Wikipedia:Civility: Difference between revisions

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This page documents an English Wikipedia policy.

It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

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This page in a nutshell: Participate in a respectful and civil way. Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of others. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and avoid upsetting other editors whenever possible.

Our Wikipedia community has a number of core principles, developed through experience. The most important states that articles should be written from a neutral point of view. After that, we request a reasonable degree of civility towards others.

Civility is a standard which all Wikipedians except Giano are expected to follow. It is, perhaps, easier to define its opposite, however: incivility, as defined on Wikipedia, consists of personally-targeted, belligerent behavior and persistent rudeness that results in an atmosphere of conflict and stress. This behavior and the ensuing atmosphere are detrimental to the project, and are therefore to be avoided.

The community realizes that editors are human, capable of mistakes, and so a few, minor, isolated incidents are not in themselves a concern. A pattern of gross incivility, however, is highly disruptive, and may result in warnings or blocks. Of course, one single act of incivility can also cross the line if severe enough; for instance, an egregious personal attack, a threat against another person, or extreme profanity directed against another contributor are all excessive enough to result in a block without any need to consider the pattern.

This policy is not meant to be used as a weapon against other contributors. To insist that an editor be sanctioned for an isolated, minor offense, or to treat constructive criticism as an attack, is itself disruptive, and may result in warnings or blocks.

Co-operation and civility

Wikipedia invites editors to improve text. Often there are differences of opinion over whether a change is an improvement. Editors, in trying to be clearly understood, can be unnecessarily harsh. Conversely, editors can also be oversensitive when they see their contribution replaced by an edit that is said to be better, despite a possible difference of opinion as to whether the replacement was truly an improvement. Community members may become interested in "triumphing" over the "enemy" instead of improving articles.

Silent and faceless words on talk pages and in edit summaries do not transmit fully the nuances of verbal conversation, sometimes leading to misinterpretation of an editor's comments. An uncivil remark can easily cause escalation into a heated discussion that no longer focuses objectively on the editing problem at hand. These exchanges waste our efforts and they undermine and erode a positive, productive working environment. Attempts should always be made to solve possible disagreements through a civil discussion.

Editors are expected to remain civil, refrain from making personal attacks, operate within the scope of policies, and are urged to be responsive to good-faith questions.

Engaging in incivility

These behaviors can all contribute to an uncivil environment:

Rudeness.
Insults and name calling. Comment on the actions and not the editor.
Referring to other editors' good-faith changes as vandalism.^[1] (See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what constitutes vandalism on Wikipedia.)
Judgmental tone in edit summaries (e.g. "snipped rambling crap") or talk-page posts ("that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen").
Gross profanity directed at another contributor.
Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice.
Taunting; deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves.
Ill-considered accusations of impropriety; for instance, calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel.
Lies, including deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors.
Quoting another editor out-of-context in order to give the impression that he or she hold views they do not hold, or in order to malign them.
Indecent suggestions.
Making personal attacks, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs.
Using derogatory language towards other contributors or in general referring to groups such as social classes, nationalities, ethnic groups, religious groups, or others in a derogatory manner.
Feigned incomprehension, "playing dumb".

Why incivility is inappropriate

Incivility creates a hot, unfriendly space, and a sense of threat. With civility, respect and a sense of safety and collegiality between all concerned is created, producing ample room for negotiation. Incivility may put editors on the defensive, may create closed-mindedness to multiple, alternative ideas, and can help to prevent a consensus from forming.

A more serious consequence of incivility may be that an editor becomes so unhappy that he or she leaves Wikipedia. Wikipedia is at heart an online community. To maintain the effectiveness of the community, all members must be civil to one another and remember why they have joined the community in the first place. Editors should strive to create an environment that supports other editors and that does not encourage or support breaches of incivility. All contributors are expected to assume good faith towards each other (within reason), in order to try and uphold a reasonably civil atmosphere.

Editors can apply peer pressure by voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility occurs; however, some care is required: If the comment is read as an insult, or seems to belittle another editor; the situation could be inflamed further. Peer pressure works best when it comes from friends or people the editor already trusts or respects.

Situations that may foster incivility

Incivility can occur, for example, when you are creating a new page, and another user tells you, "If you're going to write a pointless page, could you spell-check it?" And escalation occurs when you reply, "Get lost!" This style of interaction between Wikipedians drives away contributors, distracts others from more important matters, and weakens the entire community.

Incivility can occur during an edit war, when editors have differing opinions, or when there is a conflict based on power.

As the community grows larger, editors may not know all other editors, and may not perceive the importance of each individual to the project.

In a larger community editors may be more able to hide less than positive reputations than is possible in a smaller community.

Sometimes, a particularly impolite user joins the project. This can also aggravate other editors, and impair the collaborative environment. Editors may find themselves becoming upset in such an environment, and may themselves engage in less than civil behaviour.

Editors may use insults in the heat of the moment during a longer conflict. The person who made the insult may regret having used such words afterwards.

In other cases, insults may be deliberate and could be used to either distract other editors from the issue, or to simply drive them away from working on the article or even from the Wikipedia project itself.

Editors may be under pressure from external variables, and for example a lack of sleep may contribute to a loss of good judgment that can lead to speaking in socially unacceptable ways. Take a break from the issue if you sense your judgment may be lowered by any external variables.

Dispute resolution

In a case of ongoing incivility, consider discussion on that user's talk page, not to escalate the situation, but to explain your objection. You may also wish to include a diff of the specific uncivil statement. If the situation is unresolved, an RfC (user conduct Request for Comment) can be requested to discuss specific users who have violated Wikipedia policies and guidelines. During an RfC, scrutiny may be applied to all editors involved.

For death threats, racist attacks, legal threats, threats of violence, and other cases where immediate action is required, use the Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents page to contact the site's admins.

The Arbitration committee has given this advice to editors: pursue disputes in a civil manner designed to contribute to resolution and to cause minimal disruption.

User pages

Civility is appropriate on all user pages. Wikipedia provides user pages to facilitate communication among participants in its project to build an encyclopedia, and if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption. Observe community policies in user space. Do not make personal attacks in user space or elsewhere.

Do not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute. Inappropriate content on user pages may be removed. You should not reveal the personal information of other editors without their consent.

Harassment and disclosing personal information (outing)

Harassment occurs when a particular user is "targeted" by another editor, and may include any untoward attention such as seeking to communicate inappropriately with that user, or contacting other persons (either on- or off-wiki) in order to cause harm to that user. Repeated instances of incivility, if unchecked, can also constitute harassment.

Because of privacy concerns, which apply to the Internet in general, editors (users) are encouraged not to supply superfluous identifying information about themselves, such as home address or telephone number. This minimizes the likelihood of spamming or harassment by outside parties. If personal information becomes available in such a way as to constitute a risk of harm to a user, the information can be deleted or Oversighted if necessary.

Outing occurs when a particular editor's personal information is revealed by another editor without their explicit permission.

Editors who harass other users, publicly disclose personal information on another user, or enable the harassment of a user, may be blocked for doing so.

No legal threats

You should always first attempt to resolve disputes using Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures. Wikipedia cannot prevent editors from taking legal action if they feel they must do so. However, we require that you do not edit Wikipedia until the legal matter has been resolved to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels.

Removal of uncivil comments

Where the incivil comment is yours, any of these options will help to reduce the impact:

Where someone is taking offense at your comment where none was intended, calmly explain what you meant.
Strike them out (using <s>~~HTML strikeout tags~~</s>), to show, publicly, that you withdraw the comment.
Quietly remove it, or rewrite the comment to be more civil - Usually only a good idea if you think better of it before anyone took offense to it. If someone has taken offense already, you should acknowledge the change in a quick comment after the changed text, for instance, Comment removed by author.
Simply apologise. This option never hurts, and can be combined well with any of the others. Even if you feel the thrust of your words is true, or that they are misunderstanding what you meant, you can still apologise for the offense caused.

Only in the most serious of circumstances should an editor replace or edit a comment made by another editor. Only in the event of something that can cause actual damage in the real world should this be the first step (i.e., disclosing the name, address or phone number of an opponent). In the event of rudeness or incivility on the part of an editor, it is appropriate to discuss the offending words with that editor, and to request that editor to change that specific wording. Should removing a comment be necessary, or you wish to remove your own uncivil comments, any of the following suggestions may be applied:

Simply remove the offensive comments from talk pages (since they remain in the page history, anyone can find them again or refer to them later on). This is appropriate if the words appear to be vandalism.^[2]
Delete (entirely and permanently) an edit made by the offender (requires technical help).
Permanently delete an offensive comment made on the mailing lists (requires technical help).
Replace a comment made in an edit summary by another less offensive comment (requires technical help).

Considerations concerning civility

Treat your fellow editor as a respected and admired colleague, who is working in collaboration with you on an important project.

Preventing incivility within Wikipedia

Several policies and guidelines seek to lessen the disruption and drama caused by incivility and problems with editors not listening to each other. Policies such as our No Personal Attack policy, and Harassment policy set firm lines. Anyone crossing those lines cannot expect to escape retribution. The three-revert rule seeks to place firm limits on edit-warring. Blocks allow disruptive editors to be prevented from editing, and topic bans allow otherwise productive editors to be prevented from editing the few pages or topics which regularly incite them to disruptive behaviour.

For broader issues, page protection allows admins to stop editing on an article in heated and unproductive dispute (to allow editors time to calm down), and the the mediation cabal and other forms of dispute resolution exist to step in and attempt to solve the root of problems between editors, or suggest compromises.

Personally reducing the impact

These suggestions may help you maintain civility in the face of difficulties. Use common sense and personal preferences to choose an appropriate option, or create a solution that better suits the specific situation you find yourself in.

Balance criticisms by providing constructive comments.
If possible forget about offensive comments without replying, and forgive the editor. Do not escalate the conflict.
Alternatively, respond to perceived incivility with greater civility and respect. Many editors will then moderate their tone to match yours.
Please. Thank you. I'm sorry. You're welcome. You're a good person and I know we'll work this out. Treat your fellow editor as a respected and admired colleague, who is working in collaboration with you on an important project.
Walk away. Wikipedia is a very big place. Just go edit somewhere else for a while and return when tempers have cooled.
You do not have to like an editor as a person to appreciate that they are also working for the good of the project. If you do not like a fellow editor, try not to hold that fact against them.

Apologizing

Disputes, and even misunderstandings, can lead to situations in which one party feels injured by the other. The apology is a form of ritual exchange between both parties, where words are said that allow reconciliation.

For some people, it may be crucial to receive an apology from those who have offended them. Demanding an apology is almost never helpful and often inflames the situation further, though a polite, good-faith request for an apology may be acceptable. Offering an apology is even better, and can be a key to resolving conflict. An apology provides the opportunity for a fresh start, and can clear the air when one person's perceived incivility has offended another.

Footnotes

^ Use your best judgment when sending warnings of vandalism and using templates. Poor judgement might lead to templates being posted without due investigation and in error which can leave another User unfairly branded and unhappy. (The removal of a warning template from a user talk page is considered as an indication that the warning will be heeded, and acted upon appropriately, by the appropriate User.)
^ Revert an edit with &bot=1, so that the edit made by the offender appears invisible in Recent Changes (do-able on ip contributions, requires technical help for logged-in user).

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 Our [[Wikipedia:Wikipedians|Wikipedia community]] has a number of [[Wikipedia:Five pillars|core principles]], developed through experience. The most important states that articles should be written from a [[WP:NPOV|neutral point of view]]. After that, we request a reasonable degree of '''civility''' towards others.
-'''Civility''' is a standard which all Wikipedians are expected to follow. It is, perhaps, easier to define its opposite, however: ''[[civility|incivility]]'', as defined on Wikipedia, consists of ''personally-targeted, belligerent behavior and persistent rudeness that results in an atmosphere of [[m:source of conflict|conflict]] and [[m:wikistress|stress]].'' This behavior and the ensuing atmosphere are detrimental to the project, and are therefore to be avoided.
+'''Civility''' is a standard which all Wikipedians except Giano are expected to follow. It is, perhaps, easier to define its opposite, however: ''[[civility|incivility]]'', as defined on Wikipedia, consists of ''personally-targeted, belligerent behavior and persistent rudeness that results in an atmosphere of [[m:source of conflict|conflict]] and [[m:wikistress|stress]].'' This behavior and the ensuing atmosphere are detrimental to the project, and are therefore to be avoided.
 The community realizes that editors are human, capable of mistakes, and so a few, minor, isolated incidents are not in themselves a concern. A pattern of gross incivility, however, is highly disruptive, and may result in warnings or [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocks]]. Of course, one single act of incivility can also cross the line if severe enough; for instance, an egregious [[WP:NPA|personal attack]], a threat against another person, or extreme profanity directed against another contributor are all excessive enough to result in a block without any need to consider the pattern.