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Update

This is where we currently stand:

Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. Note that although pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest is not considered a personal attack, speculating on the real life identity of another editor may constitute outing, which is a serious offense.

The problem with this is that as pointed out above "COIs (perceived, or real) have been used in the past as personal attacks, by addressing a person's affiliation rather than the strength of his/her arguments". The stigma of being branded a conflicted editor is one of a number of strong disincentives to disclose and one that is routinely [ab]used in discussions to gain the upper hand. There is zero benefit in pointing out a conflict without identifying how it relates to the current topic and to do so is to comment on the contributor rather than the content. Indeed it is more often than not inflammatory as conflicts of interest are usually associated with unethical behaviour, only it's also currently a blind spot as an editor has little recourse if they are accused (or indeed, attacked) in this fashion. Ultimately the undermining of an editor's argument detracts from their enjoyment of editing, particularly when many consider the associated implication offensive. The following change (from an earlier suggestion) would be a significant improvement in this regard, giving victims of such attacks some limited refuge:

Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. Note that although pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest and it's relevance to the discussion at hand is not considered a personal attack, speculating on the real life identity of another editor may constitute outing, which is a serious offense.

It is a similar concept to requiring the {{COI}} tag be justified with some other policy violation (e.g. WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:AUTO) and would be another step on the road to elevating WP:COI to policy. It both offers some protection to editors who voluntarily disclose (thus encouraging such disclosures) and makes the possibility of requiring disclosures as policy far more reasonable. Essentially it would require comments like this:

  • John may be supporting the removal of the criticism section because he's an Acme employee.

Rather than:

  • John [should be ignored because he]'s an Acme employee.

Does anyone have any better suggestions as to how to achieve this aim? -- samj inout 02:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As there was has been no feedback over the last week or so I've updated it and taken the liberty of adding a link to the "ad hominem" article which I think is pertinent and informative. It now reads:

Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. Note that although pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest and it's relevance to the discussion at hand is not considered a personal attack, speculating on the real life identity of another editor may constitute outing, which is a serious offense.

The only other potential improvement would be to drop the leading relevant but it reads reasonably well as is. -- samj inout 12:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, there was an errant "'" that was just removed by another editor. -- samj inout 14:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is commenting derisively about arguments a personal attack?

the question

If someone refers to what someone else says or argues as "silly" or "stupid", is that a personal attack? For example, if someone replies to this with the words, "That's silly at best", would that be a personal attack in violation of this policy and worth filing an ANI? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The actual phrase Born2cycle used was "Cresix' arguments are silly at best", made twice in separate edit summaries. I view that as equivalent to saying that someone's edit is "stupid", for example. Note that I have not made an official complaint about these edit summaries, nor did I ask Born2cycle to request information here. Up to this point, I see this as a minor dispute between him and me that does not require admin intervention. Thanks. Cresix (talk) 00:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although I saw the AN/I thread, I'm going to steer clear of answering this in terms of the specifics. Answering the basic question, in general terms, about whether it's a personal attack to call someone's edits silly, I would say (at least in my opinion) that it's a personal attack to call an editor silly, but not to call an edit silly. But I admit that this often gets difficult to distinguish in practice. A lot of this also depends upon context. I note that ArbCom in the climate change proposed decision is endorsing the idea that "casting aspersions" is a sanctionable offense. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. But doesn't "casting aspersions" imply criticism of someone? Criticism of someone's behavior, and in particular their words, is not criticism of the person; thus it's not a personal attack. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll confess that I have been known to say that some edits are silly. generally when I do, it's because an editor has said something which simply doesn't track logically, and I usually have very good reasons for saying it. there is a balance to be struck here between being civil to other editors (which is important to maintain a productive working environment) and maintaining certain standards of rational discourse (which is important to building a proper encyclopedia). My own rule is that I won't criticize an edit unless I can definitively show why it lacked substance, and when I do criticize an edit I try to steer clear of criticizing the editor (on the assumption that they don't know that they are not making sense, and merely need to be educated to the fact). It still gets me in trouble, though. Since you haven't posted the link, I can't tell whether you were actually saying something silly or not. --Ludwigs2 06:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue of whether a critical comment about someone else's comment is a wise or appropriate remark to make is different from the question here: is such a comment a personal attack? I would like this guideline to be clear on this particular question. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now addressing this issue more abstractly rather than in reference to the particular situation in which I was involved. I don't think there can ever be a guideline so clear and unequivocal with no consideration of the context in which certain words or phrases are used. An extreme example may be illustrative. If two editors with a friendly history are having a joking exchange and one says, "That was a stupid thing to say!", I don't think any reasonable person would interpret that as a personal attack (I've actually been in that type of situation and was roundly criticized by an uninvolved third party until the other editor in my exchange came to my rescue). That same phrase in a different context with editors who are having a heated discussion, however, can have a completely different meaning and is much more likley to fall into the category of personal attack. Many comments such as "stupid argument" occur in less extreme contexts, and I don't think it's possible to determine if there was incivility or a personal attack outside of that context. Cresix (talk) 18:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that context matters in evaluating what a comment means, and how it's intended, and whether it's appropriate or not. However, I don't see how context changes whether a given comment is a personal attack or an attack that's not personal. In every example I can fathom, that determination can be made from the literal words of the comment in question without regard to context. I don't see how "That was a stupid thing to say!" could ever be a personal attack since it's only addressing what was said, not the person (everybody says stupid things once in a while - some more often than others - but one instance of saying something stupid says nothing about the person who said it, nor does pointing it out). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously this is a matter of opinion. I can easily see such a comment in some contexts as a personal attack. For example, suppose an editor writes, "I don't think that's a reliable source; perhaps you should discuss on the talk page", followed by a response, "That was a stupid thing to say!" In my book (unless it's a mutual joking exchange), that's a very clear personal attack. There could be a million different contexts where it could have a variety of meanings. My concern is that if Wikipedia declares that no words that don't specifically refer to the editor rather than the edit can ever be construed as a personal attack, that will be an invitation for veiled attacks on editors by way of attacks on their edits. Thanks for raising this issue. It could generate some useful discussion. Cresix (talk) 18:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
According to my wife, I can be really dense sometimes, and maybe this is one of those times, but I just can't follow this. As near as I can tell, personal, in this context, means: "Referring to an individual's character, appearance, or private life, esp. in a hostile or critical way"[1].

Again, I agree that a phrase like "That was a stupid thing to say!" can be interpreted many different ways, both civilly and uncivilly, depending on context, but I just can't see how it could possibly refer to the "character, appearance, or private life" of the person who happened to say the supposedly stupid thing. I mean, if it is personal, what exactly does it say about the person? When I said your arguments were silly at best, what do you think that implied about you personally (I assure you, I intended nothing about you personally)? If it says nothing about the person, how is it personal at all, much less a personal attack? Am I missing something? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:04, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I won't comment about the "silly" comment because I think that's water under the bridge; I'd rather focus on the general issue. I think in the context that I presented above, it's obvious (to me, anyway) that "That's was a stupid thing to say" is simply calling the editor "stupid"; in another context it could perfectly benign. If we have a strict, inflexible policy (or even guideline) that the words must specifically refer to the editor and not the words of the editor, I think we will see a dramatic increase in that type of indirect attack, then when challenged it will immediately be followed with the defense, "I said nothing about User X; I simply think his words are stupid", but the real target is User X. Wikilawyers will begin flooding talk pages with attacks on words with every real intent of attacking the editor because they know they can do it with impunity. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but as I said, I think we should err on the side of caution on this issue. My two cents. Cresix (talk) 20:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"It's obvious (to me, anyway) that 'That's was a stupid thing to say' is simply calling the editor 'stupid'". Thank you. It's not obvious to me at all. In fact, what is obvious to me is that it's not saying anything about the editor (the person) at all, much less that he or she is stupid, and that applies to any context I can imagine that statement being said. But, of course, I see that that is a matter of interpretation and therefore opinion, but at least we've finally identified a point on which I think we can agree to disagree.

I will only add that I'm probably sensitive about this distinction because life has taught me that it's critical to distinguish people's actions from the people, and to always (not just in WP, but with friends, children, students, employees, co-workers, customers, etc.) try to comment on actions and behavior rather than on persons, especially if it's critical. "That's a stupid thing to say" is an example of doing so, and something I might say to a friend, my wife, or my child. "You are stupid" is something I would never say to anyone, nor mean to imply.

Oh, and #v1.1 below addresses your concern about the potential of people taking advantage of this change in that it makes it clear that recognizing comments about behavior not being personal does not allow for such comments when they are uncivil; it's just that such statements would be outside the scope of this policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One additional point that I forgot: I think we have to be much more careful with words in a written medium such as Wikipedia compared to face-to-face or on the phone. Tone of voice (or facial expression if that is observable) can convey a lot of information that is not available in writing. That's why the emoticon system developed, but I don't think we can always rely on emoticons (not to mention that many editors aren't even aware that what they write doesn't come across the same way as it would if spoken). Another reason, in my opinion, to err on the side of caution. Cresix (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a stupid thing to say.
Hidden clarification
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Just kidding!!! (context matters)
Seriously, I think all kinds of uncivil discourse needs to be discouraged, but let's not water down the seriousness of a personal attack by mischaracterizing much less serious uncivil commentary as personal attack. That's what this clarifying change to WP:NPA is ultimately about, and why I think it matters. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the specific example of "that is the stupidest thing I've ever seen" is given as an example of uncivil belittling behavior at WP:CIVILITY. Such comments are a violation of WP:CIVILITY, not this policy, and I don't understand the resistance to being clear on this point. What do you think of #v1.2? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actual Change

(edit conflict)I've gone ahead and added the following subsection about this point:

What is not considered to be a personal attack

A critical comment directed at what another editor says or does rather than the person is not a personal attack by definition and thus not a violation of this policy, but is probably best to avoid nonetheless as nonproductive, especially on article talk pages, and may be a violation of other policies or guidelines, like WP:HARASSMENT if it's part of a pattern. Again, it's best to comment on content, not on contributors, or their behavior for that matter.

Comments and improvements are encouraged! --Born2cycle (talk) 18:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I see the addition has already been reverted with the following edit summary comment: "This would be a significant change to a major core policy, so, per WP:BRD, I'm R so we can D."

I don't understand what makes this change significant. Does it really change anything, other than add a little clarification? What is the objection? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • My opinion is that this is not an appropriate change for WP:NPA for the reasons I stated above about context. I appreciate the effort to establish some clarification on this issue, and perhaps with other opinions some changes can be hammered out, but I don't think it can ever be clearly determined that no comment about what an editor says or does is ever considered a personal attack. As I said, it depends very much on context. I think civility is of such importance that editors should err on the side of caution, and I'm afraid this will discourage that. Admins always have the discretion to discuss and warn before blocking, and in my experience that's exactly what most admins do. Thanks for consideration of my opinions. Cresix (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm the person who invoked BRD. It's not like I have a huge complaint about the proposed change, but rather, that I want it to be scrutinized and discussed before being codified. Overall, my major concern is that Wikipedia needs more civility, not less, and I want to be careful that we don't change policy in such a way as to make it easier to get away with making personal attacks. I also have low enthusiasm for seeing two editors who just came here from an AN/I dispute arguing about changing core policy in ways that might reflect their own positions in that dispute. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

v1.1

In this version I add the link to WP:CIVILITY to emphasize that by clarifying "critical comments about behavior" are not personal attacks by definition, that does not mean they are acceptable.

What is not considered to be a personal attack

A critical comment directed at what another editor says or does rather than the person is not a personal attack by definition and thus not a violation of this policy, but is probably best to avoid nonetheless as nonproductive, especially on article talk pages, and may be a violation of other policies or guidelines, like WP:CIVILITY or WP:HARASSMENT if it's part of a pattern. Again, it's best to comment on content, not on contributors, or their behavior for that matter.

Comments? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason for this policy creep, and I can think of several contraindications. If you start modifying policy for exclusions which call for judgment, there is no benefit and you open the door to the possibility for abuse. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 18:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Understood in general, but some examples of the several contraindications you can think of, real or hypothetical, would help explain how this concern applies here in particular. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would not be as helpful as you hope. There are some very clever people here who are quite capable of savaging an opponent while keeping within the border of any wording that might be devised for CIVIL/NPA. The policy should just state the big picture: this is a place where civility and no personal attacks are required. Every piece of explanation adds scope for wikilawyering, and we will have to rely on interpretations in individual cases because it is impossible to define precisely what constitutes a personal attack. The proposed text has the drawback that it says that something is not an attack, but you shouldn't do it anyway – that does not help because A can make a dubious remark about something B did, and A can assert that the proposed text says the remark is not an attack, while B can say the proposed text prohibits A's remark. Johnuniq (talk) 23:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree ambiguity is problematic, and provides much of the fuel for wikilawyering, which is why I want this clarified. In your example, A would be correct and B would be wrong. The text at WP:CIVIL is what prohibits the dubious remark, not this proposed text. Unless the remark is a personal attack, B would be wrong in claiming A's dubious remark is in violation of the proposed text, or any part of WP:NPA. But that can be clarified even better... --Born2cycle (talk) 00:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See #v1.2 below. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

v1.2

In this version I simplify the wording and adjust it to avoid implying it prohibits incivility that is not a personal attack (WP:CIVIL prohibits that).

What is not considered to be a personal attack

A critical comment directed at what another editor says or does rather than the person is not a personal attack, by definition, and thus not a violation of this policy. However, such remarks may be prohibited by other policies and guidelines, such as WP:CIVILITY, or perhaps WP:HARASSMENT.

Comments? --Born2cycle (talk)

Just a thought, but I suspect the black-and-white "not a personal attack, by definition" will never sit right with a substantial number of serious editors; I'll willingly stand corrected on that if others wish to disagree with me. Perhaps you should come at it from a different angle, such as describing that critical comments directed personally at an editor are more likely to be considered a personal attack; however, there could be situations where the attack on the surface is directed at the editor's ideas rather than the editor per se, but the likely intent is to attack the editor. A few very clear examples (with some consensus here) could help. Cresix (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like you're trying to legislate common sense, here, which is never a promising activity. You want to make some distinction between disparaging comments (comments meant to insult or belittle) and critical comments (comments meant to point out flawed behavior or flawed reasoning), but I believe that's always going to be something that's easier to see than to define. --Ludwigs2 01:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if you're talking to me or Cresix, but what I'm trying to distinguish is comments critical of a person (which are personal attacks) from comments critical of a person's behavior (which are not personal attacks, but still may be inappropriate, though not because they are personal attacks - so different criteria and a different guideline, like WP:CIVIL, applies there). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking to you. You're basically trying to define a when is the jacuzzi too hot question. the extremes are obvious, but the dividing line isn't. best you're going to do is identify a gray area where the issue needs to be discussed. --Ludwigs2 03:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. But from where I sit the line between personal and non-personal seems really obvious. "Don't be an idiot" is personal... "that was a dumb thing to say" is not. The gray areas I see is within each category... does a given personal comment qualify as an attack? Does a given non-personal comment cross the line from civil to uncivil? Definitely some "jacuzzi too hot?" conundrums there. But whether it's personal or not? That seems obvious. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, not always obvious. How about "you are being illogical"? It's personal, in the sense that it's directed at the editor, but it can reasonably be understood as being about the edit. Seems to me that this proposal is not going to go anywhere, and may not be worth spending any more effort on. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How is that not obvious? The subject of the sentence "you are being illogical" is "you", a person. Any statement whose subject is a particular person (e.g., "you"), is unambiguously personal and about that person, by definition. That's just a fact of basic grammar. Sure it's about something about the person that happens to have been manifested in an edit, but the statement clearly means that it's the person, not the edit, that is illogical.

Surely if it's truly as ambiguous as you claim someone can come up with an example that really is ambiguous. So far no one has.

I'm also curious about the apparent reluctance (I've seen it with respect to other guidelines too) to make guidelines be more clear; it's almost as if some prefer the ambiguity. Like I said before, I think that encourages wikilawyering. Just like with real law, by "tightening up" the wording like this we give the lawyers less to play with. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

v1.3

Tighten up the wording even more by using an unambiguous fact of grammar.

What is not considered to be a personal attack

Any sentence of criticism for which the subject is the behavior of an editor and not the person is not a personal attack, and thus not a violation of this policy. However, such remarks may be a violation of other policies and guidelines, such as WP:CIVILITY, or perhaps WP:HARASSMENT.

I would like to point out that to the extent this would encourage people to craft their comments in disputes accordingly -- to focus on behavior rather than persons -- that would be an improvement to Wikipedia.

Comments? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

B2c, you are being persistent. Are you going to take me to AN/I for saying that? The problem with this latest version comes when someone says something like "you are behaving like an asshole"—an obvious personal attack that is directed at "behavior".
But, having griped at you about that, I will say that you are approaching something that is also of interest to me. The page nutshell says, beautifully, that one should comment on the edit, not the editor. That already covers what you were getting at in version 3. A problem, as I see it, is that the rest of the policy then seems to define personal attacks more narrowly, such that calling another editor an "asshole" is likely to be seen as a personal attack, whereas calling another editor a "jerk" or a "POV pusher" is likely to be seen, in the case of "jerk", as a milder form of minor incivility, and, in the case of "POV pusher", as a possibly entirely appropriate issue to raise on an article talk page. I'd rather see the policy as a whole better reflect the nutshell. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per v1.3 "you are behaving like an asshole" would be a personal attack since it's a sentence of criticism for which the subject (you) is a person. Per v1.2 it's not clear. Thank you for helping show how and why v1.3 is an improvement over v1.2.

I agree the policy would be better if it more closely reflected the nutshell. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me split a hair in this discussion. Is "Your edits look like they were made by an editor who is behaving like an asshole" (directed at the edit) different than "You are behaving like an asshole." (directed at the editor)? Cresix (talk) 18:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why basing this on grammatical structure won't work, and will be gamed endlessly. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"You are behaving like ..." (or "You are acting like ...") is a special case where even though the subject is the person it's still not a personal attack since it's a statement about the person's behavior. Note that the description of what's not a personal attack cannot be exhaustive. Neither example is a personal attack. Both are violations of civility. Excluding certain types of comments from being personal attacks based on grammatical structure would work. At least this example does not show that it would not work. I handle this example in v1.4 below. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

v1.4

Add another criteria for what is not a personal attack.

What is not considered to be a personal attack
  • Any sentence of criticism for which the subject is the behavior of an editor and not the person is not a personal attack, and thus not a violation of this policy.
  • Any comment that is clearly about someone's behavior and is not a statement about the person is not a personal attack.
However, such remarks may be a violation of other policies and guidelines, such as WP:CIVILITY, or perhaps WP:HARASSMENT.

Comments? -Born2cycle (talk) 18:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It does not appear you have much, if any, support for this. Have you considered that this might not be something which is going to gain support, regardless of how much you re-word it? KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 20:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
perhaps s/he should consider a username change to User:Born2recycle (j/k - ) --Ludwigs2 20:56, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we should expand the page to define suggested username changes as personal attacks. (I know, it was just a joke. But I just couldn't resist pointing out the irony of saying that here.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'm with you on the irony (why do you think I said it? irony is my middle name - literally; my parents had as odd a sense of humor as I do.). I'll apologize if requested, but he has to admit it made him smile. --Ludwigs2 21:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Understood all along, I promise! Nobody needs to apologize for anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

May be add "ageist" to the list...

...of personal attacks based on race, religion, nationality or sexual identity that can result in a block of the perpetrator? I can guarantee that being insulted as being "old" or "an old fart," especially given the amount of effort and experience that this professional journalist and author has given Wikipedia, is as vicious as someone calling me a "guinea" because I am Italian. There's no reason that being ghettoized, dismissed, or — in the case of a current abusive editor — being the target of a focused collection of ageist insults is any less distressing or ruining of the Wikipedia experience. Ageism is not OK. --Tenebrae (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not normal for procedural pages to list all (or even most) bad behaviors, so I would not favor adding attack terms as they are raised (instead, editors are supposed to comply with the principles of pages like this, rather than finding new ways of attacking someone). Perhaps words like "for example" might be inserted in WP:No personal attacks#Blocking for personal attacks? Johnuniq (talk) 03:20, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The word "you" should be avoided when possible

Just stuck in the phrase "In disputes, the word "you" should be avoided when possible. " This is a device used to defuse a seeming person attack in (e.g.) legislative bodies. E.g. "The honorable gentleman is wrong", etc. But never "You". Pproctor (talk) 22:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are brilliant. Oops. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously, I liked it so much I created a policy shortcut for it... WP:AVOIDYOU. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recurring attacks

I was reading over part of the guidelines, and came across the following in the Recurring Attacks section: "This is also the difficulty in recurring attacks. We have to assume that the attacker is willing to compromise. It is not plausible for editors to attack each other (or they would have been defined as attackers) because they want and expect strong discourse." Apologies to whoever wrote this, but I have no idea what this means. Why would we assume the attacker is willing to compromise? What is that saying about the "defined as attackers"? Who wants or expects strong discourse? When I read this, I actually thought someone might have vandalized the page recently, because this comes close to having no meaning. At the least, this section needs to be rephrased, but I have so little guess as to what it means that I don't know how to start. Any ideas? Qwyrxian (talk) 11:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch, you are right. It's not a recent addition, and my best guess is that it was an attempt to point out things to be careful of, in the sense of something that seems like a personal attack but was not intended as one. However, I really cannot see any way to improve it that would be worthwhile. Would there be any objections to deleting it? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is when it was added: 08:41, March 18, 2008... by User:Slapshot24. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Slapshot24's next contribution back in 2008, a couple of days later, in Wikipedia talk:Civility,[2] seems related. See that contribution and the response at the time at the tail end of the discussion thread archived at Wikipedia talk:Civility/Archive 4#Incivility is sometimes necessary. There have been a lot of edits to CIVILITY between then[3] and now [4]. Perhaps some ideas about better wording here can be found there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at those links and tried to think of a better way of saying it, but I really cannot see anything of value that would come of it. My personal opinion is that it would make better sense simply to delete the passage. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be bold and take it out. We can keep discussing here if there is some rephrasing and reinsertion that we want to do. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

some revisions

I've tweedled with the Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack.3F section, mostly CE and amplification, but also tweaking the focus of it a bit. comments/revisions welcome.

I was debating with myself over one point: I wanted to add in a bit about non-verbal attacks (blanket reverts, tendentious tagging, aggressive discussion closure, etc.), but it's an awfully gray area. I mean, it's clear that these things are sometimes used as personal attacks, but since they are almost invariably done without discussion when they are used as attacks, it's a difficult point to make. Yes, I think we all recognize that in some cases - e.g. when M. Shmoe spends three hours revising an article, and M. Shmue takes all of twelve seconds to revert it in bulk with an obnoxious edit summary like "rv POV-pushing crap" - a personal attack of some sort has occurred. However, the attack seems to go a good bit beyond the unfortunate use of the word 'crap', but it's hard to express precisely why it's more wrong than that wrong (it strikes me as a level of arrogant disrespect for the other editor's efforts, but...). so two questions: (i) do we want to get into that here?, and (ii) do we want to get into that here? --Ludwigs2 08:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the changes look reasonable, although it needs some copy editing (which can wait until after we see how the changes are accepted). One difference I noticed is not helpful: You changed the simple never acceptable: "Threats of legal action" to "Threats of legal action over article content or editorial behavior". The former is correct; the latter offers loopholes. Likewise, changing "Threats to out an editor" to "Threats to out an editor about any aspect of their personal life" is doubtful because whatever the intention, the qualification asserts that some outing (that which does not relate to personal life) is ok. Johnuniq (talk) 09:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see your points - one of the dangers of trying to make things more concise and clear is that you sometimes miss. If it helps any, my main intention (aside from efforts at copy-editing and clarification) was to draw out the idea that making inductions about editors as people is the slippery slope here: the more one moves from "X did this" to "X is the kind of person who does this" (and the more effort one puts into making that induction stick), the more of an attack it becomes. A personal attack is just personalization, in both the psychological senses of the word: transforming an objective/concrete problem into a social/emotional problem, and portraying individuals in terms of over-simplified dispositional attributes. It's hard to get the idea out of psych-jargon into conventional speech, though. at any rate, yes; let's see what others say. --Ludwigs2 10:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I hesitate to bring up a personal point, but I think that it'd be best to delay this proposal for a few weeks. IIRC, user:Jossi was reprimanded for seeking to change applicable policies while he was in arbitration. Let's wait until Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling is closed before deciding on this. We can keep talking about it though.   Will Beback  talk  11:25, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Will, do me a favor - if you're going to revert something, do it for a content-related reason, not for some bureaucratic silliness. The revert is fine, but the reasoning "we shouldn't do this because someone got in trouble for doing something vaguely similar elsewhere" is not helpful in the slightest. do you dislike the changes? if so, why? Do you prefer to discard them completely, or are there particular parts you'd like to keep? If you don't have any actual content points of this sort to make, then I'll go ahead and re-revert to the updated version and wait for other people's comments. I'm not worried about what happened to Jossi. --Ludwigs2 17:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Will is correct, Ludwigs2. Your timing is very bad, and I urge you to reconsider. Risker (talk) 18:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • My understanding is that policy is descriptive, rather than prescriptive. If you are arguing that your changes reflect a change of emphasis in the application of this policy, then it would be helpful if it is exampled (with multiples, I suggest, and examples of how the old wording is deprecated if possible). If you are suggesting that certain aspects of policy should receive a different emphasis, and you are going to point to the rewritten page to evidence the "correct" interpretation, then you are going about it wrong. NPA is neither a new or rarely visited policy, it is one that is acted upon and reported against every day, and in how it is used is the only way by which it is defined and therefore can be changed. Even if brilliantly constructed and an improvement on current practice, it still is irrelevant if admins continue to act in accordance to the previous wording. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure where to ask this

who sends the complaints to say it was a personal attack, because a reply i have put has been removed twice from a discussion page, then flagged for an attack on a person when it was nothing of the sort, wikipedia and it's users are really starting to frustrate me now as i cannot even say - see i was right, this data was right so stop deleting it you sod - without being accused of personal attack. It's ridiculous

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