User:Bishonen/Civility

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1 Content conflict maquerading as civility concerns, by Bishonen, 14 July 2006
- 1.1 His excellency is a valuable contributor
2 Civility block of Ghirlandajo, September 2006
3 From Geogre's talkpage, 12 November 2007
- 3.1 For the record, on "civility"
4 Civility questions in ArbCom election 2007

[edit] Content conflict maquerading as civility concerns, by Bishonen, 14 July 2006

(This is an extract from my evidence in the His Excellency RFAR. Unfortunately many of the posts that my links point to have since been deleted. The whole evidence page has been "blanked as a courtesy", I suppose in order to protect an editor contributing under his RL name from showing up in Google searches. I have removed that name where it originally occurred below.)

[edit] His excellency is a valuable contributor

I believe HE is very much needed at the Islam articles. I haven't reviewed them fully (life's too short for all this altogether), but Dhimmi, Criticism of Islam, and Bernard Lewis that I've looked at, together with their long and rebarbative talkpages, suffer from serious POV issues in my opinion. The first two are firmly skewed against Islam (Dhimmi is basically an attack page), while Bernard Lewis, a biography of an orientalist scholar, is adulatory in tone and quite fails to do justice to the criticisms of Lewis' approach by Edward Said, criticisms which are much more famous than Lewis himself. (Update 12:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC): attempt by me to NPOV the Said reference in Bernard Lewis was reverted by Pecher.[1] [2] [3].) HE's edits have greatly improved the balance of the first two articles — well, actually, only the balance of their history tabs, since he has been reverted wholesale. I refer to His excellency's evidence for the particulars, especially of User:Pecher's role. It's obvious from the article talkpages that the implacable thwarting of the good work he puts in is the main source of HE's frustration and dramatic gestures.

HE does use offensive language and nasty personal attacks sometimes, as the ArbCom must be aware after his two attempts at "wiki-harakiri" while this case was on WP:RFARB. His more usual debating technique is civil though sharp. The definitions of incivility and no personal attacks are legitimate subjects to disagree about, but I think the interpretation of "personal attack" by User:Pecher, Merzbow, and [TU] is consistenly extreme, and unconstructive, in their dealings with His excellency and in relation to the Islam pages generally. I've done some sampling — I don't have any realistic chance of fully researching an unfamiliar field — and found a number of instances of content disagreements and ideological differences being shifted to the arena of civility; or in other words of criticism being dismissed as "personal attacks". Arguments for changes regularly get dismissed as mere personal attacks, and edits reverted for having no justification on Talk, "just a personal attack". [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Perhaps WP:NPA needs to specifically point out that criticism of content is not, as such, an attack, but an attempt to improve the encyclopedia. Also that criticism of an editorial action doesn't become a personal attack just because it names the person who performed the action. HE has come in for an extraordinary number of accusations of PA's, and many — most — of these accusations seem to me to be of this nature, i. e., the accuser takes issue with his critical tone and fails to address his arguments. The effect of making content a matter of civility has been to bypass and neutralize HE's criticisms of the Islam articles. Routine accusations of personal attacks, especially by Pecher, often set up a "No Personal Attacks Vicious Circle" whereby HE is accused of making his criticisms in an insulting way (wrongly IMO, but clearly your mileage may vary), then argues to refute the charge, and then is accused of making 'further' personal attacks [9] in that argument (and at this point often enough starts making actual personal attacks and gets blocked). TU has even on ANI brought up supposed personal attacks by HE on Netscott, who has protested against the description at least once.[10]

"Your latest personal attacks": I'll give just one fuller recent example of the redefining of self-defense and/or arguing about content as personal attacks. Merzbow placed {{NPA}} templates for these edits[11], [12] (most people on ANI agreed that they were no such thing) on HE's talkpage, under the heading "Your latest personal attacks"[13], then accused HE of vandalism for removing the templates and edit warred to keep them on the page. HE complained about this on ANI ([14], a very interesting and telling ANI thread for this case altogether), asking for admin review as he suspected the templates + vandalism warnings of being an attempt to bait and intimidate him and set him up for yet another block. Merzbow's comments in the ensuing thread seem to confirm HE's view of his intentions: "In fact, before one can register a vandal or personal attack complaint on AN, one must have issued those warnings first. How somebody can criticize me for following the required process before registering these complaints is beyond me." HE's arguments in this thread go unaddressed through being redefined as personal attacks: "I leave the hysterical tone and accusations leveled by H.E. in this AN/I .. to speak for themselves" (Merzbow)..." should probably be warned for his comments in this thread if nothing else" (InShaneee).." I assure you that making personal attacks to prove that you don't make personal attacks won't get you far" (InShaneee) The most frustrating thing about systematic redefinition of this kind is that the arguments themselves are not addressed. It seems to me that Merzbow's admission above that perhaps it would have been better to ask an uninvolved admin to post the warning templates misses the point: the personal attack card shouldn't have been played at all. Every time it is played in the context of the Islam pages — almost daily — it shifts the ground from what is essentially a content dispute to a dispute about civility. The sensitivity to and insistence about "civility" functions in practice as avoidance of the substantial NPOV issues that HE raises. The first casualty of the civility war is the quality of the Islam articles.

Bishonen | talk 14:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC). [15]

[edit] Civility block of Ghirlandajo, September 2006

(Extracts from RFAR/Ghirlandajo, a rejected RFAR.).

Initial statement by Giano: [16]

Initial statement by Bishonen: [17]

Initial statement by Geogre: [18]

[edit] From Geogre's talkpage, 12 November 2007

As far as the issue in hand is concerned, I'm actually pretty much on the fence - I can see both the pros and cons of what BetacommandBot is doing. However, one coment I certainly can make is that remarks such as "...from one of the shabbier folks about..." certainly aren't called for, and certainly not from a sysop. This shouldn't need to be done, but I get the feeling that I need to point this sysop in the direction of WP:CIVIL. _TheIslander 20:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Lord, yes! If it hadn't been for your giving me that link, I might have formed an unfavorable opinion of Betacommand! Thank you for spreading sweetness and light and making everything better. I now see that he hasn't been sanctioned by ArbCom! I now see that his -bot hasn't been reported repeatedly on AN and AN/I! I now see that he doesn't rely on IRC to form opinions! Yes, yes, it's all terribly clear now, and I was simply not being civil for thinking him one of the shabbier folks around. Now, since I was on my own talk page, talking to someone, and expressing a considered opinion after much experience and not going to his talk page to provoke any conversation with him at all, I can't fairly see how any part of that cited policy applies... but, then again, I've only read the stinking thing. That, I'm sure, isn't anything as good as citing it. Oh, and do come along again any time to instruct me on policies that I had a hand in. I'm looking forward to more correction, but not for a few days. I still have to be sure to understand the profundity of that last one. (I don't suppose you've heard of not throwing alphabet soup at experienced users?) Now, this is all I'm planning to say to you. You weren't part of the conversation and won't be part of the future conversation, so you actually have no rationale for hectoring. Geogre 02:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[19]

[edit] For the record, on "civility"

This is a duplicate of something I've said elsewhere.

Jonathan Swift reminds us that the ancient Greeks would allow a satirist to name any particular bad actor, as it was a public service to do so, but they expressly forbade generalized attacks on cities or classes of person or, worst of all, mankind itself, as that could never do any good and could only provoke rancor. The facile and amazingly pompous accusation of "incivility" is precisely the sort of thing that cannot do any good. First, it tries to say that another person being "incivil" (the word should be "uncivil") is an excuse for its own finger wagging. Second, it throws "civility" around as if it were the paramount crime, when, in fact, there are times for drawing a hard line against specific individuals who are doing things that specifically harm the site, and "civility" must never, ever be understood as "politeness" or "niceness." Third, "civility" is an action of cooperation or lack of cooperation in action, not a comment that is either appropriate for the drawing room or the toilet. Saying, "cocksucker" is not uncivil. It is indecorous. Saying, "Jimmy is a cocksucker" is not uncivil. It is insulting. Now, refusing to work with people, showing oneself to be antisocial in editing, pushing a monomania on others, or insisting on a homogeneous form is uncivil, because each of those is an action in respect to social action. It is, in other quite literal words, failing to behave within the civitas, the citizenship. I regard it as both proper and useful to single out the people who are being uncivil by the use of -bots, by selective deafness, by pushing their visions over the rest of the community. I regard it as uncivil to try to suppress the manner of expression of people for being merely impolite. Geogre 02:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC) [20]

[edit] Civility questions in ArbCom election 2007

User:Piotrus asked some standard questions of all the candidates, including two that were civility-related:

1. Do you think some editors should be more equal than others? I.e. should incivility of experienced editor - one who registered years ago and wrote or contributed to many articles - be treated differently from incivility of a relative newcomer?
2. How can WP:CIV and similar issues be enforced? Should they be enforced as efficient as 3RR?

-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Below are the replies by selected candidates in alphabetical order. I'm not bothering with diffs for this, but the answers are on pages of the form Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Candidate statements/Giano II/Questions for the candidate.

[edit] CBrown

1. In most cases, an experienced editor would be held more accountable to his or her actions, he or she has been around long enogh to be familiar with our standards and guidelines. A relative newcomer would just need to be warned and told of our guidelines first. However, in cases between an "experienced editor" and another "experienced editor", they should be dealt with as equally as possible.
2. Civility cannot be as easily defined as reverting can. Issues such as this would need to be rather obvious and long-term. In previous cases, users are put on "civility parole" where (because of many previous civility issues) they are warned/blocked if they continue to act uncivil to different users. The previous problems would need to be taken into account to specify the type of civility parole.

Cbrown1023 talk 00:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] David Fuchs

1. I would say that the worthwhile of contributions of these "old assholes" should be taken into account in terms of their usefullness to the project, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather have a civil wiki; either way, resulting sanctions/consquences for incivility should come regardless of newbie status or not. 21:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

2. As with other policies, WP:CIV should be enforced. It's a policy because without it (and NPOV, et al) the wiki cannot fufill its mission. Unfortunately, 3RR is hard and fast, while civility is far more subjective, and thus I think it would be hasty and often erronous to apply a similar policy to civility- what, three personal attacks and you're out? That, unfortunately, does not fly in practice. 21:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Durova

1. Four legs good, two legs bad.

On a more serious note, that's one of the toughest and most nuanced candidate questions. On principle I'd say good contributions don't generate a license to be rude. Editors who've been with the project a long time set the tone for newcomers. Yet some individuals game that principle and start multiple sockpuppet accounts (each of which lay claim to WP:AGF and WP:BITE) to bait particular people - then rush to invoke WP:CIVIL if the target ever loses patience. A similar dynamic happens among some edit warriors who engage in subtle provocation. So incivility by an established account needs to be examined in the context of these considerations and balanced against the editor's general responsiveness to feedback. Although good contributions don't generate a license to be rude, an editor's overall impact on the project does weigh into that consideration. It's much simpler to weigh civility and the personal attack policy for accounts that have a short edit history: determine whether the account behaves like a sock, and if it isn't a likely sock then see whether the person has been informed of our site standards and given a fair chance to adjust. In extreme cases no warning is necessary, but otherwise I'd extend a fair portion of good faith before intervening. Durova^Charge! 19:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, newbie editors are easy to deal with. But what to do with older content-producing editors who nonetheless engage in incivility? Should we warn them - risking that they get offended and stop contributing - and ban them if they don't change, certainly losing their input for the duration of the ban - or should we let them be incivil, in turn loosing the contribution of those who cannot stand their behavior, with the caveat that of course it is much more difficult to calculate how much contribution is being lost due to tolerance of certain aggressive editors? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 21:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This relates to questions 5, 7, 18, 19, 24, 26, 28, and 53. Especially 26. To expand on those answers, Piotrus is probably referring in part to Wikipedia's ethnic disputes. A disproportionate percentage of arbitration cases have related to nationalist and ethnic disputes. Piotrus has been a named party in two of them: Piotrus-Ghirla and Piotrus. Other ethnic/nationalist arbitration cases where I've had a hand were Darwinek, Mudaliar-Venki123, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram, E104421-Tajik, and PalestineRemembered. It would be fair to say that the tone of these disputes is often less than genteel and Wikipedia ought to get better at addressing this type of situation. In my observation these ethnic/national disputes share some characteristics with other contentious issues where real world disputes carry over onto Wikipedia. Early, mild, and firm intervention would probably be more effective than the approach this site currently takes. When one of these cases does come before the Committee it tends to be messy and I'd look carefully at each named party: what positives do they bring to Wikipedia? How much of the claims against them are substantiated by good evidence? Is that evidence cherry picked or taken out of context? A lot of the same general principles I've articulated for dealing with revert warring and edit warring also apply to civility. Durova^Charge! 04:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

2. This overlaps with questions 7, 18, 19 and 26. To expand on those answers, I wish civility issues could be resolved in as straightforward a manner as WP:3RR. In arbitration cases one good solution to ambiguous cases is scaled remedies. An editor can be placed on civility parole or assigned a graduated scale of blocks leading to a siteban. Those remedies can be lifted if the problem resolves itself. Durova^Charge! 19:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't the streamlining of CIV warnings the idea behind WP:PAIN (which for the record I strongly supported)? What was wrong with PAIN, and how - if at all - can we go about recreating it? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 21:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This overlaps with question 6 and refers to the personal attack intervention noticeboard, which is no longer active. Civility and personal attack complaints require investigation, so while I volunteered at that board I regarded it as redundant with the requests for investigation board (also defunct). These were excellent honeypots, but the main problem with both boards was a severe shortage of volunteers. It would be a very good idea to create a new investigations board on a more organized basis, with clerks and additional sleuths and at least one participant who had checkuser.Durova^Charge! 22:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Giano II

1. No, time of registering is immaterial but we must remember unpalatable as it is to some we are all here first and foremost to write an encyclopedia - not to make new and exiting friends, find a partner or indulge in pointless chatter. So an editor who makes valuable edits to multiple pages over a number of years is more valuable to the project than one who merely trolls. Having said that we should all strive to be civil to each other, but we are multi-cultural and as such all have differing ideas of civility. I suspect we all agree with what is gross incivility - using multiple expletives and profanities - can never be acceptable. Similarly attacking someone because of their colour, creed or sexuality must always be taboo. But quite frankly two grown men (or women) having a spat over content and one calling the other a "bloody fool", "blithering idiot" or "recommending an optician" etc. does not excite me greatly. My view is grow up and sort it out, if that proves impossible then a responsible Admin can attempt to sort them out and following that the Wikipedia mediation process commences. Too often I have seem a "too soon block" made which only serves to exacerbate a situation angering editors who already feel wronged further - FGS just protect the disputed page for an hour if necessary but if an editor is so sensitive that he can not take a firm, if impolite, retort without immediately requiring an admin's assistance - then perhaps that editor needs to wait a few years before editing. Admins and the Arbcom will always be around for the editor who is genuinely bullied, attacked or in anyway whatsoever made to feel truly threatened in real life. To summarise certainly some editors are of great value to the project and it would be a pity if they were banned because they can be bad tempered at times. Giano 19:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I know editors - good content creators (responsible for creation of WikiProjects or Featured Articles), some of whom have never been warned about any policy infraction - that have left the project citing 'having enough of incivility from other editors'. That incivility was more or less exactly on the level of being called an 'idiot' (or a layer, dishonest, nationalist, etc.). They chose not to reply in kind. They chose to leave because they had no desire to spend their time in a place where they are subject to such personal attacks. When asked 'why didn't you turn to DR, and or ArbCom' they told me something along the lines "I don't have time/will to spend few weeks/month digging through edit histories and mud fight with the incivil editors". Don't you think the system as you describe it, and which you seem to support, fails them - and rewards the aggressive incivil editors who succeed in driving away those who don't have a "thick skin"?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 21:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I do understand some of the problems you have experienced. I too know many good editors who have become very despondent following all the problems that you North European editors find yourselves in. There is no easy answer Piotrus, the former "USSR" problems are in their way similar to the "Troubles" Arbcom case that has just finished. I doubt any Arbcom will resolve very quickly the problems that the world's finest diplomats cannot. Giano 22:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

2. Of course it should not be, 3RR is usually clear cut and dried - for the multiple reasons I have given above civility issues seldom are. The Arbcom, or indeed Admins are not here to "enforce" but to ensure smooth running, now at times that will mean "enforcing" policies. Some such as profanity, creed and colour are easily dealt with others demand a degree of skill and maturity from those dealing with the problem, the only way Wikipedia can begin to address this is by improving the calibre of its admins. Too many of them are too young and obviously inexperienced of the real world. Contrary to the belief of many teenagers they have not experienced the real world and they have a lot to learn - Many of Wikipedia's civility issues arise from deeply held beliefs resulting from generations of cultural education - often these "young people" turning up on an older editor's talk page and "teaching them to suck eggs" is not appreciated and makes a situation worse. Many of our editors have not grown up in the comfort of a secure political climate in a country providing them with material comforts some of these editors have seen terrible things - it is better not to have seen. The whole secret of this project is tolerance and an attempt to see others POV. So to (at last) answer your question Civility issues can be better enforced by Admins who have a degree of tact and experience of dealing with people. That way we retain the editors and the encyclopedia rolls on. This project is not a social event. Giano 20:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hemlock Martinis

1. Absolutely. An experienced editor should be more familiar with our policies and what is expected for that editor, and thus treated with more severity than a newcomer who might still be getting acquainted with our ample collection of guidelines and policies. --Hemlock Martinis 19:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

2. Yes, they should. I'm tired of good and valued contributors being driven away by incivility. --Hemlock Martinis 19:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Messedrocker

1. If an experienced editor is being incivil, then there's a chance they know they shouldn't be; that would indicate an infraction of trust. A newcomer being incivil could be incivil because he or she does not know better. Yet by the time both persons come to arbitration, they should be aware of what is going on at Wikipedia (as the road to arbitration is lengthy). Either way, depending on the editor, the outcome of such a case should depend on what needs to be done to whip them into shape (or kick them out, if that is the case). MessedRocker (talk) (write this article) 20:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

2. When editing Wikipedia, you are interacting in a social environment, and so civility is a must. If a person is being incivil, a person should tell them, very politely, to shape up their attitude, as this is, as I said, a collaborative environment. YOU MUST BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN DOING THIS, OR ELSE YOU MAY GET A NEGATIVE REACTION OUT OF THE PERSON. If they don't stop acting incivilly following repeated requests to improve, arbitration may happen. The Arbitration Committee's job then is to convince the user to behave civilly, or to ban them. MessedRocker (talk) (write this article) 20:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moreschi

1. I'm afraid I don't buy into the idea of equality very much (does it really make sense when you take a close look?), but either way, it depends on what the relative newcomer is doing. If all he's doing is trolling and being incivil, banninate his arse. With the older user, his productive article contributions do give him a certain degree of leeway as far as civility is concerned. When it gets to the stage that he's driving off other productive editors, you have to clamp down.
2. Perhaps, when someone gets around to rewriting Wikipedia:Civility so it's a lot shorter and actually makes coherent sense. At the moment it's just a seemingly random collection of nonsense. How can you enforce such a useless policy? It's just not doable. At the moment any debate over how to enforce this particular policy is strictly theoretical. A policy that commands no respect will be ignored, and there's sweet FA we can do about this. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)