User:DreamGuy/CERFC

General questions

These questions are intended to try to determine what you may consider the "baseline" between what should be considered "valid collegiate discourse" and what should be considered "violation of the civility policy" (incivility). Please be as specific as you can in your responses.

Written versus spoken communication

When one is physically present when speaking with another person, body language, intonation, setting, and other physical factors, can suggest the intent of words in a way that words written on a page cannot.

Collegiality

Example: if a person is having a casual conversation with friends over a table covered with beer glasses and one of them wishes to contest a point another has made they might prefect their remarks with "listen up asshole and I'll explain it to you." If they are smiling and raising a glass towards the person this remark is pointed, it can help the words to be taken in the lighthearted manner in which it was intended.

Should such interaction as noted in the example above be considered incivility in the collegiate, collaborative environment of Wikipedia? Should the talk page location matter (such as whether the discussion is on a user talk page, an article talk page, or Wikipedia project-space talk page)?

• Reply: No and no. Not that there's really anywhere on Wikipedia where this example makes sense.

Profanity

Should all profanity (such as the use of "bad words", "four letter words", "the Seven dirty words", etc.), be considered incivility?

• Reply: No, not in and of itself.

All caps/wiki markup

There is an established convention when using technology to communicate through a typed format that WRITING IN ALL CAPS is considered "yelling" and is generally not acceptable. Individuals also sometimes use italics bolding green or other colored text or even enlarged text or other formatting code to attempt to indicate intonation, or to otherwise emphasize their comments.

Should there be limits as to when this type of formatting should be used in a discussion? Is there any type of formatting which should never be acceptable in a discussion?

• Reply: Italics and bolding are never a problem. All caps, colored text and (especially) large text can be impractical because they make the page significantly less easy to read; other editors should be able to fix it (converting to italics or bold as appropriate) if it goes beyond an occasional phrase in otherwise normally formatted text. These activities should be restricted only in the sense that people who do so risk not being taken seriously and may choose to stop using them after being told it's not in their best interest. The only formatting that is never acceptable is switching someone else's formatting for deceitful purposes -- quoting someone or editing the original text and changing the formatting so that others have a false sense of the way it was really said.

Enforcement and sanctions

Responsibility for enforcement

Who is responsible for maintaining a civil environment for collegiate discussion? Should it be it the responsibility of administrators, the arbitration committee, the broader Wikipedia community, or some combination of these?

• Reply: Everyone should be able to comment on it, assuming it's done in a good faith manner. Administrators should not have any special enforcement powers over it -- any warnings they give should be as a strong suggestion not backed up by any special abilities beyond what normal editors have. Serious cases can go to the arbitration committee.

Appropriate sanctions

What sanctions, if any, do you think are appropriate for incivility? Should blocking be considered an appropriate response to incivility? Should topic banning or interaction banning be considered an appropriate response?

• Reply: Incivility in itself should almost never be a cause for any sanctions. Blocking and topic banning should never be an appropriate response, especially because people have been gaming the system in this way for years in order to successfully get away with violations of policies. Interaction restrictions might be something an editor would recommend and that the arbitration committee could use.

Context

Should the context of the situation be taken into account when considering whether to apply sanctions to the individual due to incivility?

• Reply: Well, context is always important, but of course there's also the problem of various administrators and even arbitration committee members selectively enforcing blocks and trying to justify it with discussion of context that is not applied fairly. The only fair way is to admit that civility is something that has to be voluntary and choosing to use it is helpful toward getting things done successfully, not that if you slip you'll get blocked for it.

Severity

How severe should a single incident of incivility need to be to merit some sort of sanction?

• Reply: So severe that it violates some other policy (legal threats, harassment, etc.) and then sanction them based upon that policy and using the level of incivility as a gauge for choosing what is appropriate.

Instances of incivility

Should multiple instances of incivility in the same discussion be considered one offense or several? If a user is civil most of the time, but occasionally has instances of incivility, should these incidents be excused? If so, how often should such incivility be excused?

• Reply: If civility is a voluntary tactic chosen by editors who want to be successful then none of these make a difference. If Wikipedia wants to continue to use sanctions then most should be excused unless it is being used in a way that violates other policies.

Weighing incivility and contributions

Should the quality and/or number of contributions an individual makes outside of discussions have any bearing on whether an individual should be sanctioned due to incivility? Should the incidents of incivility be taken on their own as a separate concern?

• Reply: It shouldn't be necessary to weigh any of this if we don't sanction for incivility alone. But we should absolutely not be running off good editors just because someone is offended by something they say or because someone is taunting them as part of a gaming of the system.

Outcry

In the past, when an individual has been blocked from editing due to "violating the civility policy" (incivility), there has, at times, been an outcry from others concerning the block, and sometimes the block has been overturned subsequent to that outcry.

In an effort to reduce incidences of such an outcry ("drama"), should incivility be deprecated as an appropriate reason for blocking an individual? Should admins instead be required to have a more specific reason (such as personal attacks, harassment of another user, etc.), when blocking a user for incivility?

• Reply: Blocking is almost always inappropriate for incivility, at least the way it is currently enforced. The vast majority of the cases caused more problems than they solved.

AN/I prerequisite

Should a demonstrable consensus formed through discussion at WP:AN/I (or other appropriate forum) be required as a prerequisite to blocking an individual due to incivility? If so, should there be a minimum time frame for such discussions to remain open before the individual may be blocked?

• Reply: If we are to keep the option to block editors for this we absolutely need some way of demonstrating an informed and solid consensus before the block is made. AN/I would be an absolute minimum, but many of these have been rushes to judgment by involved admins. It should not be a matter of time but a matter of how many uninvolved admins agree... a bare minimum of at least ten or so should be necessary. If there is any dispute between admins that has more than even just 5% of admins disagreeing then no action should be taken. If anyone who voted to block are shown later to have been involved they should be stripped of their admin status until they go through a RFA again and also be blocked for however long they blocked the person. Blocking is serious business and needs to be treated seriously.

RFC prerequisite

A request for comment (RFC) gives the community the opportunity to discuss a behavioural concern (such as incivility) directly with the individual, with the intended goal of attempting to find a voluntary solution.

Should an RFC be required as a prerequisite for blocking a user of incivility? Should it be suggested and/or encouraged?

• Reply: Would prefer no blocking at all without some other policy involved, but RFC/U would be a nice way to lay out information to convince the user to change his or her behavior and to provide the basis for an ArbCom decision later if necessary.

Personal Attacks

Requests for adminship

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (RFA) is a place where an editor requests the additional tools and responsibilities of adminship. In the discussion concerning the specific request, each commenting editor is to convey whether (and why) they would (or would not) trust the requester with those tools and responsibilities. Due to this, typically the requester's actions, behaviour, and contributions are noted, evaluated, and sometimes discussed.

Due to the nature of RFA (a question of trusting an individual), should it be considered necessary for the standards concerning personal attacks be somewhat relaxed at RFA? What, if any, should be the limits to this? How personal is "too personal" at an RFA? What types of criticisms cross the line between being considered merely an evaluation of a candidate and being considered an unwarranted attack? Should comments considered to cross that line be left alone, stricken, moved to the talk page, or simply removed altogether?

• Reply: Comments that cross the line are a great way to see how a potential admin would react to difficult situations. If they are easily offended or easily upset they should not be given a position of power.

Attacking an idea

The Wikipedia community has a long tradition of not tolerating personal attacks. However, it may be difficult to differentiate whether an individual is commenting on a user's ideas or is commenting on the user themselves. The same is true concerning whether an individual may understand a particular idea.

How should this be determined? Should any of the following be considered a personal attack? Should any of these comments be considered the kind of incivility that we should not tolerate on Wikipedia?

"That idea is stupid"

"That is idiotic"

"That is yet another one of <username of proposer>'s stupid ideas and should be ignored"

"You don't understand/misunderstand"

"You aren't listening"

"You don't care about the idea"

• Reply: None of the comments above are in themselves bad, provided that they are part of a conversation where the reasons why are explained in detail and with reference to the applicable policies, rules or styles. Simply attacking someone should be discouraged, but disagreeing with an opinion or pointing out behavior that violates our expectations is absolutely necessary in order to get anything done. If a comment discusses opinion or behavior in any way then it is acceptable. If it is done solely to attack someone (like "He's just a fat slob." / "Your mother must have had syphilis." / etc.) then it definitely crosses the line.

Rate examples

In this section example comments will be presented. You are asked to evaluate each comment on the following scale:

• 1 = Always acceptable
• 2 = Usually acceptable
• 3 = Acceptability entirely dependent on the context of specific situation
• 4 = Usually not acceptable
• 5 = Never acceptable

Proposals or content discussions

• I assume you realize how foolish this idea sounds to the rest of us

rating: 1

• Typical of the foolishness I have come to expect from this user

rating: 3

• After looking over your recent edits it is clear that you are incompetent.

rating: 3

• Anyone with a username like that is obviously here for the wrong reasons

rating: 3

• You seem to have a conflict of interest in that you appear to be interested in a nationalist point of view.

rating: 1

• It is obvious that your purpose here is to promote your nationalist point of view.

rating: 3

• You are clearly here to support your nationalist point of view, Wikipedia would be better off without you.

rating: 3

• This is the stupidest proposal I have seen in a very long time.

rating: 3

• Whoever proposed this should have their head examined

rating 3

• I don't know how anyone could support such an idiotic proposal.

rating: 3

• This proposal is retarded.

rating: 4

• The person who initiated this discussion is a moron.

rating: 4

• This proposal is crap.

rating: 1

• This proposal is a waste of everyone's time.

rating: 1

• What a fucking waste this whole discussion has been

rating: 1

• A shitty proposal from a shitty editor.

rating: 4

• The OP is a clueless idiot.

rating: 4

• Please just stop talking, nobody is listening anyway.

rating: 1

• Just shut up already.

rating: 1

• File your sockpuppet investigation or STFU.

rating: 1

• Shut your fucking mouth before you say something else stupid.

rating: 3

admin actions

• The blocking admin has a long history of questionable judgements.

rating: 3

• The blocking admin needs to be desysopped of this is representative of their decision making abilities.

rating: 3

• The blocking admin is well known as an abusive rule nazi.

rating: 3

• I'm sure their admin cronies will just censor me like they do to anyone who points out the hypocrisy of all WP admins, but this was a terrible block.

rating: 3

• How could anyone with a brain in their head think it was ok to issue a block like this?

rating: 3

Possible trolling

• Your comments look more like trolling to me.

rating: 1

• Stop trolling or I will find an admin to block you.

rating: 3

• All I can say about this user is "obvious troll is obvious".

rating: 3

• Go troll somewhere else.

rating: 3

• Somebody block this troll so those of us that are here in good faith can continue without them.

rating: 3

removal of comments

(Assume all removals were done by a single user and are not part of a suppression action for privacy, libel, etc)

• Comment removed from conversation with edit summary "removed off topic trolling"

rating: 3

• Comment removed from a conversation and replaced with <redacted> or {{RPA}}

rating 3

• Entire discussion closed and/or collapsed using {{hat}} or other such formatting

rating: 3

• Comment removed from a conversation and replaced with "redacted twattery, don't post here again" with posting users signature still attached

rating: 5 if on a project page, but a 3 if this was on the user's personal talk page and it was in response to harassment or behavior that looked like it was leading to harassment

• Comment removed from conversation and replaced with File:DoNotFeedTroll.svg

rating: 3

Enforcement scenarios

The general idea that Wikipedians should try to treat each other with a minimum of dignity and respect is widely accepted. Where we seem to have a serious problem is the enforcement or lack thereof of this ideal. This section will submit various scenarios and ask to you to suggest what an appropriate response would be. Possible options include:

• ignoring it
• warning the users involved
• WP:RFC, WP:ANI, or other community discussions,
• blocking, either indefinitely or for a set period of time
• topic or interaction banning
• Any other response you feel would be appropriate

Please bear in mind that what is being asked for is not what you believe would happen but what you believe should happen.

Scenario 1

Two users are in a dispute regarding the name of a particular article on a geographic region. The debate is long and convoluted, and the motivations of the two users unclear to those unfamiliar with the topic. They have not used any form of dispute resolution to resolve the content dispute. They have not edit warred in the article but the discussion on the talk page has gotten extremely long and seems to be devolving into the users accusing one another of having ethnic/nationalist motivations. One users has said "You only believe that because you were educated in the Fubarian school system which filled your head with their lies." To which the other user replies "That is exactly what I would expect from someone who live in Kerzbleckistan. Everyone knows that Fubaritol has always been part of our great empire. Only Kerzblecki fat heads believe it isn't. "

• Response: Use the dispute resolution process.

Scenario 2

A long term user is blocked for edit warring. The proof that they did edit war is clear and obvious. On their talk page they are hosting a discussion regarding the block but are not formally appealing it using the unblock template. The blocking admin, seeing this discussion of their actions, attempts to explain that they are not making a value judgement on the appropriateness of the edits, just doing their job by enforcing the edit warring policy. The blocked user removes the admins actual comments but leaves their signature attached to the phrase "asshattery removed". Several of the blocked users friends comment on what a dumb block it is, how the blocking admin is a disgrace, that they should be desysopped, and sp on. The blocking admin comments again, asking that they either be allowed to participate in the discussion or that their comments and all discussion of them be removed entirely, not replaced with an insult with his signature attached to it. The blocked user again removes the admin's comments and adds the same insulting phrase in their place.

• Response

The blocking admin should go away and let the user cool off. The blocking admin should not be getting into a pissing contest on that user's talk page. Surely an administrator of Wikipedia should be informed and mature enough to know that "asshattery removed" is only a personal opinion of someone who is understandably upset and that anyone who wants to know what was actually said can just go to the page history. Any admin who has a problem with this is not someone who should be an admin. If that admin does not go away it should be used as evidence that the decision to block was made poorly or in bad faith and it should then be immediately reversed by any other admin who comes along.

Scenario 3

A user is apparently an expert in the field of eighteenth-century horse drawn carriages. Practically every word Wikipedia has on this subject was written by them. Their content contributions are generally above reproach. Unfortunately they are also extremely abrasive in interpersonal conversations. They routinely tell any user who disagrees with them to fuck off, that they were obviously educated in a barn, that their ignorance is matched only by what a douchebag they are, and so forth. They also exhibit a tendency to actually be on the correct side of an argument when they are at their most abrasive. They apparently believe that this excuses their condescension and insults. One such incident is brought up at WP:ANI. It is approximately the fifteenth time such an incident has occurred. Again, the user is making excellent content contributions and is probably right as to the facts of the actual dispute, but they have verbally abused the user who disagrees with them, insulting their intelligence and using profanity. An admin decides to block them for chronic incivility about three hours into the conversation at the noticeboard.

• Response: A single admin should never be able to make that decision. Blocking for incivility at AN/I should only be for extreme cases that need immediate response (generally ones that go beyond what the scenario describes) and should require agreement of a significant group (ten or more with agreement of 95% or more of those commenting) of admins willing to risk their positions on administrators on the fact that if it goes to ArbCom later that their decisions will be supported as having been the correct ones. Any ambiguity means it should not be done.

Scenario 4

Users A and B are in a dispute. They have already stated their positions many times each. As previously uninvolved users begin commenting on the situation user A stops commenting on the relevant talk page. User B opens a thread on user A's user talk page relating to the dispute and challenging user A's position. User A posts a reply indicating they feel they have stated their position enough times and they do not see any purpose in continuing. User B replies, asking for more details about some aspect of the dispute. User A closes the discussion on their talk page and in both a closing comment and their edit summary they say "User B please stop posting here." User B posts again anyway. User A removes their comments and in their edit summary they write "Stay the fuck off my fucking talk page, LIKE I SAID ALREADY."

• Response: User B should be warned that continuing to post there is essentially harassment. User A has already made clear that he or she does not want to discuss it there and is not obligated in any way to do so. There is no good faith reason to continue posting there at that point. If User B posts again after being warned then User B should be blocked for at least a day, more if the behavior continues. User B's actions and apparent belief that what he or she wants to say is more important than another editor's desire not to have it on his or her talk page are far more uncivil and disruptive to Wikipedia than some swear words and all caps comments in an edit summary.

Scenario 5

A user is unfailingly civil in their on-wiki interactions with other users. They have never been blocked. Yet it is discovered that on an off-wiki forum dedicated to discussing Wikipedia they constantly make grossly insulting profane remarks about other WP users. Another user emails them asking about this discrepancy, and they receive an email reply through the Wikipedia email system that is equally insulting and profane. When the issue is brought up at WP:ANI the user is again perfectly polite. They openly acknowledge that they are in fact the user making the comments on the off-wiki forum, and that they sent an insulting email. They feel none of that is relevant as their on-wiki communication has been above reproach.

• Response: The email should be treated as being on Wikipedia and subject to whatever sanctions that behavior would bring normally -- which should usually be nothing except the disapproval of other editors unless it gets taken to ArbCom. Behavior off the site completely is not subject to Wikipedia sanctions except when it proves an on-site violation of another site policy or rule (such as editor admitting/encouraging meatpuppetry, etc.).

Scenario 6

(Please bear in mind that this is a hypothetical scenario, not a description of the current situation)

The Wikipedia community is in a time of crisis. Arguments about civility are leading to more and more disruption and the project seems in danger of losing many long time contributors as a result. In desperation, the community decides to appoint one user to modify WP:CIVIL in any way they see fit in order to resolve these issues and restore order. In their wisdom they select you as that person.

• Response: The way WP:CIVIL is currently written is actually pretty good except for two things:

1) Enforcement has been extremely irregular, often with administrators engaging in behavior worse than the actions taken by the editors they block. Unpaid, amateur volunteers with little oversight and very little fear of facing repercussions for their actions who can make decisions about blocking other editors without consulting anyone else before doing so are naturally going to make poor decisions. When someone feels free to be rude and obnoxious while at the same time blocking an editor for being less than polite you have a real problem.

2) Having other, more important policies lack equally detailed rules and expectations -- and having no real *content* dispute resolution process -- leads to a great disparity between the stated goals of an encyclopedia and the actual end results. People frustrated by chronic POV pushers are eventually going to get stressed out and say something less than friendly. Worse than that, the people out to do bad things know this and use it to their advantage. If we suddenly got rid of bad editors who contribute nothing of any value to the project then we can start looking at encouraging everyone else to be friendly with each other.

Comments

Please use this section for any additional comments, observations, recommendations, etc.

Regardless of anything else, policies here should be changed so that it is far easier to block someone for chronic POV pushing, violations of copyright laws after clear warnings, spamming and other behaviors that fundamentally compromise the content of the encyclopedia than it is to block for mere hurt feelings. Civility is something that should be encouraged, but treating it as more important than actually creating a good encyclopedia encourages people to act more offended than they have any right to be and to purposefully create conditions for uncivil behavior to be displayed solely to disrupt the project and advance their own personal agendas.