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See talk page for comments. Bottom line is that people are sometimes blocked for personal attacks (which is a kind of disruption) and that those blocks are generally upheld.

Outline

While most Wikipedian editors behave constructively and civilly, there are always some people that use personal attacks in dealing with others, when upset, or caught in an edit war, or simply when disagreeing on an issue. This behavior is considered undesirable, as it poisons the atmosphere, has an adverse effect on the community, and may cause good editors to leave the project.

In other words, personal attacks are disruptive to Wikipedia - and like other kinds of disruption, such as revert warring, a workable solution may be to temporarily block the offending party. This is not intended as a punishment, but as a simple measure to get the person to cool down. Also, it will likely keep the target of the attack from retaliating and further escalating the issue. If we give the signal that personal attacks are dealt with in this fashion, it would discourage people from making attacks in the first place.

Proposals

Making personal attacks blockable has been proposed in the past and has not reached consensus back then. However, the Wiki has grown in the meantime, and the issue of personal attacks has grown with it, so a proposal is made anew. It is also possible that there earlier proposals failed because of problems with the wording; the intent is to get a consensual wording this time.

There are four proposals at the bottom of this page, with varying degrees of complexity. Please post comments on the talk page.

Definition

It's not possible to give a strict formal definition of 'personal attack', in particular because Wikipedia is not a book of law, and any strict definition would be gameable. Admins are supposed to judge using common sense — and if they didn't have any, they wouldn't be admins in the first place.

Personal attacks include, but are not limited to, false or unverifiable statements that would diminish the credibility of an editor were they true. They range from absurd name-calling ("George is a pimple") to false accusations ("Matilda is a fraud"). Similarly, they may be implicit comments ("The despots here…"). Derogatory humour only avoids being a personal attack if it is clearly not intended to cause personal offence.

Making derogatory remarks about an article may be considered an attack but it's not a personal one, and adding such tags as 'POV', 'cleanup' or even 'Delete' to an article is never a personal attack, although reasons given within {{deletebecause}} can be.

Generally speaking, simply accusing an editor of being a sockpuppet, meatpuppet, or vandal is not usually a personal attack. A personal attack is a comment on an editor's personal character. Comments on an editors behaviour are harder to qualify as a personal attack. Such remarks may of course become attacks if the accusation is clearly made in bad-faith.

Making a personal attack in reaction to another personal attack is no excuse. Regardless of who started a conflict, if two or more editors both behave inappropriately, the admin taking action should be evenhanded and block both of them, or neither of them.

Examples

This is a list of recent blocks that included "attacks" as the reason, or one of the reasons, for the block.

05:51, August 3, 2005 BrokenSegue blocked "User:Osamabeenlaughing" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism and personal attack (possible sock))
19:16, August 2, 2005 Brian0918 blocked "User:86.129.177.179" with an expiry time of 48 hours (attacking users, vandalizing pages)
19:27, August 13, 2005 Brian0918 blocked "User:Pigger" with an expiry time of indefinite (member of the troll group "GNAA", long committing personal attacks)
08:17, August 13, 2005 Curps blocked "User:207.200.116.0/24" with an expiry time of 15 minutes (personal attacks)
11:13, July 26, 2005 David Gerard blocked "User:Nescar9" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandal/troll/personal attack account)
08:30, August 2, 2005 Dmcdevit blocked "User:69.111.161.69" with an expiry time of 48 hours (personal attacks, already warned)
20:42, August 4, 2005 Dmcdevit blocked "User:BunkyBoopy" with an expiry time of 48 hours (personal attacks and vandalism)
00:04, July 31, 2005 Dmcdevit blocked "User:Freestylefrappe" with an expiry time of 24 hours (personal attacks, already warned)
19:49, July 31, 2005 Dmcdevit blocked "User:Universaliss" with an expiry time of 1 week (excessive vandalism and personal attacks, already warned)
06:51, August 4, 2005 Essjay blocked "User:Shane Lively" with an expiry time of indefinite (Vandalism, sockpuppetry, personal attacks)
05:21, August 4, 2005 Evil Monkey blocked "User:Prince William on Wheels Again" with an expiry time of indefinite (personal attack. Sock)
05:28, August 4, 2005 Evil Monkey blocked "User:209.209.219.221" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism and personal attacks)
22:06, July 27, 2005 Gamaliel blocked "User:134.161.244.89" with an expiry time of 1 month (constant vandalism and homophobic personal attacks over several weeks)
19:34, August 3, 2005 Gamaliel blocked "User:195.93.21.1" with an expiry time of 1 hour (vandalism and attacks)
21:13, August 6, 2005 Gamaliel blocked "User:65.216.75.240" with an expiry time of 48 hours (vandalism, personal attacks)
07:33, August 7, 2005 Gamaliel blocked "User:66.41.212.34" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism, copyvio, personal attacks)
21:54, July 28, 2005 Golbez blocked "User:134.161.244.216" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Personal attacks on his talk page.)
06:38, August 5, 2005 JeremyA blocked "User:63.18.180.103" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism and personal attacks)
18:00, August 8, 2005 Jfdwolff blocked "User:Ariel Sokolovsky" with an expiry time of 24 hours (personal attacks and threats on User_talk:Eliezer)
01:07, July 29, 2005 Jtdirl blocked "User:84.145.254.37" with an expiry time of 24 hours (constant writing of homophobic attacks on a user's page)
01:36, July 29, 2005 Jtdirl blocked "User:84.145.195.153" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandal coming back to write homophobic attacks on a user's page.)
20:53, August 12, 2005 Malathion blocked "User:81.83.120.89" with an expiry time of 1 week (Page blanking, personal attacks)
08:26, August 12, 2005 MarkSweep blocked "User:BobbyDinglebuttocks" with an expiry time of indefinite (attack account, harassment of User:Bobbybuilder)
17:35, July 29, 2005 Mel Etitis blocked "User:Westcoast" with an expiry time of 48 hours (opened accoutn to evade IP-address block; used it to threaten and personally attack another editor)
07:55, July 30, 2005 Mel Etitis blocked "User:Antirajib" with an expiry time of indefinite (account created to attack User:Ragib)
13:38, July 28, 2005 Petaholmes blocked "User:203.26.206.130" with an expiry time of 1 month (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Internodeuser, legal threats and personal attacks)
01:33, July 29, 2005 Petaholmes blocked "User:84.145.195.153" with an expiry time of 24 hours (user page vandlaims and personal attacks)
11:08, August 3, 2005 Rama blocked "User:161.53.156.3" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism and personal attacks, rudeness and vulgarity)
06:47, August 7, 2005 Rama blocked "User:NAZISMISNTCOOL" with an expiry time of indefinite (Improper username, vandalism, personal attacks)
07:03, August 5, 2005 PMA blocked "User:NoPuzzleStranger" with an expiry time of 99 hours (POV edits to Iraqi insurgency, attacks on other users, POV reverts)
21:52, July 25, 2005 Rhobite blocked "User:134.161.245.70" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Steve was blocked for 3RR, disruption, and personal attacks on George W. Bush. Now he is evading his block.)
04:17, July 29, 2005 Sasquatch blocked "User:Imajew" with an expiry time of indefinite (Vandal that attack Jayjg)
06:01, July 29, 2005 Sasquatch blocked "User:BunkyBoopy" with an expiry time of 48 hours (vandalism, personal attacks, was warned repeatedly)
19:07, August 5, 2005 SlimVirgin blocked "User:69.216.244.52" with an expiry time of 3 months (disruption, trolling, personal attacks)
19:48, August 5, 2005 SlimVirgin blocked "User:69.209.219.142" with an expiry time of 3 months (disruption, trolling, personal attacks)
23:38, August 5, 2005 SlimVirgin blocked "User:69.209.203.178" with an expiry time of 3 months (disruption, trolling, personal attacks)
06:28, August 7, 2005 SlimVirgin blocked "User:69.209.232.9" with an expiry time of 3 months (disruption, trolling, personal attacks)
00:41, July 27, 2005 Ta bu shi da yu blocked "User:209.53.181.47" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Blocked for personal attacks and disruption of vote for deletion of Authentic Matthew.)
00:53, July 28, 2005 TenOfAllTrades blocked "User:198.74.20.74" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Personal attacks; no positive contributions)
08:00, August 3, 2005 Tony Sidaway blocked "User:Carnildo" with an expiry time of 3 hours (Disruption, tampering with closed VfD, personal attacks. Was warned.)

Proposals

The simple proposals

super super simple proposal

An admin may, at their discretion, block a user that makes a personal attack, BUT ONLY if the admin is an uninvolved party. Maximum block is 24 hours. No warning is needed.

super simple proposal

An admin may, at their discretion, block a user that makes a personal attack, BUT ONLY if the admin is an uninvolved party. Maximum block is 24 hours. The editor's first violation results in a warning block (1 hour). All other violations are at the admin's discretion up to 24 hours. The warning must come from an uninvolved admin.

simple proposal

An admin may, at their discretion, block a user that makes a personal attack after being warned by an uninvolved editor, BUT ONLY if the admin is an uninvolved party. Maximum block is 24 hours. The warning must come from an uninvolved editor.

Several proposed definitions of "uninvolved"

The proposed policy has several suggested definitions for the term "uninvolved".

The counterproposal

No. Current blocking policy stands, and personal attacks is not a reason for blocking.

The non-proposal

WP:IAR. Admins act in the best interest of the wiki, and we don't need extra policy either for or against this.

The complex proposal

Warning are made by placing {{uw-npa1}}, {{uw-npa2}}, or {{uw-npa3}} (similar to the successive "test" warnings) on that user's talk page, adding a diff of the offensive edit, and signing with ~~~~. Mentioning this in the edit summary would be helpful. Removing recent warnings from your talk page is considered bad form. Placing frivolous warnings is also considered bad form.

If a user has received warnings for three or more incidents from three different people within a single week, an admin may block that user for up to 24 hours. That applies even if the admin placed the third warning. Before doing so, the admin must review the warnings and see if they are actual offensive behavior, and if they are not duplicates of one another. The blocking admin should place a {{npa4}} on the offending user's talk page, alerting them to the block and the reason behind it.

Corollaries

Admins are allowed, never obliged, to block people for excessive personal attacks - for instance, if the attacker made an apology, the admin may consider the matter closed.

The fact that users may be blocked for making three attacks in a week does not imply that users have the inalienable right to make two attacks per week, or any personal attacks at all. Gaming the system is considered disruptive. This blocking policy is not an entitlement, but an "electric fence"; it is intended as a means to quell hostile conflicts. Any personal attacks remain strongly discouraged and undermine Wikipedia's community spirit.

Being blocked does not reset the attack counter. Thus, if a user is blocked under this proposal and makes an additional personal attack within 6 days (one week less maximum blocking period) of the block expiring, they may be immediately reblocked.

Procedure

It seems likely that there will be two or three proposals on this issue (the simple and the complex one, most likely, and it may be reasonable to allow for a proposal to forbid blocking for personal attacks). Therefore the following voting procedure is suggested:

Voting on each proposal is a simple yes/no vote, with 70% support required to pass. In the event that multiple proposals pass, the proposal with most support shall be implemented. For determining which proposal has most support, all voters that support multiple proposals and clearly indicate which of those they like best, shall only be counted for the proposal they prefer.

All registered users may vote, subject to informal suffrage. Voting shall last for one week, and shall be widely announced from such pages as current surveys.