User:Fluffernutter/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: Such "play" incivility is acceptable in limited circumstances onwiki. Those circumstances are basically a) that you are speaking to someone you know well, b) that you are speaking to someone who knows you well enough to intuit that you're kidding, c) that you are speaking among people who know you well enough to intuit that you're kidding, and d) that you know that such obscenities won't offend the person or people you're speaking to. This sort of play should never happen in article-talk or Wikipedia talk, because in such places it is impossible to know the answers to criteria c and d that I list above, and when in doubt about whether your situation fulfills the criteria, you should always opt to speak in a clear and inoffensive manner.

Profanity

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

• Reply: No. The mere existence of a "dirty word" isn't a problem. The problem arises when the "dirty word" is used against someone, in an insulting, belittling, or "other"ing manner. I should note, however, that there are certain "dirty words" that work by doing that "other"ing. To call someone a "nigger" or a "fag", or even to use those words toward a thing or situation rather than a person, is to dehumanize gays, black people, whoever is the subject of that word. No, saying "shit" or "fuck" shouldn't be considered uncivil if it's being used in a non-insulting context. But you can't use "cunt", "nigger", "spic", "fag", etc without being insulting, and those should be treated very differently and not tolerated.

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: I'm not terribly bothered by this to the point where I think we need to legislate it out of existence. All caps, "big" tags, "blink" tags, and the like, can be overwhelming when used excessively. However, the community doesn't seem to have any trouble expressing to people when they've crossed the line to excessive use as it is.

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: The community is responsible for enforcing its behavioral standards, in general. This would include asking people to refactor uncivil comments, expressing disagreement with overly harsh or nasty comments, attempting to calm heated situations, and generally promoting an atmosphere of collegiality. When those measures don't work - when the discussion does not lose its heat, or a person flies off the handle at someone else, or insults are being thrown around, then it's appropriate for an administrator to step in. If a quiet word from community members can't get someone to lay off the incivility, it may be necessary to block them to force it to a stop, and that's an administrative task. It is arbcom's responsibility to support administrators who are acting according to community behavioral standards, which would mean that if administrative action fails to stop the disruption (due to an intractable personality, due to a block/unblock cycle, due to community paralysis...), it falls to arbcom to back up the community's wishes.

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: All of the above are possibilities. Incivility should not be immediately dealt with by blocks or bans, but certainly if speaking to the uncivil person and asking them to control themselves fails, a block may be necessary to prevent them from continuing to abuse others. Topic bans are useful if the incivility stems entirely from participation in a certain issue. This tends to be rare, but when it happens a topic ban is a fine way to prevent the issue from reoccurring. Similarly, interaction bans can work, but only in extremely limited circumstances where someone's buttons are pushed solely by one other person. In other cases, use of interaction bans is, at best, a band-aid on the issue, which will just leak out somewhere else.

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 uh, yes? This is a very general question, so I'm not sure what sort of situation is being asked about. Context matters in some ways - if someone enters a discussion aggressively, carries on aggressively, and becomes nastier as time goes on, that is indeed different than someone who's been calm and constructive and utters one rude thing. If someone has a history of refusing to play well with others, that matters in how much rope we can afford to give them when we see them starting to go off the rails. Context does not matter in other ways - being "right" does not give you leave to attack or abuse others. Thinking the other person is asking a stupid or repetitive question also doesn't give you that right. "Protecting" an article, policy, etc, in whatever manner you believe necessary, still doesn't give you leave to abuse others in pursuit of that.

Severity

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

• Reply: Hate speech (racial, ethnic, sexual slurs) or threats (physical, legal, psychological) should not be tolerated and should be dealt with at first occurrence. Repeated or habitual incivility, where it's known that the person has a control problem, should similarly be acted against. General rudeness, one-off incivility, etc should be dealt with on first offense as well, but here "dealt with" could be anything from a quiet word with the person to hatting a discussion to stepping in to shepherd the discussion in a more direct manner.

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: Multiple instances should be treated as a single instance if they're rapid-fire or not responded to, multiple offenses if they continue after a warning/heads-up or over a long stretch of time. But we're not counting tick marks here, so I don't think it matters so much whether something "counts" as one demerit or two. If a user is generally civil, it's forgiveable (though still not acceptable) if they fly off the handle on an exceptional occasion. However, referring to it as "occasionally" in this context means that they do it repeatedly. It's not ok to say "Gee, you can attack others as long as you only do it once a quarter" or something. You don't get to save up extra incivility video game lives and then spend them on someone who really pisses you off or something. Incivility should be "excused" based on the degree to which the uncivil person understands why their behavior was unacceptable and commits to not repeating it, not based on how many weeks have passed since they last bit someone.

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: In a word, no. Writing articles (or copyediting, or uploading photos, or being a heavy contributor to one of the admin boards, or knowing Jimbo...) does not somehow cancel out antisocial behavior. Yay, you can write articles. Yay. Now how about you show us that you can also function in a collegial environment?

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: No. Incivility is a violation of our policies and pillars, the same way edit warring or socking are. I oppose any effort to make this policy unenforceable.

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: In an ideal world, yes. In the actual world, no. Any ANI thread is populated in roughly equal proportions by those interested in discussing administrator-related incidents, those who like the "accused", those who dislike the "accused", and those who like and dislike the people discussing the "accused". In most cases, it's not possible to get a neutral review of an incivility-related situation on ANI. It might be workable on a noticeboard or discussion forum with more limited access - an admin-only board, a board where you're required to have been involved in the incident or else completely uninvolved with everyone involved in the incident...some way to filter out the infighting and chatter and leave behind only the actual discussion.

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: No. An RfC is important for establishing a pattern of bad behavior, but it has no bearing on an instance of that behavior, which is what generally leads to blocks. If I've called someone a goatlicking cuntmonkey, someone toddling off to start a thirty-day RfC on whether I was rude doesn't - and can't - fix that.

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: No, incivility and personal attacks should not be allowed at RFA. It is 100% possible to oppose someone's RFA without belittling, insulting, or attacking them. If you're not adept enough with English and social relations to do that, you're probably not suited to contributing at RFA. Evaluations of the candidate are fine. Calling them names or stating that they lack value as a person are not.

Comments that cross the line should be removed by crats from the discussion. This would be new - crats currently refuse to police RFAs - but I believe it's the right way to go about things.

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:

"That idea is stupid" - Alone, this is a useless and inflammatory statement. When accompanied by an explanation, it's more abrasive than necessary but could provide information. It's always better to say something like "I don't think this idea will work, because [blah]" - why would you feel the need to call something "stupid" rather than just explaining what's wrong with it?

"That is idiotic" - This is not a statement of how good or bad an idea is; it's a statement that the idea/statement was said by someone stupid. Again, this carries no conversational value or meaning, and serves only to inflame. There is no value to using this except to express the speaker's dislike and frustration. If you're that upset with the discussion...just walk away.

"That is yet another one of <username of proposer>'s stupid ideas and should be ignored" - this is very much an unacceptable personal attack

"You don't understand/misunderstand" - this is perfectly fine

"You aren't listening" - this is impatient, but not a personal attack. Should always be accompanied by an explanation of what you think they're not hearing.

"You don't care about the idea" - unnecessarily inflammatory, but not a personal attack worthy of sanction. This statement should be a gateway to a discussion about why you think the other person doesn't care (are they not listening to your points? are they insulting you/the idea?), rather than a case to stomp off or start leveling attacks.

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: 3. This could be an expression of "Here is me, trying to explain to you how we're perceiving your idea", or it could be "nyah, you're dumb and your idea is dumb and we're all laughing at you!"

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

rating:4

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

rating:2

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

rating: 3. That'd depend on the username, wouldn't it? user:FluffernutterIsAnAssfaceWhoShouldDie is certainly here for the wrong reasons. user:IlikeTheWrongFootballTeam, not so much.

• 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. What is "obvious" to me is often not to others. Why not speak from the perspective of what I'm seeing, rather than making a blanket assumption?

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

rating: 4. Decent up until "better off without you" (though ime, things which are "clearly" X to me are often Y and Z to others) , which is an excessively aggressive way of phrasing something.

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

rating: 4

• Whoever proposed this should have their head examined

rating: 5

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

rating: 5

• This proposal is retarded.

rating: 5

• The person who initiated this discussion is a moron.

rating: 5

• This proposal is crap.

rating: 4

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

rating: 3. Unnecessarily inflammatory if "I don't think this proposal is going anywhere" would do. Why use charged language like this? See below for differentiation.

• What a fucking waste this whole discussion has been

rating: 4. Note that the difference between this and the item above is not the "dirty" word, it's the throwing away of a discussion into which people presumably put time as having been "a waste". This is different from saying that an idea is a waste of time, but not belittling the contributions of editors in discussing it.

• A shitty proposal from a shitty editor.

rating: 5

• The OP is a clueless idiot.

rating: 5

• Please just stop talking, nobody is listening anyway.

rating: 4. See below for differentiation.

• Just shut up already.

rating: 5. The difference here is the lack of any explanation. "Stop talking, because you're not getting through/people aren't listening" is different than "Stop talking, because rawr I am angry and feel you deserve no further explanation."

• File your sockpuppet investigation or STFU.

rating: 3-ish. Depending on the audience, "or stfu" could be acceptable shorthand for "or stop harping on it" or it could be offensive (see my comment way at the top about knowing your audience)

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

rating: 5

admin actions

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

rating: 3. Does the admin, even just to some people? This falls a bit into the "false accusations can be a personal attack" bin.

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

rating: 3. This is not uncivil, but it is, in many cases, unnecessary escalation - that is, calling for someone to be desysopped because of a single borked call usually stems from someone being upset rather than evidence of actual lack of admin abilities, in which case you're derailing discussion of a particular mistake to call for heads to roll.

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

rating: 5

• 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: 5. Blanket insults, labeling an entire class/group/type of people as lower? Assuming bad faith of everyone before anyone says a word? Nope nope nope.

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

rating: 4. Again, this is unnecessarily inflammatory. You may not cop an immediate block for it, but why are you saying it like this? Are you enjoying escalating the drama?

Possible trolling

• Your comments look more like trolling to me.

rating: 3. Calling something "trolling" is sort of a judgment call. There are cases where everyone agrees it's trolling, and there are cases where just the speaker thinks it's trolling. One tends to be acceptable, one doesn't. All of these "Trolling" items are fuzzy to me - I find the use of the label "troll" to be much less problematic than many other discourse issues we struggle with.

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

rating: 3. Same as above, though I hasten to point out that "...or imma get someone to block you" rarely has the desired effect on people who are truly trolling.

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

rating: 3/4. This is less "uncivil" than it is "fanning the flames of the discussion without adding anything useful, so why are you here saying it?"

• Go troll somewhere else.

rating: 4, I guess. "Go away" rarely has the desired effect.

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

rating: 4, I guess. Similar to above.

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: 4. If you're going to take the possibly-angering step of removing commentary, you need to do it in as calm, nonjudgmental, and non-inflammatory a way as possible. Calling something "trolling" is not that way.

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

rating: 1

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

rating: 1

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

rating: 5

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

rating: 4

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: Warn users, pointing out that the issue is not going to be resolved by this name-calling. If they persist, especially if the conflict is not just these two disliking each other in particular, look into relevant Discretionary Sanctions that would allow the users to be topic-banned from this ethnic issue. If DS and topic-bans are applied and users persist, consider blocking. If users persist after blocks expire, consider RfC (if issue can survive 30 days of people sitting on their hands and discussing) or ANI (if emergency)

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: (note: none of the steps I'm about to outline should be taken by the original blocking admin. They're too involved in this situation and should be sitting this one out so neutral admins can handle it) Blocked user loses their talk page access, for disruptive use of their talk page while blocked. Blocked user's friends are told to either start a noticeboard thread/RFAr if they think there was serious admin misconduct, or otherwise disperse and go about their business; their behavior is not helping their friend, nor is it resolving the underlying issue. If they continue to agitate without using DR steps, they are warned again to disengage with the personal attacks. If they continue, an uninvolved admin should consider whether protecting the blocker user's talk or blocking the people issuing the personal attacks is likely to stop the disruption by the friends. If yes, do that one. If no, consider ANI.

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: Good block, and I hope it's indefinite (as in, when the user is willing to speak to others without insults and belittling, they are welcome to come back, but until then they remain blocked). Content contributions do not somehow compensate for making life miserable for everyone who encounters you. You may be adding content, but you're inhibiting others from doing the same by carrying out these attacks regularly. This block should not be undone without noticeboard consensus after a reasonable period of time (think hours, not minutes) unless there is evidence of actual administrator misconduct in placing it (as opposed to "Well *I* wouldn't have placed this block, so I'm undoing it")

  Note on re-reading the question: My answer here is predicated on "It is approximately the fifteenth time such an incident has occurred" meaning "It is approximately the fifteenth time the user has been gratuitously uncivil and has been brought to ANI or otherwise told that their behavior isn't ok and has nevertheless continued." If it is instead intended to mean "It is approximately the fifteenth time the user has been uncivil, but they have not been warned or otherwise told that their behavior isn't ok," then the obvious step to take here is to tell them their behavior isn't ok and they need to stop it.

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: Ask user A to redact their stack-blowing and point out that there is nothing likely to be gained by antagonizing someone who is already upset with them. Point out that if they have asked B to stay off their talk page and B persists, all they have to is notify an uninvolved admin or ANI. If A refuses to redact, do the redaction for them. No block on A is called for here unless A goes completely off the rails somehow - this is apparently a one-off temper loss by a frustrated person, and as long as they show some indication that they get that they weren't helping things, we can call it a day. As for B, they should be advised that no, seriously, when someone asks you to stay off their talk, you're expected to respect that and stop poking at them. If B persists in poking at A despite this, consider ANI or blocking.

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 user's behavior is sanctionable because it is poisoning the atmosphere of Wikipedia. They should be instructed that they can either contribute in this manner to the off-wiki forum, or they can remain an editor in good standing on Wikipedia. Not both.

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: I would simplify CIVIL to say something along the lines of "Users are expected to interact on Wikipedia with the same level of civility that is expected by average people in the real world. Act to other Wikipedians as you would act to someone in the real world whom you don't know well, if at all, but with whom you nevertheless need to transact important, possibly unpleasant, business. Do not cause unnecessary offense or dispute based on the manner of your interaction; disputes will arise naturally soon enough over content without being helped along by attitude. It is possible that your manner of interacting in pursuit of this goal will not match the level Wikipedia expects of its contributors. We know that the world is large, societies are varied, and not everyone is starting from the same page of what's 'average'. Wikipedia is its own society too, however, and if you're told that your manner of interacting is problematic for Wikipedia's standards, you will be expected to make reasonable attempts to adapt your behavior if you wish to continue editing. If you are unable or unwilling to do this, we regret that Wikipedia is not the place for you. Blogging may be more suited to you, as it allowed you to create content in a single-person manner where others can choose to take or leave your manner of interaction."

Comments

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