User:AutomaticStrikeout/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: To me, the talk page location is of no bearing. Unless it is crystal clear that such discourse was made in a playful tone, the default assumption should be that this is incivility. One way it could be clear that no harm was meant is if the editor making the comment and the editor that is the subject of it are well-known to be on-wiki friends who have collaborated together for a long time. However, I believe that in most cases, such language towards another user would give fellow Wikipedians the right to assume bad faith on the part of the editor using the questionable (at best) language.

Profanity

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

• Reply: No. I am strongly opposed to the use of profanity, but I would not go so far as to say that all uses are uncivil. I'm sure I have seen other editors use profanity without being uncivil to anyone. Having said that, the use of profanity does tend to influence the way some people will view an entire comment and could make them more inclined to view the comment as uncivil.

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 would say that posting all caps messages at a user that you are displeased with should be viewed as incivility. Also, attempting to indicate displeasure by using an extra large font size is uncivil. Sometime back, an editor who was apparently displeased with me for CSD-ing their article posted numerous all-caps messages (with extra large font) on my talk page. I did not appreciate it and I'd imagine neither would most editors. As for bolding, italicizing, or coloring text, I find that to be less of an issue.

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: Every editor is responsible for his or her own conduct. If the editor cannot or will not behave civilly towards others, it falls to the administrators and occasionally ArbCom to mop up the mess.

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 solutions can be appropriate in different cases. I refuse to agree with those who say that civility blocks are not good or a waste of time. The real waste of time is for someone to edit Wikipedia when they are being subjected to uncivil treatment that nobody will do anything about. Civility is a pillar of Wikipedia, therefore it is something that all should take very seriously. Those who do not should expect to have long block logs.

Context

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

• Reply: Of course it should. Not at all situations and scenarios are created equal. Very few editors, if any, are capable of being civil all the time (we're all human) and I don't think it's helpful to block first, ask questions later (unless the incivility is severe enough to warrant it). However, context should not be overemphasized to the point that incivility is winked at and ignored. We should not go looking for reasons to excuse uncivil behavior, but we should be willing to ask for an explanation if the editor in question is not usually uncivil.

Severity

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

• Reply: Significantly severe. Any incivility that includes physical threats should result in some sort of sanction. On the whole though, most single cases of incivility are not blockable as a first offense. Now, when there is a past history of incivility by a user, one offense could easily be blockworthy.

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: Each instance of incivility is a separate offense. If a person committed multiple murders in one location, the murders would not nor should they all be treated as a single offense. The same reasoning applies here, in my opinion. A user that is generally civil should get more leeway than a known troublemaker. I do not like the concept of excusing incivility, but when it is only a few times a year, maybe I would be willing to overlook it or simply leave the user a polite word of caution.

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: If it became standard practice to permit editors to get away with incivility as they long as they were prolific editors, it would be the death knell of this community. New editors would be treated with disdain and driven away from the project, the current editors would become so uncivil that there would be significant in-fighting and the project would slowly, or perhaps quickly, die away. No amounts of edits makes one become above the rules and that must never change. Civility must be upheld regardless of how good or bad of an editor one otherwise is.

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. Just because some people think that their friends should be allowed to get away with breaking rules, that doesn't change the fact that we have policies and the admins are responsible for upholding those policies. When people are complaining about the proper enforcement of the rules, their views should be given just the amount of consideration they deserve: none.

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: Absolutely not. Why would we make it harder to enforce the rules?

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: Again, why would we make it harder to enforce the rules? No way should there be any such requirement.

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: This is definitely a tricky area. All comments should be made in good faith with the intent of providing criticism constructively, if at all. Also, only as much criticism as is needed to state and defend one's !vote should provided, piling on is not helpful. Yes, we kind of do need to give a little more leeway in this area, but users should still not be allowed to act in an attacking way.

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: The first three are clearly uncivil, the remaining three might be but likely are not. Even if one thinks an idea is ridiculous, there are polite ways of saying that.

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: 4 or 5

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

rating: probably 5

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

rating: 3, although it could always be stated better

• 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: 3

• 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, although again, it could be stated better, so kind of a 4 as well

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

rating: 5

• 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: 5

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

rating: 4 or 5

• What a fucking waste this whole discussion has been

rating: 5

• 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: probably 5

• Just shut up already.

rating: 5

• File your sockpuppet investigation or STFU.

rating: 4 or 5

• 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

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

rating: 3, although usually it will be inappropriate

• 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, this is just a terrible way to state one's case

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

rating: 5

Possible trolling

• Your comments look more like trolling to me.

rating: 3

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

rating: 4

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

rating: 4

• Go troll somewhere else.

rating: 4

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

rating: 4 (all of these 4's are assuming that the user being accused of trolling actually is trolling, otherwise they'd all be 5's)

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

• 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: 4 or 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: To start with, an attempt at dispute resolution should be made. Both users should also be warned to cease with the incivility. An uninvolved editor should try to assist both of the disputing editors in reaching an appropriate resolution. If the incivility continues or the users are unwilling to resolve the disagreement, an indefinite block and/or topic ban should pursued. I think an interaction ban should require a little more incivility first, but maybe not.

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 blocked user should have their talk page access removed and their block should be extended, perhaps by a week. The blocked users friends might also face discipline, depending on the severity of their comments. No action needs to be taken regarding the admin, other than to give him a barnstar or two. Lastly, it should be made very clear to the blocked user that their actions were unacceptable and must never happen again.

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: The block was correct (if not a little late) and hopefully it was lengthy too. No amount of content creation makes incivility acceptable.

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 A should be admonished about the inappropriateness of their final edit summary. User B should be warned that if they post on User A's talk page again, a block will be meted out to User A. An interaction ban should be considered as well.

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 should be informed that their conduct is unacceptable and must stop now. If they do not stop, they must be blocked for off-wiki harassment.

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: Well, that would not be a very wise decision, but if it was left to me, I would rule that name-calling must be done away with, profanity is always discouraged and may never be directed towards another user, all users must follow the rules regardless of their total amount of contributions and civility blocks may be handed down liberally, if necessary.

Comments

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