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. --99of9 (talk) 01:15, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
for any given definition of "civility" and "enforce", speaking in vague terms, yes. --Jayron32 03:55, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Nobody Ent 10:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Civility should be enforced/Incivility should be enforced against, just as constructive edits are enforced/vandalism is enforced against. Hyacinth (talk) 08:05, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree with this. Ryan Vesey 19:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
There's not much to add. Incivility harms the project. We should enforce collaboration, because we're a collaborative project. — Jess· Δ ♥ 21:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:18, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
We should adhere to professional standards of civility, with lighthearted exceptions. The line is flexible but we should be firm when it is crossed (especially by chronically-incivil editors, no matter how productive). Them From Space 22:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
How? Find something that works. Apteva (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
While I'm generally opposed to moral codes as law, for this project it is necessary. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 02:28, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Support - Perhaps with short-term blocks or a "three strikes" that offer a "hand-slap" instead of waiting until it escalates to a permanent block. Corporate 23:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Civility should be enforced. Incivility has a corrosive effect on the community. --El on ka 17:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this seems like a no-brainer to me. AutomaticStrikeout 03:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Davewild (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Civility is clearly a good thing, but enforcing civility is a double edged sword. Because sanctioning editors is inherently adversarial, if not handled with skill and discretion, civility enforcement has the potential to make the editing environment more toxic then it already is. As such we should be careful about supporting a general idea of enforcement without first creating a clear picture of what that enforcement would look like. Monty₈₄₅ 05:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
- Clarified; it is intentionally vague. --Rs chen 7754 06:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  - Agree with Monty. If it is 'intentionally vague' and 'enforced' it stands a good chance of being worse than useless. Too much opportunity to 'enforce' it on those we disagree with, and ignore for our friends, resulting in all the usual drama. Then again, if it is 'precisely defined' it is liable to be worse then useless too. A list of 'forbidden words' (probably compiled from my contribution history - I know I'm one of the worst offenders in this respect, and don't need reminding) would at best stifle a few of the least creative, and offer encouragement to the Wikilawyers etc amongst us to say the same things in other ways. I just can't see how 'vague enforcement' could usefully work, and I'd rather not even think about 'precise enforcement' either - we could spend years just trying to define what particular phrases established the limits of 'civility', and at the end of it achieve nothing more than coming up with a list of approved insults. A complete non-runner, as I see it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    - Again, this statement is not intended to stand by itself. Reading through some of the statements at the arbitration case, there are some who do not think civility is important at all, and that we should be able to talk to editors however we want. --Rs chen 7754 20:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      - Does it work better as "Incivility will be sanctioned" ? -- The Red Pen of Doom 16:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
        Unfortunately, "sanctioned" is a contronym. So, that might be even more confusing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
        Well spotted. A good example of ad homonym. --Pete (talk) 15:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
        
        lol ok "sanctioned" is a BAD choice. -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:24, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
From User:Kirill Lokshin/Professionalism...Our editors participate in the project expecting to be treated with courtesy. We must maintain high standards of decorum appropriate to an intellectual project. Attacks, smears, and threats directed against our colleagues must not be tolerated. Participating in Wikipedia can be fun and exciting, but editors who lack the maturity and self-control needed to take part in a fundamentally serious undertaking must be firmly asked to leave.```Buster Seven Talk 05:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Civility is already enforced. If you are incivil enough to enough other editors, you can be blocked by WP:ARBCOM or even community WP:BANned. The system is not broken. This entire RfC is basically, "I'm too easily offended by words like 'shit' or tone like 'that's the worst proposal ever', and I want Wikipedia to censor people so I don't have to feel bad." Sorry, but WP is not edited, in the main, by children or by people with low self-esteem (quite the opposite - it takes quite a bit of chutzpah to assume you know enough about something to edit an article on the topic for, and in front of, the entire world!). Not everyone is suited to collaborative working environments, online or offline, and this is the largest and most diverse one on the planet. If you can't take the heat, this kitchen may not be a good place for you to work in. I've had that exact experience in the real world. I was working as a line cook at sports bar, and the others there were all good friends, but very abrasive, without it being genuinely hostile (e.g. "Get the fuck outta the way, Jim, I gotta put these fries over THERE, dumbass!") I found it too stressful, and quit. I'm happier now, and their kitchen, surely, continues to run better without me, 20 years later. WP is not a playground, and no teacher or hall monitor is going to make little Jimmy go stand in the corner for calling Suzy a "doodiehead'. If he does this habitually, however, we already have a vice-principal who will call his parents and send him home, or even have him expelled. Ain't broke? Don't "fix" it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:47, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I cannot agree that the system is not broken. In its present form, the system allows cases to be brought by against those who aren't mainstream in their views, and who firmly express those views, for precisely that reason, thus giving the opportunity to all who don't like the accused to air every grievance they've ever had against that person, routinely laced with very politely expressed lies and ignorance. The accused does not have access to natural justice or a properly structured defence. All such attempts can be just howled down with more vitriol and bullshit, but all said with nice words. How can I confidently state this? Personal experience. I am currently the subject of a community ban. The case against me comprised masses of lies and prejudice, all expressed in nice words. And the word "masses" there is an important one. The process became one of "Look, all these people think he's bad, so he must be." We're not supposed to vote here, but it became a classic case of mob rule. I retain my own confidence and sanity with a personal saying that has served me well - "Many times in my life I have been in a minority, and right." I will return from my ban in a little while, with absolutely no feelings of remorse, and with contempt for the justice process here. I get a lot of compliments for my work here and am proud to be a tiny part of this massive, very worthwhile project, so will continue to contribute, But, the system IS broken, all in favour of the terribly polite conservatives. HiLo48 (talk) 21:21, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Agree in a way, but it's back to front. Until what is civility is agreed and accepted then forcing someones view of civility is itself uncivil, it simply inflames the situation causing more problems. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 00:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

How can we effectively "enforce"something when we cannot agree as a community exactly what it is? --John (talk) 23:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Civility has never been enforced enough. I respect John's opposition above, but civillity issues need to be taken on a case-by-case basis, but with a harder line than that which is currently practiced. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
But how is the community to select enforcers competent to make such decisions? The current criteria used to select "administrators" is not remotely adequate for selecting competent civility enforcers. Giving such role to the current administrator corp would be wrong and just make things worse. Nor would giving the role to arbitrators seem much better, given the current major civility issue with one of the arbitrators. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I would assume that in all but the most blatant cases where an admin can issue a summary penalty, the community would decide. If a block is required, the admin only presses the block button. I don't think the proposal is one for installing a panel of civility enforcers, or for redefining adminship. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:35, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The standard approach to incivility - do nothing or use short, quickly overturned blocks - has created a culture where no significant repercussions are expected for "incivility", even for statements which demean or demoralize other volunteers. If we want to change that culture, we need to make systemic changes. "Civility blocks" are already part of the system; something else needs to be tried. A possibility to change wikiculture might be to encourage anyone to "enforce" civility by discussion and refactoring. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Civility should not be enforced, but off-topic incivility can be hatted

The existing practice in many places (like Jimbo's talk page) is that when someone launches into some malodorous tirade against another editor, they get away with it, but another editor can go ahead and put a hat on the thread and give it a title summary like "this isn't productive". I contend this is the best practice, whereas resorting to AN/I increases conflict rather than decreasing it. Hatting the thread is preferable to deletion because if you delete it it ends up triggering a sort of mini Streisand effect. (The human body doesn't delete heterochromatin because it could foul up and cause a crisis; the same applies to us). Editors should only get called out to AN/I if they resort to honest-to-god disruptive editing, not mere inCivility, and so this policy should become irrelevant, though it remains a useful recommendation.

Wnt (talk) 08:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes (sort of), I was (and may still) post something along these lines below. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I definitely find this approach more effective than the torches-and-pitchforks route. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Hatting incivility seems like a much better use of everyone's time than escalating (e.g. AN/I threads, blocks/unblocks, ArbCom cases, etc.) 28bytes (talk) 18:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
For routine incivility this seems like the approach to go with. Monty ₈₄₅ 18:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Same principle as WP:DENY. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 12:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
This is better. Editors supporting the previous section about enforcement say that it should be uncontroversial. The idea that everyone should be civil is uncontroversial. But adding in administrative enforcement creates absurd situations that should not exist outside of an elementary school. We are mostly adults here, and don't need to be "put in time out" when we get mad. It's counterproductive and only causes resentment and more discord. Gigs (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
This is perfectly fine. The notion that there should be some form of incivility enforcement, aside from WP:ARBCOM is wiki-fascistic bullshit. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:28, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
It appears that some here can agree that civility is subjective. What one person takes as uncivil, maybe considered as uncivil by others. Context, someone said higher on this page, is important in regards to judging whether incivility was meant by the editor. Deleting uncivil comments is not best for the community as it hides what someone has "contributed" to a discussion, even if it has an ill effect upon productive conversations. Additionally, there appears to be a wide range of opinions as to when an editor should be temp blocked for incivility.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:41, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Yah. Volunteer Marek 21:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I think this would greatly reduce the amount of wiki-drama that pops up from now and then. Legoktm (talk) 03:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

For occasional outbursts, hatting can work well (Effective & low drama). -- But for "... users [who] seem to be able to get away with repeated serious incivility ..." we need another (or a few more) methods of dealing with it. -- Eg, if Alice (a consistently blunt/rude (but otherwise productive) hypothetical editor) starts welcoming people in her area of expertise, and getting into regular miscommunications that escalate into incivility, then what? We can't just hatnote and eyeroll every time a regularly dickish editor pushes the fine-line. Currently, we start off with talkpage pleas, and we hatnote isolated occurrences, then escalate to ANI (formerly WQA/ANI) when the user is intractable. (And the result at ANI depends on who is reading/responding, and how the issue is initially presented). That might be the best we can do, but if there are additional solutions to add to the repertoire, hopefully someone will suggest them in a new statement. —Quiddity (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was called collapsing. In any case, the problem of course is that bolder editors are more likely to use it than newer ones, and that uncivil editors are most likely to abuse it. I can easily imagine situations where civil rebukes to uncivil comments are "hatted." But certainly in cases where more than one editor clearly see postings as problematic it can be useful. CarolMooreDC 20:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Possibly reasonable for one-off cases, we aren't perfect, but it isn't a solution for continued problems.

In the real world everyone manages to act with civility the vast, vast majority of the time. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Not a good long term solution. Just like third brake lights are now mostly a waste of money because the novelty effect has worn off, hatting appears to work because it's a fairly new phenomenon. As it becomes widespread, as long as there is no common understanding of what is and isn't respectful, more and more editors will start attempting to hat more borderline cases, which will result in pissing contests over the hats themselves. Nobody Ent 10:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that hatting has been done for a long time on Jimbo's page, which has a fairly constant and very divided group of regulars. Wnt (talk) 16:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Approach by FT2

The core point is that Users are expected to act in ways that help to create a positive volunteer editing environment, or at least don't undermine it.

History shows 5 things:

Community desire: The community wants a civility policy. In 10 years nobody has ever succeeded (or even seriously tried) to get consensus to remove or negate the policy. That is telling.
Self-justification: There is a strong view by some that "I'm just being forthcoming and direct" or "it's just robust debate" justifies any conduct, justifies intolerance of others' thin skins, or justifies dismissal of the idea that others may not be visiting wikipedia for the fun of "robustly" debating or being insulted in that style.
Project impact: The effect of incivility is often not on the target (thought it often is). It is on bystanders and possible editors who may encounter a welcoming Wikipedia, or a Wikipedia where aggression is sometimes turned a blind eye. Incivility damages the global editing context for volunteers and silently deters existing and new editors.
Arbitrariness: It is vague, hence arbitrary. While some scope for vagueness is acceptable, vagueness that allows cliques and "powerful individuals" to not be called to account for repeated breach of a policy encourages others to disregard or despair, and encourages drama. So there needs to be a definition and policy that will work.
Viability (given the desire): Even the most egregious behavior can be discussed in civil terms.

Approach at a definition: Incivility covers styles of self-expression, accusation, innuendo, rhetorical speech, pointedness, snarkiness, and criticism that are:

directed at specific user/s;
do not add positive benefit to the actual Wikipedia content or project issue under discussion;
could be removed or refactored without impeding the Wikipedia issue under discussion; and
are EITHER
- distressing or very likely to distress (or known to distress) the user/s targeted, OR
- likely to result in the Wikipedia editing environment being perceived by a newcomer as less welcoming, hostile, aggressive or degraded, and hence may have a deterrent effect if established or not itself deterred.

Common justifications should be explicitly excluded.

It is not valid to claim that a user "is okay with it" or "no harm resulted" - they may not be, onlookers may not be, observers may be deterred silently, and others may gain the impression it is acceptable.
It is not valid to claim that a user "ought" to be ok with it or "shouldn't" be thin skinned - expectations of other users having above average emotional handling are out of place (notionally 50% will be below average)
It is not valid to claim that one was merely engaging in "robust discussion". (A good test of legitimate robust discussion is, could the comment have been kept to project related matters and worded in a way that didn't have that effect on the user and tone of Wikipedia, without affecting the legitimate project purpose of the discussion?)
It is not valid to claim that "people do that" or "it's funny/witty" as justification; in any social setting people will need to adopt some level of self-regulation and boundaries to participate.
If a user asks someone to cease, then that is a red flag and should be actionable if ignored. Wilful blindness ("I chose not to understand they were upset") is also completely unacceptable.
Gaming the borderline is actionable, just like gaming 3RR or any other gaming

I drafted User:FT2/Civility draft some time ago in line with these ideas. Perhaps it will help.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
This is a great explanation, of the ideal situation. I really like much of the /draft, too (it fills in many of the gaps of the excerpt above). The aspect I think it's missing, is how to handle cases where constructive-criticism is necessary, and the only way(s) to describe the problem will inherently cause offence to the recipient. E.g Beeblebrox's example below (I'm not sure how he actually worded it, but there's no optimistic/friendly way (beyond bland encouragements for "next time") to get across a list of criticisms), or a case where someone is being stubborn/obstreperous/obtuse about a particular issue; or an article which contains a strongly-divisive topic (eg anything pseudoscience). I'd love to see aspects of this /draft merged to the current policy, but I fear it's not going to solve the underlying issues behind the rfc. —Quiddity (talk) 06:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Pretty much says it all. Powers ^T 20:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Incivility effects the whole Environment of Wikipedia. It slowly becomes more and more acceptable. It influences not just the intended target. It influences the Climate of Wikipedia. There is absolutely no need to dredge the linguistic sewer in order to communicate.```Buster Seven Talk 13:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is a very good summation. I think the fact that incivility can also be "likely to result in the Wikipedia editing environment being perceived by a newcomer as less welcoming, hostile, aggressive or degraded, and hence may have a deterrent effect if established or not itself deterred" is something that we tend to not think of much when having our occasional this-person-said-that-to-that-person contremps, but is very important. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks like a good draft. --99of9 (talk) 01:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The definition is really refreshing. I hope that much of this gets to replace Wikipedia:Civility. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 02:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
FT2, you give a very true definition of incivility and a good draft of an ideal civility policy. I would like to see a more firm process for enforcing civility, whatever that may be. I understand the argument against such enforcement, and support it in other settings, but for the project of building and maintaining and encylopedia or website (in this case it's both) some sort of civility enforcement is needed to encourage newbies that this is a friendly environment, while also providing a hard truth that incivility is not tolerated. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 02:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Many good ideas and phrasing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I can't agree with several points of this approach. In fact this just happened to me, in an incident marginally involved with the issues that torched off the recent hysteria over civility. A user made a poorly thought out proposal that was obviously done on the spur of the moment as a knee-jerk reaction to what was going on right that moment. I said it was a stupid, poorly thought out proposal and saw my remarks removed from the discussion by the person who had made the stupid poorly thought out proposal, who insisted that I had no right to say such a thing even if it was my honest opinion of the proposal. They insisted that if I could not make a suggestion for improving their stupid poorly thought out proposal I should say nothing at all. Since I thought the underlying premise of the entire discussion was stupid and poorly thought out this was not possible. Having my remarks removed entirely is, to my mind, far more rude than saying a crap proposal is a crap proposal. (in this case literally nobody agreed to participate in the discussion under the terms of the poorly thought out stupid proposal so I am pretty sure my comments just reflected what everybody was thinking. ) If you are going to make proposals to radically alter the way Wikipedia works, you actually shouldn't go screaming and shouting when somebody says your idea is stupid. You should consider the possibility that you had a stupid idea and didn't think it through before posting it. If, after carefully considering whether this is the case, you agree, then admit it was a stupid idea and withdraw it. If you don't find you agree just say so. Pitching an epic bitch fit because somebody bluntly said your proposal was stupid is certainly not helpful and itself hinders forward progress. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the "History" nails the current state. It is the arbitrariness of the responses to "non-civility" that causes great cynicism amongst users. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

If you had taken the time and thought to make your point to that user in a civil manner you wouldn't have derailed the debate and made it about your behaviour instead of the proposal. Calling someone's idea "stupid", "crap", and their response a "bitch fit" is beyond blunt: it is obviously uncivil. You should learn to communicate on Wikipedia without making such comments. Fences&Windows 19:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I Agree With User:Fences and windows. You choice of words shows lack of self control. Derailing debates in trhis way is a common problem. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

There was no debate though. The proposal was so obviously incompatible both in how it was structured and the choices it presented that literally nobody was willing to particpate in it. It was obviously put together in a few seconds to make some sort of point. That is disruptive, and "derailing it" ASAP is exactly what the project needed as it was a completely hopeless proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

If it wasn't going anywhere, it did not need to be derailed, and certainly not by incivility. Others were able to ignore it, apparently, without incivility. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, I believe I was that responding poster who opposed your stance and claimed you were being incivil (unless you've been involved in two of these such discussions recently). First of all, I was not the proposer of that RFC; the proposer switched his vote against his proposal, which resulted in a fair close as withdrawal. However, to remain civil and to keep the impression upon others that you are civil, I would recommend that you (and I and all others) avoid terms such as "poorly thought out" and "stupid", which insult intelligence, and now I see you have used the term "bitch fit" to describe a response to you, which is, again, likely to be more insulting than you intend. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 03:26, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

FT2's is one of the most odious of the proposals. We have no business telling people what words they can use to describe how they feel about their interactions or what they perceive about other editors and their contributions. If I say "you're being too thin-skinned", I probably have a well-reasoned rationale for do so. If someone is going around calling everyone a shithead in every debate and using "you should be okay with it" as an excuse, that's a matter for our already-established WP:ARBCOM to handle. And, frankly, people can't have exceptionally thin skins and do well in any collaborative working environment, online or offline. Not every single human being on the planet is going to do well here. Your child is not special. Not everyone is a winner and will succeed in life. So, I could never support a censorious policy like this, that is essentially attacking debatory editors for the words they use, rather than addressing the actions taken by them. See also the article Political correctness. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, FT2, but your statement needs to be re-written. Does the half-list, half-prose content beginning at History shows argue for the statement made in the first sentence, does it make additional observations, or does it do something else entirely? I can't tell. AGK [•] 17:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Proportion of content-work vs argument

Most human beings (unless they are police, work in hospitals, are politicians or parents of teenagers) spend precious little time having to negotiate and at times argue with those with differing opinions. Hence they are unused to confrontation. As wikipedia is evolving and becoming more polished, vetting and reviewing to stricter standards creates more situations where folks might be at odds with one another and get frustrated to varying degrees. Hence it is understandable when frustrations spill over and folks lose their temper. Furthermore, the value of established editors increases as editing here becomes more specialised. If editors blow up and launch some heated exchange, no matter how profanity-laden - if it gets sorted so that the original antagonists promptly resolve their differences on some level then that should be that. Even if it happens frequently to a productive editor who 90% or more of total time is spent peacefully adding or reviewing content, then this is a lesser evil than blanket bans. We are building an encyclopedia here and we need all hands on deck. Really. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I would go even further, and say that as long as the editor's content contributions are good enough (Quality and/or Quantity) occasional incivility can be outweighed, even if original antagonists can't resolve it, just so long as it doesn't spill into article space edits. Monty ₈₄₅ 15:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
The balance of WP:RETENTION with WP:VESTED is one of the most complicated aspects of this issue. I agree with most of this statement, and agree that blanket bans are net-harmful, but we still need some best-practices if someone is being consistently uncivil (however we define that, eg reasonable person) especially if they're doing it anywhere close to 10% of the time! ;) —Quiddity (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Speaking sense.... Volunteer Marek 20:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree w/ User:Quiddity. There is no need to punish. There is a group need to point it (incivility) out when it happens. No cops needed. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:23, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Civility is nearly as important as reliability, good writing, and developing writers, but unfortunately civility is treated as the supreme value at ANI and ArbCom. When civility trumps everything else, we have a problem. What is clear is that civility is rarely enforced even-handedly. It is extremely rare for administrators to care about more than one editor, in the sense of issuing warnings, admonishing, or blocking two (or more) editors. In our disputes, polarization sets in, as though our editors belonged to a gang of chimpanzees having a border skirmish. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely, and more to the point we need experienced hands on deck most. The idea of banning someone productive just because they called someone a WP:DICK in a fit of pique after a long, lame argument, is absurd. This is not kindergarten. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Although I feel that we should all make positive steps to be as civil to each other as is humanly possible, I do kinda agree with this. One of the things I've noticed regularly is that some of our bestest content contributors / content policers / quality-of-content protectors can also be some of our most surface-uncivil people, at times. And, frequently, uncivil in response to what they see as someone jeopardising content quality, or dissing those who enforce it. It's not always the case, but it seems to me that the handful of people I "watch" are usually at their most uncivil when they feel they are protecting the encyclopedia itself. In those instances, their motives are excellent, and we should find a way of handling these situations well. There's a difference, even in law, between shooting someone while intent on crime, and shooting someone in defence of self, family, or innocents.
Adding: I observe a lot of animal behaviour, and observe human behaviour in kinda the same ways. We have a group of ponies which graze on land frequented by dog-walkers. One of the ponies has the self-awarded job of being protector of the group. He will watch any dog on the land, alertly, to see what it's doing. If it's behaving well, no problem, he will just keep half an eye on it. If it starts to worry or pester any herd member, he makes threatening postures and gets between it and its target to make it back off. If it persists, he will walk or trot towards it, with teeth bared, and stamping. If it backs off, fine, he'll then take steps to keep it at a distance. If it persists or gets more aggressive, though, he will splat it. And he's a lovely-natured animal.
Adding more (apologies for the verbosity, I'm trying to be really clear, with parallels). It seems to me that, as a community, we have a tendency to focus far too much on actus reus, without giving due weight to mens rea. Pesky (talk) 07:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

No. "Editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner." We are building an encyclopedia, so no we don't need everyone, or anyone in particular, we only need those who are willing to work within the Pillars. Building an encyclopedia is not a matter of life and death, and it is almost never a matter of preventing imminent harm. The only thing that is understandable is sometimes people will get frustrated, so just turn away from the key - board when that happens, or learn to deal through one's frustration civilly. The Pedia will not be finished before one calms down. Come back to it then, but don't take out your frustration on others; that's not building the Pedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

[Note: The below is a refactored discussion, copied from a side-thread at Casliber's talkpage, and edited by Quiddity]

"[...] especially if they're doing it anywhere close to 10% of the time! ;) —Quiddity (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)"

So what's your percentage then? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

To (perhaps) clarify: My only certainty is that "it's complicated", and "anyone who claims to have a simple solution is probably overlooking oodles of edge cases", type thing...

But i would be seriously worried if someone who had made 900 productive edits had also made 100 inflammatory comments... (I realize/assume you were using "90%" as a placeholder number, but numbers are tricky beasts, 'specially in rfcs..) —Quiddity (talk) 01:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I meant more time than edits. If there was a total of two days' acrimony in 6 months of productive and more or less incident-free editing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but, I was mainly making a semi-pedantic quibble over using any specific number.

eg. 6 months = 180 days. 10% = 18 days. 1% = ~2 days.

Again, I totally get (and agree with) where you're coming from: context is critically important, and the layers of the onion go down further than many participants realize (there are dozens of factors that need to be considered and balanced, from editor-retention to conflicting cultural demographics that just need better translation/mediation (I've spent many hours trying to help a few older-ESL-grumpyseeming editors communicate with other editors who had been misinterpreting/misunderstanding some of their intended nuances)). Summarizable only as "It's Complicated!" and "Making it work well, requires constant effort from us all, not new strict rules"

eg. If someone were slightly uncivil for 18 days out of 6 months, that would have its own complications; as would the case of someone who was incredibly uncivil for 2 days out of 6 months. —Quiddity (talk) 20:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC) [End of thread copy]

While content production is important, there are many roles within the project, and not every person is suited for every role. Admins, for example, spend a lot of time away from content. Arbitration and similar offices more so, often to the exasperation of those performing these vital tasks. Some editors are content-only, some are wikignome detail people. We should be accepting of diverse roles so long as the overall contribution is positive. I feel uncomfortable with the notion that some editors should be allowed to be less civil than others. --Pete (talk) 15:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

An important strategy is asking people to strike particularly problematic statements. And people who are busy editors should not be given the "out" of saying they want to avoid "arguments." CarolMooreDC 20:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that to some extent this is a de facto standard, and is a reasonable position (although not necessarily correct). To take the extreme points, compare Malleus to a brand-new editor. Malleus is a really valuable editor (at least I have been given to understand this; I haven't really worked with him and wouldn't), so he can call someone a nasty name and that's OK; obviously a new editor doing that as her first edit would probably be kicked out. That makes sense as far as it goes and most organizations work this way on some level (again, without this necessarily being good policy). Then you have the in-between cases, and that's a judgement call. When you have judgement calls you have have inherent imperfections, and you have politics (in the sense that someone with lots of supporters has more strength than someone without), which is human nature. We really can't have rules like "well, she called him a 'bastard', but that's a C-list word, and she has 10,000 edits and 10 GAs, so she's allowed to use C-list words but not B-list words such as 'asshole'" (although coming up with such a rule would be fun). So it is what it is, and I suppose we need to muddle through and be the best examples that we can be, individually. Herostratus (talk) 17:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

You do an injustice to Malleus. If you look at his editing, he is spending a large amount of time helping newer editors, and he is one of the best copy editors who is willing to challenge himself by reading on new topics. This is what is important for developing new editors into writers of quality articles. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I would love to spend more time doing content work rather than solving disputes, but unfortunately the disputes seem to often be more pressing. Not everyone who contributes to the project is going to write a lot of content - plenty of people are going to work behind the scenes, just as they do in any business. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm moving into this section, as I'm getting increasingly verbose! Regarding the actus reus / mens rea balance, at present our only real way of assessing whether or not mens rea exists is to assess what else an editor is doing, when he's not committing acti rei. If he (she) is expending vast amounts of energy in nurturing, building, polishing and protecting the encyclopedia, we can be reasonably sure that his motives are pure. We may well consider him to be over-aggressive in the way he "protects the baby", but assessing the value of his over-all contributions towards the baby is our best way of working out whether he's thumping the baby, thumping the baby's protectors, or thumping the person who's threatening to hurt the baby. In Real Life™, I'm quite sure that many of even the least aggressive and most polite of us would be strongly inclined to give someone threatening to hurt our baby a good, sound thump! In Real Life, I'm a sweet, kind, cuddly, fluffy, well-intentioned granny. But, if you value your skin, you don't threaten my babies! Don't even go there! Pesky (talk) 08:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

What you suggest is that "the ends justify the means" but that is not how this project is set up. Right does not mean a free pass on ones behavior. To use your analogy, we are all "parents" of this baby. From time to time parents disagree on how to care for the baby, but there are many ways they should not and by community standards are not allowed to pursue that disagreement (in the real world). Sometimes, parents must be removed, or restrained, or admonished for the baby's (and other parents') sake. How we judge actus reas and mens rea is not by unrelated activities, it is by the edits (ie., comments) that are problematic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Abandon "civility" to stand a chance of having more civility

The term "civility" has never been very helpful; it's too vague and contextual to enforce consistently even with sufficiently detailed guidelines and appropriate manpower, even before we get to the problem that some contributors are objectively more valuable than others (or at least were at one time, or made people think they were...), and as a result get different standards applied. We're never going to get anywhere with "civility".
So let's get rid of it, and come up with something better. What we need is a "treat others as they wish to be treated" communication guideline (maybe a phrase is less liable to overloading of meaning than a single word...). You don't mind having a discussion peppered with language that would make a sailor blush - it's all part of the cut and thrust of substantive argument? Well bully for you, but when it's clear that someone else doesn't like that, you should treat them as they wish to be treated (within reason, eg they can't demand a higher communication standard of you than they normally employ themselves).
With this approach, good communication can become a bit more self-policing by emphasising meta-communication (communication about communication), encouraging it, and making it easier. Probably some guidelines or templates or userboxes can be knocked up to help clarify communication style preferences. Enforcement then has a clearer territory, too: not enforcing what someone thinks should have happened or not happened, but users clearly ignoring other users' clearly expressed and communicated preferences (as long as those preferences are reasonable).
Add to that a WP equivalent of a civility jar (swear jar, but more broadly defined): a user subpage a user sets up that anyone can add to (perhaps once per day), and when the jar hits a certain total, the user has to tackle a boring bit of the backlog they normally wouldn't (a mild penitence, self-enforced, so there's no point in gaming it). The point of this is again, not punishment but to encourage communication about communication.
OK, yes, this is a bit vague, but I hope there's just enough here to suggest the quite different direction we could try.

Them's me thoughts right now. YMMV; the value of opinions may go up as well as down; if in doubt consult your doctor; etc. Rd232 ^talk 19:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
In broad agreement here. The vagueness will go away after it's been through a workshop or similar. I like the idea of a userbox, someone who swears should not mind be swore at, those dealing with incivility want to have some understanding of the characters involved. All people are not the same. It's like WP:ENGVAR in articles, respect differences. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 02:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I wish to be treated as High Overlord God King and have all of my whims and wishes immediately and unquestionably followed. -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
- Hm, well I did caveat the "wish to be treated as" with (within reason, eg they can't demand a higher communication standard of you than they normally employ themselves). Do you normally treat everyone else as High Overlord God King etc?? To give a concrete example, I don't normally tell people to "stay off my talk page and don't ever come back" or words to that effect, so I could define that as part of my standard that I don't want people to say that to me (though that doesn't preclude people saying "I've had enough of this discussion, please don't continue it here," which I sometimes do.) Rd232 ^talk 16:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: "What we need is a [...]" - we probably have one! It just needs a new redirect-target: WP:Golden Rule (currently an abandoned user-essay). Maybe just redirect it to WP:AGF, or maybe to one of the items in essay-navbox {{Civility}} (see the nutshell descriptions) ?
Re: civility jar and similar solutions: these might work for certain archetypes, but definitely not all. It will just further-aggravate some editors. (archetypes such as those you've outlined below at #Communication styles). Inter-archetype-conflicts (and other flavours of mis/flawed/imperfect-communication) are inherently a large portion of the civility problems. The words or processes that work to assist/convince/correct/calm one editor, could have the opposite reaction on another editor. -- Offering some templates to help explain one-archetype-to-another might help, but it also might backfire if someone feels insulted by how they are classed/described (and other WP:DCASAS ramifications).
The other large set of conflicts, are over our differing goals/philosophies/priorities. That's impossible to "solve"; we just all have to be adaptable enough to work alongside (or near) people we disagree with on thousands of things. (!) —Quiddity (talk) 08:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

re it also might backfire if someone feels insulted by how they are classed/described - yes; I expected any classification or description to be done by users themselves. If users clarify their expectations, that should help communication and reduce conflict. Rd232 ^talk 09:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Not workable. It's too vague, and interpreted broadly, you'd have to always tell the other party that they're right, and attractive, and a genius, since that's how they wish to be treated. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts from Fluffernutter

Civility exists in the real world

Wikipedia is intended to be a collaborative project. For the purposes of collaboration, users must be able to interact with each other in a non-destructive manner. This means that at least to a minimum extent, users must be able to work with, or at least alongside, people who they may dislike, not respect, find annoying, or want to throw off a tall building; if you cannot function in an environment containing more people than just yourself, you are not well-suited to Wikipedia. Of course, the issue of how to define "function" here is the crux of this matter.

Some people view "civility" as "speaking like you're speaking to your boss, with great care and formality", while others think that if you and the person you're speaking to haven't come to blows, you're doing just fine. The reality is that the vast majority of us do have a sense of what's societally acceptable; though what societies we function in varies, most of us have quite a good sense of where the line is between "I can say this in public" and "This will get me punched in the nose". This is evidenced by that is the fact that most of us aren't walking around with broken noses! So to say that it's impossible to "define" civility is a bit misleading; it's difficult to agree on a definite set of civility boundaries, but nearly everyone instinctively understands that there are boundaries that surround them in the real world. The boundary of "civility" is the point beyond which you damage your conversational relationship with another person, the point where the conversation ceases to be about what you were talking about and begins to be derailed by how you're talking about it. If you want to get things done in the real world, you will mostly stay inside these boundaries, because stepping outside them makes it exponentially harder to do what you were originally trying to do. The same is true on Wikipedia.

The fact that everyone's internal boundary differs doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that humans with any degree of social intelligence are able to distinguish between "this furthers the conversation" and "this derails the conversation" and limit themselves to within that line. It's not excessive to expect editors to pay attention to such things here as well as irl. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
This and Beeblebrox's statement do have to be taken as a unit. A similar debate is regarding what is pornography. People's definitions may vary, but some stuff clearly is and clearly is not. Just because some stuff is borderline doesn't mean that we can't discriminate between civil and uncivil. --Rs chen 7754 21:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
What both of you say is true, and in fact the same analogy to porn went through my head. What i was trying to express is that making clear, specific rules on civility is probably not going to be possible, in the same way that making such rules for what does and does not constitute pornography has so bedeviled lawmakers. (That is, before the internet made free unlimited porn a reality for everyone, making local blue laws irrelevant.) Beeblebrox (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, not everyone agrees with the "I know pornography when I see it" idea; it is frequently mocked as nonsense, in fact. It's not something to base an argument on. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point here; there are some things that definitely are pornography and there are things that definitely are not. There are some areas where people disagree, but we should be able to say that a depiction of sexual intercourse is pornography, and that Big Bird on Sesame Street is not. It's the same with civility. --Rs chen 7754 21:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
A classical case of a narrow perspective on display there. There are many examples of depictions of sexual intercourse that aren't pornography. We could start with the Kama Sutra and move on to all "How To" guides for young couples, plus textbooks, to this, and this, and this. HiLo48 (talk) 22:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point too; this isn't Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Pornography enforcement; does it matter where I drew the line in my analogy? My overarching point is that there is some stuff that is definitely civil, and some that is definitely not. --Rs chen 7754 22:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, the example you came up with didn't prove your point, so I'm not convinced. Got an example that works? HiLo48 (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
No, because I don't think it would be appropriate for me to link to a porn site from Wikipedia. --Rs chen 7754 23:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
LOL. That's actually quite funny, but I'm not sure you will see the joke. HiLo48 (talk) 23:10, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Porn is defined and "rated" as a matter of law and by the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system. By the same token, it is not impossible for Wikipedia to create fairly exact definitions and corresponding punishments to different scales of incivility, using a series of examples and a fair judgement system. Just as with laws, any Wikipedia policy is open to interpretation, but in both cases that doesn't necessarily prevent us from making the rules anyway. The question is not whether civility can be defined, but whether there is any value in doing so - if defining it would reduce its occurrence or merely feed the arguments themselves and escalate civility problems faster. Corporate 22:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. People in communities discriminate between civil and uncivil all the time; "civil" is another word for community. Civility is the expected mode of discourse in serious, even volunteer organizations. It is expected of volunteers within organizations that they will treat each other civilly -- in other words, that they will act professionally -- it's how volunteer organizations get things done, by people volunteering to take on the profession of the organization. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Except lots and lots and lots of occasionally, even habitually, uncivil people are part of communities, of multiple kinds. I understand your point that (reworded) a volunteer organization has to reform or eject people who are so incivil as to impede the work of the organization. That's not the same thing as civility being required for community to function, even when community is used in a metaphoric or extended way like that. The Hell's Angels are proof of this. I think you're also misconstruing professional[ism]; incivility is part and parcel of many professions, from bill collecting to detective work. You seem to be confusing the fact that civility is valued in most professions with the idea that incivility is automatically unprofessional. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
No. We are not talking about the Hell's Angels or any "profession" where incivility is the norm (if there are such professions). If anyone does not know what we are talking about, see Wikipedia:Five pillars. That's the subject of this discussion, and what this profession is about. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
You haven't worked as a rural labourer in Australia, have you? Or aren't such people "professional" enough to have the right to edit here? HiLo48 (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm? I'm not seeing what the question about me has to do with the five pillars, nor what the question about laborers has to do with the five pillars? If they are editors on this Project, they are editors on this Project. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
The fourth pillar speaks of communicating in a "respectful and civil manner". My point is that the language some regard as respectful and civil would sound crude, insulting and obscene to others. Do we really want this to be the encyclopaedia EVERYONE can edit, or do we exclude those whose normal language sounds offensive to others? HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. They have to communicate in a respectful and civil manner, so that means the Project is asking them to so communicate, if they want to edit here. Communicating means what you write, others understand. If what one intends is respect and civility but others don't understand that, you are not communicating it. So, then one's mode of communication needs work. But it seems doubtful that many protracted civility issues actually arise where people are intending in their writing to be respectful and civil but others don't get it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
LOL. All hail Alanscottwalker, Self Appointed Official Wikipedia Arbiter of Good Taste. No. Sorry. I don't agree. But that's OK, so long as you too can accept that disagreement on these matters is OK. HiLo48 (talk) 00:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
What? Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:41, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes to the statement, and yes to the comments above. —Quiddity (talk) 05:02, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
This is a good filter to test incivility against. --99of9 (talk) 01:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. In my view, people who are uncivil here (especially on multiple occasions) are fully aware of it and how it will be perceived. More often often than not, they choose to do it simply to assert a self-conferred right to be snide and insulting anyway. Voceditenore (talk) 11:49, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes to most of the statement, but no to many of the comments above, which appear to me to be inserting their own concerns between the lines. As a trained anthropologist I can tell you for a proven fact that what does and does not constitute civil discourse varies widely by cultural background. Wikipedia's overwhelmingly Anglo-American Protestant dominated core user base has one very particular range of sensibilities about what is or is not "proper" vs. "improper", "polite" vs. "snide, insulting or hostile". Even just within American editors, those from Italian, Irish, Hispanic and various other backgrounds have a far more tolerant (again, as an aggregate population) view. Chinese-Americans a less flexible one, on average, since respect is more highly valued, on average, in Chinese culture than in mainstream American. And so on. Now consider that people all over the world from all cultures, with any level of English-language competency are participating here. One size does not fit all. This really has to come down to patterns of behavior over time. Calling someone a "moron" or whatever in an exchange is an example of incivility to pretty much everyone. Saying "Your idea is ridiculous" is likely to be seen as incivil by some, and simply honest debate by others, and their reaction will often have a cultural basis, at least in part. It's too indeterminate to make policy about. Causing lots of strife and contention for months on end by being insulting is a pattern of behavior that can be addressed at WP:ARBCOM, and isn't particularly cultural dependent (anyone can tell they are routinely pissing people off by the negative feedback on their talk page, whether they were born in Brazil or Egypt). Anyway, this is nice essay material, but I don't see rationale for a policy change here. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes to Fluffernutter's statement and definition of civility. No to taking it as a unit with Beeblebrox' statement as Rschen suggested. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 14:40, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

This and the following points are good ideas for an essay (maybe added to the one advanced as a proposal, up top). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Habitual incivility is a different issue than one-off

If I walk into a bar in the real world, I went in there because I wanted a beer. If a guy sitting at the bar makes a snarky comment about my taste in suds, I have a couple of options. I could punch him in the face, because hey, he's a jerk! But then I might get thrown out of the bar, and even if I don't, I've delayed getting myself what I came for if I have to stop and punch the jerk before I can get my beer. But really, if all I want is my beer, why would I bother with a random guy who prefers beer I don't like? Why would I not just ignore him and order my beer, the quicker to have what I want with a minimum of fuss? Most people intuitively understand that there is a value equation involved in a choice between crossing a boundary and not crossing it, and they'll usually make a decision based on what's most valuable to them. If they value their beer, they get their beer. If they opt for confronting a jerk, then it was never really the beer that was most important to them, anyway, and if you spend too much time in a bar opting for jerk-punching rather than beer-drinking, you're not of any use to the bar's bottom line. In fact, if you spend that much time punching other people at the local bar, not only are you not providing them much profit from the beer you drink, but it's probably even the case that other people aren't providing them profit from drinking beer, because people don't spend a lot of time in a bar inhabited by a guy who likes to punch others rather than drink beer. People who drive away other people like that are eventually asked to leave the bar because, well, this is a bar and it's intended to be used for drinking, not punching. If your main purpose is pugilistic, go down the street to the gym with the boxing ring and leave the bar patrons to their beer.

Almost everyone who goes to bars occasionally has their buttons pushed and throws a punch or shoves someone, but most of the time that can be dealt with by sending the person home to sleep it off. This sort of punch-throwing isn't something society encourages, but it's something that happens, because humans aren't robots. But when it gets to the point where people see you coming and know to duck and cover, because "hey, here comes that guy who punches people all the time", it's no longer a failing, it's a habit.

The same concept applies to Wikipedia. When you work here, you're continually asked to make judgments of what's valuable for you to spend your time on, and the community is asked to make judgments of what value you provide to it. A single instance of lashing out is a piece of evidence about your values, but it shouldn't be the piece of evidence; humans are human. However, if you often appear to value "fight this other person who is WRONG ON THE INTERNET" most highly, then your values don't match those of the community, and the community should ask you to go elsewhere so the rest of us can focus on the encyclopedia without the distraction of boxing matches.

The issue of incivility is worst when we're faced with people who repeatedly do the math and decide "fight > functioning encyclopedia". If your mental math continually turns up that result, the community is within its rights to ask you to find another place that shares your values more than Wikipedia does. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
So how frequent is habitual? I'd not disagree if it was a significant proportion of someone's time here. Shall we nominate percentages? I'd say ~33% maybe. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's really a quantifiable thing, unfortunately. To me, it's a sort of "If some or all people know you by 'Oh, that's the guy who's always calling people names', or 'Oh, that's the guy who comes after anyone who edits Article X', then you've probably got to change your behavior." If your practice of being unable to play well with others is something that defines you, or that people know you by, or that people know they have to walk a particular tightrope to avoid, then you've passed the point of being able to claim "Oops, I lost my temper, I'm sorry" and you need to face the fact that you can't "lose" your temper if it's almost-perpetually lost. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 02:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC) ETA: I think my point is something along the lines of claiming that identifying uncivil people is as rooted in community as what constitutes incivility in the first place - to some extent, a person is uncivil if the community reliably identifies that person as someone who transgresses against community civility norms. So you can't say "oh, you can only be uncivil 10% of the time", because what the community recognizes as a "problem" percentage will vary across time and based on the severity of the person's issues. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. No to the habitually uncivil and no to the 10% uncivil. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Isolated instances can be hatted. Habitual occurrences need to be examined/discussed/fixed. —Quiddity (talk) 20:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
I do go to bars but I never go there to punch people if they cross me. And I don't know anyone or see anyone in RL that behaves like that....but I get (and support) your end-comment. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
http://xkcd.com/386/ --Rs chen 7754 17:28, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree in principle with Fluffernutter's statement and the idea that it's not based on percentage; however, my only concern is if "asking to leave" becomes "forcing out", which, at least to a degree, is against the "anyone can edit" freedom; after all, if we're assuming good faith, even uncivil users are still trying to improve the encyclopedia; they just need to learn how to express themselves here, and a lesson in what happen if they don't. That's why I would support some enforcement other than simply telling someone to leave. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 14:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

One thing I've noticed is valuable - but often time-consuming to construct - is a list of occurrences of incivility. When presented with a record of day to day incivility to other editors, an editor is helped to confront the problem. Other editors may see this as an aid to enforcing policy, but really if the problematic editor does not recognise the need for change and act on it hisownself, the problem is merely going to recur when the block expires or whatever. If each editor had a sub-page - an incivility journal - with a distinct format such that it was a list rather than a battleground, then perhaps all editors involved would benefit. Something like this:

Instance: Stop being such a cunt! Directed towards User:PrincessFluffypants here during discussion on civility.

Response: Terribly sorry. Bloody Autocorrect. It should have read, "Stop being such an idiot".

Just two lines for each item. Quote. Diff. Context. Response. --Pete (talk) 21:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Logging does help make people more conscious of their own behaviour when maybe they're not seeing it as others are. See also, a not entirely dissimilar idea, under "Abandon 'civility'...": a WP equivalent of a civility jar (swear jar, but more broadly defined)... Rd232 ^talk 22:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Until people start fighting over the logging, whether what they said was uncivil enough to get logged, or things like log entry 2: A reported me in the civility log without cause because he was mad about x, that was incivil - A. Log entry 3: B made a bad faith report of my report... Monty ₈₄₅ 00:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Hence my design of it in my proposal above (which nobody's commented on :( ), as per-user and carrying only self-enforced mild penalties of tackling boring backlog. If somebody logs something, it needs to be with evidence; if they do it in demonstrably bad faith, that might be addable to the initial logger's own log, but if there are no real penalties attached and it's not going on on article talk pages, such silliness will be self-limiting, I think. Rd232 ^talk 10:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I can just imagine log wars developing with eye for eye, tit for tat retaliation. Not to mention self-appointed civility police going out of their way to happily log infractions. --Pete (talk) 08:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Depends, as I've said several times, on what the consequences of logging are. My proposal above is that the log is primarily a feedback tool to the user, so they understand how people feel about their behaviour/communication style, in a way that focusses on that issue separate from any content disputes. Rd232 ^talk 10:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

While intended purely for feedback and personal assessment and growth, I cannot see that such logs wouldnt be regularly dredged into other discussions and used forever as a sledge hammer like years old block logs are now. Is there a way to make the subpage contents not visible to anyone but the user unless the user makes them public? -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Currently, no. I suppose it would be possible to use email instead. But making the feedback entirely non-public and non-logged may not have the same effect, and not having any kind of public log, however imperfect, is part of the problem with getting a handle on dealing with the more incorrigible contributors. On the other hand, private conversations can help people work things out "away from the spotlight", when both genuinely want to and know the discussion can't be held against them. So I'd lean to suggesting email as a complement, not a substitute. Keeping logs private to individual users would need a software change, so we can forget about that... Rd232 ^talk 00:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand the point that was trying to be made here, and it is an important one. One-off incivility is not related at all to habitual incivility (of the "piss off everyone because arguing is fun" or "me and this other editor hate each other and will fight forever" variety, which are very different from each other, as well). But the approach you're taking isn't workable, not when conceived like this. You appear to be approaching this from the point of view of an editor who mostly works on articles. But there are many major contributors to this project who spend most of their time working on something else here, be it templates, admin backlogs, policy formulation and shepherding, etc. Many of these editors' contributions, when looked at from a "writing and building the encyclopedia vs. arguing" standpoint will be very heavily on the "arguing" side, including anyone involved a lot in dispute resolution, XfD, policy pages, etc. And, yes, it does sound like something that would lead to "logwars" and "civility police". (Actually, this entire page of discussion appears to have been created as an attempt to get the community to set up "civility police". Fuck that.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Civility and POV

Complicating the issue of "civility enforcement" is its relationship to maintaining a neutral, balanced point of view in our articles. Civil POV-pushing in particular is a problematic result of a "civility"-obsessed editing culture. An editor able to cloak a fringe POV in a collegial sugarcoat stands a fair chance at pulling the wool over the eyes of other editors editing within a topic area, while a more aggressive, "uncivil" POV-pusher is more likely to be swiftly dealt with. These users stick around for a long time, often creating severe issues of balance within their pet topic area. Their outward attitude may sway outside opinion in their favour, regardless of how obvious and harmful the agenda-pushing is. Where a rude contributor might be summarily blocked for ongoing disruption, a civil POV-pusher might be only be taken to RfC/U in an extreme case—and even that may not be successful in halting them. All the while, their underhanded, tendentious methods may drive more clueful contributors who interact with them to frustration—a leading cause of "incivility". Thus, contributors who grow fed up with the actions of a civil POV-pusher may find themselves under threat of "civility" sanction for trying to protect encyclopaedic reliability, while the POV-pusher continues as they were, creating problems that compromise the quality of the project itself. If the community is to decide on a method of civility enforcement, safeguards must be enacted to ensure that merely being civil is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

As proposer. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
I would make it even stronger. "Civilly" baiting one's content opponents into "uncivil" statements is a standard battleground game on Wikipedia. There's a difference between (civil) "griefing" (or even harassment) and "incivility", and the first one is much worse. The two main problems with "civility enforcement" are that 1) it is very unevenly enforced creating total confusion as to what is and what is uncivil and 2) it is the most gamed of Wikipedia's policies. Volunteer Marek 23:32, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Volunteer Marek puts it well. 28bytes (talk) 02:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. 'Civil POV-pushing' is a much greater problem, in that unlike incivility, it actually influences article content. That is what it is intended to do. If someone (i.e. me...) blows their top and resorts to incivility, it detracts from the validity of any arguments presented. The 'civil' POV-pusher (frequently driven by anything-but-civil intentions) meanwhile gets his/her way... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Pesky (talk) 18:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Many seem to treat our policies like magic spells to be offensively invoked against those who disagree with their POV. Our policies and guidelines should offer guidance, not weapons. Gigs (talk) 23:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Dealing with disruptive and tendentious editing can make productive users frustrated, and sanctioning the frustrated party while letting the disruptive and tendentious party continue their behavior does long-term harm to Wikipedia. Yes, we can say that editors shouldn't lose their temper, and we'd be right to say so, but this isn't some abstract moral situation: prioritizing civility enforcement when our enforcement of content editing standards is already incredibly weak is damaging to Wikipedia's goals. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Wholeheartedly agree. GoodDay (talk) 20:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Intothat darkness 18:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. It's also worth noting that lots of the civil POV-pushers are in fact socks of banned users, and since they're willing to make socks forever and ever, they basically have "infinite lives", to borrow video game terminology. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
No kidding! This is a massive problem all over Wikipedia, and combatting it sucks up most of my article-editing time, in fact (hell, I can't even remember when I last created an article, there are so many that need POV repair). It's also how the "Church" of Scientology has done so well in the offline world. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course! Neutral POV is as much one of the 5 pillars as Civility is, and I say we enforce each of the pillars equally. Of course, uncivil POV-pushing may be more heavily punished, since that violates 2 pillars at once. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:29, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

My question regarding this is why not just "ignore" the claimed provocation? It should be relatively easy to ignore the "senseless" but civil, as no one will take it seriously, if it is indeed senseless. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Why not "just ignore" incivility? I find it quite easy to. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

That's my question. One often sees "ignore the incivility," but for some reason, at the same time it is claimed, one must focus on the provocation. Why, isn't the provocation ignored? Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Why are we having this RfC? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I assume it is because the person who started it wanted it discussed? Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:01, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with "ignoring incivility" is that people instead always "ignore the point that the incivil person is making". That's why civility matters. Also, merely because I wish that people wouldn't ignore incivil people when they are actually in the right, I can't force people to weigh in on consensus building discussions, so incivil people will continue to ruin the correct stance because people don't come to their defense as often as they probably should, and again we can't force them. If, however, we establish a culture of civility we can ensure that the correct position on any issue is not ignored because the person expressing it behaves badly. --Jayron32 19:21, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The main answer, alluded to above, is that on Wikipedia, when you have a disagreement with someone you are *required* to discuss it. So you can't really ignore it in many instances, except by throwing up your hands and leaving the article/topic/page and letting the incivil person "win". Volunteer Marek 20:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be their "win." Yes, civilly discuss -- there is no way around that. (Sometimes editors seem to have an idea that "I shouldn't have to discuss", but sometimes, in this Project, you do). Either you will come to some understanding or you won't -- without getting others involved on the several notice boards for getting others involved, or the RfC (or from the watchers). If it matters, than just state why and the reasons. There is usually someone else of reason, who will volunteer to help with consensus, even if it is to just tell someone "no" from another perspective. It is possible to be as reasonable, just as long as "the other guy" can be unreasonable. And if they are unreasonable, others will notice. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

This whole "well just ignore it" cuts both ways: 1) everybody could just grow a thicker skin and "incivility" would cease to be a problem and 2) users dealing with civil POV-pushers could walk outside and get some fresh air instead of losing their temper. It's easy to talk like a grade-school guidance counselor about this kind of stuff, but that doesn't mean it's easily applicable to the editing world. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. That's my point, it cuts both ways. No one, in reason, is suggesting we ignore POV pushing, the response to that is WP:NPOV, not breaching civility, that's covered in WP:Civility. - Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

My point is that a "civility"-obsessed editing culture creates a favourable environment for those who are here A) to push a POV and B) are able to do so with a seemingly collegial demeanour. The most prominent example that comes to mind is User:Jagged 85, who was recently community-banned after his large-scale POV-pushing and misrepresentation of sources spread to one too many topic areas following years of ineffectual dithering about his behaviour, including an RfC/U that failed to have any effect other than encouraging him to "branch out" in his disruption. He wasn't a mean or excessively combative personality, and therefore people A'ed too much GF and didn't decisively deal with him earlier. He left a long trail of POV damage across multiple topic areas that will take a very long time to clean up. Had he been "uncivil" in his dealings, I am sure that he would have been given the boot long ago. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:49, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Being uncivil to him would have done what exactly? Made people go why are you being uncivil? He misrepresented sources, as I understand it -- that requires checking the sources, not blowing up, that does nothing to correct the misrepresentations. Sure that's harder to look into but the problem was not incivility (from what you say). It was that his sourcing and writing could not be trusted, and whoever was around him did not check (although apparently he was incredibly active and blatant).Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Please point me to where exactly I have said that "incivility" is the solution to civil POV-pushing, as you seem to think. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I thought that's you meant, that it would have been better if there was incivility in that case because it is easier to identify. But, in fact, it's another breach of the Pillars. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:34, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

...no. I don't advocate for incivility as a means to "smoke out" civil POV-pushers. I am contending that dealing with civil POV-pushers can be extraordinarily frustrating, which can lead to uncivil outbursts. I do wish that users like Jagged 85 were uncivil all on their own so that they would be quickly dealt with. (But then they wouldn't be "civil POV-pushers", now would they?) ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

More than once in my editing career here I have become incredibly frustrated with a perfectly polite but ultimately destructive editor, and produced what many here would regard as an uncivil outburst. This has led to complaints about my behaviour which have, when properly looked into, led to me being growled at, but because some independent and more powerful observers arrived on the scene, the real troublemaker ended up being blocked. I'm not necessarily recommending this approach, but it had a positive result on more than one occasion, with more than one troublemaker. If I hadn't upset the conservatives, the polite bullshit creators would have continued unnoticed on their merry but very damaging ways. And before anyone says I should have sought formal dispute resolution, I've tried that. It often doesn't work. Those disagreeing just get sent back to discuss some more on Talk pages, simply leading to even greater frustration. So, incivility can be productive. HiLo48 (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to read any of the above, but this is exactly the problem with incivility. Editors like HiLo48 know that they can act in an uncivil manner and be more likely to get their way. Ryan Vesey 05:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Ya really reckon? Perhaps you really SHOULD read more of the above. (Was it actually civil behaviour to respond WITHOUT having read the above? You said it politely, but I think it's rude.) And perhaps you should look more deeply into my situation. And you've ignored a couple of facts. One is the fact that my ~~incivil~~ (no, I prefer...) uncivil behaviours have led to positive outcomes for the encyclopaedia. The second is that 99.9% of the time I will discuss matters in a way that pleases even conservative middle-Americans. I will also sometimes vigorously push logic in the face of dogma. That tends to upset some here, but it doesn't mean I'm being uncivil. (Unless challenging sacred cows is considered uncivil.) HiLo48 (talk) 05:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd definitely agree that knee-jerk responses to a thread based on seeing the presence of one editor are really rude. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:32, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Ryan: I don't know if "they got their way." Apparently, the ANI discussion led to some kind of ban. Perhaps, if they had remained civil, others would have got involved sooner, in whatever the issue was. The uninvolved level headed types, don't want to get involved allot nor quickly, where people are yelling at each other. Perhaps, if they had remained civil, others would have taken whatever the issue was seriously, faster on whatever notice board they went to. Perhaps, if they had remained civil, it would never have become about their civility, but only about the problem user's edits. Perhaps their incivility enabled the problem user, for a time. But regardless, apparently, incivility, in the ANI's eyes, breached the pillar. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

That is precisely the inverse interpretation that most would draw from that anecdote, but ok. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Which anecdote? The User, HiLo, apparently got some kind of ANI ban (which HiLo links to a discussion about) related to their conduct. It does not appear that's what they wanted. Also, it may explain why they do not "necessarily recommend this [uncivil] approach." But regardless, the point was that they may not have all the information on how their perceived incivility had effects. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

HiLo's main point was that inciting incivility can have positive effects in rooting out POV-pushers—though it is a personally hazardous and somewhat unscrupulous course of action. I think your contention that incivility causes outsiders to stay away from a dispute that is brought forward is completely and utterly false. Did you even see the AN/I conflagration that led to the Request for Arbitration that led to this Request for Comment? Incivility is the hot-button issue in the community. Civil POV-pushing easily masquerades under the guise of a "routine content dispute", which nobody really cares too much about. But if someone is hurting someone else's feelings? Alert the authorities! ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I did see the AN thread, and the Jimbo thread. The AN complaint was closed vitriol. So, it's likely to gain notice. At any rate, we would be much better off talking about content, without people sidetracking into incivility. That is, unfortunately what happens, when incivility occurs. Presumably talking about incivility was why it was brought to AN in the first place. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree that we would be better talking about content in the first place. However, most outside observers don't care one whit about "routine content disputes", and will pass them over without a second thought. That is precisely the problem. Incivility attracts outsiders like hyenas to a fresh kill, and HiLo notes that it has resulted in positive resolution of content disputes. I would like that not to be the case—hence my proposal above. If civil POV-pushing were to be treated as seriously as incivility, there would be no sense in using incivility as bait to get the civil POV-pusher noticed and dealt with. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:01, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

The good people at the RS notice board are great about talking about sources; the people at DRN are great about talking about NPOV and other issues, and getting people to work together. The NPOV notice board could use more volunteers. But there are allot of people interested in content, but those people are not interested in being in the middle of the uncivil fights that other users feel the need to pursue (except on their really valiant days). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have confused "civil POV-pusher" with "routine content dispute", further highlighting the purpose of my proposal. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Civil POV pushers are that much easier to deal with in that you don't waste time with stupid fights and that makes RfC's, noticeboard visits, etc. to get community input much less emotionally complicated. CarolMooreDC 20:41, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's why Jagged 85 was able to get the boot after.... how long? Several years of disruption and an ultimately failed RfC/U? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Civil POV pushers are NOT dealt with effectively. They tend to be impossible to communicate with, and if one takes their behaviour to some higher level of authority, it usually goes nowhere because they have been so terribly nice about it all. The "higher authorities" tend to only act if tempers have become inflamed. Hence my point that incivility is more effective in getting enough attention to truly fix things. Now, that doesn't mean I think that's a good thing. It's just reality, whether you like it or not. HiLo48 (talk) 02:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, though I don't think it was the intent, the OP of this perspective is the exact reason why civility matters. People are going to react viscerally against the person who is most incivil. They will tend to avoid supporting rude people merely because they are rude, and an impertinent level of incivility will ruin an otherwise sound point, if for no other reason than that few people will rush to the support of someone who is acting badly, regardless of their point. That's why civility matters, not because we want people to be "nice" for its own sake, but because incivility has an negative impact on the "right solution" getting enacted. When we don't encourage a collegial and civil level of discourse, it ensures that people who are civil and wrong get their way more than people who are incivil and right. That's an observation of human behavior, not a statement of value: It doesn't matter that we wish it weren't so, what matters is what we do to fix it. We aren't going to be able to force every Wikipedia user to rush to the defense of incivil, but ultimately correct, editors. How do you do that? People will still continue from shying away from consensus building discussions involving such people. However, and I'm going to bold this because it is central to the problem If the person who has the right position is also civil and courteous in their interactions, they will win every time. That's the central reason why we need to encourage all editors to remain civil: if you are right, and you're civil, your rightness will be self-evident, and your behavior won't be a hindrance to people supporting the right position on an issue. --Jayron32 19:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between "encouragement" and "enforcement". ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Other than the parts of the words between the "en" and the "ment"? Explain how to encourage civility without any means of enforcing it. I would be delighted to hear a practical means of doing so. Like, an actual way in which we can get people to stop being obnoxious without some means of stopping obnoxiousness when it gets to be too much. I'm actually serious: that would be a perfect solution to all of our problems. Please stop holding out and let us know how this can be done. --Jayron32 03:08, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That seemed awful ~~rude~~ uncivil. Mind rephrasing that? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 04:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

How do you encourage civility in people without introducing consequences for not being civil? --Jayron32 21:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

To "encourage" someone is to give them support or confidence, by rewarding them, for example. To "enforce" something is to forcefully compel compliance with it (enforce). A policeman is not a law "encouragement" officer (except in the world of dystopian fiction), he is a law enforcement officer. People are not rewarded for not breaking the law, they simply avoid being stripped of the privileges that come with not being in prison. In psychological terms, you have confused positive reinforcement (encouragement: kittens and barnstars and whatnot in WP terms) with negative punishment (enforcement: blocking in WP terms). If you want civility enforcement, that's fine. Just don't give it some Newspeakish (sorry to be "that guy", but...) label of civility "encouragement". ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

How do you encourage civility? --Jayron32 21:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, my simple "rephrase" request above seems to have had the effect of dialing back the snarky incivility of your initial response quite significantly. Look ma, no blocks! (Not that I'm able to hand those out anyway.) You have, as I recall, advocated for a case-by-case heckling of hastily-filed but good-faithed ban proposals in order to effect broader policy change on "de facto bans". Why can't civility work in the same case-by-case fashion? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I had at one point in my past done so, but I have ceased doing so as it wasn't a productive way forward. It doesn't produce the desired change, so I've stopped doing it. And I'm still perplexed by what you are calling "snarky" incivility. I let your first comment in that direction go, because it wasn't productive to persue it further, but since you brought it up a second time, I'll ask for some clarification: what in my statement originally was snarky or incivil? I made a simple, straightforward request. Since you can't see my body language or hear the tone in my voice, I'm not sure how you can detect "snark". On the point at hand: what techniques will you employ on that case by case basis to encourage civility. That is, when a person is being incivil, what means will you use to cause them to become reliably civil? I'd like to know, because I haven't yet found anything that works, and not for want of trying. --Jayron32 22:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

...aaaand with that, I believe we have hit the heart of the matter: what you think is civil is not always so for other people. Phrasings like "I'm actually serious" and "Please stop holding out and let us know how this can be done" for me sound nasty, flippant, condescending, and disrespectful. You'd do better just calling me a "jackass" or something. If you have to disclaim that you're "actually serious", then you aren't.

The "point at hand" of this discussion subheader is not and has never been methods of enforcement, barring this sidetrack. If you'll look at my statement, you'll find that I am voicing my concerns that the hysteria surrounding "civility enforcement" creates favourable conditions for agenda-driven editors with an outwardly collegial disposition, and that I am not convinced that mere civilitas vos liberabit is a realistic solution to that problem. Not sure that rudeness is, either. Just that these are issues to be kept in mind. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 03:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Then I unequivocally apologize. If I was rude, for whatever reason, that is unacceptable, and for that I am genuinely sorry. I can only assure you that I meant no insult. If a particular turn of phrase appeared insulting, I have nothing but my word to offer you that it was delivered with no malice. But clearly, if it was received the way it was, the fault is squarely mine for not expressing it in terms less likely to offend. I am deeply sorry that I said things that caused any discomfort. I have only my apology, and no excuse, to offer. I still am interested in methods to encourage people to be civil. You have stated several times that such means are preferable to methods which discourage incivility. I would like to hear what you have to say on the matter. I value you and your thoughts on this. --Jayron32 05:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Jayron says "If the person who has the right position is also civil and courteous in their interactions, they will win every time". Sorry, I cannot agree with that. I'm on the edge of a couple of disputes right now where very civil but persistent and irrational editors are dominating procedures. It's wasting a lot of everybody's time and there is no sign of lights at the end of tunnels yet. It's exactly the kind of behaviour that leads wiser but perhaps slightly more impatient editors to call "Bullshit!", and get into awful trouble with the universal niceness fans. I argue that while civility is a fine and glorious goal, we also need some simpler and more effective tools to tackle the civil bullshit pushers. HiLo48 (talk) 06:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

See, that's the problem. We can wish all we want that incivil people won't scare away supporters in a consensus-building discussion. It doesn't mean that people we have any means of forcing people to contribute to the discussion to break such a deadlock as you describe. WP:DEADLINE makes it clear that we can afford to wait it out; being impatient as you describe doesn't work to produce the correct result; if it doesn't, then we shouldn't be so impatient. The whole point is to do the action which produces the correct result. Being right and cussing people out and acting bullish and obnoxious doesn't produce the correct result. Being right and impatient doesn't produce the correct result. Being correct and drawing in extra eyes and bring in comments from other reasonable people does. When you are incivil at any point, those "other reasonable people" vanish, never to return. --Jayron32 21:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Criticism and disagreement are NOT incivility

This should seem obvious but anyone who's doing work "in the trenches" (i.e. working on content) on Wikipedia knows very well that accusations of "incivility" are often motivated by a desire to win an argument or even remove (engineer a sanction) a content opponent from a topic area. A good portion of complaints about incivility boil down to a "User XYZ won't let me push my POV in peace!" or "User XYZ dares to disagree with me and that's uncivil!" or "User XYZ criticized me and my works and thatz a personal attackz!". While we spend a lot of time at RfA vetting admin candidates on their knowledge of speedy deletion criteria and the like, we never ask them to be able to distinguish between real incivility and frank criticism. This results in a lot of inappropriate blocks, confusion, arbitrary enforcement, and perverse incentives for gaming the system. As the man said, if you don't want your work edited and criticized, don't contribute here.

Volunteer Marek 23:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Corollary to my thoughts on civil POV-pushing above. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:49, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Beeblebrox (talk) 23:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Lego K^ontribs T^alkM 00:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Rs chen 7754 00:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Yup. Should be self-evident. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Using the civility policy as a weapon is specifically mentioned as a "no-no" in the civility policy itself. If there's no better argument against an opponent than calling them out on incivility, their opposer hasn't (in content terms) got a leg to stand on. And yet we see it all the time ... Pesky (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
As I noted above, many of our policies have turned into weapons for POV warriors. It seems that a lot of people citing them barely read them, they merely find the ones that seem most appropriate to throw at their enemy and go from there. I guess it reflects the US legal system in a lot of ways. Gigs (talk) 23:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
So somebody write an essay with 20 examples of civil vs uncivil discussion of the same issue. Maybe add a couple examples to WP:Civility. CarolMooreDC 20:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The user who writes stuff like that are the real people to be blocked. ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 22:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Intothat darkness 18:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Rather obviously. However, there's the caveat noted below: it is how criticism is delivered, not just that it is criticism. --Jayron32 17:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not entirely obviously though. See my next post immediately below.
Yes, yes and more yes. Innumerable PoV-pushers and "I'll do whatever the hell I want" editors (mostly detrimental to the project but not always) attempt to have critics keel-hauled for "incivility" when the critics are simply telling the offender that he/she is doing something destructive or that his/her argument makes no sense and can be proven to be fallacious or false. Sometimes their underhanded b.s. is taken seriously by admins, who label the critic as incivil, due to all the factors mentioned in this topic and the second half of the one immediately above (POV pushing and civility). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is unfortunately true. In a similar fashion, some editors also try and apply AGF to shield themselves from reasonable criticism. CT Cooper · talk 18:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
A very important point. Merely disagreeing with someone, is not itself an act of incivility. Heated discussions can be had without descending to incivility. Although civility needs to be policed more, the last thing we need is editors getting blocked for disagreeing with each other. Them From Space 22:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Good point. — ChedZILLA 04:51, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Jayron that this refer to constructive criticism, as opposed to unconstructive criticism like "this is stupid", etc. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Being polite doesn't make you "right", no matter how often it is mistakenly interpreted as such. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Objective and constructive criticism is essential, but it must be worded in a non inflammatory manner. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:35, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Agree to a point. That point is "criticism of me." That suggests that either the offender or the offended has made it personal; in either case, neither should have intended to do so. And both should be willing to discuss, and re-calibrate, if there has been a miscommunication that has made it personal. In short, there do appear to be people that easily offend, and others who easily take offense; but, neither conduct is productive on the Project. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes "disagreement" is a cover by which a person criticizes minor issues while refusing to engage the real issue. If that impedes civil discourse, then it is a form of incivility. So while I agree VM's statement is often true, it doesn't seem to me to be always true. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Good content contributions do not excuse bad behavior

At all levels of dispute resolution there has been a disturbing pattern of people essentially saying "Yes, this person makes everyone other people's lives miserable on a regular basis, but his/her content contributions are so good that we're going to ignore/minimize the behavioral issues." We keep bringing this up and agreeing that it's a problem, but it keeps coming back. It must end. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Sven Manguard Wha? 16:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. While bad behavior may involve circumstantial mitigation, it's not even "excused" by it, nor by unrelated good behavior. The responsibility still lies with the bad actor for their own bad acts. - Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Hut 8.5 17:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Being a valuable "company employee" doesn't somehow give you carte blanche to habitually kick your coworkers in the nuts. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
WP:VESTED; User:Beeblebrox/The unblockables.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:46, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Lego K^ontribs T^alkM 20:58, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Those people who can write good content but not in a cooperative environment should be writing elsewhere. The distinctive thing about WP a, after all,, is not what we produce, but the way we produce it. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Heck yes. --Rs chen 7754 17:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
YES. This is my primary issue with current civility enforcement. Jtrainor (talk) 22:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
This is a problem, and I think that if if an editor who gets blocked for civility, the user would of not been a good editor in the first place. ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 22:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Yup. --Jayron32 19:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I still believe that 'ignoring' potty mouthed editors is best. However, the too valuable editor argument is always annoying. GoodDay (talk) 20:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but everyone has to behave to an appropriate standard. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
The best resolution would be a change in behavior. But if dozens of community requests are ignored, some wholesale group response is called for. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Correct. --99of9 (talk) 01:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
This is important. No one contributes so much content that it can offset the damage from driving off multiple other editors. Rlendog (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Certainly, but keep in mind that making a bunch of policy on this point can set up easily system-gameable loopholes. E.g. incoming editors (often socks) can cause an long-time editor a bunch of civility-enforcement problems if he/she persists against their underhanded editing, and they are playing the kinds of "piss off the opposition so we can nail him/her" games encompassed by the "POV and civility" and "Criticism and disagreement are NOT incivility" sections above. This is in fact already happening, of course, but making a big policy point out of "being an old hand doesn't give you a free pass" simply pours fuel on those fires. The "good ol' boy's club" mentality is way, way, way more of a problem in dealing with editors who are problematic as admins than problematic as content editors. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:59, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
It is reasonable to take into account an editor's contributions and the difficulty of the area they work in when reviewing uncivil behaviour, but the idea that having lots of contributions excuses incivility completely is wrong. In particular, there should be no double standard between someone who does five hours of anti-vandalism work a day, and someone who does five hours of content creation a day. CT Cooper · talk 18:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. Keeping systematically problematic users drives away good users who don't have these problems. I want to work to keep the good users who aren't disruptive, not the disruptive ones who make life difficult for the rest of us. This is a collaborative project. — Jess· Δ ♥ 19:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Very important Ryan Vesey 19:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Strongly agree. A few editors are at leave to be incivil because of their exemplary editing background. One of the failures of our consensus based model is the protection of these editors' actions by those they have worked closely with in the past. If a user cannot be civil after extended participation on the project, its time for them to take a break from editing. Them From Space 22:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. I think the big contributors who are persistently uncivil make voluminous contributions only because they enjoy being uncivil and because they need to continue being uncivil. They are here only to enjoy/addicted to the brutality and sense of power derived from being uncivil to others.OrangesRyellow (talk) 07:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Full support as written. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Strongly agree. In fact, it's even more inexcusable in people who pride themsleves on and frequently remind everyone of their "content" skills. Everyone has a choice about which language to use, especially people who are highly articulate and educated and in command of multiple registers of their native language. They know exactly what they're doing and why. Insulting someone and/or using coarse language to do it is a choice. Being aggressive, confrontational, and belittling is a choice. Being an apologist for such behaviour in others because they write FAs is a choice. It's time to stop making those choices. Voceditenore (talk) 07:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I concur entirely with Voceditenore. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. I also agree with Voceditenore. --Boson (talk) 18:51, 23 October 2012
Voceditenore took the words right out of my mouth. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 20:32, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Completely agree. Davewild (talk) 19:56, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

it's very easy to agree that no amount of content contributions makes it ok to be regularly rude to everyone around you. It seems like a premise nearly everyone should be able to agree on yet as recently as two weeks ago we saw once again some users calling for a banned user who has been socking for years to be sumarrily unblocked because (they never put it like this but it is in fact the crux of their arguments) he is so knowledgeable about certain subjects that only he can fix the articles on them and therefore the rules, including the banning and sockpuppetry policies, do not apply to him. I can't get down with that. However I would also hate to see us losing good content contributors because they occaisionally feel the need to be rude and nasty to somebody. It's a fine line to be sure so I don't think a simple statement like "it must end" is a realistic position but perhaps a more nuanced position could be developed. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
- It must end refers to the line of argument. I am not changing it. If you can't support it, that's fine. In my opinion, however, your (apparent) willingness to give the arguement quarter in certain cases is why we have the problem at all anymore. If we keep finding exceptions, it has no teeth. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Content over conduct. This is an encyclopedia after all not a (close minded, self centered) social club. While there's some logic and truth to the proposition there are also many caveats, buts, and nuances. Enshrining this sentiment as a proposition/guideline is counter productive and can set a dangerous precedent. Volunteer Marek 18:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
- this is a community created consensus driven encyclopedia based on volunteers contributing their time effort and intellectual know how. Content is NOT everything. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually it is (and your definition suggests that). Conduct policies are just a means to an end. Big part of the problem is that so many people so often forget that and treat Wikipedia as some version of facebook or a role playing game. Volunteer Marek 20:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Nobody on Wikipedia is irreplaceable. There's no reason to tolerate excessively rude prima donnas-- someone else will always come along eventually to work in whatever topic area they were in. Jtrainor (talk) 22:11, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I can list several users who everyone thought were indispensable, but after ArbCom blocked them, life went on. --Rs chen 7754 22:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

If they refuse to get with the program after repeated, obvious to all (or most), acts of attacking fellow editors, they need to go. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that the more content a person contributes, the more opportunities there are for someone to press his buttons. Bad edits of any kind should be considered as a ratio - the question is not whether an editor has sinned, but whether an editor is providing better quality content than two, five, ten who might, if you're lucky, join to replace the job he was doing. Wnt (talk) 16:14, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation bias fouls-up everything

Sometimes it has to be the case that a high-profile character gets a reputation, multiple blocks (some of which may be wholly bad, some of which may not), and their reputation precedes them. Even if the extent of their "incivility" amounts to less than 0.01% of their total input. When that happens, all that most (yes, even really intelligent) people see is confirmation of "hey, this chap/chapess is really uncivil!" And less high-profile people, not in the public eye, whose incivility-ratio may be much higher, slip under the collective radar because they don't have a massive collection of antagonists and protagonists. This isn't even beginning to look at the much worse sins of civil POV-pushing and civil shit-stirring and dramahz-mongering which goes on. Some people are here to build an encyclopaedia and from time to time "go off on one". Some people are here avidly to pick up the spoon and stir up as much shite as they possibly can, making as much noise as they can, and turning something relatively undisruptive into a collective drama-fest which is a darned sight more disruptive than whatever behaviour they were screaming about in the first place. All of us, all the time, need to be aware of the sheer power of confirmation bias.

Pesky (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Volunteer Marek 19:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Obviously. Confirmation bias is rampant in every aspect of Wikipedia's operation, frankly. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Widespread, per SMcCandlish. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 02:34, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I would not be prepared to say it can never happen, but almost always this is just the last-ditch excuse for the uncivil. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I can see how it might be – but I don't think I'm an uncivil person. I like to think I'm a pretty rational person, but falling foul of confirmation bias is just species-normal behaviour for H. sapiens. Pesky (talk) 08:21, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Pesky might be right in some cases, but that 'other people are being worse' isn't an excuse that carries much weight with me. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Ahhh, that wasn't quite what I meant (I should have been more clear). What I meant was just that those people who have the reputation for being the "worst offenders" don't necessarily deserve it. It's just that any time they do anything there's an almighty hoo-haa over it. Loads of publicity. And levels of punishment (enforcement) shouldn't be decided on someone's level of publicity; if Mr High-Profile is going to get sanctioned for the use of specific words, for example, then Mr Low-Profile, if he uses the same words, should get the same sentencing. We should be very wary of "making an example" of one or two people. Whatever we do, it should be the same for all. Pesky (talk) 05:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but if Mr High-Profile is high-profile because he uses that word every day, even after having been asked to stop, then I venture to say that it is appropriate for him to get a sanction when Mr Low-Profile (who's never used that word before today, let's say) gets a warning or a quiet word had with him. I'm not saying it's impossible that "big" names have more eyes on them or for that to sometimes lead to more attention, but I would venture to say that it is the case that many of the "big" names got big because they've been doing the same "big" thing, over and over, for a long time. Deciding (as your proposal would lead us to do) that Mr High-Profile can't be blocked for, let's say, eight years of battleground behavior because Mr Low-Profile hasn't been blocked for having once told someone they were "a POV pusher", and that Mr High and Mr Low must be treated equally despite their differing histories, misunderstands the point of escalating sanctions, wherein we use the lightest touch that's likely to get through to the editor (in this example, Mr High will have worked his way through "quiet word", "warning", "firm warning," "topic-ban", "block", "unblock", "longer block"...while Mr Low will still be hovering in "quiet word" area). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have multiple cases of this you can refer us to, DGG? I can't see this coming up enough for you to make such a categorical statement. It sounds to me like you are addressing one particular case, but doing so in a way that implies something about "most" cases, and the following replies seem to confirm this (i.e. that you are talking about ThatPeskyCommoner in particular). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Not really buying this one. --Rs chen 7754 17:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation bias of confirmation bias is also an issue, I'd warrant.... ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I have to grin, really. I would be fascinated if anyone at all thought they had evidence that I fitted into any category of uncivil users who plumped for last-ditch excuses! (And I'm pretty sure that DGG wasn't actually referring to me, btw).
Fluffernutter, you've said something very revealing up above ... about the lightest touch that's likely to get through to the editor. This is kinda important; the use of escalating "punishments" (yes, they are!) If we're constantly escalating, then we're not being preventative. We're being punitive. ("That'll teach him a lesson!") But the actual idea of blocks and so forth is not (allegedly) to "teach someone a lesson" (by "the lightest touch that's likely to get through to the editor" – tap on the shoulder progresses through levels of severity to public flogging at the whipping-post). Pesky (talk) 08:17, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmm? A block prevents the editor from repeating the types of edits the were blocked for; if they learn something from it, that's a good benefit. If they don't, than they will be blocked longer and longer, to prevent them from doing the same stuff again. That's prevention. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Perception

The current interpretation of WP:CIVIL/WP:NPA seems to be:

If there are enough uninvolved (and even involved) editors who think that the remark placed by 'User:A' and directed at 'User:B' is not uncivil, or is not a personal attack, then it does not constitute a breach of civility, and does not constitute a personal attack.

And that goes even so far, that when 'User:B' is feeling seriously attacked, when editors get to consensus that it is not a personal attack, it is ignored. Who cares? However, in extreme cases, you drive editors away (... by consensus!), just because basic civility rules are ignored.

Telling editors to find something better to do, addressing them as fools, idiots, telling others that they are ranting, calling someone a liar because they interpret an action differently than what you meant, suggestions to commit suicide as a solution, just ignoring what they have to say, etc. etc. ... etc. are uncivil, they are personal attacks; they do not address the work, they address the person.

Excuses being used for being uncivil or issuing personal attacks? The friendly way did not work, so what else can I do than yell and scream. Or it was meant to be humorous. Or "here in A saying 'X' is not a personal attack, so there in B you should not care about it either". Or "Jimbo does it as well" (or your favourite friend, or a random other editor, or many other users, or your next-door neighbor). Or, consensus shows that I am right, so whether or not a personal attack or uncivil language was used to convey that message, that does not matter: the opposing party was wrong in the first place.

And the community makes it work, editors are on 'second occasions' (and more and more on first occasions, just in case the opponent will not listen anyway) addressed in not-to-be-misunderstood language, because the community will most likely reach the consensus that a) it was obviously needed because the editor obviously did not listen before, and b) it is most likely, by consensus, interpreted as not uncivil and/or not as a personal attack anyway and c) the right result is coming out of it, so all is fine.

And when a certain threshold is passed, an editor is receiving a constant stream of uncivil remarks, is personally attacked, etc. etc., because obviously the editor did not listen before (and that can be months, nay, years in the past, and on totally unrelated situations, that the editor 'did not listen'), and consensus will often be on your side to determine that you are not uncivil, that you are known to be generally uncivil so it is fine, or that it is actually needed to be uncivil(!). From that point, editors skip to address in a friendly way, and immediately apply the personal attack / incivility route.

What does that mean? Because our consensus determines that something did not constitute a personal attack, or was not uncivil, the 'victim' should just carry on and forget about it?

If the receiving party is considering a remark at their address uncivil or a personal attack, then that is the moment that WP:CIVIL and/or WP:NPA should be applied, not when onlookers decide, even by overwhelming consensus, that something is not a personal attack or not uncivil.

The least the community can do, and what the community should do, is to ask the editor to adapt their language, even when there is a significant consensus that something was only mildly uncivil, or maybe not even uncivil at all but just perceived like that. We do not need to block everyone immediately on a first breach of the policies, but if multiple, independent users do mention that they are addressed by one certain individual in an uncivil way, then sanctions in the end may be necessary to enforce an editor to be more civil. But continuing to dismiss situations as 'grow some skin', 'you're a long-term editor, you should not care about that', and to continue to determine, 'by consensus', that someone was not uncivil or not a personal attack is, obviously, not getting us anywhere, and will, and has, cost us numerous editors. note: Not that being a new editor gives you an excuse, but especially when you are a long term editor, and even more when chosen in a position of trust on this site - lead by example - it is those editors from whom the community should expect not to interject personal attacks and uncivil language, ever, and the community should accept less incivility and personal attacks from them, and act faster on that.

Consensus does not change the feeling of the victim

A slight adaptation of the tone, or a complete change of the tone, can convey (often exactly) the same message without the need of being even mildly uncivil and totally avoiding the implications of personal attacks or incivility.

You can make the difference - whatever the reason, and however much you think it is necessary: stay civil, considerate, and do not personally attack someone you disagree with (and try to avoid language which may be perceived by the receiving party as such). Always. It is one of the pillars of our community.

--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
--```Buster Seven Talk 14:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
IRWolfie- (talk) 16:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

When I see commentary like this, I see two things. The first thing is the obvious concern for all contributors for the project, which is quite respectable. On the flipside, though, I see in this "victim-centric" idealism a very potent tool for one party getting a "leg up" in a heated content dispute. The English language is very rich and highly versatile in how it may be used, and definitions of "incivility" range wildly from base insults to sharp wordings to simply "ignoring" things one editor has to say. It's a very long sliding scale: what is civil for one person may seem uncivil for the next, and there is no way to reliably judge that across the board. By painting the entire grey area black, you leave very little room for error when it comes to language. It becomes very easy in a debate to shove the other person off the precipice into that vast abyss: "He said blablabla and I feel personally wronged! Seize him!" In creating an environment where civility is so strictly monitored and enforced, you will have really just created an environment that is differently uncivil, where WP:CIVIL is cheapened and bastardised to an easily-pronounced magic invocation to swiftly hex an opponent whose rhetoric is just ever so slightly sharper than yours. If not necessarily a recipe for an outright sanction, this is still an easy way to sidetrack the discussion and discredit your opponent with exterior harrumphs and tut-tuts about how they should "watch what you say, if you keep it up you'll be blocked!" If you create an environment where editors fear sanction for even routine use of slightly-snippy wordings, you will stifle much reasonable debate in your crusade to protect everyone's feelings. There is so much WP:GAMEability here that I don't think that this is a remotely realistic idea, regardless of how well-intentioned it may be. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 12:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I know, and I saw that myself as well - the problem is, now it is completely gamed the other way around. I could (here pointily) reply to your remark with some slightly uncivil remark now, and that equally stifles the discussion (if I am careful, but rude enough, you would not even respond). And that is how it is used: people yell, because then the discussion is dead. There is no consideration for the person at the other side, you yell, and the other side simply will not respond (or, if you are lucky, walk away altogether). And whether you are right or wrong, you get what you want, because it works. And that is exactly the culture that now thrives on Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Glass houses

Those who work in "civility enforcement" – giving warning or blocks to other editors for incivility – should themselves behave civilly and act as models of the principle. They should, if anything, be more open to being warned or blocked than other contributors if they are unable to uphold civility themselves.

I would have thought this to be self-evident, but I think it bears repeating here. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The focus should remain on the editor who habitually engages in incivility or defends its use as a weapon to impose their will. Shifting the focus to the victim or the administrator who is warning, or blocking, undercuts enforcement. Tuning the tables on the victim or the administrator is a transparent tactic that should not be given effect by third parties. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure I understand where you're going with this. If the "victim" or admin is in fact behaving badly, surely it is appropriate to call them out on that? If they are perfectly correct in their actions, then by all means keep the focus on the person being reported, but unfortunately that's not always the case. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I have often found that many among our self-appointed "civility police" are incredibly rude and thoughtless in their quest to impose Victorian morality on Wikipedia. Like modern day reincarnations of Anthony Comstock they are proud when their righteous indignation swells up within them and they believe they can do no wrong if they are acting in the interest of (their perception of) civility. It is a great irony that these persons cannot see what is so uncivilized about their actions, censoring other users on their own talk pages, removing entire remarks from discussions because they don't like the tone, even edit warring to keep their "cleaned" versions of things in place. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
That's a strawman argument. Asking people not to bully others, asking them to not create a hostile working environment, asking them to avoid personalizing discussions, to avoid making general pricks of themselves is not enforcing Victorian morality. Yes, broadly speaking, people who demand that others act civilly should act civil themselves, but it's never about word choice or trying to get people to avoid certain words. It's always been about establishing a collegial and productive working environment. --Jayron32 03:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
That last sentence is the crux of it Jayron. The "glass houses" analogy is a real but relatively small scale problem. I say this because there are relatively few admins who block for incivility and habitually breach civility policy themselves – most admins who aren't averse to the occasional strongly-worded sentence are competent enough to realise that they should only preach what they practise.
Much more of an issue is the belief in a robotic approach to civility enforcement. 3RR works because the only circumstances under which more than three reverts are appropriate are covered in that policy. By contrast, the only objective way to monitor linguistic use is to start blacklisting words and phrases, something for which there will never be consensus. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 16:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. Be nice ... please be nice... be nice you fucking asshole! Yes, I've seen too much of that. Reminds me of David Bowie -- like putting out a fire with gasoline. Nobody Ent 21:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Sort of, per my response to Jayron32 above, but I don't think it's the biggest issue. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 16:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Conscious deliberate incivility

Conscious deliberate use of incivility, repeated expression of disrespect and contempt, for the purpose of imposing a point of view with respect to content or policy by an editor or group of editors is unacceptable. One touchstone to determine whether incivility is deliberate and conscious is explicit expression of the right to engage in incivility.

Establishing the legitimacy of incivility as a tool to be used in struggle over content and policy is based on the premise that Wikipedia is a battleground to be used in social and political struggle. It treats Wikipedia as an object rather than as a subject with an integral mission of restatement of generally accepted knowledge. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Obviously. --99of9 (talk) 01:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Already the spirit of several standards at Wikipedia, WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:TE. --Jayron32 01:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Yep. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
IRWolfie- (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
— ChedZILLA 04:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course it's unacceptable. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 21:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

No self-appointed "civility police"

Users, be they admins or not, who come into a situation and begin enforcing their personal interpretation of civility are as much a part of the problem as the users being uncivil in the first place. Their actions almost always inflame rather than resolve the situation, resulting in edit wars, speedily overturned blocks, and usually an overall decline in the tone of the entire discussion of whatever the underlying issue was.No user should assume that their personal feelings about what is civil and what is not are shared by the wider community, with the exception of blatant and obvious trolling or extreme personal attacks.

In other words if someone says something like "why don't you just shut the fuck up, nobody is listening" in the course of a discussion they should not see their comment summarily removed, they should not be blocked, they should not be endlessly harangued for daring to use a "bad word." If they say "I'm going to fucking kill you, asshole" or something like that, of course they should be instantly permablocked. What these civility police often do not seem to have the slightest understanding of is that context is important and that "bad words" are not verboten material on Wikipedia, either in articles or in discussions, and that censoring other users comments pretty much never helps anything.

as author of this position. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Partially - I don't agree with everything you're saying, but feel strongly enough about the "context" issue to land here. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:21, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Seriously, there are POV pushers to go block instead. Of course blocks need to be issued sometimes for the way folks talk, but the whack-a-mole approach is every bit as disruptive as incivility itself. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:21, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I see something like this when persons C,D and E become embroiled in an argument after persons A and B (the initial antagonists) have moved on....Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Per Casliber. My RfC has particularly lively discussions---e.g. personal attacks and incivility---amongst myself and Worm That Turned and Elen of the Roads, who have now returned to the bosom of my affections. :) Oftentimes, time and distance and a return to editing the Encyclopedia are the tonics to protect WP from incivility and personal attacks, while trying to "solve" such problems with blocks, bans, and busy-body discussions inflames problems. (Of course, on occasional firm-word can be helpful, but such words are best given by respected editors who speak softly; what inflames conflicts are self-righteous cliches given by ANI junkies.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
You cannot police civility without creating at the same time a hostile ("uncivil") environment. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. There are too many of these already. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, yes! (And this from Granny Pesky who was, herself, awarded a "civility police" label in the past!) Wholly in agreement with Casliber and Kiefer here. I'm sure Kiefer will grin to himself at my lovely Dominatrix pic (deleted now! How sad!) which appeared on his page from time to time. Thing is, KW and I and MF and I, and a-few-others and I, understand where each other is coming from. And they always know that I'm not using the civility policy as a weapon in an out-to-get-you way. Pesky (talk) 08:45, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Echoing Casliber, I'm reminded of the ArbCom cases that rage on and on among third parties long after the two people whose argument prompted the case have made up and moved on. 28bytes (talk) 13:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Yup. Lots of busy bodies around ANI and other places with nothing better to do than to act as playground spectators, eggers-on and general nuisances. Volunteer Marek 17:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Civility is culturally mediated and I have never once seen an instance where telling someone they are being uncivil has helped a fraught situation. We need to block for clear-cut breaches of NPA, but "civility" has become discredited because of the sorts of people who try to enforce it, and their manner of doing so. --John (talk) 23:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
— ChedZILLA 04:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
The more I look at the issue, the clearer it is that this is the case. Monty ₈₄₅ 05:07, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Self-appointed civility police are a detriment to the project, not an asset. Their interpretation of "civility" is a POV, and they are pushing it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely. Although perceived (or real) incivility can be a distraction, it is important to read a post and see what its message is. There is a world of difference between "you are fucking stupid" and "that was a fucking stupid edit because ..." pablo 16:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Users opposed to this

This direction makes the aggressor the victim and the victim (and/or bystander) the aggressor. I'm not a fan of cuddling folks who are butthurt over getting blocked for their own stupid behavior and I've given this option plenty of room to solve disputes where it has failed and caused me additional stress instead. When an issue escalates, we need to identify the victim (be it another editors in the dispute, a bystander watching the dispute, or the readers) and take appropriate steps to protect them. In my view, 'police' is an accurate term when peaceful society needs to be protected from disruption.--v/r - T P 15:42, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Per TParis. This proposal sounds like it defends the uncivil aggressor. At the same time, what is wrong with an independent user (these so-called "civility police") standing up and civilly recognizing incivility as what it is? Civility is as much one of the 5 pillars as NPOV, and when an independent user stands up to non-neutral POV, this is seen as a good thing. So should standing up to incivility. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 21:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Just for the sake of anyone reading this there are a bunch of "opposes" in the discussion section below (because that is how this was set up before October 22) Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

discussion

No. This is in direct contradiction to the idea of civility being a pillar, and places the person being attacked and/or the person who tries to stop the attack as somehow an instigator of the attack ("You wouldn't feel hurt and belittled if you just manned up and stopped having feelings related to what other people think of you! And also stopped angering the people who are known to take their anger out on others!"). If you read other positions in this RfC, Beeb, you'll see that most of us "civility police" are stressing that context matters and that the mere use of a "naughty word" is not nearly the problem it's being strawmanned up to be (see my discussions with Pesky down below, for example). But if you're (and from here on, I'm using a general "you", not a Beeb "you") in a context where you're in conflict with someone? And you decide to cope with that conflict by calling that person names, suggesting they have sexual relations with various unlikely items, suggesting that they are somehow a worth less as a person because they disagree with you or are using an argument you don't like? You're the problem in that moment, not the person who you're telling to go fuck a monkey, and it's entirely appropriate for someone to step in at that point and either get the conversation back on track (by redacting, or asking you to redact, your attacks, or hatting the derail) or remove you from the conversation. Yes, that will make you angry. It will make you angry because you're already angry, already maybe worked up about how everyone is inferior, already frustrated, already feeling like everyone around you is omg so wrong. It's an unfortunate side effect of losing one's temper that one tends to lash out at everyone at that point, no matter how gentle or accommodating they try to be. But that doesn't make it right for you to carry on in that vein, and it doesn't make it wrong for someone to remove you from a conversation in which you demonstrably are failing to have like an adult. The best way to not get asked to step away from a conversation in which you're deliberately hurting someone else is to, you know, not deliberately try to hurt someone else. (Oh, and if someone is threatening to kill someone else? That's not a matter of civility, that's a matter of emailing emergencywikimedia.org as fast as possible.) A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

But when we have users deciding you can't even say "this idea is dumb" that also does not help. I know you are a nicer person than I am, but are we really going to set the bar that low for civility enforcement? Just yesterday I saw a user edit warring to remove someone's comment from their own talk page because another user was persistently posting there after being asked to stop and the guy told him to away and that he wasn't "interested in their brain farts." I can't accept that it is ok to censor someone on their own userpage for showing a little frustration that someone who is deliberately needling them won't just go away when asked to. That just can't be ok. Perhaos my remarks did not do a good job at demonstrating where the line is (that is after all the main problem with this whole mess) but stuff like this is just not ok. This is actually mostly not an administrative problem as far as I know, it seems to be more that there are some users that want to impose very strict codes on what others are permitted to say. That's just not ok. Of course there are some standards, but they must be based on something real not just what that person happens to feel about one particular remark. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, that makes a bit more sense. Would it be accurate for me to characterize the point of your proposal as any (or more than one) of the following?

"Civility police" should not put themselves in charge of taking offense on behalf of other people who may not actually be offended anyway
If you were aiming for this, my response would be for you to take a look at FT2's proposal up above. One of the points he makes that I think is very important for this conversation is that "The effect of incivility is often not on the target (thought it often is). It is on bystanders and possible editors who may encounter a welcoming Wikipedia, or a Wikipedia where aggression is sometimes turned a blind eye. Incivility damages the global editing context for volunteers and silently deters existing and new editors." So though there is definitely a point at which a bystander pointing and shouting "omg he's being rude!" is uncalled for, in many cases someone needs to say that, so that observers are aware that the community does not encourage non-collegial attitudes.
Dirty words aren't the issue here, and people who pursue those who use them are completely missing the point.
If you were aiming for this, I agree with you that dirty words aren't really the issue, but it's not because people are overreacting to "oh no, bad words!" daily here. As Jayron32 points out a few lines down from here, there doesn't really seem to be a contingent of experienced editors who are running around demanding we ban anyone who uses "fuck", "shit", etc. Those words often appear in expressions of rank incivility, but they themselves are not the incivility.
There is an "incivility line" that shouldn't be crossed, but that line should be much further away than most people seem to think it should be.
If this, well, I definitely disagree that we can fix this issue by tolerating more incivility
Even if someone is being uncivil, attempting to remove or change their comments will only ever exacerbate the situation, and such "censorship" should be prohibited in favor of other, more effective remedies.
If this, you may have a very good point. In theory, removing incivility should de-escalate things. In practice, it often doesn't. Trouble is, I'm not sure what else we can do that would de-escalate the situation - as I pointed out above, once someone loses their temper/patience, almost anything we could do to make them stop acting on their anger is going to make them more angry. But the solution to that can't be to sit back and let them rage at the other person! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

In my personal experience, the statement "they should not be endlessly harangued for daring to use a "bad word." is almost always a red herring excuse by people who are being incivil. Let me explain: people who have gone over the line in incivility, and also swear, and then are asked to be more civil, claim that they are being harassed for using "bad words". That actually isn't usually what happens. What almost always happens when I see it is that a person is being harassing, personally attacking, or creating a generally hostile environment for others. If they swear while they do it, they use it as a "get out of jail free card" in the sense that, if you tell them to stop being so hostile and disruptive, they say "But I can swear if I want". Yes, you can, but we're not talking about swearing. It is very rare that any experienced editor here confronts another editor over the mere use of the "seven deadly words" or anything like that (very rare in the sense that, in over six years I've never once seen it). What happens more often is that people who have crossed the line in terms of creating a hostile environment through their incivility mistakenly think (or deliberately redirect the discussion) that people are upset about them saying "shit" or "fuck". That's never the issue, and I've also never seen it be the issue. In simple terms: it just doesn't happen that experienced users harangue users for the mere use of words like "fuck". What happens most often is that people get confronted for being genuinely and unambiguously incivil, and then claim that it's about the bad word, when it isn't. --Jayron32 03:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There's no consensus for haranguing users over swearing, but it is supported by some. For example: "Taking a stronger stand against superfluous profanity is low-hanging fruit...I see no problem with blocking people for a day for swearing or using foul language". Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a big place, with a diversity of opinions on all issues. I had no doubt someone could dig up a solitary counterexample to my point. I've never seen the community as a whole make this an issue, however. Sure, there's a few people out there who don't like "swear words". They don't represent any significant voice in the community's stance on the issue of civility, however. --Jayron32 04:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

No. I find "why don't you just shut [...] up, nobody is listening" to be quite inflammatory, even with the profanity removed. --Rs chen 7754 03:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Also for me, partially, but not enough to endorse - indeed, not the police, not certain editors who go after others over and over (and over) on guideline/policy breach, so supporting that part (and that part only) - for the rest, no, the community as a whole has to stop editors who, regularly and in unrelated cases make other editors feel bad by using language which, even when the language is 'generally accepted', makes those editors feel harassed, personally attacked or similar. WP:CIVIL is not WP:NLT - blocks should only be applied way down the line, not on the first or second (or maybe even fourth) case, but the buck should stop somewhere (and IMHO, that is what the community fails to do). If we accept that WP:AGF is not a never-ending well .. then we should do that for WP:CIVIL as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"why don't you just shut the fuck up, nobody is listening" is totally inconsistent with the concept editors should treat each other respectfully. Also illogical, because if no one is listening the conversation is at an end so there's no need to comment. The term "self-appointed" is redundant in the volunteer environment of Wikipedia -- we've got self-appointed vandal fighters, self-appointed new page patrollers, self-appointed content reviewers, self-appointed help-desk volunteers, self-appointed rfa candidates, etc. Current policy clearly states "Attacks that are particularly offensive or disruptive (such as physical threats, legal threats, or blatantly racist or sexist insults) should not be ignored." and WP:RPA is part of that policy. The ruckus caused by removals isn't because the removal is wrong, it's the heart of this RFC: there's no consensus on "treating editors respectfully" means in practice. Nobody Ent 11:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This will have the effect of removing the civility policy except for actual threats. "why don't you just shut the fuck up, nobody is listening" is grossly uncivil and has no part in any discussion. Kiefer notes that " time and distance and a return to editing the Encyclopedia are the tonics to protect WP from incivility", and that's precisely what a block provides. "I'm going to fucking kill you, asshole" isn't a lack of civility, it's a death threat and so it's not even comparable to the discussion. If I had responded to this thread with "why don't you just shut the fuck up, nobody is listening" how could that possibly be acceptable? It would only lead to heightened tensions and things would quickly spiral out of control; it would be clear it's an attack. It's not the swear words that are at issue with incivility, it's the unnecessary aggressiveness and rudeness. Do you expect people to be required to turn up at ANI continuously to have attacks redacted? That will only heighten any drama. Or do you expect personal attacks to just be left in place? IRWolfie- (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

No. This view is much too lax and lets incivility fester in talkpages and in editors' minds. Letting editors go who treat other editors like that creates an atmosphere of hostility. To treat the atmosphere we must treat the initial hostility, when warranted. Them From Space 22:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

No. Fluffernutter is correct, everything done here is by volunteers. If someone is being incivil in other(s) eyes, they and their interlocutor(s) have a right to discuss it (civilly). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs to define its own unique definition of respectful

We need to achieve a common definition. No significant long term improvement will occur until this admittedly difficult task is achieved.

What's considered respectful is culturally dependent. Wikipedia is its own culture; for example, a common WQA task was explaining to new editors that simple removal of owntalk comments is not disrespectful. It's not required nor particularly logical that Wikipedia respectful must be the lowest common denominator of what respectful is in the constituent cultures of its participants.

Proposer Nobody Ent 11:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Meh. See my comments above about cultural relativity (page-search for "anthropo" and you'll find them fast). "Respect" can't be defined in a WP relevant way without the definition being incorrect for many cultural backgrounds. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:10, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely in agreement with this. It's very, very similar to managing / owning a multi-species smallholding. And, so often in here, I see almost-exact parallels of that multi-species environment. Cat-etiquette, dog-etiquette, cattle-etiquette, snake-etiquette, horse-etiquette and all are very different. But, strangely, in the genuine multi-species environments I've worked in (and I've been a study of animal behaviour – remembering that H. sapiens is an animal, too – for decades) the allegedly-less-intelligent species almost always seem to be able to come to a mutually-tolerant (though sometimes wary!) understanding of each others' sometimes-very-varying etiquettes. The dogs learn to appreciate the subtleties of cat-body-language, and vice versa. And body-language which a cat would find highly offensive from another cat, they learn to understand as meaning something different when it comes from one of the dogs. It's a shame that we humans don't seem to have the same kind of abilities. But, then, it's highly unusual for an animal which is part of an ongoing and sustained community to come to any situation with a long history of grudge. They snap, forgive, walk away, and then come back having moved on. Pesky (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The civility policy is hopeless; its enforcement (and enforcers) enormously disruptive. The policy should be discontinued forthwith.

Forthwith, I say, for many of the reasons above; not least of which is the inconsistent way in which people define civility.

We are routinely exhorted to concentrate on the content of a post rather than the person who posted it. Is it just too hard to concentrate on the substance of what someone says rather than the language in which it is framed? Surely this is a sensible approach. Instead acres of pixels and thousands of editor-hours are routinely wasted on discussions which amount to nothing more than "zomg! Editor X said a swearword!" or "Teacher, Johnny was mean to me!" Little that is useful ever emerges from these discussions. pablo 13:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

No. If the comment is a personal attack, than the comment is a personal attack. That is focusing on the content, not the contributor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

But "civility" (as defined on wp) and "personal attacks" (as defined on wp) are not synonymous. pablo 16:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal attacks are part of the civility policy. Here what is counted as incivility: "personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviours" IRWolfie- (talk) 16:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

And hence the problem. Have you never seen a complaint about "personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviours" where there was in fact no "personal attack", the rudeness or disrespect (what are we , the Mafia? Possibly) is moot or nonexistent? Or where the aggression is clearly born of frustration? Look away. Look again. I'm on a horse. pablo 19:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water. You think it is sometimes misused so you wish to remove it completely. Is that a correct summary? IRWolfie- (talk) 10:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it pretty much always creates much moar drama than the original "infringement". Every time the policy is invoked there is yet another debate about what civility is, who defines it, how it should be enforced, blah blah block, blah topic ban, blah, vote vote opinion counter-opinion ... Nothing is ever resolved by these mini-discussions. It is unlikely that anything will be resolved here either. The civility policy does not work and I don't believe it can be framed in a way that will make it work, certainly not with WP's "anyone can edit" model. pablo 10:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the non-controversial blocks are far in excessive of the controversial blocks. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:34, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

"Little is gained" because we're not enforcing our civility policy. This leads to abused editors feeling slighted when the issue reaches ANI and they hear that we don't care if he feels welcome to edit here. That's kind of the point of this discussion. — Jess· Δ ♥ 19:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"Little is gained"? Ok, you are paraphrasing. I can live with that. Or I might complain that paraphrasing in itself is a rude act and waste some more of everyone's time. Note to the hard of understanding: that's a joke.. But the point of my point is that "our civility policy" does not work; in main because it is not clearly defined (ie it is prone to subjective interpretation), not realistic in the internet realm of anonymous editing, and not enforceable. pablo 21:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Most policy meets the same criteria. Policies aren't hard and fast in plenty of cases and involve interpretation with respect to current norms. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:38, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Enforcement of civility

Civility is essential to the welcoming of participation in the development of all of the Wikimedia projects. Incivility is responded to in the same manner and severity as vandalism. Article talk pages, and project talk pages are for discussing content, not conduct. To enforce civility, the best course of action is to notify each user on their user talk page, with a link to the location of the incivility, in a graduated manner, similar to the vandalism warnings, starting with a level one, level two, and level three warnings, and finally a cease and desist stop sign level four and five warnings. Should the incivility continue, escalating blocks, from a week to a year become appropriate. Personal attacks go beyond incivility and are treated separately.
The above is not the exact wording to use but the principle is, yes, civility is important, yes civility is enforced, and "find something that works". Apteva (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I haven't seen "civility blocks" work very often, but yes, we need to have a better approach. It would be wonderful if everyone came here sufficiently social not to demoralize the other volunteers, but in an environment where "everyone can edit" that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. The past approaches to demeaning or demoralizing comments seem to be 1) convince the victim it's not demeaning, 2) ignore it, 3) brief blocks that will get quickly overturned, 4) "no tolerance" paroles, 5) bans or retirement. We need something between 3 and 4 to make a systemic change. What if we avoided the "warning, then block" approach, and instead we freely allowed anyone to refactor comments they considered uncivil, and only reached for blocks for people who un-refactored them, or who seriously mis-used refactoring? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

No ad hominem on article talk pages

Ad hominem has no place on article talk pages. They are for arguing the merits of content in relation to our policies and guidelines. If someone is editing tendentiously, persistently adding poor quality or biased content, failing to grasp our policies despite being politely pointed to them or performing poorly in some other way on an article or its talk page, the place to address their poor behaviour, lack of competence, evil motives, etc. is on their user talk page, initially, followed by other dispute resolution fora. Like any other off-topic discussion, ad hominem may be moved to a more appropriate forum, deleted, hatted or immediately archived by other editors, but it may not remain on an article talk page.

Ad hominem is easy enough to recognise, it is off-topic, the quality of our articles depends on the quality of our article talk page arguments and ad hominem seriously undermines subtle argument. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
As I brought ad hominems up I should at least return to support the official proposal. 85.167.108.93 (talk) 15:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

That would exclude pointing out that someone has a disclosed conflict of interest on an article talk page. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Would that be appropriate, pointing out a conflict of interest, I mean, in an argument that should be won or lost on its merits? I don't know. Can you tell me how pointing out that user X works for Pfiser would affect the quality of the argument? I can see how that information would affect our judgment of their behaviour but it wouldn't affect the quality of their argument one iota.

We have a COI policy, and if they're directly editing the article or not declaring their COI on the article talk page, that's presently permissible, I think. Tendentious editing isn't, though, and that's something to be dealt with elsewhere. For the record, I think paid editors, article subjects and similar should be obliged by policy to declare their COI on their user page. I'd probably support mandatory self-identification of certain types of COI in article talk page discussions, too, so that others can be more alert to potential behaviour problems. But it is irrelevant to good argument, and other editors drawing attention to it on an article talk page is always, in my opinion, detrimental to good argument. If you think a COI is causing behaviour problems, take it to a forum where discussion of behaviour problems is appropriate. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think a strict distinction along these lines would risk becoming artificial, and also, however well-meant, risk turning into the kind of Wikipedia rule that newbies come to grief over. And you seem to be saying that alertness to potential behaviour problems, while desirable, is irrelevant to good argument — really? Did you mean that? It's a little abstract to say that the information that user X works for Pfiser wouldn't affect the quality of X's argument. Quality of argument isn't a monolith in a void. In reality, it seems to me, we always take a good deal of what people say on trust. OK, we should compare everything in the argument with the sources and draw our own conclusions. But not every word said (in RL or in a Wiki article) is really sourceable. Tone isn't sourceable. Many people aren't used to trying, for instance on a talkpage, to analyse or to complain about subtleties of tone (not even where these subtleties affect their reading experience quite decisively — if it didn't, tone wouldn't be a problem). There is such a thing as being too trusting, and checking only the checkable hard facts. It's not enough, and that's where a bit of alertness comes in handy. It's not, I hope, the same thing as prejudice. In sum, it seems proper to me to point out a known COI on an article talkpage. (Politely! Sensitively! And only for good and explainable reasons.) Bishonen | talk 18:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC).

How do you feel about making it mandatory for people with a declared COI to point it out when they edit an article or its talk page? If declaration of COI were mandatory when editing articles or their talk pages, I'd be fine with other editors pointing it out when a COI editor fails to do so. Let's make that a guideline. I just want to move "you're a Christian, so you would say that", "you're stupid", speculation about COI, accusations of bias, etc. off the article talk page, to lift the level of discourse. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

General discussion

It is my feeling that for me to believe in contributing to Wikipedia incivility must be prevented, one way by being "enforced against" within Wikipedia. Enforcing civility on the other hand, brings to mind a dystopian world of smiling robot-people. It seems that in looking at Wikipedia:Civility work place policies regarding safety and harassment would be [a] first place of comparison. Similarly, real world terms and concepts such as "safety" should be as easily adapted to online work as they are used in the 'real' world (to the extent that one already know what safety, for example, means, one should be able to define it for use on Wikipedia). Hyacinth (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

In my current workplace and several I've been in previously swearing and insults are par for the course. To suggest that there is one simple and clear, global standard is just silly. Oh, it might help to know that I'm not in the USA. Anyone feeling that the standards they are familiar with are universal is mistaken. HiLo48 (talk) 08:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with HiLo48; one can be monumentally uncivil whilst using perfectly civil language, and what constitutes incivility is highly subjective. Not only in general, but also depending on the relationship between the two people involved. "Enforcing civility" is one of those things like "fighting for peace" (or "fucking for virginity" as the hippies used to put it) - difficult, messy and ultimately counterproductive. pablo 08:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I like that "perfectly civil language" link. That's a gem. Thanks. HiLo48 (talk) 08:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It may have been silly, had I actually suggested that there is one simple and clear, global standard. As with coworkers, just because one job or workplace is horrible doesn't mean that all workplaces are horrible (one might say that to suggest so would be silly). What I actually wrote was "it seems that...work place policies...would be [a] first place of comparison". This more than implies that I meant many standards. Hyacinth (talk) 09:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I've never liked the workplace analogy. Workplaces don't generally allow random people off the street whose goals are counter to company policy and aims to show up and trash the place without instantly firing them. Nor do they allow fired employees to change their names, then come back until someone manages to realize "oh, that's the same person we just fired!" If this were done at my workplace, I think I'd be cussing up a storm every day. And this is what Wikipedia does, both due to its open nature and due to the anonymity provided by the internet. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room". Please keep the discussion "general", not editor-specific. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Given the demise of the Wikiquette page, I'm concerned about the message being sent to editors who feel that they must be intemperate and abusive to push a position, generally one where there is already disagreement. A few moments ago I found this message from HiLo48 on my talk page. Given his comments here immediately after delivering this unsavoury package, I'd like to oppose his position in the strongest terms. Civil discourse is especially valuable when disagreements arise. How on earth can we work together if editors are encourage to swear at and abuse each other? --Pete (talk) 08:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, FFS, if anyone really wants to see what I wrote and see why, please do so. Pete is a classic example of the kind of person who creates conflict here, and it's probably not entirely his fault. IMHO, he is simply not a logical thinker. He does and says the strangest, irrational things. Civil discourse is impossible, because he cannot communicate effectively. Even bringing this matter here is an example of what I mean. I keep promising myself that I should ignore him, but today he forced me back into a conversation by committing a serious BLP violation on a Talk page, and behaving quite stupidly after (rightly) correcting his error once I pointed it out. I must still try to ignore him (but there are times....) HiLo48 (talk) 09:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't agree more HiLo, but I think you've missed the how. There's your standard aggressive incivility, and then there's passive incivility wrapped in an enigma. Timeshift (talk) 09:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

HiLo48, per WP:NPA, you need to stop talking about Skyring/Pete. Hyacinth (talk) 09:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, an enabler. I admit from your view that it looks different, but unless you know of the history, it's tough to comment. Timeshift (talk) 09:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This section is for general discussion regarding civility's definition and enforcement--not each other. Hyacinth (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

True. Timeshift (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This is an excellent example of behaviour mentioned above. A person expects an equally uncivil response, and when one is not forthcoming, it must be somehow hidden in the calm words. But human relationships are not necessarily symmetrical. Hatred, like love, may be unrequited. --Pete (talk) 11:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Shut down the personal attacks please, both of you. This is a general discussion of the topic of civility, not a place to discuss specific problems or incidents. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Nevertheless, the point is a valid one. If an editor expects to be offended, then they are likely going to get offended, even if the response to their inflammatory remarks is pure User:Mindspillage/disputes. They might not see rude words and passion, but they look for it anyway. One would see this on WP:WQA, sometimes sparked by a misunderstanding over a word or phrase. --Pete (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, i get what you are saying. Actually I had a very recent experience with this. A user was up in arms about my declining of an unblock request. I was trying to explain my reasoning in a way that would not upset them but they took every single thing I said and put the most sinister spin on it they could. The more i teried to explain to them that we just flat out do not allow edit warring regardless of who is "right" as far as the article content goes the more hostile they became. Then another admin came by and pointed out that while we were discussing it the block had actually expired. I said "nice catch" in reference to this and the user got upset all over again by that directing a stream of angry remarks at the admin who pointed it out and inferring that if i hadn't noticed that the block expired I didn't know anything about it in the first place. Nothing i could have said from "you are a fucking moron if you don't understand what that means" all the way up to "I'm terribly sorry if you misunderstood the meaning of that remark, please allow me to attempt to clarify the matter" would have satisfied them. I took the only remaining solution: walk away. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

When most of us walk down the street we don't act as if every person we meet will be dangerous, antisocial, or a psychopath, though we may occasionally encounter someone like that. It seems we could proceed with a civility/incivility policy the same way. Make assumptions concerning collaboration and make conditions for exceptions. Hyacinth (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't we already? -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, when we walk down the street most people we meet are NOT dangerous, antisocial or psychopaths. While I would like to believe that the same thing is true while walking down a Wikipedia street, after seven years here, I'm not so sure. (Maybe not "most" but certainly a much larger fraction than one encounters in RL). You're flipping your conclusion and premise. Volunteer Marek 00:29, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think this remark actually identifies a core component of why we have recurring problems with this. It's the anonymity of this text-only interaction that is the direct cause of any number of misunderstandings and conflicts that seem to have civility as a defining component. You may employ a different attitude and language in a quilting supply shop full of old ladies than you would in a bar full of sailors at three in the morning. The problem is, we don't know which if those places we are in half the time. What may fly in one area or around one group of users will cause hysterical outrage in a different situation. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, let's take that idea - that you never know what sort of people you're among here - and run with it a little. Let's say that you're blind. In the course of your work (whatever that is), you're sent to a new place, let's say to deliver a package. You walk into the building, and you hear the voices of eighty or a hundred people, all milling around talking to each other. Someone taps you on the shoulder and asks you expectantly, "Yeah?" Now, you have no idea what sort of people you're among. You don't know if you walked into a knitting circle, a biker convention, a mafia den, or a boring old office staffed by boring old people. What do you reply to the person who spoke to you? a) "Hi, yeah, I'm delivering this package for so-and-so, can you point me to them?" b) "How dare you fucking touch me, you cunt?" c) "Oh, HONESTLY, is it not obvious to you that I'm here to deliver a package? DUH."

I would venture to say that in that real-world situation, most people will go for option A or something close to it, because if you don't know who you're speaking to, you tend to default to a neutral method of expression. You don't know those people or how they speak, and you need to transact some business with them in the least troublesome manner possible. Going for the neutral presentation in that situation is extremely unlikely to cause you any problems, so you opt for it. If you're approached by Joe Random on Wikipedia, why would you default to anything other than a similarly neutral presentation? Why would you believe that "What, you fucking cunt?" will be a successful method of communication to anyone other than a small segment of the population that the odds are against you having blundered into randomly? Even if you've walked into that metaphorical biker bar where people are throwing out "fucks" every other word, why would you think that for you, a person the bikers don't know, to do it would be understood in the same way? I guess I don't understand what thought process goes on for people where they meet someone whose mindset they can't know, and default to obscenity, insults, aggression, etc, instead of neutrality. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 02:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

How would we be unable to define and enforce against incivility, but able to define and enforce against vandalism? Hyacinth (talk) 01:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

One need only to ignore rude posts and/or rude editors, instead of seeking to get such editors blocked. If all editors were 'polite'? Wikipedia would be a dull place. GoodDay (talk) 01:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not in the business of providing entertainment and conflict for editors. We are here to provide information for our readership, a far greater number. We do that best if we work together. Personally I find that there is a marvelous diversity in editors and nobody is going to get bored unless they refuse to interact with other editors as they go about (say) checking that subtotals in tables add up correctly. If an editor needs drama and emotion, the Red Sox exist for that purpose. --Pete (talk) 19:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

An overly rude editor, will either tone down his/her posts or depart a discussion, if all other editors ignore him/her. Otherwise, he/she would look like a ranting fool. GoodDay (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

If I understood GoodDay correctly, he didn't mean that being dull was a bad thing; he meant Wikipedia would be free of melodrama. isaacl (talk) 15:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. GoodDay (talk) 16:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that sometimes, when the rude editor is actually defending the "right" position (for any given value of "right") people DO ignore him. Or more importantly, they ignore the valid point he is making. And by ignoring him, Wikipedia misses the opportunity to do the "right" thing. You can't force people to stop ignoring him, which is why incivility is so toxic: It does make people ignore the right thing. So people need to stop being incivil, because it ruins their chances to actually effect the change they need to effect. --Jayron32 14:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Possibly create a new template

I generally believe that its a good idea to use template messages to get your point accross and like the Wikify template we should design a buoqet of messages for different kinds of uncivility. After going through the length of articles presented above I suggest the creation of template that might read like something like this

Wikishagnik recommends this format: —
This discussion has gone beyond the scope of civility - If you feel that you have to use abusive language because
Frustration - Others are simply not getting your POV / You are forced to repeat yourself then please refer Wikipedia:How to be civil or A nice cup of tea and a sit down

Culture - If this is how you are then please read WP:CIVIL

Process - if you cannot agree whether the content you added should / should not be included then please refer WP:Note and WP:Verify. if you don't agree with these policies then please discuss in the talk pages. If you feel that a reference you added is valid and others dispute this then please discuss this in WP:RS

Pleas note that WP:CIVIL is an essential part of Wikipedia Policy and has to be adhered to at all costs.

Since I have never designed a template message I have no idea how this is done. If someone could develop a better template, it would help a lot. -Wikishagnik (talk) 03:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I think well-designed templates are extremely useful, we have many (plus some that need work, but that's a different topic). However, there is a downside to a template only response. It sends the message that I can't be bothered to talk abut the specific issue, I'm simply going to regurgitate the boilerplate which might be sort of on-topic. I try to avoid getting angry, but if I were, and a saw a template only message, it would not calm me down, it would enflame.

That doesn't mean templates should be totally avoided. I'd like to see a hybrid response. For example, in some of our OTRS work, we have canned responses. I try to add a personal sentence such as, "I see that you are asking about an issue in xxxx article and you have concerns about yyyy. This issue comes up commonly, and I'll copy our standard feedback, but please write back if it doesn't answer your question." I can then follow it with a template, the receiver knows that I didn't simply hit a response button hoping I got it right, I did read and understand the problem.

I think that could be used here as well.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 14:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the feedback but I suggest a template message more as a STOP! Sign. Its more to let users know, when in th heights of emotion or passion that you are displaying may not be in the spirit of civility. I do appreciate personal messages but trust me, emotionaly charged people need to be brought in a state of mind in which they are willing to accept criticism or suggestions. A template message, just like the common STOP! sign might make people pause, and hopefully calm down before proceeding. -Wikishagnik (talk) 22:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, these kinds of standardized templates or messages (along with all the standard STOP! warning templates which IMO are quite obnoxious) are, whether intended to or not, sort of uncivil themselves. At least that's how they are often perceived - as a passive aggressive form of incivility by recipients. One obvious problem is that they implicitly assume that someone has been incivil and make that point beyond the scope of debate. If you got something to say to somebody, have the courtesy to put in your own words please (even so called "uncivil" ones!). Otherwise it's a sort of a "you are not worth the trouble of actually speaking to" kind of message. Don't like it. Volunteer Marek 00:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with VM. This comes off as just just passive-aggressive incivility, and will only breed a toxic environment. And as an aside, I've always found suggestions to drink virtual WP:TEA to be extraordinarily flippant. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that STOP! YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG, AND IF YOU DONT STOP YOU MIGHT GET IN TROUBLE templates are really not going to help with communication problems. On the other hand, templates might help users express themselves carefully when problems arise, with statements like "in the discussion at X you said Y. I've replied to the substantive points at X, but just wanted to say here that I personally thought you could have phrased this better, eg like this: Z. Just my impression, and I hope we can reach agreement at X on the issues.". That sort of gentle feedback about style as distinct from substance idea. Rd232 ^talk 01:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think what I am trying to draw attention to why we choose to be rude and not so much on what is right or wrong behavior. We are mostly rude when

We think that stopping our rude behavior would be taken as an acceptance of defeat
We feel hurt or intimitated or frustrated by others behavior
etc.

I mean when we have gone over the bend, we are not going to stop and listen to arguments like I have already said this and you have said that. Why not draw a banner that simply asks all parties to stop talking, and think, like maybe the gavel of a judge? -Wikishagnik (talk) 06:59, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Here's one that exists which is useful, though not a panacea:

{{Template:Be_civil}}

Please remain civil to one another. If you are attacked, or someone is rude, please just ignore it. Uncivil messages will be deleted.

I suggest we make it FLASH and emit a high pitched "this is a warning from the Emergency Broadcast System" kind of noise! Volunteer Marek 23:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

High Pitch Flas? This is a good template though-Wikishagnik (talk) 02:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

How about {{Be more civil than the others}}

Things seem to be getting a bit heated.

Please remember that if you're more civil than the editor(s) you're disagreeing with, you're much more likely to win the argument (and won't have your incivil comments held against you in any dispute resolution). If you are attacked, or someone is rude, please just ignore those comments, and certainly do not respond in kind. Comments that are vandalism or serious personal attacks may be removed by any editor, but minor transgressions are best ignored in favour of focussing on the content issue(s).

Rd232 ^talk 09:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

replace the stop sign with File:MKGandhi.jpg. -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:01, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Good idea to use a "peace" image; I chose a peace dove instead. Rd232 ^talk 11:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The Stop sign is a symbol of authority. It isn't sending a message of equality, it is sending a message that the sender has authority over the receiver. It isn't correct, but it sends that message. While the intended message may be "can we all calm down and talk about this in a civil manner" the message is "I am ordering you to cease what you are doing". I would expect the recipient's reaction to be, even if not expressed, "Who the hell are you to be ordering me around?". I don't see a red stop sign as a way to make things better. A bare template says "I don't have the time or interest to bother finding out what's really going on, I'm just going to grab a template and wave it at you." Adding a red stop sign makes it worse. Can anyone report that they've received one and immediately decided they should calm down? My guess if that people posting here are more likely to have delivered them than received them.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 21:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

better now? Rd232 ^talk 11:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. (After changing angry red to peaceful Forest Green.)--SPhilbrick (Talk) 12:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

very nice! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

and replace the piped linking behind "please just ignore those comments" to CIV (its already been linked to in the first line) to WP:DNFTT. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It links to a subsection of CIV, and I don't think DNFTT is appropriate here, since the template is about encouraging cooperation. Rd232 ^talk 11:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

An equivalent of the above for use by one of the parties ({{Be more civil than the others}} is intended for third parties): {{I'm sorry, let's cool things down}}

Things seem to be getting a bit heated between us.

I'm sorry for my contribution to that heat; I think we both said things we shouldn't have, or at least could have phrased things better. Please let's put those to one side and focus on resolving the content issue(s).

Rd232 ^talk 15:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I see both of these as useful. I suggest that a best practice use would include a small personal note referencing something specific, if only to show that it isn't simply a mindless template, but I see both as potentially useful in heated situations.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 16:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Ummm. I trust everyone here has heard of WP:DTTR? I think Sphilbrick's earlier comment at 21:08 on 8 October still applies. I doubt anyone's likely to calm down by receiving this or any other template on their page. Risker (talk) 04:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

That one's pretty good. Next time someone says something I don't like I'm gonna plaster twelve of them on their talk page.

Folks, templates ain't gonna solve shit here. However much fun you have designing them. Volunteer Marek 14:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The template issue appears to be a part of the "your comment is incivil" issue. Aparently, it really bothers some editors to have someone say to them "your comment is incivil." (So, the template creators are trying to come up with other ways.) But I am not sure why, the issue is that bothersome? 1)If the claim is without merit, it can be ignored relatively easily, or given the simple response 'no, I am not.' 2) If there has been a misunderstanding, than it can be explained; or 3) The User can admit: "yes I intended to be incivil" and take whatever consequences that entails. 4) the user can apologize But the 'great' exception taken to "your comment is incvil", seems too defensive for open communication. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

No, this whole notion of addressing incivility by designing templates is a misguided exercise in futility at best, completely counter productive at worst. The problem is that the templates themselves are essentially incivil. Here's why. A dispute between people is almost by definition personal. Templates are by their nature impersonal. If you put this kind of template on someone's talk page, no matter how many pictures of doves, or Ghandi or Barney the dinosaur you put in it, and no matter how sugar coated the language what it really says is: "You are not worthy enough for me to bother writing a sentence or two in my own words. Instead I am slapping you with this impersonal template, because Wikipedia has this policy about civility. Because the template has pictures of doves, Ghandi and Barney the dinosaur in it, it clearly shows that I am being civil and you're not. When I file a report seeking to get you blocked in a day or two I will be able to link to me leaving this template on your talk page and claim just that and hopefully some admin will be stupid enough to believe me."

Seriously, if you got a problem with someone, you need to say something to them in your own words - it's a common courtesy. Even if these are "rough" words. Otherwise you're being a passive aggressive twerp. That's why coming up with new templates for this purpose is completely pointless. It just shows the wrong headed mentality which thinks that a problem can be solved not by talking honestly to people but by designing templates or giving out "cookies" or whatever. Volunteer Marek 17:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

To argue that a template is "uncivil" is overstatement. Conflict on the Pedia is not suppose to be "personal." Although unfortunately some editors seem to make it so. But in arguing about ideas or phrasing people can disagree without it being personal. Templates exist, so that a formulaic bit of information is conveyed. Some people may find them useful, others not. Some may find they help their expression. But, if there is a usage given to them, over time, they can become a clearer statement. For example, there are templates for notification on the Pedia, but do people take them personal? Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

For example, there are templates for notification on the Pedia, but do people take them personal? . Yes. Volunteer Marek 17:34, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

If you want to cool a discussion down where things are at the level of incivility but not personal attacks, a standardized template isn't going to help. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Communication styles

Maybe we should think a bit more about communication styles. I had a thought for a template which would implement a table something like this (based on this source:

Communication style	My attitude to this style	What I will do when I can't accept	What I expect others to do when they can't accept
Emotive Style high sociability and high dominance; spontaneous, uninhibited; extrovert, naturally persuasive
Director Style high dominance and low sociability; frank, assertive, and very determined; serious attitude, strong opinions; "May project indifference. It is not easy for the director to communicate a warm, caring attitude"
Reflective Style low dominance and low sociability; "Expresses opinions in a disciplined, deliberate manner"; "may seem aloof and difficult to get to know"; "Prefers orderliness"
Supportive Style low dominance and high sociability; "Listens attentively"; "more likely to rely on friendly persuasion than power when dealing with people. They like to display warmth..."; "Makes and expresses decisions in a thoughtful, deliberate manner"

Interesting too is that source's Table 5.1, on when the styles are in the "excess zone". Supportive Style

Attempts to win approval by agreeing with everyone
Constantly seeks reassurance
Refuses to take a strong stand
Tends to apologize a great deal

Director Style

Is determined to come out on top
Will not admit to being wrong
Appears cold and unfeeling when dealing with others
Tends to use dogmatic phrases such as “always,” “never,” or “you can’t”

Emotive Style

Tends to express highly emotional opinions
Is outspoken to the point of being offensive
Seems unwilling to listen to the views of others
Uses exaggerated gestures and facial expressions

Reflective Style

Tends to avoid making a decision
Seems overly interested in detail
Is very stiff and formal when dealing with others
Seeks to achieve perfection

Well, this just an example, there are plenty of ways to analyse styles. Anyone see what I'm getting at? Rd232 ^talk 00:54, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts and a question from Newyorkbrad

In the past eight-plus years, the Arbitration Committee has decided lots of cases in which editors were accused of not treating each other civilly and of making personal attacks. We've articulated the principle of civility using a couple of different formulations. The oldest one, from the years before longwinded people like me came along, was the simplest: Editors are expected to be reasonably courteous to one another.

Most people lose their tempers sometimes, whether in their everyday lives or online. No one expects editors to be perfectly even-tempered one hundred percent of the time. Few people are immune from sometimes reacting, or overreacting, to frustrations and provocations, actual or perceived. Any proposals that would crack down in a draconian fashion on an occasional snide or even offensive remark, absent extreme circumstances, are unlikely to be accepted and should not be.

On the other hand, one of the things that first attracted me to Wikipedia, when I was a newbie six years ago, was that I was joining a collaborative project in which the members' treating each other with courtesy and respect was part of the ethos. To be sure, I chanced across ANI and the arbitration pages relatively early in my wiki-career, so I knew full well that not everything was sweetness and cheer—but I was also under the impression that chronically obnoxious and unpleasant editors were the exception rather than the rule.

I think that for 99% of our editors, there are no real disagreements about how to deal any civility issues concerning them. The vast majority of editors never say anything uncivil, or at least not so uncivil that anyone is going to call for them to be blocked or anything. Some editors occasionally say something they shouldn't, but come to realize it, and do their best to avoid it happening again. More rarely, but often enough, an editor is so over-the-top obnoxious that he or she gets blocked and it becomes obvious that this environment, where one needs to work with other editors at least some of the time, may not be the right place for them. I suspect that most editors and most admins would find themselves in agreement on how to handle most of these situations.

Most of the unceasing civility brouhahas that lead to lengthy disruption, ANI threads, arbitration requests, and the like concern a handful of editors. Some of these editors (and I will not identify any in particular) make content or technical contributions that are consistently superior, but they undercut their effectiveness with consistently overblown rhetoric, abusive language, general snideness, and an overall approach that while some find it refreshing, others risk being driven away. I have never encountered such an editor who could not have made at least 95% of his or her points just as effectively while giving much less offense and creating much less distraction. I am sometimes tempted to say to such editors, "I appreciate your f[rig]ging contributions, but you abso-f[ugg]ing-lutely have to clean up your f[urshligner] act."

So, my question for some of those editors (no names here, but you know who you are), is, why don't you? Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

My theory: Those editors-in-question have developed an arrogance, due to having had many of their blocks overturned, thanks to their supporters. But again, such potty-mouthed editors can be dealt with easily in any discussion. One merely needs to ignore them. GoodDay (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

re: I am sometimes tempted to say to such editors, "I appreciate your f[rig]ging contributions, but you abso-f[ugg]ing-lutely have to clean up your f[urshligner] act." Another question is why havent you (or one of their friends or anyone else they respect) actually asked that question of them directly? (in private and outside of one of the bruhahas) -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:01, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a huge dissonance in culture (particularly around the use of some swearwords). Probably far more huge than many of us realise. I'm in the UK, went to a pretty "posh" kind of school; have worked in environments where there are pretty "posh" (and very rich!) people around much of the time; have associated with titled nobs and even royalty, both in a formal and an informal situation. Swearing, over here, in informal situations (user talk pages rather than article talk pages, kinda thing) simply isn't used with the kind of offensive intent that it is in other parts of the northern hemisphere. We simply don't mean it in the same way that others may be used to! It's perceived as far more offensive, over here (in an informal situation), to call someone a narrow-minded bigot, or "intransigent and manipulative", than to accuse them of "taking the fucking piss, mate!" The first two are perceived (and usually meant!) as a serious slight on someone's integrity or character. The third is seen as a "come off it, really!" kind of remark. OK, it's unlikely to be used at a Buckingham Palace garden party, but not at all uncommon in normal situations. Most often, it's no more than an expression of impatience or minor irritation, not the horrendously offensive attack that people from other places may see it as. So .... the culture argument. Yes, I know that it's been said that using one's culture as an excuse isn't on. But who's to say which is the "right" or "better" culture? If someone's own culture leads them to respond to a not-evilly-intended remark with screams of outrage and calls for smiting with the hand of God, in a way which would be totally over the top and unacceptable in the other culture, is that not also a cultural response which the other culture could see as grossly "uncivil" and "blowing something up out of all proportion just to get even"? It's a very complex situation.

Adding: I think my point, here (which I probably didn't make clear, due to family stress and post-anaesthesia brain-fog)is that if culture A thinks it wholly unreasonable to make allowances for (the slightly more earthy) culture B, then it should be equally unreasonable for culture B constantly to have to make allowances for the (more-readily-offended) culture A. To put it in it's most-polarised form, what it kinda comes down to is the sort of conflict where each side is saying to the other: "You're not prepared to modify your reactions and behaviour to make allowances for us, and yet you expect us to modify our reactions and behaviour to make allowances for you? Where's the fairness in that?" Pesky (talk) 06:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to accomodate any culture that causes someone to be a jerk towards me. Jtrainor (talk) 09:05, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Facepalm. Well-argued comment on cultural differences in perception of what rudeness really is is met with... Rd232 ^talk 09:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I've never accepted the culture excuse. GoodDay (talk) 13:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Exhibit A: perfectly polite in one sense, and yet by labelling cultural differences as an "excuse", you're impugning the character of those who are arguing that they matter. So in another sense, quite rude! Rd232 ^talk 14:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, beautiful examples of precisely what I was getting at! "I'm not going to tolerate your culture! My culture won't let me!" Pesky (talk) 15:07, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Pesky, I'm going to refer you to a previous comment I made in response to your claim that cultural differences are the problem here. Many of us come from different cultures. We all know that, and we all know that what's not offensive to us might be offensive to someone else, or vice versa. The part I don't understand - and I think perhaps this is sort of what Brad was getting at with his question, also - is if you know you're interacting with people of different cultures, why would you not speak in a "common-denominator" way that's unlikely to offend? That is to say, if I wander onto an article, I have no idea what offense-culture the people working on it come from. So isn't it common sense that, if I want to get stuff done, I would say things like "You think X? No, I disagree, I don't think that X. Hm, well I think Z because blah," rather than saying things like "You're an asslicking goatnugget, you jerkface. I demand Z!"? After all, I don't know if the person I'm speaking to understands how much my culture thinks "goatnugget" is a funny word. I don't know if calling them a "jerkface" will be interpreted as a friendly poke in the arm or a nasty slap in the face.

On the other hand, I know that in just about every culture, "I think Z" is a neutral statement. I know that if I disagree with someone, I'm going to offend fewer people saying "I disagree" than with "goatnugget". So if I nevertheless run around calling people goatnuggets and jerkfaces, what does that say about either my knowledge of the world, or my willingness to cooperate with people from outside my culture? It would appear to say that either I genuinely do not have the cultural awareness to know that there are people who don't like being called goatnuggets - in which case I would offend someone by saying it once or twice, but once told that I was offending them, would take that knowledge on board and no longer call people that - or I don't care about whether I'm hurting other people by calling them goatfaces, because even though I know it's offensive and hurtful to insult people like that, I value my right to insult above other people's right to not be insulted.

So in short, what I think NYB wonders (and if I'm correct, I echo his wondering) is why, if someone knows a particular manner of address will make it much, much harder to get work on the encyclopedia done, they still choose to use that manner of address. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, the simple/neutral phrase "I disagree", is best to use. GoodDay (talk) 15:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It's not cultural, because lots of people work in multiple cultures and they manage to stay civil; and professional in them -- otherwise, they would fail in that environment, but instead, they succeed. In some cultures that may take more thought and intentionality, but in English speaking cultures, it's just not that hard. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not actually disagreeing with any of you about people should have the ability and the desire to get on with people from other cultures, at all. I always attempt, to the best of my own ability, to do so. It's much more complex than that, and I'm having real trouble putting it across! We have a situation here where both cultures are making value judgments about the other culture, and each of them finds it hard even to comprehend how the other one can make those value judgments. Culture #1 can see culture #2 as being coarse, overbearing, boorish, rude, insensitive [list goes on]; culture #2, on the other hand, when faced with accusations of all those things (which they know, in their heart of hearts, that they're not (bear with me here, folks!), can end up seeing culture #1 as being prissy, prudish, over-reactive, judgmental, intolerant, nit-picking, restrictive, making mountains out of molehills, goody-goody, stuffy, pansified [list goes on]. And culture #1 also knows, in their heart of hearts, that they're not. Both cultures are suffering from the same lack of awareness of how they appear to the other. And both cultures are somewhat at fault for truly believing that it's the other one which has to change, to adapt to their one.

Here's a kinda parallel (parable?) on value judgments. An adult female, who has recently been injured (or is pregnant, mildly disabled, whatever ... take your pick) gets onto a crowded bus where there are no seats available. Mr A is a smart, well-dressed, athletic-looking man, well-spoken, immaculately-groomed, and handsome. He looks up at Mrs X, and says "No, your ladyship, I paid for my seat, and I was here first." Mr B, an overweight, scruffy-looking chap, with a few days growth of beard, and wearing torn jeans and a grubby T-shirt, looks up at here and says: "Oooo, you poor cow! You look like you've 'ad seven kinds of fucking crap beat out of you, you poor thing! 'Ere, love, 'ave my seat ...". Mrs X sits down. Well-spoken Mr A mutters under his breath "Really, the quality of persons one finds on these buses nowadays is quite shocking ....", and Mr B mutters "Fucking selfish cunt ...". Adding: ... and Mr A then quietly and politely asks the conductor if Mr B could please be removed from the bus, for swearing. Pesky (talk) 07:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

A much shorter one: imagine you've just sustained an injury. Who would you rather have come to your aid – the nattily-dressed, well-spoken accountant, or the off-duty ER doctor in his tracksuit, swearing like a trooper? (By the way, in order to understand the original parable of the good Samaritan, you have to have some appreciation of the utter loathing in which the Samaritans were held by the Jews.) Pesky (talk) 08:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I see a couple of serious weak spots in your analogy, Pesky, at least as it relates to the behavior most people are talking about on this RfC. First, you're assuming that we're talking about instances where User:X is helping User:Y and uses some naughty words in the process (your "grubby man on the bus" scenario). The problem there is that I've never, not once, seen a situation where someone was upset that someone else used a naughty word while helping them. No, "He was showing me how to make a table, and then he said 'tables are fucking impossible!' No, "He told me I looked 'tired as hell'! I demand retribution!" In fact, the issues we have arise over incivility pretty much always arise from a situation of conflict, where X and Y are in adversarial positions and X deploys some insults or attacks hoping to win the argument/vanquish the other editor/look cool for the spectators. It's not so much about words, it's about deliberately escalating a conflict with another user, when conflict isn't necessary or helpful.

Second, you're assuming (though I know this is at least partially a side-effect of using broad strokes to draw your analogy) that that nattily-dressed/pleasantly-speaking person isn't capable of helping - that they're an accountant, when a doctor is needed - and that the grubby person is the only help available - that there aren't other doctors, nurses, or paramedics around. In fact, it's usually the case that even if someone needs help that User:ILikeToBeRude can competently offer, they will often either a) Find someone else who can offer that help without being nasty (because there always is someone else who can help - no one is irreplacable) or b) back away from User:ILikeToBeRude, alarmed, and go to someone who is slightly less competent to help but doesn't make them feel like a squished bug on the bottom of their shoe.

So let's go back to NYB's question for a moment: if you're a doctor seeking to give help in that doctor-needed scenario, would you feel it was appropriate to approach the person with "Hey, what kind of idiot fuckface breaks their fucking leg during my commute? Jesus Christ, the fucking INCOMPETENCE!"? Or would you feel that if someone is going to insert themselves into that situation, you'd expect to hear something more like, "Ok, your leg is broken - looks like your caught the weight of that lorry just right to pin you. Let's see about easing you out of here, shall we?", because to approach the person accusingly would be to make someone who's upset and hurt even more upset and hurt? If the latter, why not then ask why, if these "habitually uncivil" people truly want to help, they don't approach others using behavior that communicates "I do want to help here, rather than upset people"? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I suppose a situation where a doctor has arrived at the scene of an unlikely accident that has resulted in someone having their head stuck up their anus, leaving them somewhat disoriented and hard of hearing, is one of the relatively rare scenarios where someone might find it helpful if someone shouted at them that they should try to "extract their head from their arse". On an article talk page, it is more difficult to imagine a situation where it would be an appropriate way for the writer to express his or her concerns. So context is everything. --Boson (talk) 19:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Like Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 19:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I think my parable may have been misread: it wasn't Mrs X (the person being helped) who objected about the swearing. It was Mr A who objected (the guy who called Mrs X "your ladyship", and was well-spoken and neat ...) Mrs X didn't object at all. Also, in the first-aid situation, I didn't suggest that the swearing was directed at the patient. (It's not entirely unknown for paramedics to swear a bit when the general public are getting in the way of their efforts to assist the injured.) About 30 years ago I needed an emergency C-section. Very emergency - they were pumping the sleepy-juice into my arm while running me and my gurney along the corridor. And my (lady) consultant yelled "Get out of the fucking way!" to a bunch of people obstructing the doorway, as we approached.

I'm not talking about someone who's being helped objecting to the swearing, or being sworn at. I'm kinda comparing things with the Mr A on the bus, objecting to the fact that Mr B is swearing. It's when the bystanders start objecting and turning it into a war that it gets uncomfortable.

About the question? Yes, I do try / have tried to get people to tone it down a bit, here and there. And sometimes it works. But sometimes the paramedic (assisting the encyclopedia-as-patient) really, really thinks that the gross over-reaction from bystanders, when he/she swears at the person who's just spilled their scalding take-away Costa Coffee over his patient, which he's trying to help, isn't warranted. He gets pretty narked when he sees people's actions as detrimental to his patient (the encyclopedia), and tells them so. Pesky (talk) 05:28, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Adding: to clarify the analogy rash, in the bus one, Mrs X is the encyclopedia. Swearing-Mr-B is looking out for the interests of the encyclopedia, and unhelpful-Mr-A is ... being unhelpful. And critical of the way that Mr B is being helpful. Pesky (talk) 06:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Hm, you're right Pesky, I did slightly misread, but now that I've read it again, I don't think it changes my point. I can't think of a case I've ever seen where $Nattily-Dressed (an outsider, not involved in the conversation) saw $Grubby (helping $Victim but with uncouth language) say something like "Man, that fucking sucks, here, let me help you" and complained about it being "uncivil". What we nearly always see in cases of incivility that grind work on the encyclopedia to a halt is either $Victim saying "I asked for help, but instead $Natty told me to go fuck my mother" or $Grubby saying "$Victim was doing blah, and $Natty told them to go fuck their mother." So my ultimate point is, no matter, who's playing which dress-up role, incivility is not an issue when it's solely a matter of "dirty words" being used in a friendly, grubby-man-giving-up-his-seat manner, and the community knows that. We don't drahma over that, at least not in places I watch. Incivility or those "dirty words" are an issue when it's being used against someone else - if $Natty or $Grubby were to call $Victim a "fat cow" for expecting them to give up their seats (even if they were begrudgingly standing up at the time!), say, that's a very different issue than $Grubby happening to drop an f-bomb in the process of standing up, or a nurse hollering "Out of the fucking way!" to a bunch of people who are about to be run over. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I do agree with this; it's what I always try to follow, myself. But what we're currently doing just doesn't seem to be working in the few cases where it's really an issue. And there's an old saying: "If what you're doing isn't working, try something else." Doing more, and harder, and louder, and more draconian, of the same thing isn't working, and I can't see it ever being likely to work, with the few out-of-the-ordinary cases where it really is an issue. I'm sure that those of those cases who know me will just give a wry grin and think "mea culpa" if I refer to them as oddballs! I'm something of an oddball myself, falling within most normal ranges but definitely not in the centre of most bell curves. If we could work out, somehow, how to draw the line and distinguish between the throwing-about of dirty words, from impatience, frustration, Real-Life issues impinging on our editors; and genuine, real, nastily-meant nastiness, hurtfulness, dropping-someone-in-it-ness, jumping on the bandwagon to cause strife far in excess of what Oddball him/herself ever intended, then we might be getting somewhere. But I think we can probably all appreciate that draconian measures do not work, long term. Yes, they may cause one or two otherwise-very-valuable oddball characters either to be banned, heavily sanctioned (and quit in disgust), and get rid of the one or two hissy, pecky, golden-egg-laying geese. And leave us with a number of happier normal everyday geese, but at a great loss of golden eggs. I've dealt with non-human animals like this for so long; so many individuals, from so many species. And, where they have real value, our best course of action is not to shoot them, but to find some way of working around them. Sometimes it's a notice in huge letters on a stable door saying "Do NOT go into this stable unless you have prior approval and/or escort from an approved staff member or alternatively, due to his particular idiosyncrasies, if you happen to be a child under the age of five, or carrying a cat" (yes, he was a rather strange horse, but despite being prepared to savage mostly all and sundry was totally safe with young children and cats ... and worth an absolute fortune as a top-class competition horse). I think we really need to find a way of thinking outside the box for those few cases where the box just doesn't fit. Pesky (talk) 12:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Adding (belatedly!): I suspect that Mr A, who muttered about the "quality of persons one finds on these buses nowadays" (referring to genuinely-helpful but a bit coarse Mr B) was probably complaining and asking that Mr B should be ejected from the bus for having referred to well-spoken Mr A, who nonetheless selfishly refused to give up his seat and then made politely-worded snide comments about the "shocking quality" of his fellow-passenger, as a "selfish fucking cunt". Pesky (talk) 16:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

This whole "helpful but coarse" vs "unhelpful but well-spoken" analogy is basically a straw man. The problem comes when people use insulting language which they fully intend as an insult— not as a term of endearment, or to be helpful. Insulting someone in extremely coarse language is an extra slap in the face, and that too is intended. Everyone has a choice about which language to use, especially people who are highly articulate and educated. Insulting someone and using coarse language to do it is a choice. "Cultural differences" have nothing to with it. Voceditenore (talk) 16:39, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

(Responding to NYB's original question). Why should they? The interaction agressive high content editors I'm aware do not, in my observation, go around picking fights but rather react to some provocation -- in excess of what I personally consider appropriate, admittedly. (I'll note that I've never been inappropriately treated by them either.) When the fracas occurs they receive peer support from both editors philosophically similar and those they've interacted with positively in the past. Any sanctions which have been imposed are temporary and result in additional outpouring of support. Given a value system which does not consider blunt reaction ethically wrong and lacking both consistent and meaningful pushback from an overwhelming majority of the community, there's no reason to expect change in their behavior. Nobody Ent 20:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Here's a current, real-life situation that might be worth looking at: Talk:Natural-born-citizen clause#"Birther" as a pejorative / derogatory / offensive term?

In a nutshell, one editor is insisting that the term "birther" (a slang expression for a person who doubts the constitutional eligibility of Barack Obama to serve as President of the United States) is offensive, and is demanding that others stop using it, even in discussions on talk pages. Others are saying the word is perfectly OK, and to back up their view, they attempted to find reliable sources on the question of whether "birther" is offensive, and all anyone could find was a statement by Donald Trump saying he (Trump) believes the word is derogatory. The original objector is unmoved, still insisting the word is inappropriate and that others' refusal to accept this as a fact is part of a more general conspiracy to push a pro-Obama POV in Wikipedia.

So, I suppose one could ask at this point, Should editors in general refrain from using a given expression or manner of speaking even if only one other editor objects — and even if no independent evidence can be found to suggest that any significant, identifiable group of people consider the language in question to be offensive? I believe the answer is no, but I also realize that this view could lead us to a situation where a minority can "legitimately" be denigrated as long as it is sufficiently "small" and "insignificant". Comments? — Rich wales 16:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

With these high profile editors who have periodic outbursts, other editors often have the mentality that if these specific editors burst out at someone, the victim deserved it. Much of the time this may be true (that there were mitigating circumstances that is), but other times, they attack editors regardless of whether they have aggravated the situation or not. This distinction generally gets ignored, and any meaningful attempts at resolution get scuppered by "defenders" rushing in to protect the offender, with a no smoke without fire type of mentality (maybe with a casual suggestion that the recipient of the attacks be banned or have a BOOMERANG). IRWolfie- (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This is what I think we have

Cultures	Sees themselves as	Sees the other as
A	Polite, courteous, understanding	Rude, coarse, overbearing, potty-mouthed, hypocritical, insensitive
B	Honest, straightforward, say-it-how-you-see-it	Prissy, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, hypocritical

The only sustainable way forwards, to resolve this situation, is for both (all) sides to be prepared to find some middle ground, where both sides may quite probably have to move a little out of their own comfort zones, and where value judgments are based more on the value of what people do and the truths of what they say, rather than the ways in which they say it. Name-calling (whether it's "jerk", "potty-mouth", "rude", "immature", "self-righteous", or anything else, from either side to the other) is still name-calling. Pesky (talk) 10:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You're heading in the right direction there Pesky. But I'd suggest that we already have a lot of people somewhere in the middle ground. I'd label myself as one of them. I don't swear all the time. I'm not even rude most of the time. I can appear to be part of Group A to most people almost all of the time. But I do push the envelope of niceness when I see repeated, POV, bullshit peddling masquerading as rule abiding civility. And it often has the desired effect of highlighting and ultimately stopping the nice bullshit pushers in their tracks. Where I work it's pretty normal behaviour. Some colleagues are a lot cruder than I am. Unless we are given faster working, more effective tools to use against such behaviour, there will continue to be people like me around who (at least sometimes, and temporarily) join Group B. As you have already said, it's just part of the spectrum of human behaviour. HiLo48 (talk) 11:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I feel myself more to be An Anthropologist on Mars, really. Kinda on the outside, looking in. I try to be able to work with, and understand, all the various cultures, and to make allowances for them pretty much equally. Sadly, it's so much a part of human nature to judge people by the wrong criteria. All cultures do it. As they say, "The more I see of people, the more I like my pets." Pesky (talk) 11:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

@ HiLo48...The difference is that in RL its the spoken word...easily thrown at each other in haste with only the barest minimum of thought. Here, its the written word and its a very conscious controlable decision The short time it takes to type and to hit the SAVE button should be time enough to factor in self-control. We are collaborators not combatants. We are here to edit and create an encyclopedia not poke each other with intentinally hurtful words. We should be able just point out to those among us that are not civil. We should police each other in the moment of in-civility. Not call a civility cop. Just point out bad behavior 'directly to the person that is behaving badly'. ```Buster Seven Talk 20:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I feel I must politely point out that you have completely ignored my point about repeated, POV, bullshit peddling masquerading as rule abiding civility. Incivility generally only occurs after such behaviour, so it's essential that we do something about it. So why did you ignore that part of my post? HiLo48 (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Hilo48...I'm not sure if your talking to me or to pesky. Perhaps my responce is off topic as to this thread in which case I will state it elsewhere. I really just came into this conversation at the end and have read very little of the above. I'll spend a few hours later tonite and review all the above. I would point out that I have been a part of various discussions on the topic of incivility and have even taken the time to write an essay on the subject...just in case you thought I was a j0hnny-come-lately. ```Buster Seven Talk 23:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I can accept that comment in good faith as at least an explanation, if not an apology. What's interesting is that twice now in this RfC someone has replied to me in a less than complete or fair manner, while acknowledging that they hadn't read the preceding conversation. Now, in both cases they were quite civil in the words they used, but I would humbly suggest that posting in apparently proudly confessed, incomplete knowledge of what has gone before is not really civil behaviour. Civil words don't automatically mean civil editing. HiLo48 (talk) 04:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely NO offense was intended and I see no way of reading what I said that would lead someone to be offended. Are you stating that an editor, interjecting into an on-going conversation, without reading the voluminous wall of words above, is un-civil?```Buster Seven Talk 08:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Absolutely. And that you don't see it is part of the problem. Several other readers have (hopefully) put considerable thought and careful choice of words into their posts (I certainly did), then you interject without caring what others have said. I've just repeated what I already said, and shouldn't have had to. Can you see why that frustrates and annoys others? It's pretty thoughtless really. HiLo48 (talk) 09:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

@HiLo48...You said, I don't swear all the time. I'm not even rude most of the time. I can appear to be part of Group A to most people almost all of the time. But I do push the envelope of niceness..... In NO WAY did I not care what you had said. In fact, I directly responded to it. I assummed you were talking your activities in Real Life, about swearing and pushing the Nice envelope in Real Life. I then made my point as to how swearing, in Real Life, and swearing here on the Internet are two drastically different decisions. So, contrary to your accusation, I hope you can see that my response was directly related to your comment and was with my own considerate thoughtfulness and careful choice of my words about the threads direction and that you will change your mind about expecting an apology from me. ```Buster Seven Talk 12:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Now you're changing the subject and, yes, ignoring the basic point I am making, both incredibly fucking annoying behaviours!!!!! Yes, I do believe, using your own words, "that an editor, interjecting into an on-going conversation, without reading the voluminous wall of words above, is un-civil". And again, repeating myself (since you fucking ignored me last time!!!!!) "that you don't see it is part of the problem". In the preceding words I am deliberately role playing. The expletives are deliberate, but hopefully not really necessary in this conversation. They are an example of how I know I (and others) have responded in the past because of the incredible frustration building up in my mind over a superficially nice, civil editor whose behaviour is actually very destructive. I can tell that you don't mean to offend, but you do offend, and annoy, and frustrate, and.... So, back to the basic issue, uncivil behaviour is unacceptable, but it comes in many forms. Naughty words are possibly the least of our worries. HiLo48 (talk) 19:12, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

“Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.” said Douglas Adams. I simply don't see it the way you do. Your annoyance and frustration will probably continue. My perceptions and my actions that stem from my perception are rarely uncivil or destructive. TRA! ```Buster Seven Talk 21:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC).

Oh dear. I think my point is amply illustrated. HiLo48 (talk) 23:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be a middle ground at all. Either people should act reasonably professional most of the time, or they should get out. Jtrainor (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Jtrainor, you're coming across as quite incredibly harsh, here. It seems that your preferred choice is a destructive one (Burn the witch!) as opposed to a constructive one. And, in response to your "most of the time" phrase, this is one reason why I think it's kinda important for us to be able to look at blocks-per-thousand-edits, and blocks-per-year-of-service ratios. I'm subjectively sure that, most of the time, some of those who are seen as our worst offenders are actually perfectly OK. But it's human nature to be swayed by confirmation bias, and only to remember (or see) the times when they went wrong. Newspaper editors are all too aware of this one: good news rarely sells papers. What the public seems to want is the drama, the scandal, the salacious gossip, the judgmental. AndI think maybe you possibly need to be aware that all name-calling is name-calling. Whether it's a four-letter word, or calling someone "rude" or "coarse" or "potty-mouth", it's all name-calling. Pesky (talk) 08:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Wait...I'm no expert but I think Pesky just iterated "rude" as name-calling. If an editor or admin is rude, what then? I have been told to walk away and not point out to them that they are being rude. When you walk away, you are saying that behaviour is OK. So I do not say 'incivility is this, incivility is that', I only say let's not be hypocritical or absurd when we do reach a clear path. Well, here I thought I was doing well and have had a couple of run-ins. Know why? Because I got myself into hot water with someone simply tired, grumpy, sick of WP, who knows what. Has everyone forgotten how to be tough but fair? Larry Crowne would thank you for that.~©Djathinkimacowboy 06:11, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

A Meme that just might work

Just the other day I placed the following on my User page---->Always Assume That Ladies Are Present. Discourteous behavior will not be tolerated even if not directed toward them. More later when time allows.! ```Buster Seven Talk 20:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC).

Darling Buster, I don't profess to be a lady, merely a (hopefully!) well-brought-up granny! I understand entirely where you're coming from, though. One of the things I've learned, over the years, along with the age and experience (including dealing with children, grandchildren, pupils, and folks from all walks and classes of life), is the value of informed and enlightened tolerance of our various human differences. One can be quite horrendously rude, hurtful, and discourteous without using a single swearword. And one can be intentionally so. A name is a name is a name ... and the names we call each other vary from culture to culture; the contempt in which we hold each other varies likewise. Calling a fellow human "potty-mouth" (no matter how justified we might think it is) is pretty much the same thing as calling a fellow-human a jerk (no matter how much we think he is). The recipient may be just as grossly offended at being called a potty-mouth as the other guy is at being called a jerk. With so much of this stuff, the reactions, the drama, the banner-waving and slogan-calling, is so much more disruptive, and generates so much more ill-feeling than the original action ever would have done. I'm not saying we should ever condone deliberate hurtfulness, name-calling With Malice Aforethought, at all. All I'd really, really like to see is a bit less of the overwrought, hand-wringing drama; a little less of the witch-hunting; just a bit more human kindness, from everyone to everyone, all around. We are all fallible. My own family has serious problems at the moment, with its youngest member in hospital with life-threatening illness. And this stuff, in comparison, is petty, bitching, back-stabbing playground squabbling of the worst kind. Can't we just strive, all of us, to be a little bit more tolerant?

We're recently introduced (temporary adoption) a noisy, bouncy, hyperactive Jack Russell into our family of pets. It's taken her and the cats a while to get on terms with each other; she's had to learn that they just won't tolerate being rushed past or shoved, and they've had to learn that jumping out at her from behind doors might seem to be a fun game, but she'll bark loudly in their face if they do it. They occasionally have "reminder sessions", where (for example), one of the cats will give her a claws-retracted thump if she's not sufficiently respectful of their space, but they don't fight to the death over it. They don't blow it up out of all proportion. And they lick noses and make up a little later. Surely, surely, bearing in mind the relative intelligence (allegedly) of felines, canines, and humans, we can learn not to do the Wiki-Equivalent of fighting to the death over it, too? Pesky (talk) 21:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

edit conflict Isn't that sexist? Unlike Pesky, I don't hobnob with princesses, but I have known a few quite high social class ladies who had a fairly wide vocabulary - and who could it to good effect. The days of the (stereotype coming up) convent-educated shrinking violet who faints at the sight of a hairy male chest are long past. Peridon (talk) 21:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Show me a culture that doesnt DEMAND respectful social behavior when there are women present! Can you think of one? If some of us want to use "it's part of my culture" as an excuse for boerish behavior then the rest of us should be able to find some commonality among ALL cultures that can be used to improve the workplace. Civil behavior when women are around is that commonality. We dont fart, we dont swear, we dont scratch our crotches, etc. We behave ourselves. We are civil. We are gentlemen (and women)```Buster Seven Talk 07:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I know quite a few strong-minded "ladies" who would find this sort of sexist generalisation to be "uncivil".... ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 15:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. As a female, I find the notion that you need to censor yourself because of my gender to be rather offensive. If you want to be respectful of others, do it because they're human beings who deserve a modicum of respect, not because of some outdated social more that suggests ladies have delicate sensibilities. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Children, and impressionable young people, are always present. We are their role models in how to express themselves and establish their presence and viewpoint on the internet; in the creation and enforcement of mores of constructive collaboration; the alternative paradigm is struggle to impose particular points of view or style. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

A common theme that has pervaded conversations related to Civil/Incivil is..."What is civil for one person may seem uncivil for the next, and there is no way to reliably judge that across the board. I think there is a way. Its called, Imagine that your Mother is part of the conversation. Sounds silly, I know but I hope a seed of "That might work" will grow in the mind of someone/anyone reading this. I think it is a solution to the problem without involving "Civility Police" of any kind. Self-Control. What would my Mom Think. Polly-anna? Sure, call it that. But dont forget "Polly has a cracker" Maybe that cracker is food for thought. ```Buster Seven Talk 14:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

```Buster Seven Talk 14:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

You might want to ask these folks. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Let the nay-sayers have the first word. Someone is always against something. If you dont see that it might be a solution, fine. Ignore the possibility that it might work. But, like I said, most times it works in real life and I'm confident it would work here. Try it. Next time you get mad at an editor and want to tell him to get fucked, imagine that your mom is sitting next to him, reading what you type. I think you might soften the punch...just a little. And the next time, a little softer.```Buster Seven Talk 18:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, it all comes down to context. Now personally I have never told another user to "get fucked" in a content dispute but I have told a few people to fuck off when they wouldn't stop posting on my talk page. I think my mom would be ok with that as she taught me to stand up to bullies. (you wouldn't know it to look at me now but I was a very small kid and got picked on a lot)

I seem to keep coming back to the user talk page issue. To me someone who won't stop posting on your talk page is like the drunk who won't leave the bar at closing time. Whatever you may think of them the rest of the time, they need to leave. If telling them "hey you need to leave" does not work, telling them to get the fuck out of the bar before you throw them out on their ass might just do it. It's just not as black-and-white as some make it out to be, which is why I believe it is basically impossible to come up with hard-and-fast rules for civility, and even more so to come up with standards for "enforcement". (There is also the possibility that someone's mom is an ex gang banger from Compton and would be sitting there saying "yea boy, tell that muthafucka to get the fuck out" ) Beeblebrox (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, I'm a female (and, from social background and upbringing, allegedly a lady, though not a Lady ...). We have different standards of conversation for a Buck House garden party than we do down on the stable yard, but I (and other females in my situation) don't tend to react with Shock! Horror! as and when the air turns a little blue in the more informal situation of the stable and farmyards. (And, trust me, the air can turn very blue indeed when someone – no matter how ladylike – has just been "beat over" (charged to the ground and trampled on) by a semi-feral animal intent on escape!) I think we need (as mentioned in the civility policy) to understand that user talk pages are much more informal situations than, for example, article talk pages are. If we were a little less (what some cultures perceive as) over-reactive, things would settle down more. It's almost as if we have an allergy to certain specific words, rather than the real intent behind all words. Pesky (talk) 09:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Are We Opponents or Collaborators

There can be no WP editing without people. And when people gather there follows some sort or form of association for the purpose of maintaining order among those people. It is a given that WP is vulnerable to uncivil behavior. Incivility displays a lack of consideration for others. The question becomes what to do once the behavior and the perpetrator of that behavior have been identified. WP should be bound by an ironclad commitment to a safe and comfortable working environment for ALL employees. (I say employees knowing we are all unpaid. But, except for that minor detail we are "at work".) We should be assured of a professional workspace. But, Wikipedia, like all "user generated content" projects, is bottom up, not top down. It consists of an invitation to the entire world to edit and then hopes that Users will maintain an environment where it is possible for individuals from that world to edit abuse-free. All user-generated projects are radical democracies, despite the inconvenience of that in practice. Except for our made-up names, we are all either unidentified opponents or unidentified collaborators. Civility is a cornerstone of civic foundation. Lack of it can make things unstable. It is a buffer against aggression and chaos. It shows respect for each other and maintains the fluid state of interpersonal relations. There is absolutely no need to dredge the linguistic sewer in order to communicate.```Buster Seven Talk 07:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Sometimes we are opponents. Incivility is a tool used to control content and policy through expression of disrespect and contempt. Enablers, administrators and arbitrators, who shelter aggressive editors who use incivility as a means to impose their will on the content of the work and its policies are at the core of the problem. Arbitrators elected on a platform of not doing anything practical to control incivility are the rotten head of the fish. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:44, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

And that was certainly a civil thing to call someone. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Rotten head of the fish is an informal term for psychopath. It's a general societal trend we can't avoid dealing with, see http://chronicle.com/article/The-Psychopath-Makeover/135160/ We are part of the world as it is, not some fantasy that lives in a world of its own. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

An example from the real world of "friendly" incivility:

A guy, a client of mine actually, was in the parking lot of a local bar about to get into his truck and drive home. He was visibly drunk. The bartender, myself, and one or two other people were trying to convince him not to drive, even offering to pay for a cab. He insisted he needed his truck at home when he woke up the next day. An old friend of his got right up in his face and yelled at him at the top of his lungs that if he got in that truck he would pull his ass back out and beat the shit out of him until he couldn't even stand up, let alone drive. The guy suddenly looked very alarmed. His friend asked him if he was still planning to drive. He said no. The next day he was all apologies and thanked his friend for getting up in his face like that and helping him realize what a fool he was being.

On Wikipedia we would block the friend for incivility. In the real world he may have saved his life. Not a perfect analogy but it goes to my overall point that this is not a black-and-white issue and it is basically impossible to come up with hard and fast bright line rules. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The key element in the story isn't the yelling, it was that it was a friend that was yelling ... too often on Wikipedia it's some total stranger that takes it upon themselves to to get in the drunk's face and start screaming. Concur that hard and fast rules aren't the solution. Nobody Ent 03:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what Nobody Ent said. The difference here is that it was people he knew doing the screaming - people whose personalities he had (at least some) understanding of, who were stepping over the line of politeness specifically because they knew the person they were speaking to would know it was unusual and emphatic for them to do so. And the way human relations work, it's understood that I can get away with screaming things at my best friend in this sort of situation that I would never, ever scream at a random person on the street, even if they were doing the same wrong thing my friend was, because my friend understands the subtext of me doing so in a way that the stranger on the street cannot. (There's also the issue that in your story, the person being screamed at was doing something illegal that was very likely to result in actual, physical harm to him or another person. That sort of thing isn't really comparable to stuff like "You're using a ref style I dislike, I must make you stop because...I dislike it!") A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Active editing over a wide range of articles involves an administrator in collaboration with many editors which provides the basis for mutual respect. Someone who simply specializes in being the civility sheriff without active engagement with the community is unlikely to succeed in actually accomplishing anything. User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Something to think about?

Clearly this isn't a solution, but I think it's something we could look at, and something which is (almost certainly) do-able in software. Despite the fact that several of the blocks in at least one person's block log have been recognised as being very dubious indeed, or definitely bad blocks, or in some instances astonishingly bad blocks, (and there are almost certainly other people's block logs with similar issues), I'm still seeing people, regularly, in many areas, using the number of blocks someone has had to illustrate their points or to justify further draconian measures.

What I suggest we really ought to be able to do is in some way mark the bad, or astonishingly bad blocks to remove them into a sub-category of not-to-be-counted blocks; to clean up the block logs if we possibly can. I do know, for an absolute certainty, that the simple fact that bad blocks are lumped together with good blocks and used by people in argument causes a great deal of frustration and (quite justifiable) anger in the few people to whom it applies. And the fact that there seems to be no way (or no desire?) to remove records of "convictions quashed on appeal" (or the equivalent) just sours the atmosphere around the few people to whom it applies even more thoroughly. Is it really surprising that they remain so sour? Wouldn't all of us? So, that's Phase #1 of what I think we should do. On request.

Phase #2 is to have some easy, one-click method of looking, not at the number of total blocks, but looking at two ratios of blocking. One being the blocks-per-thousand-edits ratio, and the other being the blocks-per-years-of-service ratio. Both of those would actually be far better indicators than a simple head-count of total blocks, and I think that if we could (through software) "rank" people on those two ratios, the end results might be a real eye-opener. This is all something which could be done, and might help to sweeten the atmosphere around those who may very well be justified in feeling sour, and expressing their over-all sourness occasionally. Injustice is one of the biggest producers of chronic, low-level rage. Pesky (talk) 07:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Adding: another thing I think we should consider is being harsher on wilful baiting, particularly where it's being done by someone who wasn't involved in the original dispute (if the original dispute can even be identified! Sometimes it's blown over long before the baiters step in. Every time I think of "baiters", I recall Jehochman's wise words on the number of Master Baiters we have in here, lol!) Severe(ish) sanctions on bystanders baiting, and fanning the flames just to fan them, might go some way to evening-up the playing field a little. Baiting might well be reduced if people realised that they were just as likely to be blocked for it as the person whom they are trying to provoke into incivility. Pesky (talk) 08:12, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

If incivility is as difficult to define (and therefore impossible to enforce) as many here claim, then "wilful baiting" is even harder to define and enforce. Using snide and/or coarse personal insults in a discussion is a choice. Doing so as a reaction to perceived baiting is a choice, albeit a stupid one. I've also seen many, many instances where editors are called on their clearly uncivil discourse, and their (or their supporters') first excuse is so-and-so baited them into doing it. In most of those cases, the alleged 'baiting" was very much in the eye of the beholder. I've also seen multiple instances of editors who are repeatedly blocked and/or called on it (and especially those who are often excused on the grounds that they were "baited"), being deliberately uncivil straight off the bat simply to "push the envelope" and assert their right to be as snide and insulting as they choose. Sorry, I just don't buy it. We're all adults here and we're all responsible for our choices. Voceditenore (talk) 11:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Huge, systemic problem

(ZOMG! It's Pesky again with that philosophy stuff!)

There's a lot of talk about "toxic atmospheres" and "toxic personalities". Please bear with me, guys, because I think this thing is quite possibly the most important thing for us to look at. We have a huge, deep-seated problem here; far more important, and far more complex, than a few so-called "toxic personalities". And it's this one which we need most of all to address.

Imagine Farmer Brown, whose muck-heap is leaking smelly, diluted slurry into the river which crosses his land. It crosses the land of Farmers Green and Black, as well. And their muck-heaps leak, slowly, too, from time to time. The water pollution downstream from them is measured, and they are hit, over and over again, with fines for pollution. But they seem to have no sense of smell, they seem not to be able to see what's happening. Every time they are fined, the money raised from those fines goes to funding the nuclear-waste-disposal plant upstream from them. And the radiation from that plant, leaking into the stream, is what's making them blind, and making them lose their sense of smell in the first place.

The injustices that we do, with atrocious blocks and astounding lack of insight as to the effects of them, don't just add one drop of toxic waste to the stream on one occasion. Every time the toxic atmosphere is mentioned, every time the farmers are fined for their muck-heaps, another drop of poison is added. Is it surprising, then, that they become poisoned by the constant little drops of poison we're adding to their water supply? Is it surprising that they become more and more radioactive, and more and more blind, and lose more and more of their sense of smell? No.

We really need, as the community which is pouring funds into the processing plant, to look at some of the reasons why those farmers have been poisoned. And, when assessing the water quality downstream from them, we really, really need not to be blind to the revolting toxic waste being pumped in, upstream from them, by the nuclear-waste-disposal plant. We should never blame them for all that, and the effects of it. We need to be looking very hard at all the little drips of poison not caused by those farmers, which all go towards producing the "toxic atmosphere" downstream from them. It's a huge, systemic problem, and this may well be why it's being so refractory and hard to clean up. Pesky (talk) 09:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Maybe, to an extent, in some cases. But some people are just idiots, and some are just assholes. WP didn't make them that way. Only a frankly rather small percentage of the population are of a collaborative enough mindset to actually do well on WP, long-term. People bring their personalities, their cultural background, their traumas, their politics with them, and it takes a lot of insight (learned or innate) into how volunteerism and online community operate to overcome this baggage enough to be a worthwhile long-time Wikipedian. We do not need to lament the short participation time of every noob, nor the eventual departure of long-term contributors who are worn out. It's all entirely natural. Entire books have been written about the life cycle of human organizations, and more Wikipedians need to read some of them, or at least a precis or abstract of some of them. PS: To the extent you seem to be saying "blocks are bad!" I have to disagree with you. Blocks need to be handed out more often, not less, so that people who cannot consistently contribute meaningfully to project without causing more problems than they are worth get frustrated/bored and go bother some other project. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:17, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

But some people are just idiots, and some are just assholes. I would phrase it differently. I would say that some people behave like idiots, some behave like arseholes. Focus on the behaviour, not the person. --Pete (talk) 01:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Pete has a good point. Actually, I wasn't thinking really of noobs or people who just move on, I was thinking really of the people who keep coming back and feeding and nurturing the encyclopedia. (It's a bit like Farmer Brown ending up hating the management of the nuclear plant, but still growing crops to feed the plant's workers, instead of saying "*&@! you! I'll move!") We have people who stay around, doing good stuff for the encyclopedia, no matter how often we bash them for letting their muck heap ooze. Pesky (talk) 08:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking one good funny video might help educate a lot of people. Have well known and volunteer wikimedians/pedians READING out loud some of the absurd uncivil stuff that gets posted with appropriate expressions as if they are actually saying itto a person -- and then calmly explain WHY that is harmful to the project and what the project is really about. In a funny but guilty-trippy way. The real psychopaths won't care but a number of people may be positively influenced. CarolMooreDC 15:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

That's really very interesting, as an idea! The one thing I'd like to add to it would be the other-cultural aspect of people hearing their most-trigger-pulling "naughty words" said in the entirely different tone of voice, and with the entirely different body-language, of the people for whom those words are pretty-much common-usage (in certain situations); combined with the surface-civil but underneath-nasty phrases being read out in the "Eeewww! Nyer, nyer, I'm better than you, so there!" sneering, lip-curled, contemptuous tones of Mr A on the bus (see above). Sound and vision can change everything. Pesky (talk) 09:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Take a little look here

I think it might be an eye-opener to point people towards a current example, which is fairly quiet at the moment. It's here, on MF's talk page. Do not jump to conclusions, make assumptions, or work from a presumption of guilt, just because of where it is and who's involved! Resist the temptation to prejudge!

In this instance, MF has asked Dr B, very politely and restrainedly, not to post further. Several times. And yet, and yet ... it seems that unless MF resorts to incivility, he is ignored. When he's polite and restrained, it's not working. I'm not calling for anyone to go screaming to any noticeboards, to impose any sanctions, to do anything other than to just look. I see this sort of thing happening regularly, all over the place, in WikiLand. It's been mentioned before, too.

We go on and on about how escalating sanctions, escalating blocks, and so on, are the best way to deal with incivility. But on the other side of the coin, we have situations where editors feel (somewhat justifiably) that escalating incivility is the only way to avoid being completely ignored. We tell them that's unacceptable, that doesn't work. But we do, and condone doing, an exact parallel, ourselves, to deal with it. We attack. In an escalating fashion. Pesky (talk) 09:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Personally, I've no problem with the exchange-in-question, because it occured on an editor's talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 12:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring unwanted attacking talk pages comments isn't disruptive and always works. Review my talk pages archives -- I've got years of comments from folks unhappy with my opinions on WQA and the all time most persistent editor (don't recall who) gave up after six attempts. The "fuck off" style comments only "work" in the short term, but have two negative consequences -- they increase the net nastiness of Wikipedia, and they build up resentment, which can suddenly cause a deluge of flack on noticeboards (e.g. AN, ArbCom) Nobody Ent 14:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

In RL, Mf couild give him a sharp upper-cut to the jaw or clap him in the ear. Invading an editors talk when asked to stay out is agressive and meant to agitate. Agitators should respect a locked (to them) page. Like GoodDay says, User Talk pages have a different tolerant level than article talks. Pretty much anything goes...and so it should. Until to User says "STOP!" ```Buster Seven Talk 21:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

For those that haven't seen my essay on this exact scenario it is at User:Beeblebrox/fuck off. Don't have anything to add beyond that except that posting to another user's talk page actually forces them to pay at least some attention because of the orange bar. You can't get rid of it until you at least click a link to your talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

What happens if they reply with "fuck you too!" Nobody Ent

Philosophical problem

I sense a terrible waste of energy here. It might be worth reading is-ought problem before arguing further. Yes, people ought to be nice to one another. Who gets to define what is and isn't nice though? What is best to do when we see someone not being nice? Pending the heat death of the universe, we are unlikely to definitively solve these perennial questions. Try to model civility in your own conduct, and try to ignore or walk away from conduct you do not like. I liked Beeblebrox's essay, but there is little else edifying on this page. Sorry. --John (talk) 21:39, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

given the amount of wasted energy at ANI / ArbCom as these issues come up again and again and again and again, if this process were to come up with a community consensus (or lay the groundwork for something from the ArbCom if it ever decides to get a spine) then it will be worth it. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Beeblebrox's essay is a good one. Having read the is-ought problem, it kinda puts in much better wording something I was trying to get across earlier: where an editor's primary goal is to build, protect the integrity of, and improve the encyclopedia, then (to themselves, and very probably to a large amount of others), then they "ought" to take whatever steps work towards that goal. The problem comes when the steps they take to protect the foundations and fabric of the encyclopedia clash with the ways in which those whose primary "goal" is to prevent anybody doing or saying anything, in any way, which might conceivably deter someone else from likewise building, nurturing and polishing the encyclopedia itself, in the furtherance of which their own "ought" values include the "ought not" proscription on "naughty words". I'm entirely in support of the NPA thing, but where we draw the line between "attack" and "defence against damage to the 'pedia" is the main problematic area. And, yet again, some cultures view certain types of interaction as being far more of an "attack" than they were meant to be, by the person who did them. It's never going to be simple to resolve this. Pesky (talk) 09:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

There's a human nature problem happening here. A typical sequence of posts...

A: We should ban people who are uncivil.

B: OK, define uncivil.

A: We all know what it means. It means XYZ.

B: No it doesn't. It means different things to different people from different cultures in different circumstances.

A: No. It's clear that swearing is always wrong.

B: Define swearing.....

While A remains so certain of his position, there cannot ever be consensus. HiLo48 (talk) 22:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Having seen some recent posts here, plus a dossier another editor is compiling on me to prove I'm a crude and nasty person (I'm trying to kick the habit), I've realised another fundamental problem in this area. Complaints about an editor's lack of civility are almost always raised by someone who disagrees with the allegedly uncivil editor on some other matter than the naughty words. In my case it's fundamental political positions. I happen to think the other editor is one whose editing behaviour, while always impeccably polite, is quite destructive. So, we don't agree. It means that complaints about uncivil behaviour, if successful, will remove an opponent from debate. Motives must be questioned. It's never going to be easy to separate ideology from non-niceness. (NOTE: This is not intended to be a comment on nor a continuation of debate on that other issue. I've accepted a reality there and am moving on.) HiLo48 (talk) 05:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Can Wikipedia really claim that civility is a pillar?

Disclaimer
In addition to various article space edits connected to sports, I have taken part in a discussion at Talk:Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics that continued at WP:DRN and had a side show at WP:WQA. I have just created an ANI case against one editor, but based on the first response and a quick check of recent ANI cases it is going nowhere, so I'll leave instead.

Per the five pillars civility is claimed to be a "fundamental principle" of Wikipedia. Given the above discussion it is clear that this is not true in practise. Given the current situation where incivility has no consequenses can you really claim that civility is a pillar? Isn't this giving false hopes to new editors who are willing to help, but do not wan't to be insulted by people who disagree? I find it completely unacceptable that someone who disagrees with someone can claim that the opponents are biased, having political agendas or are engaging in censorship without at least being told off. This was not what I signed up for (notwithstanding that I, in fact, never signed up), and I will leave now, despite fundamentally supporting the project's principles.
To close of my short Wikipedia career: If you truly desire a civil working environment for your volunteers it is clear that reforms are needed to enforce civility, and if you don't you might as well be honest about it and remove the pillar that has crumbled to dust. 88.88.166.230 (talk) 15:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The simplest response to that, as has been done many times above, is to ask you to define civility in a way that everyone here will always agree with. HiLo48 (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Justice Potter Stuart said of pornography 'I know what it is when I see it', and incivility is defined by many in the same way. --Pete (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

And what was considered pornography 40 years ago would mostly not be nowadays. We do urgently need to rewrite and clarify the civility policy, or mark it as historical. There are ample other policies (WP:BLP for one) which could still cover the most egregious personal attacks and bullying, and I think it'd be good to avoid the frequent dramas caused by people's differing interpretations of the current policy. --John (talk) 21:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I did offer my opinion on the definition in the appropiate section: Ad hominem arguments and attacks never improve this project, and are civility issues that can be enforced. While other things may be considered rude, I see your point that people will not agree (e.g. I don't consider bad language a civility problem). Now consider comments meeting the dictionary definition of ad hominem. Have you ever been the target of an ad hominem and thought that it was "civil". If you target the person not the arguments you should be told that this is unacceptable, followed by escalating sanctions for repeat offences (subject to stricter sanctions in the case of serious personal attacks, and additional warnings in mild cases, both as decided by admins based on guidelines decided by consensus). Generally, it is nicer (though it is still a poor argument) to say "that comment you made was stupid" than "you are stupid" so if you do the latter you have made the choice to deliberately offend and should face sanctions anywhere civility is expected, and according to your pillars it is expected here.
My second point concerning the removing of pillar status of civility if you are unable to enforce it, can't be dismissed by asking me to define civility. If it can't be defined and enforced it should be downgraded from pillar status to essay, as it clearly is not of equal status as the rest, a point only John responded to. 88.88.165.212 (talk) 21:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposal of a rule against ad hominem arguments and attacks

Note also that ad hominem arguments, even if not uncivil, are typically fallacious, and are unworthy of our community. We can get along fine without rudeness and red herrings drawn into discussions, and those who can't do without them.
— Charles Matthews (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see how ad hominems can ever be seen as a positive for this project. I am not the first person to mention this here as the quote starting off the section shows, but I feel it deserves its own section. Why? Because it is possible to make a rule making ad hominems punishable. Of course, there are grades of severity to work out, but have you ever been the target of one and thought that it was "civil". Even if we struggle to define civility overall, it is possible to find some easily definable forms of incivility we can more easily make clear, enforceable rules against. Even if not all ad hominem are considered particularly uncivil, they are in any case undesirable as they do not advance the consensus building process. For these reasons I propose a system where all ad hominems are considered punishable, with escalating sanctions for repeat offences. First offence is a warning, obviously. I don't know enough of the possible sanctions you have here to suggest the rest of the ladder, but I think the principle of escalating sanctions is used for other rules. In any case it is a sound principle. The ladder would obviously not excuse ad hominems serious enough to violate WP:NPA, the only civility rule I think is still generally enforced. 88.88.165.212 (talk) 22:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Ad hominem arguments do not help discussion. Neither do straw man arguments and any number of other fallacious debating techniques. You cannot legislate against crap arguments, but you do have to recognise them for what they are and treat them accordingly. pablo 22:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I keep wondering something, but I'm not sure how to express it without anyone thinking it's ad hominem. The term ad hominem is the problem. I had never heard of it before I came to Wikipedia. Maybe it's common in some cultures, but certainly not mine. I'd suggest we drop it completely. Using language unlikely to be understood by a significant portion of our readership seems to me like a form of snobbery and "I'm cleverer than you are" language. (And please don't tell me they can look it up. That would pretty much prove my point.) HiLo48 (talk) 22:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

A valid concern. Is it really snobbery to expect people to click a link if they don't understand the rule? No matter, the term is not important. The concept of not allowing arguments against the person at all, and sanctioning repeat offenders, can be introduced without it. (E.g: "All attempts to argue against an opponent's idea by discrediting or attacking the opponent himself is considered a form of incivility. Repeated offences can lead to sanctions.") To use your comment as an example: You say that using the term may be considered snobbery, which is valuable input. Someone could have said "don't listen to the snobbish IP", which is mildly incivil behaviour that is easily identifiable and should be rectified by warnings. Of course, one-offs should be treated more mildly than attempts to "win" discussions by scaring everyone away. Perhaps we should limit the sanction to warnings for all isolated incidents (not counting the really serious ones covered by other rules). It is less serious if you slip up once every discussion, than if you use it deliberately several times in the same discussion in an effort to "win" it. I hope this answers your concerns. 88.88.165.212 (talk) 23:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

HiLo48, I understand the miscommunication concerns when using difficult words, but I fear when our society starts tailoring to the lowest common denominator that we'll eventually end up with Idiocracy. I'd rather not. I'd rather, like 88.88.165.212, expect folks to want to educate themselves instead of us dumbing it down.--v/r - T P 14:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we are here talking about ad hominem in the general sense of the logical fallacy, so we should perhaps use the term "abuse". There are probably many case of argumentum ad hominem that should not be a reason for applying any type of enforcement and, though misguided, are not reprehensible --Boson (talk) 23:13, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Correct, in a way. In one sense I am talking about the logical fallacy, but I wouldn't ban it because it is a logical fallacy. The other logical fallacies can only hurt the person using them, whereas this one is also an attack on the person they are discussing with. I cannot see good reasons for allowing people to attack one another (and I think the project have lost many good editors for this reason), whereas I have no problem with people arguing poorly. It is certainly true that not all ad hominem are equally rude, but I can not come up with one that is genuinely civil. 88.88.165.212 (talk) 23:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that abusive attacks should be prohibited (indeed they are; the problem is with interpretation and enforcement). However not all ad hominem arguments attack the other editor in an abusive manner. They may simply raise the issue of potential bias where this is not logically justified. For instance, if one editor removes some criticism of the Acme Widget Corp. with the edit summary "poorly sourced and not NPOV" and another editor restores the content giving the reason that user Acme001 is clearly biased, this is probably ad hominem: the editor who removes the content is arguing for removal on the basis that the content violatesWP:NPOV and the editor who restores the content is implictly arguing that WP:NPOV does not apply because of the other user's bias (which cannot affect the truth or otherwise of the argument). The editor removing the content may be acting in perfectly good faith and the removal may be justified, but the argument is still ad hominem. And I wouldn't say it is inherently uncivil to claim that someone is biased, particularly if the conflict of interest is obvious. --Boson (talk) 11:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, would say that it is inherently uncivil to claim someone is biased in a content discussion. In the context of the goals of this project it is very uncivil, as it is a claim of working against the principles and goals of the project. If you think an editor is biased you should report it at an appropiate location. I am leaving Wikipedia because a case of repeated claims of bias or having agendas (against all the editors disagreeing, not just me) was not considered a violation of the civility policy. Volunteers should not have their integrity questioned, except at the forums where genuine cases of suspected rule violations are discussed and decided. Thank you all for your feedback. I have decided to make this my final comment for the foreseeable future. 85.167.108.93 (talk) 12:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

"it is inherently uncivil to claim someone is biased in a content discussion" - experience resulting in multiple ARBCOM sanctions from homeopathy to the troubles has shown that there are lots of editors who have come to wikipedia solely to promote their individual biases; and it would not be beneficial to the project to prevent such cases from being pointed out. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we could, or would even want to, enforce this across the project but I could support enforcement on article talk pages. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Involuntary incivility

A long way above I made some comments about judging the civility or otherwise of a statement as "Would a reasonable person be offended by this?" A statement may be couched in the nicest possible language and be grossly offensive when decoded, or a soldier may swear his boots off and mean nothing by it. It is the overall attitude that determines whether a statement is a personal attack or an incivil rant, I suggest, not the actual words.

However, the reverse of the coin is the question, "Was this statement intended to be offensive?" Some editors might unintentionally say things which are hurtful. A cultural dissonance, a slip of the mind, whatever. I mentioned the example of two editors, neither of whose first language was English, wrangling over one saying to the other that he was "patronising this discussion."

And the third side is that some editors - a great many diligent and productive editors - are somewhere on the autism spectrum. They don't get sublety, they aren't good at emotion, they see things in black and white. I've noticed some people quite unable to admit that they are wrong in any detail. If there is a problem, it must be the other person's fault. If only others would see things in the same way, all would be clear.

Contradict these people often enough, and they are convinced that you are actively planning their downfall by denying the truth and provoking them into sudden tempests. I had my run-ins, many years ago, with an editor who would deny the most obvious of statements if it meant conceding a point. He would become aggressively abusive because he just couldn't see his error and assumed that I was somehow deliberately provoking him.

How do we deal with such people? --Pete (talk) 09:17, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The only thing I find disputable here is that it's impossible to judge a person's intentions. Or more accurately, it's entirely possible to judge a person's intentions but impossible to get them to admit it when doing so would be testifying against themselves. And folks will Wikilawyer over that until the collective arguments over civility cause Wikipedia to become self-aware.--v/r - T P 14:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly right! It's a feedback loop, a vicious circle. If you disagree, then you are lying, or misunderstanding, or actively provoking them until the only way out is a tantrum of Rain Man or Curious Incident proportions. Hard to understand, hard to deal with, but definitely disruptive and generally involving personal attacks and incivility. Some editors are better than others in dealing with this pattern of behaviour, but Wikipedia is full of a diversity of characters and when two good editors are yelling at each other, each convinced that they are 100% in the right, they end up on AN/I. --Pete (talk) 00:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Tparis is exactly right. We are not a court of law, we can't decode someone's motives as we are not trained nor empowered to do so. We can only judge their actions because they are in front of us. That is what makes civility nearly impossible to enforce in a fair and equal manner, as it is in the eye of the beholder. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

All of the Pillars are in the eye of the beholder. Users even disagree about what exactly a source is saying -- yet, we come to agreement on that and the many hard issues. All users because they are people have a POV (there is no humanly way possible for them not to have a POV) but we come to agreement on what is NPOV and what is POV. Civility, including NPA, is the Project's mode of communication, we can and often do come to consensus on that too. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that my original point is that some editors - and I am sure we have all encountered them, fabulous on detail work, not so good socially - feel they have no other way to communicate but to be deliberately rude, or to express their own distress in heated language. I feel extremely uncomfortable whenever this happens because I honestly don't wish to upset a good editor, but if there is a problem that needs resolution, it needs resolution and when incivility occurs, it is a distraction. And a distraction that often sours further productive coöperation and draws in others to wrangle the thing down.

I wonder if it is possible to implement a "smoke alarm" sort of incivility detector to raise a flag whenever a talk page contains more "fucks" than usual, or when other words are used. "Stupid" and "incompetent", "lying" and "dishonest", for instance. Not so much to bring Constable Savage galloping in to kick heads but to alert the participants that if they don't cool it, they are going to bring more eyes down upon their discourse. Eyes that might not necessarily be happy on observing the fracas. --Pete (talk) 00:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Essential viewing

Civility is an issue Wikipedia will never "resolve", but hopefully it can be accommodated in a rational and functional way. It is connected to a universal issue: How do we handle the feeling that we have been insulted by what other people say or how they say it? It is not going to be resolved by rule makers who want to bolt everything down inside a civility guideline. I strongly recommend that anyone who is serious about accommodating civility issues on Wikipedia views this video. --Epipelagic (talk) 20:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. He puts it well, clearly, and with great humanity. We want to be a society where we construct an encyclopaedia, not one where we are Constable Savage arresting everyone who says fuck in a loud voice. But having said that, we don't want to encourage it, neither. --Pete (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Free speech is great. However, this is not a free speech forum, it's a forum with a mission. There are free speech forums, but those are best protected by allowing other kinds of speech forums too. In particular, here, on this Project, specialized and practical speech forums. Also, in the mention of a "universal issue," your comment misses the particular issue at hand, which is "how do we create a forum for a wide group of people to work together (and sometimes) disagree in mutual respect." Finally, the "universal issue" identified is partial, viz. How do we handle the feeling that [many] are insulted by what other people say or how they say it? Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Civility Enforcement RFC

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Civility § Civility Enforcement RFC

Nobody Ent 19:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

As it appears that ArbCom is going to decline dealing with incivility again and punt the issue back to the community to come up with a solution I'm going to Sheppard this topic into either endorsed policy or deprecate Civility to a guideline. The never ending "Don't Do that" warnings issued at long term editors in good standing with no reduction in disruption simply reinforces that Civility is not a policy, but a guideline and ignored whenever editors or admins feel like it.

I propose 2 mutually exclusive suggestions.

The Policy of civility be down ranked to a guideline as it is free to be ignored at any time. This includes changing references to a civility policy to civility guideline.
An appropriate regimen of warnings/sanctions be put in place with appropriate supervision/protection so that both rogue admins are restrained from hasty judgments and good faith applications of sanctions stick regardless of the editors contributions to the community.

I personally acknowledge that I have been less than civil with respect to one article space, and as such speak from a reformed user's position and not from behind the veil of ignorance. Hasteur (talk) 12:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Unless 2 is more explicitly outlined, it's going to be difficult to debate this proposal. What is "appropriate"? What do you mean by "supervision"? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Option 2 is the 4 levels of warning + Escalating Blocks (24 hrs, 72 hrs, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, Indef). Supervision is for this defined as the appeal process, being able to question the sanction at the Administrator's Noticeboard, and the standard moving back down the sanction ladder if the user does not cause more disruption by being incivil. Hasteur (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

So you're going with the strictly regimented system, as opposed to allowing for discretion? And you're assuming incivility is always inherently disruptive? And you're suggesting the 4-level system for established editors? And you're not attempting to define at what level incivility merits warning or action? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Wow... Since it seems crystal clear to me I'll try to make it clearer for you. Warnings can be issued by any editor. It's assumed that the editor is going to look at the user's talk page to see if it's chronic incivility or if it's just a user having a bad day. Incivility is the disrespect of other editors which is disruptive to the collaborative editing environment, so yes I make the assumption that incivility is always inherently disruptive. Being incivil shows lazyness or the inability to articulate your position. The hordes of annonymous IP editors are already being dealt with in terms of other policies. I am explicitly proposing this to deal with established editors in good standing who have worn out the patience of many in the community with their chronic incivility and unwillingness to improve upon their behavior. I am not defining what level incivility merits warning or action because at this point we already have a very good definition of what incivility is and it becomes the administrators discretion to apply sanctions once the patience of the community at large has been exhausted.Hasteur (talk) 13:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

What if an admin came by, decided that your "Since it seems crystal clear to me I'll try to make it clearer for you" line crossed his bright-line for incivility, and blocked you for 24h right now? Deserved? Tarc (talk) 13:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I would not reverse it; that sentence was clearly not intended to be collaborative, and if an admin chose to block for it that should be accepted as a reasonable choice that other admins should respect. But I don't accept the idea that it's impossible to determine what is "too much" and what is "OK"; we do it all the time. In the cases that lead to the most drama, it the people involved would benefit from having time off of wikipedia to compose their thoughts. The deeper concern is that this handful of users gives a bad example to others and in that way can bring down the tone of the entire site. That's why it's important to handle it quickly if a particular user is clearly not taking control of their comments. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Tarc. If we already had a very good definition of what incivility is that everyone agreed with and applied, this wouldn't be an issue at all. I also don't think the four-level warning system, which is designed for IPs/newbies, applies well to editors who actually know what the rules are. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Re Tarc: I'd assume the administrator would have taken into consideration the context and the fact that for the most part I behave myself fairly well. And if they did block me for the 24 hours, I'd accept said block or offer reasoning on my talk page as to why I am no longer disruptive to the project. Hasteur (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Re to Nikkimaria Giving established editors an opportunity prior to blocking to change their behavior endorses the preventative nature of sanctions. If established editors ignore the warnings (cautions) then they deserve the restriction of editing privileges. Hasteur (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I support #1. Let's all just stop pretending that a handful (admins + the usual AN, ANI, AE, etc...luminaries) of anonymous users can ever actually regulate the minutiae of behavior of millions of other anonymous users. Block for the blatantly racist/homophobic/misogynist comments, but leave the rest alone. After a few months of everyone having fun being able to tell everyone else to "shut the fuck up", "piss off", "don't be a wanker", and other colorful turns of the English phrase, the charm of actually being able to do so will wear off, and we'll be at the usual low-level of noise that one sees most everywhere else on the internet these days. Tarc (talk) 13:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the users who say things like "shut the fuck up" are the same people with whom we have to collaborate on the wiki. Unlike an internet message board where we can simply ignore them. The wiki is a collaborative project, and it is appropriate to expect a certain level of professionalism and decorum from people who want to participate - particularly from experienced editors. Editors who say things like "shut the fuck up" are clearly out of line. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

But that's the thing; what if you (the general you, not you you necessarily) deserved such a statement? Perhaps the person to whom it was directed said something monumentally stupid, maybe a tired harangue on the evil liberals who allegedly dominate Wikipedia's political BLPs or a rant about how the Wikipedia hates Muslims because it chooses to display images of Muhammad, or had repeated the same perennial argument for the 19th time. I'd say there are people around here who probably deserve a good "shut the fuck up" once in awhile. Perhaps I am one. It goes in line with one of the principles of WP:DICK (which IMO should be the true guiding civility policy); "if someone has called you a dick, consider for a moment the possibility that they may be right". Tarc (talk) 14:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes we cannot express in public just how feel about someone else and we have to use polite words instead - everyone who makes it through primary school has been taught this. So if someone I trust needs to "shock me to my senses", it's just like any other situation where you would pull a friend aside in private to give them frank advice. A public wiki discussion page is not the place for that kind of frank advice; it's not at all like a private email, a room with closed doors, or a private discussion between friends at a pub. It's a public forum for colleagues - but not necessarily friends - to collaborate on wiki articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The underlying problem is not the civility policy, it's that arbcom has failed to support the admins who make reasonable blocks for civility, by allowing any other admin to undo the block and by not taking action when the block was appropriate. The solution is not for us to weaken the civility policy, it's for us to stop accepting clear violations of it. The strength to do that, unfortunately, has to come from arbcom, because they are the only ones in a position to sanction the admins who make bad unblocks. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

But the community at large disagrees about what a "reasonable block" for civility is, and many don't believe that "shut the fuck up" is necessarily block-worthy. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This is the problem - the community does not all need to agree that they would have made the same block. They just need to believe that a reasonable admin could have made the block, and then respect that even if they would not have made the block themselves. The problem is admins who say "I don't agree with this block so I now reverse it". Those admins are the source of the problem, and it will take arbcom to deal with them.

I also disagree there there is really a significant segment of the community who think that "shut the fuck up" is a reasonable comment to make on this site. Rather, there is a small but vocal minority who argue this, and by doing so claim that the issue has no consensus. This small collection most likely includes both some younger editors who are just acting out their youthful rebellion ("stick it to the man by saying fuck!") and some older editors who never developed the maturity to control their tongue when they are upset. The majority of editors here - of all ages - realize that we should conduct ourselves in a professional manner. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(I often get the urge to be bluntly rude to some of our more stubborn or rude editors, but I always (hopefully) quell that urge before hitting "save". It won't change the mind of the person I'm communicating to, and it will taint the atmosphere for everyone else who has to read it.)

The real fine-line is when it comes to matters of sarcasm, and (potentially) unintended nuances - in those situations, a gentle word is much better than a warning or a block (unless it's a continual problem, and the editor ignores gentle pleas to be civil...). —Quiddity (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose options 1 and 2. Both are an overreaction. The ArbCom decisions is about process and not the civility policy. Don't see a valid reason to change the policy based on the recent decision. Frankly, the painting the admins as rogue doesn't seem like good faith to me. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions: Are there differences between incivility and a pattern of incivility, between what I consider to be uncivil and what you consider to be uncivil? Do we expect editors who have edited here for years to never have a bad day, and for an instant lose it. Collaboration with human beings also means more in my mind than professional behaviour. It means people are dealing with each other as human beings in total and all that that means There are "incivilities" which undermines other people and ultimately the encyclopedia that are far worse for the Wikipedia project than a swear word. At what point does incivility become abusive? As long as single admins have the power to make unilateral decisions we can expect contention over blocks.

Opinions:The idea of Incivility is abstract in nature and its concrete manifestations contentious. An ongoing lack of civility is based on a fundamental disrespect for other people. In a collaborative project, I, as an editor must respect what my colleague considers disrespectful when I interact with him, not what I consider disrespectful. Not only must I respect that other person, but their sensibilities whether I like them or not. If I am in Japan do I have a right to do something which hurts or offends someone else because it doesn't hurt or offend me me. No.

This isn't an arb problem. This is a general community situation. We may have to visibly support ongoing collaborative behaviour that is, thinking about the other person, and we may have to set a standard clearly outlined for how we are expected to behave towards other people in this very specific culture and its environment, to clearly delineate at what point those boundaries have been broken ,and what we do about it at every step. If we aren't mature enough as people to respect other people, we may have to as a community police this aspect until we can. And as long as this encyclopedia includes all kinds of people of all ages and as long as the community is constantly shifting and changing as new people enter and others leave, we may always have to have in place a system to police behavior,

Solution: If I had my way I would flip our civility policy, call it Behavioural Policy and begin it with an extended but friendly and easy to read collection of points about community, collaboration and respect. I would add the more specific points about behaviour concerns. Then I would outline specific remedies for behavior that have gone beyond the boundaries of what can reasonably be expected ,that create concerns. So first teach. I would link this to every new user page.

Gets off soapbox.(olive (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC))

Re to ZuluPapa5 In the previous ArbCom Decision there was an encouragement to form some sort of policy regarding civility (and the lack of). This thread is directly motivated by the current ArbCom request where ArbCom appears to be again declining to wade into the mire of this dispute and kicking it back to the community to come up with a policy. As has been mentioned several times in the case request, the Civility Policy (and the pilar it stands on) is such a joke that there have been suggestions that we degrade it to the level of guideline. Finally, I chose the term rogue admin to describe admins whom decide to use the administrator toolset in innovative ways that is likely to be overturned. I have also heard the term "cowboy admin" used in the case request thread to represent similar behavior. Hasteur (talk) 16:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with any regime of strict enforcement is that such a regime may not place the mission of Wikipedia first. First and foremost we are here to build an encyclopedia, every time we enforce a policy by block or other sanction, we need to consider if the particular sanction will support that mission. As a general principle, creating a community filled with civility, with every editor getting along positively with every other editor would certainly be the best possible situation and would benefit the core mission. The reality is that there will be some friction, and editors may say some intemperate things from time to time. Certainly it is fair to warn them and ask that they try to be more considerate, but if that doesn't work and we want to consider further enforcement action, it becomes necessary to evaluate the whole editor, not just their incivility. Will a block change their conduct, and if it strongly appears blocks will not, is the core mission served by escalating the blocks until the editor is blocked for a very long time or indeffed? I for one do not accept that an editor with a track record of incivility necessarily does so much harm to the mission that their positive contributions cannot outweigh it. As to the actual question Policies are not hard rules either, we are still expected to use common sense to apply policies to the facts of a particular case, so I'm not sure it is really necessary to demote the page to a guideline. Monty ₈₄₅ 16:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

My personal quibble with current civility enforcement is that it is uneven-- popular editors or editors that contribute a lot of stuff get a lot more leeway to be assholes than Joe Q Public, who gets insulted by one of these people, responds in kind, and then gets smashed with a block or hauled onto WP:ANI to be pilloried in public. Jtrainor (talk) 16:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd disagree strongly with the notion that we are first here to build an encyclopedia. If that were the case, we'd have built this encyclopedia with experts in each topic area years ago. Wikipedia has been branded with the words "encyclopedia anyone can edit" which means, that we are here to build an encyclopedia in a collaborative environment and community with the aid of anyone who decides to edit. This means to me that the community and the work of the community are bound inextricably together. Allowing behaviour that hurts other editors hurts the community and can only in the end damage the encyclopedia. Damage the creators and you damage the creation. I agree the blocking and banning is uneven and always will be as long as admins have unilateral power based in part on their subjective judgement to carry out those actions, and as long as we as community members do not take the time to really investigate claims against our fellow editors no matter how time consuming and tedious. There are a few editors who can be depended on for that kind of input. Seems to me what we have to do is give admins as much in the way as guidelines as we can with out creating constipation... so to speak.(olive (talk) 20:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC))

I pretty much thought the solution was here dangerous panda 09:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

We have a mission and purpose here to build an encyclopedic, and the community expects us to conduct that with civility. Enforcement is the issue. Unfortunately, the way Wikipedia policy based enforcement is set up, there is very little concern for prior precedent and case history to keep it fair. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 21:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to any suggestion to deprecate Civility to a guideline. And kinda liked Littleolive oil's suggestion of Admin Guidelines! The community is not as cohesive as we'd like. There are many editors signing up everyday and not everyone one of them has an innocent reason for registering and probably just as many new IP users with the same reasons to edit here. There is a need for as many editors to particpate in dispute resolution as possible as this is an urgent need at the moment and probably always was and always will be. I mean - editors need to do more than join a consensus discussion once in a while. We need editors willing to do just what Olive said, look into the disputes/conflicts and see if claims are accurate just like anything else written down and stored away. No...I don't think the answer is more rules, the answer is enforcing the policy...as a community because that is how it is just done. Civility is a community issue just like content. It needs to be dealt with seriously. Behavior and conduct is more than a Miss Manners or Ask Ann Landers. But at the same time it cannot over burden the community (which it quickly is) by boggin down the various noticeboards. Is yet another noticeboard the solution? Doubtful when we just closed Wikiquette assistance and the Mediation Cabal (the cabal, which never existed, and now does not exist even more than it did not exist before). We cannot just add a four step warning system alone and expect any real advancement, growth or improvement.

Are editors here aware of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Reforming dispute resolution? Seems we have a disussion underway to reform the DR process. These two RFCs seem to have similar purposes. I should cross post this RFC over there as well. But I do not support reducing a policy to a guideline just because Arbcom kicked this back to us.--Amadscientist (talk) 10:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

This has already been announced in the dispute resolution project talk page. The idea to deprecation is, in all honesty, a suggestion of the absurd to try and snap editors who are frequently rude out of their percieved behavior. This is not the first time that ArbCom has kicked the issue back to us. As evidenced in the deprecation of the initial step in civility dispute resolution (WP:WQA) the investigation/slap on the nuckles route did not work. I am personally endorsing a more enforced set of steps for civility violations. Hasteur (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I don't actually see the civility problem as one needing to be addressed, so I would be OK with marking the page historic. Still, as long as there seems to be consensus that some (no consensus on details IMO) degree of civility should be preserved, I would prefer implementing escalating blocks (24h×2ⁿ⁻¹) with no detailed administrators' instruction for a trial period. Interested editors should be assigned to track the record of such blocks during trial period, so that some stats could be made available afterwards for soliciting community input for an evidence-based administrative instructions. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 18:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Just silly We gotta use common sense. Any attempt to draw a line in the sand and provide rigid definitions of what is and isn't okay will provide the target the warring edits will push each other to cross. Some editors are overly blunt for the world wide culturally varying culture that Wikipedia is. But others are conniving assholes who will use any gamemanship to get their crappy POV version of an article into play. All these proposal to automate/regimate/dictate civility enforcement will lead to gamemanship and folks ratting out their opponents. Nobody Ent 21:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Support demoting this policy by either option (preferably 1 - the second requires agreement on specific details!). To say that it is inconsistently enforced is an understatement -- more, it's irrationally enforced. For example, saying that someone is a "homophobe", even with marginal evidence, seems to all but guarantee a block, but saying "why the fuck are you still editing Wikipedia" generally gets laughed off. The admins chant cute/obnoxious little memes like "obvious troll is obvious" ... it sounds like they're running 4chan or something. I have called this policy "Wikipedia's War On Drugs", because it seems to me that the more effort goes into enforcing it, the more bad feelings are stirred up between editors. Wnt (talk) 08:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Leave as-is and gradually improve For better or for worse, the fuzziness regarding wp:civility is no different than that at the other policies and guidelines. The real fixes are:

Improve the policies and guidelines
We need a way to review situations that is "in between" the two extremes now: 1. Action by a single admin. An admin can be a just a kid who has gained the toolbelt. and #2. Arbcom.

North8000 (talk) 11:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Leave as is. There is no excuse for incivility, and in my experience, it is just a poor substitute for editors with weak criticisms. --Iantresman (talk) 14:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

See, that comment is so stupid I can feel the fuck you grow out of my forehead. --213.196.195.236 (talk) 22:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I support #1. I am personally appalled by the level of language that I encounter and that some editors spend their Wiki time blocking and goading experiences serious content providers. If you recognise yourselves in that description- please, just come round and share a coffee with me. It is nothing personal. Equally I am concerned about the group of poor souls who wield wikipolicys when all logic has failed. To counter that disruptive trend and to encourage new editors we should have as few policies as possible- and each of them should be clear, unambiguous, culturally neutral and enforced. This civility thing fulfils none of those conditions and an accusation is totally impossible to refute. It has become entwined with the cultural interpretation of inappropriate language while failing to understand that what is acceptable in one language register is unacceptable in another. While we can all agree that respect is essential- most of Wikipedia:Civility seems to be a series of guidelines written from a white- anglo- saxon- protestant perspective. I have been asked to comment so I have reread the text that is supposed to define the offence. Surely the writing of a policy should be of GA standard, look Wikipedia:Civility#Incivility:

Incivility consists of one of more of the following behaviors: personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviours—when such behavior disrupts the project and leads to unproductive stressors and conflict.

What are stessors? What is 'one of more'? How does one judge when an aggressive behavior become aggressive behaviors. To what 'behavior'does 'such behavior' refer: the whole lot or just the aggressive behaviors that follow the word 'and'. Why is there a comma before the 'and'? --ClemRutter (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I can answer part of your question. See Oxford comma.

OOPS I had not realized this discussion was ongoing when I opened Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Civility enforcement. It is not so much about this one page as it is the broader subject of how to define civility and what types of sanctions, if any, there should be for incivility. I don't know what that means as far as this RFC goes but of course everyone is welcome to come over there and participate as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Leave and improve - if there's any interest in getting more women, older people and polite people involved, as opposed to a sinking project mired in stupid food fights. I personally enjoy a good food fight from time to time, but I find that those who start it can't handle it when others give it back to them. Especially if they/we/me are just on the polite side of incivility, with the most withering and unctuous air of superiority. (I know there's one word that sums that up but the sexagenarian brain isn't retrieving it at the moment.) Imagine your father or grandmother on here all the time chiding your youth, if you want to think about getting rid of civility guidelines. heee heee heee I'm having the best laugh of the day right now!!! Please don't report me for incivility, even if I DO deserve it... 16:41, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment I am opposed to the blocking of editors for incivility unless there is no alternative. To cite an example from above, I would be appalled to see an editor blocked for writing "Since it seems crystal clear to me I'll try to make it clearer for you"

WP should concentrate on helping editors to work together rather that setting up a draconian and inflexible system of blocks. Generally it is much more effective for a bunch of editors to have words to someone who has been incivil than for an admin to apply a short block. Comment from other editors is far more likely to lead to a change of attitude and perhaps an apology than a block, which is likely to lead to resentment, withdrawal, and gaming the system. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:18, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment The policy has lost its status in the community, so I can see some sense in marking it as a guideline, however could effort be put into fixing it instead? Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 01:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

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