Wikipedia talk:Incivility blocks

This is a discussion about a proposed policy on blocking due to incivility. The proposed page will eventually be at Wikipedia:Incivility blocks.

Now that I've returned and have really started to get involved on AN/I (never thought I would...) I've noticed that we don't really have a consistent response to blocking editors due to incivility and personal attacks.

I was wondering if administrators would find it valuable to have a new policy to clarify matters in regards to this area? I was thinking of creating a new policy proposal Wikipedia:Incivility blocks, which would set out what should be done before blocking an editor for egregious personal attacks, etc., a guide to the length of time for the block and other enforcable ways of preventing this sort of behaviour.

I think this would also be valuable because while conflicts about the content of articles are frequent, I've seen that these problems become much worse when another editor makes comments of a personal nature against the other editor, which the other editor takes um-bridge to and of course retaliates. This has become a much, much worse problem on a whole range of articles than when I last edited a few years ago. I do think that this problem needs to be tackled in a better way, and this is one way I'm proposing we do it. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 07:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Does sound like a good idea to have a consistent response in place.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm not an admin, but I think this sounds like a genuinely good idea. Sometimes, much as I hate to say it, you just have to let it go, but I've seen some attacks which are quite egregious and nothing short of an assault on the character of the editor, which, obviously, does not make for a healthy environment in which to build an encyclopaedia. I think codifying it so there's a general standards that admins can refer to could provide useful guidance and, hopefully, deter attacks. It seems sensible to me to start with a block of around 24 hours for a single egregious attack where the editor doesn't have a history of such attacks with blocks getting longer, leading up to an indef where there's an obvious long term pattern. These could be complimented with community bans on interaction if required. Anything that shows that personal attacks will not be tolerated and that NPA is not just a hollow acronym that people throw around can only be a good thing if you ask me. HJMitchell You rang? 08:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

All right... well, I'll leave this here for other admins to have a chance to review before I start anything. But one thing that I'm also considering is whether such a thing would be better as a guideline or whether it should be a policy. After all, we already have the policy WP:NPA, so editors are aware that they shouldn't be doing this. A guideline would allow administrators enough leeway to use their commonsense, but to either know where the boundaries lie, or at least have a better idea when it's OK to block an editor. Thoughts? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• No policy will work unless it works in the case of Giano. Good luck with that... Guy (Help!) 12:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, I missed something in my retirement. What does this mean? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Look over there for some background. —DoRD (talk) 13:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Er... someone want to give me the potted version? Sheesh - that's a wall of text and clicking on the related links leads me to a 2006 archived page with is greater than about 100K... I'm happy to be emailed if this is super controversial. I suspect that I missed everything while I was research about the USA PATRIOT Act. Not sure I've missed anything worthwhile though. Still, if this is going to get in the way of this proposal, any summary of the events might be helpful. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
        • Basically, there are 3 factions. Faction 1: Giano's lack of civility is a disruption and we must get rid of him. Faction 2: Giano is an excellent content editor and we must ignore much of his incivility in order to keep him at all costs. Faction 3: Giano is a great content editor, but that does not give him a pass on civility; however, we have no mechanism in place for vested contributors with civility issues and so Somebody Else is going to have to deal with this. Guy, would you agree with that explanation? GJC 15:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
          • Spot on. Guy (Help!) 17:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
            • That's basically the problem. What to do with people who don't get along with other editors, yet still make fantastic content contributions. On the one hand, this is an encyclopedia, not a social networking site, so being "nice" should take a back seat to developing articles. On the other hand, this is a collaboration and anyone who can't cooperate with other people gets in the way of article development (nobody edits in a vacuum). It's like having a cat that catches mice but claws up your furniture. Do you put up with it? It depends on how bad your mice problem is, and how nice your furniture is. -- Atama頭 19:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
              • Well... the problem is that if many potentially and actually excellent contributors are offended and chased off by one excellent contributor, then it's a real problem. And if that "excellent" contributor needs to win article arguments by using incivility and personal attacks, I have to wonder whether the article is being skewed if that editor gains the upper hand through such a means. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 20:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
          • (ec) Um, it's a bit more complex than that -- but not much more. There's the issue that (from what I've seen) Giano has an acid tongue, & if he thinks you're a moron he'll tell you so quite bluntly. Then there's the issue that if he's put under restrictions, then the folk who hang around Wikipedia who find it too hard to contribute content, &/or find WikiGnoming too dull poke at him until he violates his restrictions. Lastly (& perhaps most importantly), there's the issue that even if Giano was permanently banned from Wikipedia, this problem would not be solved: most -- if not all -- Wikipedians in good standing don't respect every other Wikipedian in good standing. Or to put it in personal terms, I sincerely think there are a few Wikipedians whose best contribution to the project would not only be to leave it, but to get the fuck off the Internet. (And I'd be very surprised if there was no other established editor in good standing who did not feel the same way.) However, unlike Giano I'm content to ignore them because either (1) their behavior will eventually get them permanently banned from Wikipedia; or (2) they do enough valuable work that I can tolerate their presence. (It also helps if we work in different content areas.) In brief, if there was only one Giano, the Wikipedia community could handle that; but Giano is only the best-known example of a systemic problem which we haven't found a solution for, & may end up destroying the project. (And no, I don't know of a solution beyond being extra nice to people in inverse proportion to your desire that she/he FOADs.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
            • As the (Un)Official Giano Proponent Admin, I should point out there is the fourth viewpoint - that Giano's non article commentary and actions has been perceived to be anathema to "the powers that be" (them again, they nobbled my horse too!) and some people who think they are part of that grouping, or want to be part of that grouping, have proposed or enacted sanctions or made comments or opinionated, that are most charitably described as ill judged. There is now instances that when people ask for examples of situations within WP that require addressing that Giano is invoked - a totem rather than an editor who might have been dealt with more appropriately than when he first contributed outside of article space... Oh, and I fully understand that my comments and stance in this issue makes me part of the "Giano problem". There you go. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
              • (edit conflict) It's always been the problem. I have no idea how to fix it, but I am completely serious when I say that, in my view, if any proposal does not get Giano on side then it will fail. Any policy that attempts to judge interaction here by standards that Movie Mom would endorse is doomed before it even starts, we are not Conservapedia and thank God for that. As has been pointed out before, the last unforgivable swearword in England is stated to be a term of endearment in some parts of Australia. Guy (Help!) 21:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
                • Good thing I'm an Aussie then, huh? :P - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 03:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
                • (humor) Actually, no policy is really worth anything until someone proposes blocking Jimbo :) - Wikidemon (talk) 21:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
                • Well, if the policy needs to get Giano "on side" (that's an Anglicism I don't recognize -- do you mean a policy that he can live with & gets him to act in a manner most of us consider productive?) perhaps we should invite him to discuss the matter. Only a complete misanthrope would decline an invitation to share his thoughts on the matter, & a complete misanthrope would not want anything to do with Wikipedia -- either to contribute content or to even read. ("People are stupid -- why do I want to participate in one more example of their stupidity?") -- llywrch (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
                  • See on side. It's a cricketing term, only Australians, Indians, Pakistanis and Englishmen understand what we are talking about :-) Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 03:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
• Great idea. The issue has been fought again and again here, at Arbcom, at RfCs, WQA, and via wheel wars. If we can actually agree on a procedureal policy (or an addition to WP:BLOCK) then hopefully we can at least have a consistent standard. It will be hard and people will have lots of opinions, but I think the consensus process can work well here. The fact that we have a policy could cut both ways. It could range all the way from "we don't do incivility blocks" to "civility is a 5P and should be vigorously enforced regardless of an editor's content contributions, including immediate blocks without warning for extreme cases." At least we'll know which it is, and a constructive discussion aimed at reaching agreement would be helpful. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
• I endorse this idea too. There ought to be a guideline to cover proper enforcement of the core civility policy. I suggest that it may be best to ignore the special issues related to Giano, as he is an exception.   Will Beback  talk  22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
• Excellent idea. Having a specific page about this to discuss it and bring it all together will hopefully be constructive and a positive improvement to alternative past practices of double-standards. Cirt (talk) 22:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's a spot of irony. I'm going to have to put this on hold for about a week after proposing it, because I'm about to become a father (again) on Monday. But please, the more discussion here the better so I can work out what to put in the proposed policy. :-) - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 03:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations! Best of luck for you, your SO, and your upcoming child.

Back on topic, for consideration, we've had (mostly my) essay Wikipedia:Civility warnings for about 10 months now. It has neither raised substantial objections nor been widely adopted, to date. But it may be useful. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I'm reading this, but so far this is an awesome summary of everything I've ever thought about NPA and civility issues on Wikipedia! I think if we could distill this guideline into a more concise set of steps or procedures then this might be the way forward on this one. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) We had a specific board for this once. It's called WP:PAIN. It was remaindered quite some time ago by community consensus. Perhaps it is time to resurrect it? <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• I want to voice my full support for an effort like this. I've been watching a lot of Deadliest Catch lately, and they keep talking about how when one crab dies in the hold, it releases a toxin that kills all the crabs around it -- who then spread their toxin to those around them. I see incivility in the same way -- a poison that spreads throughout the community.
  There's absolutely no defense for incivility. Ever. It's like saying "I have to punch people once in a while." You don't. You may need to argue at times, but you never need to argue with fists.
  That said, there is a gray area between being argumentative (which is permissible, even necessary) and being belligerent. Normally, the ideal way of testing which is which is to have the community evaluate the specifics. However, where users are concerned, the community tends to be very partisan, which is what causes editors with allies to be given a pass for behavior that would get a newbie blocked. How do we isolate editor behavior from editor status?
  One way I can think of is to draw up a list of specific behaviors that are felt to be actionably uncivil by most of the community. That would at least give us a baseline. Partisans would still interpret behavior as matching or not matching the list, however, according to their bias. How do we achieve impartial enforcement of incivility blocks? Admins aren't tested for their impartiality, so admins are just as partisan as regular users (if not more so, given that they're usually veterans with many established alliances and enmities). I wouldn't want to start a whole new bureaucracy (and user class) of "impartial admins". As it is, we have wikiquette alerts, which is rarely functional, despite its commendable intent.
  So what's possible? Perhaps we could offer admins a wide berth in handing out incivility blocks -- provided they were willing to counsel as a first step, warn as a second resort, and block only if those failed, and could demonstrate no prior involvement in the issue or with the parties. (Admins with any involvement would be expected to neither block nor unblock.) Would an approach like that offer hope of improvement over the current situation?--Father Goose (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Policy drafting

OK... I read down to GJC's Giamo summary, and I feel that NPA is mandatory, no matter who you are... but I would like to comment on the original post that I would absolutely love to see slightly more strict civility blocking policy... I have had quite a few times that an incivil troll would stalk me through 4 or 5 blocks (12 hours, 1 day, 3 days, a week, 2 weeks, etc.) until I finally had to break down and yell at an admin to get them blocked (no offence said blocking admins) to get the offender indef'd... Sadly, I am falling asleep, but will be back tomorrow to read more (and George's essay), and give the second half of my 2 cents... - Adolphus79 (talk) 05:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

George's essay is actually quite excellent and one of the best guides I've seen in de-escalation of disputes where personal attacks and incivility is occuring. I think that the policy should definitely refer to this essay, which allows us the leeway to make modifications to the essay as necessary, which can be used as a guideline for ways to warn. What the civility block policy can do is give a concrete procedure that guides an admin in starting the process of raising a civility warning, then to further warning escalations till finally it gets to the blocking stage. It has been suggested to me that we should also incorporate WP:CIVIL#Blocking for incivility, into its own policy but that gives further clarity on what to block for and how to block. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• Trolls can be blocked for trolling. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you are) the old days when admins would just do that are gone, these days blocking a self-evident troll for trolling will simply result in a month of wikilawyering and the descent of every user who has a grudge against any admin baying about the evil cabal. Better to ignore them. Guy (Help!) 12:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This section was very disheartening to read. I see JzG whining about Giano's lack of civility, and yet JzG has been historically one of the surliest jackasses in Wikipedia's history. The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Which leads into the more germane point; heated discussions happen sometime, and far too often admins will get a pass on their "incivility", while those who "speak truth to power" get slammed with a block. Giano's "civility" problems are regularly exaggerated by people on the losing end of his arguments. They can't win with rational discussion so they turn to bait-n-block. "Civility" is a highly subjective call that lends itself to misuse. --TungstenCarbide XIII (talk) 20:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Well... sometimes JzG flies a bit close to the wire, I agree. However, it's pretty incivil to call him "one of the surliest jackasses in Wikipedia's history". After all, have you ever reviewed my old edit history? I think that you are being unfair to myself - surely at certain points I have been a valid candidate? And of course, right now it seems a bit like you might be trying to reach for the surly jackass crown - keep going that way and I think we'll be bestowing this sort of honour on you quite soon! - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 06:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

"right now it seems a bit like you might be trying to reach for the surly jackass crown". No, just honestly speaking my mind and hoping something good comes of it. --TungstenCarbide XIII (talk) 10:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Scope

I think we firstly need to clarify the scope of this policy. I think that at a minimum it needs to cover:

• What is a blockable offense. This is already spelled out in WP:CIVIL#Blocking for incivility. They are:
  1. WP:NPA
  2. WP:OUTING
  3. WP:HARASS
  4. WP:DISRUPTION
• How many warnings, and how they should be delivered (i.e. to the talk page?) and the manner in which they are warned (refer to George's essay seems like the best way forward here).
• How long to block after warnings fail.
• If after block further violations occur, what do we do?

I'm also thinking that we need to spell out another blockable offense, which is somewhat related to both NPA and the disruption policy but doesn't quite fit with each of the policies. The behaviour I've been noticing is when an editor make comments that include the topic of conversation, but inter-splice it with complaints and personal comments about other editors. That really needs to be stopped, because if there's anything I've seen that derails conducive and collaborative editing, it's this sort of comment. This is because the other party often doesn't look at the facts that are presented and often focuses on the personal comments. The other editor then uses this to try to get the upper hand because they can then point to the fact that they have been discussing the topic, but really their language causes the other party to focus on the personal and often hurtful comments they have made.

What do people think? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• Anything based on warning counts is an open invitation to gaming the system, either by placing vexatious warnings or by claiming that no action can be taken until the requester has brought forth two shrubberies and chopped down the tallest tree in the forest WITH A HERRING. Guy (Help!) 17:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, a fair point. But we really need some sort of way of knowing that the editor has at least been warned about their behaviour before we block, because we often need to consider either that they are a newbie or they are human and have just gotten involved in a topic they are passionate about. Obviously there is a good deal of commonsense to be used here, but it would be good to have some guidelines that admins can use when it comes to incivility. What do you suggest? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 02:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
  • On the other hand, warnings can be a useful indication about the individual, if interpreted with intelligence. Say X acts incivil, & receives a warning. If the warning is deleted & X continues without changing ways, an experienced Wikipedian will see the pattern. Or if X ignores the warning & continues without changing ways... Or if X changes ways & the behavior is no longer an issue, we'd be able to move on. The problem is that too many people want to be able to check off the boxes in order to handle troublemakers, which can be easily gamed. -- llywrch (talk) 04:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• If I can throw in a comment (I'm not an admin, but I am uppity ). I think that probably the best way to handle this is on the 'parking ticket' model: rigidly predefined, non-escalating, incontestable, and with literally no concern for context. so for example, say you all decide there should be a 24 hour block for a particular act of incivility: that means that anyone who commits that act of incivility gets a 24 hour block, period. It doesn't matter if they couched the incivility inside more topic-specific comments; doesn't matter how mild or severe the act was; doesn't matter if they are IPs or newbies or experienced editors; doesn't matter who their friends are or what anyone says; doesn't matter if it's the first offense or the tenth. they pay the 24 hour fine in full, and then everyone forgets about it. You don't even need to worry about warnings - just make the first civility block a person gets short (say 30 minutes), and have the first block template say "You've been blocked for this statement - ... - for 30 minutes as a warning. All future blocks for incivility will be 24 hours in duration. There is no mechanism for appeal." Nobody will like it - everyone hates parking tickets, that's a human universal - but as long as it's applied blindly and evenly everyone will put up with it, and it will be a very effective tool. --Ludwigs2 08:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah... I was considering something like that. A thirty minute block has merits. It's sort of like a shot across the bows of an attacker to let them know that we're serious. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Blockable offenses

I think that we've all agreed that the scope of the policy is pretty much what I specified above. So now the next bit is to draft the individual sections. I'm pretty certain that blockable offenses will be easy to come to an agreement on, but I'll note this here and give it a while for everyone to comment further on what they feel should be part of the reasons for a block.

I believe that the following would be a reason for an incivility block:

1. WP:NPA
2. WP:OUTING
3. WP:HARASS
4. WP:DISRUPTION
5. Baiting, by interspersing insults/incivil comments with factual statements about the argument. i.e. "You are a moron because the moon landing occured in 1953, not in 1962 as you changed the article to."

Is there anything I'm missing here? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 22:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• the only thing I can think of (which may or may not be a separate issue) is indirect incivility - e.g. where editor X says to editor Y: "Don't pay attention to editor Z, he's just a POV-pushing troll". Might fit under baiting or NPA, or it might be worthy of consideration on its own. --Ludwigs2 03:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not that sure whether I would include this here... though that is certainly incivil. I think that communication between editors will happen on the wiki, or outside of the wiki regardless of what we do. It would probably be better to have this isolated to happen within the wiki where it's all in the open, but this is really one area where admin commonsense comes into the equation. Others may feel differently, I'm not really too concerned how this goes one way or another. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 04:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement

Warnings/alerts

That seems to make sense from where I'm standing (or sitting). I would suggest one warning would be sufficient, such as the standard 4im for personal attacks:

" This is your only warning; if you make personal attacks on others again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people."

and then blocks increasing in length (start with 24 hours move up to 48hrs, 1 week, 2 weeks, one month and, eventually, an indef). HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 22:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah... well, that wasn't really what I was asking about above, but I'll run with this and start off a new section :-) This seems like a reasonable solution to the problem of gaming the system, and providing enough notice that the editor has been made aware of the issue.

However... I think we should give them the opportunity to discuss the matter. My thoughts are that we should also create a Wikiquette discussion, then link to the etiquette discussion in the template. This gives them a chance to discuss how what the issue is with their behaviour and also gives the rest of the community a chance to see that there is a problem.

My other thought is that the first block should be for only a short period of time. If the second personal attack was made within the hour, then for the second violation of civility then we only give 30 minutes or maybe an hour. I would consider this to be reasonable, and would be like a "shot across the bows" that shows the editor we are quite serious about preventing incivil behaviour. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 23:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

That also makes sense. A stern warning followed by a block, even one of half an hour, definitely shows this kind of thing is taken seriously and codifying gives a widely accepted standard for admins to follow and for people to refer to. That said, I think there are some attacks which are particularly egregious (especially those that fall under the scope of outing and NLT but others which are especially unpleasant) which merit longer blocks. I agree though, that this could (and hopefully will be) an excellent way of dealing with incivility and attacks and hopefully even deter them. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 00:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NPA says this, "...comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than people." The template proposed above is too restrictive, it suggests that commenting on an editor's actions is incivility. One more thing, I was involved in a dispute with an editor who said things like, "your actions are those of a racist..." which I would consider to be a clear violation of the first clause of Wikipedia:NPA#Blocking_for_personal_attacks. I discussed it with admins and they said that a comment like that was not enough to get someone blocked for incivility. I think that whole section needs to be expanded and clarified because at least, where I come from, calling someone a racist is taking the gloves off. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 01:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Could I ask where you discussed this? Because I don't really agree with them... this is arguing the man, not the content. However, without knowing the context I can't really say why they said it. For instance, if it was a request for comment, then I think it would be fine to comment on whether someone's actions are racist. However, if you are in the middle of a debate and someone throws in the race card, then that would usually not be helpful or constructive. I think that we need to make it clear that we give admins a bit of lattitude when it comes to making decisions, because situations differ and admins often need to use their commonsense (which is really the point behind WP:IAR). - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 03:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Unruled_Paper_(film)&oldid=234040491 - This is a link to where he called another editor a racist (search for the word "racist" on the page, it comes up a lot). I had a bunch of discussions on several pages with him including his talk page, an admin's talk page, and an ANI post, and I can't remember where he specifically called me a racist. But it was pretty much like this. Basically someone thought his writing was plagiarized so he called them a racist. I was told that, "Incivility is hard to block for, as what people consider incivil is dramatically different; you really need a ranting foaming at the mouth ALL CAPS FUCKTARD rant before everyone will be in agreement." AzureFury (talk | contribs) 06:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

David is right - it is currently hard to block for incivility. But I think that's because nobody is quite sure whether they can, or if they can how long they should block for. That's what this is trying to address. And I'm sorry that you got called a racist by another editor who didn't get anything for it - that's clearly not on and if I had been around then and I'd seen this situation, I would have stepped in. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 06:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No worries, it was awhile ago and he got blocked anyway for legal threats for a few weeks. Just saying that'd whatever decision you guys make regarding what is blockable, I hope it includes this kind of behavior. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 06:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that this policy will be addressing this point, I'm afraid. But if you see this sort of thing again, note it on WP:AN/I and I'm sure we can get a bunch of admins have a productive discussion to work something out. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 06:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Length of block

I think we need to provide consistency in the length of time we block for. I'm seeing a number of editors who are blocked indefinitely, but then I see other editors who get repeated warnings and only short blocks. The length of blocking seems a bit arbitrary to me, so I think we need to get some harder block times around this sort of thing.

Firstly, I want to emphasise that blocking is not something any admin should take lightly. In fact, it's a real shame we even have to block editors - in a perfect world this incivility policy wouldn't be required. Sadly, we don't live in a perfect world and because of our low barrier to entry, coupled with a desire to write about any and every controversial topic we tend to attract a fair amount of tendentious editors, nutcases, cranks and the just plain nasty. Of course, we also attract ordinary editors (which is what we want!) who, for whatever reason, may have a particular viewpoint or passion that can cause them to act out of character and act in an incivil manner.

Consequently, I believe that we need to start out slowly when blocking. This does tie in with the above section, which is how to alert the editor, so I won't go into that aspect very much. Suffice to say that if the editor has been sufficiently warned that their behaviour is out of line, then my thoughts are:

1. If the admin has noticed that the behaviour has occured within the last 45 minutes, then I suggest that we block them for an hour and leave a note on their talk page that they have been blocked because they have not modified the way they contribute to Wikipedia. I call this the "shot across the bows" block. Basically it doesn't do any real lasting damage (it's only an hour), but it certainly shows we mean business. Hopefully at this point they will realise that they need to change their behaviour.
2. If the shot across the bows doesn't work, or if the last attack was done longer than 45 minutes ago, then I suggest we block for a day, again with a note explaining that we find their behaviour unacceptable, point them to the appropriate policies and politely explain that we regret having to make the block, but this is necessary to protect the project. Then we note that we hope that after the block they will have considered their behaviour and will have ceased the incivility/personal attacks.
3. If that doesn't work, then block for a week - again with a note, but this time explaining slightly more bluntly (but politely) that they are getting quite disruptive and making contributing unpleasant for other editors.
4. If that doesn't work, then we block for a month. This will be accompanied with a note on their talk page that says that this is their final block before they are indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia.
5. If that does not work, then they've had enough chances and we indefinitely blocked.

Now I think this graduating block level is useful because not only is it fair, but it also gives editors a chance to understand that they can't get away with incivility or attacks. I think, but can't say for certain, that we will often be pleasantly suprised that the editor may change their ways. However, if they don't change how they edit, then this gives us a chance to basically boot out the most egregious attackers. Honestly, if they get to point 4 then I really don't think we want them to edit Wikipedia.

The only other aspect of this is that it doesn't take into account topic bans. Maybe we can incorporate something similiar for this sort of situation.

Again, thoughts? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 04:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree, but do not understand why punishment for the same offence should be increased 24fold simply because the admins weren't looking when it happened. WFCforLife (talk) 04:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah... sorry, I should have explained why. The reason for the 1 hour long block is to make life a bit inconvinient for the offender. If the offender has not edited within about 45 minutes, then I'd say that there is a good chance that they have logged off for the day and an hour long block won't be noticed. That's my reasoning behind this. There's no point firing a shot across the bows of a ship that has no pirates, after all :-) Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 05:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

well, they will still see the block notice on their talk page, and see the block in their logs, so the warning shot will have served its purpose...

that being said, I still (personally) don't like the idea of escalating blocks. I think escalating blocks will lead to a different kind of gamesmanship (e.g., are me and my three friends willing to take 24 hours each in order to game that guy into getting blocked for a month?). I think these blocks should be just painful enough to be an aggravation, but shouldn't be viewed as steps to some bigger punishment. they shouldn't even interfere with the editing process too much, but be more like a time-out. assume that anyone and everyone will slip occasionally, and when they do they get 24 hours away from wikipedia to think about it, and then we can all forget about it. problem cases (where editors are repeatedly and persistently getting themselves 24 hour blocks) can be reviewed independently, and more severe action can be taken then, but in those cases the damage is so minor - at most they'll be making a couple of uncivil comments per day, and getting blocked for each - that there won't be any hurry to rush to judgement.

put anther way, I think this should be viewed as sting to encouragement people to play nice, not as a tool for weeding out undesirables. my 2¢ worth. --Ludwigs2 05:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, totally agreed on the undesirables point! Sorry, that was just an aside - my only point was that if by the time you get blocked for a month and you still don't get it then you really can't edit here! I think pretty much everyone would agree with this.

The reason that I think that escalating blocks will work is because currently we have the ridiculous situation whereby somebody is reported on AN/I for civility issues and an admin blocks for ages, but then the editor appeals and of course many times the block seems too long so they either get unblocked or the block is lessened. At this point the editor feels emboldened and of course comes back worse than ever. If anything, they are gaming the system because it is currently so chaotic.

One thing that the policy should include, however, is a general commonsense clause (similar to IAR) that says that admins are given considerable leeway for decisions, and if it is felt that the editor is using the policy to game the system then they will be blocked for disruption. I think, however, that those who game this system will be quickly rooted out and we'll know who they are. Really, this policy is not for those who would game the system - by and large they are only small in number. Most of the incidents I see on AN/I and Wikiquette alerts are actually editors who have a vested interest or are passionate in a particular topic, and feel that others are wrong so therefore they can abuse them at will. These sort of editors are the ones that we need to target and address, and I think this method would do the job admirably.

Addressing the 1 hour long block, this was just an idea I was putting out there. I still think the blocking for an hour is still valid, but perhaps the idea that doing this in the first 45 minutes has flaws and shouldn't be used. You are right, of course, that they will know that they were blocked for an hour from their talk page, but also the block log would record that this happened and any further admin would be able to know that this has occured, which could only help them. So I'm happy to drop the whole 45 minute idea :-) Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 06:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Application to all Users

Though I'm hoping this is common sense I don't see much above. Anything in writing really needs to state that the policy and blocks are equally applicable to all users anywhere in the system. No more de facto immunity as a long-time contributor, widely-known name or evasion via reply spam on any incident filings. The user's history on content and the like would, however, be a reasonable part of an unblock request on the assumption of good faith per "okay, we all know they know better" (Though this wouldn't be in writing since already a known). I admit in advance that no consensus on including anything even close to this could ever come to fruition since any discussion would become an unmoderated mess to sort out just like all discussions regarding any blocks of admins ever for any reason already are. Even so, would anyone care to claim that the collective community would not like equal standards of incivility-- and especially incivility enhanced by use of any tools-- be enforced and applied to everyone on the whole scale? Again, I know it'll never happen and since virtually all !votes given in any discussions on this stuff are persons with a direct conflict of interest or are basing opinions because of social contacts. Even if agreed upon, it would be even more impossible to write anything that didn't prevent unblocks 2 minutes later without reason with an easy message sent off to a few people. Let me dream, at least. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why not. NPA applies to admins and non-admins alike. So does 3RR, NPOV and NOR. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

well, as someone who's been on the receiving end of incivility gamesmanship, I don't like the unblock request option, period. I'm sorry, but that is a typical feature of some of the most uncivil editors I've run across on wikipedia - they have a number of good friends who flood any ANI thread with pleas, excuses, angry rants, and etc, with the result that their fair-haired troll gets blocks that are lifted so quickly it's tantamount to saying the blocking admin made a mistake. heck, in my own experience (back when I first started here) I had a well-established editor who followed me across several pages for three or four days, making numerous overtly insulting comments about me and my edits. I can't even list out all the policies that behavior violates (harassment, stalking, and incivility, for starters) - his 'punishment' was that he got a more or less politely-worded warning (and even that was a risk, because the admin who warned him got hit with a raft of angry talk-page comments). this, considering that if I had made even one of his comments I'd have gotten a three day block. If you really want to include unblock requests, then it ought to be set up like parole - there's a certain minimum time (say 30%-50% of the standard length) that needs to pass before any request will be considered, and if they do get unblocked they are are on zero tolerance for the remainder of he block period (i.e. one episode of the thing they got blocked for will put them right back in block for the remainder of the time). sorry, bit of a touchy issue for me. that experience almost turned me into a hard-assed wiki-cynic, as opposed to the amusing and genteel creature you see before you now. . --Ludwigs2 12:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with the essence of that. If somebody ignores an incivility warning and ends up blocked for it, they should serve it out, regardless of whether they're a 'crat or not even autoconfirmed. My hope is that a policy like this will prevent that kind of ANI flooding and disingenuous appealing- it'll be one of those "bright line" rules like the 3RR and if you break it, you just have to take the consequences. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 13:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

To clarify an above concern, I would love if there were some way to forbid the "clique unblock", but I just can't think of anyway at all it could be worded such that it could ever be enforced, and if written in a very generic and blanketing manner it would be impossible to prove during attempts of enforcement. I too cannot stand anyone that can escape a block like this. Also, I was trying to extend my logic from above about participation in such discussions being from involved admins, and TLDR overload is quick on issues sensitive to some admins. ...But damn right things like 3RR/edit warring and other really basic things that other users are blocked for should apply. Just that it very rarely happens (at best, on a good day, during a blue moon, when the planets align). At the very least I'd like to see a place where any user with blocking rights be required to post a rationale for any and all unblocks of others in the same category. The community already hates this enough so it'd be nice if we could point them somewhere to read what was being done and why so admins might be held responsible on questionable actions. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 15:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As a response to both daTheison and Ludwigs2, I hear you. However, blocking application is probably a different issue here - personally I would make the difficult call and block any admin who makes personal attacks if I could follow something that gave clarity over when and for how long to block for. Even if I know the admin. I've not really found that many admins who I can think I'd need to do this to... but I would definitely do it if I came across it. That's why I have the difficult blocks userbox. What really helps here, however, is that if we can formalize our response to civility problems in such a way that it's clear to all and sundry that we've been fair and consistent. Having this policy would definitely be a start, and IMO it will make it much easier to apply a consistent and reasonable block to any editor who is being incivil. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 18:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• While I am all for users acting like civilized adults and not resorting to childish name calling, etc, this isn't going to work as it is framed now. Here's why: You can't just say "a personal attack=1 week block" or whatever. Why? Because there are different forms and levels of personal attack that merit different responses. Saying "that user is an idiot" is not the same as saying "that user is a worthless fucking douchebag and I'm going to cut off his head and crap down the neck hole before I ass rape them." See the difference? That's why the "speeding ticket" model doesn't work. There's no "radar gun" besides our own judgement to tell us how fast the car was going. No way would I block someone for just calling another user an idiot, if it wasn't part of a pattern of attacks, but the other remark would warrant an indef hardblock just on it's own. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Another thought: admins aren't really the "cops" of Wikipedia, they are more like the local magistrate. Vandal fighters and other users are the cops, they find the offenders and report them, and admins judge the seriousness of those offenses, including if they were given adequate warning to stop, and make a judgement based on that. Yes, it's inconsistent, sometimes people who don't deserve it get blocked, and sometimes nasty trolls get unblocked and are free to be jerks once again. It's not perfect, but it relies on judgement which admins are supposed to have. If we make some byzantine system of "sentencing guidelines" then we take the admins ability to make those judgements away. They would no longer be able to do things on a case-by-case basis, but would be forced to follow the "book." Wikipedia already has a system of rules/policies/guidelines/essays that are defacto policies to rival even California. Let's not make it worse by trying to codify this. On the other hand, I solidly agree that no amount of good contribs excuses prolonged nasty remarks and attacks, and experienced users who continue to make them in the face of repeated warnings to stop should be treated like any other troll/vandal/jerk. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::I take your point, but I think the intention of this proposal is to deal with the more borderline cases- to show that incivility will not be tolerated. Calling somebody an idiot would merit a warning and then a brief block if the behaviour continues and admins or the blocked editor can refer to this, which would hopefully provide clear, codified guidance. In your other example, the attacker is clearly making threats of violence, for which any admin in their right mind would hopefully indef. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 21:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

it's 'parking ticket' not 'speeding ticket' - in my state, if you park in a handicapped zone you get a $275 fine - same rule applies to scooter-driving busboys and SUV-driving CEOs. The thought here is that garden variety incivility is just one of those things that happen because we're human and don't always think clearly - the penalty is a sharp reminder to pay more attention the next time. of course, if someone parks in a H-zone and then starts waving a gun around, he's going to get more than a fine; the incivility of threatening to cut someone's head off and ass-rape them is probably going to be overlooked by any admin trying to deal with the homicidal rage implicit in the statement. to that extent you're right - we ought to spell out both upper-limit and lower-limit criteria (what statements - e.g. general sarcasm - are too mild to be punished, and what statements - e.g. actual threats - are too major to be considered mere incivility). within those bounds, though, I do think penalties should be (as daTheisen put it) bright line rules, clear cut and uniform. --Ludwigs2 21:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)