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Civility essays

We now have three civility essays? I presume there are more actually. But could someone make sure the essays are linked from somewhere, or placed in a suitable category? Compare Category:User essays on IRC. Carcharoth (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Geogre/Civility

User:Giano/On civility

User:Moreschi/Alternative Civility Policy are linked in the section above

and this one.

“rational debate” does not just mean the usage of a good tone, but also willingness to compromise and adapt to the positions of other editors: simply repeating one's original position ad nauseam in the face of solid criticism – no matter what tone is used – is not civil, but merely tendentious—from User:Moreschi/Alternative Civility Policy, the last mentioned essay.

/NewbyG (talk) 03:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there are more than three. And their differing so much from WP:CIV is just an additional proof that something should be done to fix this nonsense. WP:PG claims that

"Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus."

No one in right mind can claim that this page reflects a consensus, can they? So, what is the solution? Can we fix this page or do we need a rewrite? Opinions welcome. --Irpen 03:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree a rewrite is needed, but I'm currently rediscovering some old essays. My contribution for the moment is Category:User essays on civility (which I've added to the front page here, at Wikipedia:Civility). I also discovered a fairly old essay on etiquette to new editors while on various kinds of patrol, which I thought was excellent at the time: User:ArielGold/Etiquette2. This got me thinking, and my next big question is... (see below). Carcharoth (talk) 03:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Civility and etiquette, decorum and politeness

What is the difference (if any) between civility and etiquette and decorum and politeness? Some links to help see what has been written already in various places: civility (wiktionary defintion), civility (Wikipedia redirect to article on 'civic virtue'), Wikipedia:Civility (Wikipedia policy), etiquette (Wikipedia article), etiquette (wiktionary definition) and Wikipedia:Etiquette (Wikipedia behavioural guideline), and decorum (wiktionary definition) and Wikipedia:Decorum (non-existent Wikipedia essay) and decorum (Wikipedia article) and politeness and Wikipedia:Politeness (non-existent Wikipedia essay) and politeness (Wikipedia article). We have behavioural guidelines?? Wow. See Category:Wikipedia behavioral guidelines. Sorry, that's distracting fom the main question:

• Difference between civility and etiquette and decorum and politeness - anyone? Carcharoth (talk) 03:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Initial thoughts

There are a huge number of synonyms and related terms to do with civility. Someone should get a thesaurus (Wiktionary may help here) and list all the terms that might be relevant. It might be a good rule of thumb that any policy that is based on a nebulous concept with a large number of synonyms and related terms is unenforceable. Some more examples: manners, manners, propriety (redirect to disambiguation page), wikt:propriety. We also have incivility and incivility. Maybe a civility policy is best organised around what is consider uncivil? meta:Incivility might also be of interest - was that ever linked from here? I see that the initial civility policy here came from the meta incivility page.

Finally, browsing around those links led me to Intercultural competence. Fascinating and something that would seem to apply on Wikipedia, where people from different cultures are interacting, with various degrees of intercultural competence. Carcharoth (talk) 04:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Change in status of policy to proposed

This is not distracting from the main question. But I hope no one in the right mind would claim that this page in its current shape and form represents the "community consensus" that is requirement for any page that has the {{Policy}} label at its talk. Thus, I am replacing {{Policy}} by {{Proposed}} until the content of this page is rewritten to meet a consensus. --Irpen 03:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh oh. Adding section header. Hunkering down. You do realise this is going to be picked up by a bot, advertised on the Village Pump, loads of people will see it on their watchlist, and you will be reverted in about 5 seconds flat? Well, maybe not, but it is a different issue, so as I said, I've hived this off into its own section to keep my question (which will now get no answers) separate. Carcharoth (talk) 03:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion leading to this no longer being policy. Chillum 03:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "this not being a policy". Certainly the text on this page does not reflect the consensus of the community, as evidenced at this page. So, this text cannot be a policy. --Irpen 04:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Um, please, no edit warring. Irpen, just leave the policy tag there. Please revert yourself and let's carry on with the discussion rather than disputing whether the policy is disputed. Carcharoth (talk) 04:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Carch, I try to abide by 1RR principle all the time. So, I won't rerevert if Chillum reverts me again. But if he does, I hope he would explain here how, in view of this discussion here, he can still claim that the text of this page "express[es] standards that have community consensus" as it must per Wikipedia:Policy. --Irpen 04:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

As for carrying on with the discussion, here is what I propose. Let's try to get the authors of the essays that we all agree have very good points come together and make a clean rewrite at Wikipedia:Civility/Rewrite. I don't see this mess we have here can be "fixed". Clearly, a clean rewrite is needed. --Irpen 04:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. Hopefully people will read the bits I wrote above as well. :-) This needs serious advertising though to get as wide an input as possible. It will be no use rewriting it and then having it shot down (politely, of course) at the approval stage. Too many people editing will cause problems as well, but there needs to be extensive talk page discussion to show that many people were aware of the rewrite. Now, the way the rewrite is started will be imnportant. I suggest going back through the history of the policy and finding the point at which it first became policy and starting from that point. Or earlier if that might be a "cleaner" start. We really need Wikipedia:Advertising discussions to remind people where and when to advertise things. I find myself coming up with a little list each time, but a central list and etiquette guideline for advertising Wikipedia discussions would help. WP:CANVASS is the closest I can think of. Anyway, WP:CENT, WP:VPP, WP:VPM, WP:AN, Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board, WP:SIGNPOST (if the discussion takes off). Any others? Carcharoth (talk) 04:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Oh, and of course I do realize that the issue is important enough to get "advertised on the Village Pump, loads of people will see it on their watchlist". And this is good. Hopefully we will have a discussion. We need this nonsense attended at last. This page is sited more than any other when people get blocked while I suspect few of our civility vigilants actually read this page.

BTW, I was not sure whether I would have been reverted in 5 seconds flat, while when I thought of who might be first to revert me, I thought of Chillum first of all others. Sometimes my foresight surprises my own self. --Irpen 04:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, reverted again and with an incredibly ABFfy edit summary and no comment at talk whatsoever. This is incredibly disappointing, colleagues. --Irpen 04:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Well, let's not make things personal, hey? Chillum has as much right to do that revert as anyone. I wrote this before your comment above, and I haven't read Chillum's the editor's edit summary yet. I will ask Chillum Elonka to take part in the discussion and hopefully agree not to do any more reverts (ie. you should both avoid reverting over this issue for the next few days). Carcharoth (talk) 04:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC) Sorry, assumed you were talking about Chillum, I see Elonka did the revert. Updated: 04:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You know, Carch, I first had a different idea. Instead of downgrading, I thought of MfDing this. As I see it, if the page is in bad shape and needs a drastic improvement, the logical question one would ask should be 'Can the "good page" in place of the bad one be written by improving the current page or does it need a complete rewrite?" The latter case effectively means deletion.

Just as in AfD, if an article on the notable topic, say Aztec culture, consist of one sentence like, say, "Aztec culture rulez!!!", this is an AfD material, no matter how the subject deserves a page, since its current content is useless for the article that should be.

Same here. If this page needs a complete rewrite, this is honestly an MfD matter. But then I thought: "Someone would ABF and would start throwing WP:POINT accusation. Let's not go this drastic route. Let's discuss." Well, did not help much. The same accusations :(. Sigh... --Irpen 04:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It will take time. Has anyone found the point at which it became policy yet? I'd like to see how much it has changed over the years. One big argument for cutting it down to something simpler and shorter would be m:instruction creep. Carcharoth (talk) 04:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The project page was templated 12 May 2005, before that it was pretty clearly a "rule" or guideline.

See the notice at the top of this page for historical details, also 11 archives.

Regarding further documentation, Arbitration cases generally end up supporting principles such as this

3.1.2 Decorum and civility

• Wikipedia editors are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, trolling, harassment, disruptive point-making, gaming the system, and using Wikipedia as a battleground, is prohibited. Administrators and other experienced editors should especially strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another.

/NewbyG (talk) 06:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of civility at recent Request for Arbitration

Not everyone on this talk page will have seen the recent comments at a request for arbitration on the civility policy and the utility (or otherwise) of civility paroles. See the discussion here (diff at point of archiving). The discussion took place from 1st-12th September 2008. Some selected quotes:

• "There are two issues here, only one of which is for arbcom to resolve: "incivility blocks" and GWH's judgment. The latter is within your purview, guys - the former is more important, but that we will simply have to sort out ourselves. Essentially, WP:CIVIL needs to be rewritten, but that's the community's task." - Moreschi
• "I have a strong opinion that the level of incivility in some forums is highly unhelpful to the project, and I have been working to try and minimize that, using all the appropriate and available tools (polite requests, warnings, and some blocks)." - Georgewilliamherbert
• "We all need to take incivility seriously. It's horrendously bad for the project - it drives nonconfrontational editors away from pages, away from policymaking, away from participation in the community at all." - Georgewilliamherbert
• "I have reviewed Jehochman and MastCell's comments on ANI in thread, and Jehochman's below, that civility paroles and blocks may simply not work, and I am troubled by the possibility that they might be correct. I think that this is an important point to have discussed in detail (somewhere - ANI, wherever). If they don't work they should not be part of the standard administrator toolkit of responses... and if they don't work in specific cases with specific offenders, they should be taken off the table explicitly. I am not convinced, but concerned on the point..." - Georgewilliamherbert
• "I respectfully request the Committee to review the use of Civility restriction type editing restrictions. In my experience these remedies do not create the desired result, but perhaps a scientific review of past cases may reflect otherwise. Perhaps a different approach would be more fruitful. The present case illustrates the problem that editors under civility restriction become second class citizens, and are subject to improper blocks which make their civility challenges worse, rather than better. The net result is harm to the encyclopedia. Civility is subjective. [...] These civility restrictions appear to be a license for assuming bad faith. This situation needs to be reviewed, across the board. The problem is not the civility policy; it may be that ArbCom has placed sanctions that severely alter the policy by making borderline incivility a blockable offense. [...] Users are real people with feelings who should not be experimented upon. [...] Borderline incivility is less of a problem than trigger-happy sysops blocking good faith users. - Jehochman (part of a longer statement that should be read in full for the full context)
• "Georgewilliamherbert insists that everybody must speak the same way — namely, as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths — or else be blocked. That's an outlandish view of our interaction here. [...] Disband the civility police now! [...] this is to be expected when you institute a remedy that says any admin gets to block the supposed "poster child for incivility"." - Bishonen
• "It is time to summon the cabal. All those here who are interested in this case, we need to get together and come up with a civility guideline that actually works. [...] If we cannot write a guideline that Giano, whose commitment to the project is beyond question, can agree to and get behind then we should simply forget the whole concept as unworkable." - JzG (Guy)
• "These civility impositions have been nothing but a drama sink, and it's clear they do nothing but waste all our time. I refuse to believe that Giano's persistent low-level sauciness, always aimed at established users who should be able to handle it, is some kind of threat to the project. This whole affair has been by turns silly and sad. It is no wonder that the ArbCom so frequently finds itself a victim of his barbs — I mean, what's next, house arrest? We need to learn from this mistake and adopt better practices forthwith. "Civility restrictions" have been a joke in every instance." - Mr IP
• "..."civility" is now used as a weapon by those in authority for silencing dissent. This is a bad state of affairs, and those members of the Arbcom who passed the sanction upon me have to shoulder some responsibility for this deplorable state of affairs." - Giano
• "...some Admins [...] would do well to remember that civility isn't just what you say, it's what you do." - Giano
• "Have Giano write a new WP:CIVIL. I'm dead serious. In addition to being extraordinarily excitable, he's also intellegent, a great writer, cares deeply about Wikipedia, and has been "exposed" to the current version of WP:CIVIL more than most. Have him come up with something that he would be happy to follow, and would be happy to have every other editor follow. Odds are that he'll find it harder than he thinks, but they're also fairly good that when he's done, it will be a good policy, and odds are really, really good that it will at least be better than the gameable thing we have now." - Barneca
• "it may be more productive to move past the assignment of individual blame and look at the root-cause systemic issue here: civility parole [...] Civility parole (or "civility patrol", as one editor Freudianly termed it) creates a situation where people are on high alert and actually seek out incivility to report. [...] ...people are immediately screening it in their minds: was this "uncivil"? Should I report it? Should I block him? These are not the optimal trains of thought. [...] Personally, I am on strike from "enforcing" any civility-based remedies, as I consider them actively harmful based on available evidence." - MastCell
• "...regarding civility restrictions, I agree; I'll not be supporting civility "paroles" any more, as I believe they do more harm than good." - jpgordon
• "The aim of the policy is to ensure a social contract that all can edit within, and in principle, it works and is a good one. Increasingly it's under strain in a number of high profile cases [...] If the community can draft a successor to civility policy that can help achieve [the aim's FT2 stated] without such troublesome borderline cases, then please do." - FT2
• "I agree that there are cultural and systemic issues at stake here, even more so than the conduct of individuals. I increasingly agree that civility restrictions are not working in many cases and we need to find a different way of handling these issues. That way, IMO, cannot involve us throwing our civility standards under the bus. A reasonable level of decorum is expected on Wikipedia, especially from those who have been around long enough to know what's expected." - Morven (Matthew Brown) - part of a longer statement that should be read in full
• "More fundamentally, there are two major issues which, unresolved, prevent any effective handling of either the Giano issue or of any number of other, similar cases: 1. The scope, meaning, and role of the civility policy; 2. The role and standing of vested contributors (particularly vested content contributors). There are apparent disconnects between how the civility policy is interpreted and applied by various groups and individuals within the community. It is obvious that, for example, what Georgewilliamherbert sees as unacceptable behavior, Giano does not. Geogre, Giano, and Paul August, among others, have argued that we inappropriately "substitute politeness for civility", and that speech which is perceived as impolite is neither necessarily uncivil nor necessarily inappropriate. Such a stance is not unreasonable per se; but it is only one of several that have been expressed. It's my belief that, as the community has grown, we have lost our common intuitive understanding of what "civility" really means in our case (and, more substantially, how it applies to concrete expectations of conduct); and so we have a situation where the Committee's view of civility may well differ from that held by those sanctioned for violations therof, and perhaps even from that held by those who carry out sanctions under its provisions. Further, it is unclear where the community as a whole stands; individual disputes tend to draw more or less of a crowd, but I am unaware of any general discussion of civility that has drawn more than a minute portion of our active community. [...] I note that the community has traditionally been reluctant to provide the Committee with guidance on policy matters. [...] unless the community takes it upon itself to provide an answer to the policy debate that everyone can live with—whether said answer is provided using existing methods or some novel process (perhaps, as Barneca suggests, we may be better off letting Giano write a new policy)—then the result will almost certainly be further divergence between the Committee's understanding and that of all or part of the community, coupled with the predictably controversial application of these differing understandings in practice." - Kirill Lokshin
• "We cannot maintain civility paroles while closing our eyes when it comes to the roots of the problem. They serve for nothing but to worsen situations." - FayssalF
• "If I thought it had a chance of passing, I'd move to immediately amend all existing "any admin" civility paroles to "discuss it on AE" civility paroles." - jpgordon
• "In parallel, I'd encourage the community to work together and review our civility policy (there are some guidelines which have more power than this broken policy)." - FayssalF

Some of those comments above are more relevent to the ongoing discussion of civility paroles (see Wikipedia talk:Editing restrictions/Civility restrictions), but I've copied them here anyway. I think the above comments show that there is a clear desire to at the very least attempt a rewrite of the civility policy. Please, no edit warring over tagging. Let's decide to start the rewrite (as proposed here by Irpen), decide at which point to start (existing page or an older version) and advertise it and get the wide-ranging discussion that Kirill noted we seem never to have had (at least not in recent years). The archives of this talk page should also be mined for ideas. At some point, I will try and notify all the people I've quoted above. Carcharoth (talk) 05:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC) Update: I've notified a total of 17 people about this. As I said, wider advertisement of the discussion at neutral venues is needed to avoid WP:CANVASS concerns, but I went ahead with this notification on the basis that people might want to correct or expand on the quotes above. Carcharoth (talk) 06:29, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I know many editors consider civility of the utmost importance, but I'm very concerned at the abuses I have seen. Over and over again (in the topic where I am an SPA to policy), good (often scholarly) editors are being driven to exasperation by skilled partisans, with poorly thought out admin action being taken against the editors we need on board. It's not a new problem (see the ArbCom in mid-2007 where two editors we now know to be really serious and deliberate cheats ganged up on a knowledgable and, I think, valuable admin and drove him off the project). However, it is getting steadily worse, with CIVIL often being given far more importance than the core policies of the encyclopedia. PR^talk 08:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Why this is an issue

I agree with virtually everything said above, even though much of it appears to be contradictory. I think the fundamental problem is that people have confused the goal of civility - which is, to my mind, fundamentally about respecting the person with whom you interact - with the use of kid gloves. Wikipedia is not a kindergarten, it should not be necessary to sugar coat everything we say. If someone is wrong or ill-informed, it is perfectly reasonable to say so, this does not imply that you think they are an idiot, only that they are, on this occasion, wrong. I do have a serious problem with the idea that saying "don't be an idiot" is more of a problem to the project than months-long civil POV-pushing that wears down every other editor the the point of either explosion or driving them away; with cold fusion a single civil POV-pusher by his own admission rewrote the article to better reflect a fringe view simply by being more persistent than anyone else. The way this is written now, civility seems to be a carte-blanche to get away with murder, and tetchiness or exasperation are grounds for sanction. That can't be right. Bottom line: I think that civility is being equated by some with false politeness. Perhaps we should use parliamentary language instead? Guy (Help!) 09:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right about the distinction between saying someone is wrong and calling them an idiot. But can't POV pushing and incivility both be wrong and sanctionable? Why are we reducing the civility standards (or incivility sanctions) in order to underline that POV pushing is bad? I mean, I get what you are saying but this isn't a zero sum game is it? RxS (talk) 12:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

More at WP:BAIT and WP:CPUSH. One of the main problems is that WP:CIV and its enforcement focus almost exclusively on superficial politeness, and ignore other behaviors that are far more uncivil -- dishonesty, false accusations, politely phrased baiting, and the like. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:31, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've no problem with WP:CIVIL. Would I be presuming wrong, by guessing those who do, have been been accused of incivility, in the past? GoodDay (talk) 13:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you would be presuming wrong. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Boris here; nobody's ever called me uncivil. I consider this policy to be a complete mess, and quite possibly unsalvageable. Being abrupt or tetchy or direct in debate isn't a good reason for blocking, although I have seen people blocked for all of these perceived incivilities. Making personal attacks may be a reason for blocking, and is already covered under that policy. Harassing other editors may be a reason for blocking, and is already covered under that policy. Behaving disruptively or editing in a tendentious manner may be a reason to block, and is already covered under that policy, although I often see this abused as well, but that is a discussion for another day. The examples given as uncivil behaviour aren't very good, as they are highly situational and cannot be taken as a "gold standard". According to this, an editor who keeps inserting completely sourced, entirely legitimate information into an article over the opposition of a small group of POV editors could be considered uncivil; an editor who repeatedly reminds everyone of our five pillars on a talk page full of OR and POV comments could be as well. Risker (talk) 16:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I presumed wrong (which Is what I wanted to know); cool. GoodDay (talk) 18:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Instruction creep since page became policy?

Thanks to NewbyG for the link to when the page was marked as policy. The diff from May 2005 to now (September 2008) shows the following changes: diff. Could someone have a close look at that and summarise the changes? How could the policy be made simpler to understand and were all the changes discussed or not (will require reading of the talk page archives)? Carcharoth (talk) 06:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The project page is currently (19,215 bytes).

These sections were added in 2008. Wikipedia:Civility#User pages

Wikipedia:Civility#Harassment and disclosing personal information (outing)

Wikipedia:Civility#No legal threats

Wikipedia:Civility#Preventing incivility within Wikipedia see Wikipedia:How to be civil

two paragraphs of the lead

The rest is mostly unchanged. /NewbyG (talk) 07:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think most of those are good changes, if anything, it's a lot of the archaic material that should be trimmed or removed. There's a lot of things that are more essay-ish than a policy should be, and also random lists, and that sort of thing. I led a major rewrite earlier this year that tried to improve the language, but I didn't think I'd be allowed to actually remove anything, so sections like Wikipedia:Civility#Preventing_incivility_within_Wikipedia had to stay, even if I made an attempt to make it semi-relevant. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Strikeouts; see below. /NewbyG (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Edits

I think there is broad consensus above that the policy could be improved. I have worked on the lead, mainly copy edits, but I have also reduced the threats of blocks.[1] Typically, blocks do not resolve incivility, and should be saved for cases of serious disruption. I think this view enjoys broad support within the community. I would thank the other editors for not blind reverting me. If you don't like what I have written, edit instead of reverting. The prior version was not nearly perfect (see lengthy discussions above for reasons). I should add that Carcharoth invited me to the discussion here.[2] Jehochman ^Talk 10:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly prefer that the threat of blocks be retained in cases of threats and egregious personal attacks. I don't see any good that could come from removing that.

And in general. I've been uncomfortable with some of the discussion around WP:CIVIL. I wish I had more time here, but I really feel strongly that being civil is critical and if there are problems on the enforcement side, then works needs to be done on how sanctions are applied. We shouldn't remove the threat of sanction because they are sometimes misapplied. RxS (talk) 12:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, noone is suggesting that the harassment policy be weakened, or even no personal attacks. Possibly one problem with this policy is that the most important aspects of civility are handled by a host of other policies. Maybe we should start by summarising them, then look it over and see what else, if anything, really needs to be said. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, let's see how this policy looks after a little editing, before we entertain that last suggestion. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The threat of blocking is still there, mentioned prominently in the lede. I think mentioning it twice in the lede was over the top. We don't want to encourage blocking, especially of good faith contributors; we want to encourage good behavior. Jehochman ^Arrr! 13:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed simplifications

I propose that the following sections are unhelpful, and simply serve to pad the page:

• Wikipedia:Civility#Preventing incivility within Wikipedia - I think everything that needs said here is said better in other sections. Merged in the non-redundant parts.
• Wikipedia:Civility#User pages - Why do we need to specifically discuss User pages? Wouldn't it be simpler to just add a sentence to the lead saying "This policy applies throughout all of Wikipedia, including talk pages, user pages, edit summaries, and any other communications." Done, see below.
• Wikipedia:Civility#Removal of uncivil comments - the second half only, dealing with edits by other editors. Indeed, some of the suggestions in that part go strongly against community norms: for instance, is it *really* appropriate to suggest that one should "Delete (entirely and permanently) an edit made by the offender (requires technical help)." except in cases of outing? (I took the liberty of fixing this one, as it was way out of line with community norms. See below)
• Wikipedia:Civility#Situations that may foster incivility - is there any point to this section?

I would suggest that all of these be simply deleted, with maybe brief summaries added elsewhere. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Less is more. The page rambles too much for a policy. Jehochman ^Arrr! 13:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. There is definitely some redundancy and unnecessary detail that could be cleaned up. SH's suggestions seem reasonable to me. — Satori Son 13:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done the two I thought would be least controversial. I'll give it a day and see what people think. I also tried to simplify some language in the lead. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC) Eh... in for a penny, in for a pound. May as well try it all, carefully documenting it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

removed section

I believe that all of this goes strongly against community norms, except in case of outing:

“ For serious breaches of decorum, an editor may remove, replace or edit a comment made by another editor. When redacting seriously incivil comments, single brackets or similar notation should be used to indicate that the comment has been changed. 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.
• 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).

”

I have replaced this with:

“ In the event of rudeness or incivility on the part of another editor, it is usually appropriate to discuss the offending words with that editor, and to request that editor to change that specific wording. Some care is necessary, however, so as not to further inflame the situation. Except in the case of outing or obvious trolling or vandalism, it is not appropriate to edit or remove another editor's comment. ”

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've replaced the section on 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.

”

With a simple, strong statement in the lead:

“ This policy applies to all editing on Wikipedia, including user pages, talk pages, edit summaries, and any other discussion with fellow Wikipedians. ”

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The following was largely redundant to the section on dispute resolution, so I merged the two. I think I got everything relevant copied over.

“ 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.

”

The following section was removed outright - it's hard to see what, if any, relevance it has to policy.

“

• 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.

”

I'd suggest that if any of this is to be kept, it should be worked into the examples of incivility, or the like. After all, what is one supposed to do about things like "In a larger community editors may be more able to hide less than positive reputations than is possible in a smaller community."? We've been a larger community for years now. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Section "Why incivility is inappropriate"

This section should, of course, be kept, but can we give it a bit of a copyedit? It has some very awkward language. For instance, the first sentence reads "Incivility creates a hot, unfriendly space, and a sense of threat." - what do the words "hot" and "space" even mean in that context? Is that even a valid grammatical use of "threat"? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, I think we should have an explicit section summarising No personal attacks. At the moment, we have a see-also on the above-mentioned section, but the no personal attack policy does not actually seem to be covered within it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC) I've copied in part of No personal attacks, It can probably be summarised a bit more, and I'm sure others will want to tweak it a bit, but that's probably the most important section to mention in this policy. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

One odd example

• Referring to other editors' good-faith changes as vandalism. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what constitutes vandalism on Wikipedia

I'm a little ambivalent about this - on the one hand, certainly calling someone a vandal who simply messed up, say, formatting badly could upset them, but I'm not really sure I like the language police issue, in the more ambivalent cases. Perhaps this would work better in the "advice" section? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Assume good faith

Should we summarise assume good faith as well? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. And it looks like too much came out of the project page. Disruptive editing, with reference to the Three revert rule and page protection could be summarised and those links restored. /NewbyG (talk) 05:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

A summary of pages related to civility and etiquette

Below are pages related to civility and etiquette. I may have missed some pages, so please feel free to edit the table. This is meant to be a centralized recapitulation of all pages discussing civility issues and the community. It is also meant to give an opportunity for us to review all, or some, of these pages (including inactive ones). Honestly, some of them include very interesting ideas which, unfortunately, received little encouragement or interest. Probably they only need some re-discovery and re-organization. -- fayssal / Wiki me up® 01:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

N.B. The collapsed table below is at User:FayssalF/Civility pages, which is where to go to edit it. Carcharoth (talk) 04:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Extended content

Summary of pages related to civility and etiquette Civility Main contact Page Namespace Notes Community Please, Be Civil... Thank you! Wikipedia This is the main policy needing changes! The title is more civil :) Wikipedia editors Civility Main Wikipedia article about civility. Community/ArbCom Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions/Civility_restrictions Wikipedia RfC on 'Civility restrictions' imposed on users by ArbCom. Some ArbCom members and users believe this is not useful. Community Wikipedia talk:Editing restrictions/Civility restriction RFC Wikipedia talk Cart before the horse?. This is a talk page of the above RfC. Community Wikipedia:Civility/Workshop Wikipedia This workshop sub-page is for collaboration on the Civility policy page. Community Wikipedia:No personal attacks Wikipedia The Wikipedia 'No personal attacks' policy WikiProject Wikipedia Awards Civility Barnstar Wikipedia Currently inactive!!! Random832 and Newbyguesses Wikipedia:How to be civil Wikipedia An essay started on April 2008. Koyaanis Qatsi Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot Wikipedia An essay started on October 2002. Community Wikipedia:Concordia Wikipedia This project is officially inactive as confirmed by this Miscellany for Deletion discussion. Community Wikipedia:Esperanza Wikipedia This project is officially inactive as a result of this Miscellany for Deletion discussion. Wikimedia community Wikipedia:Don't be a **** Wikipedia A Meta essay Cerejota Wikipedia:An uncivil environment is a poor environment Wikipedia An essay created on June 2007. JBKramer Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade Wikipedia An essay created on November 2006. GTBacchus Wikipedia:Don't call a spade a spade Wikipedia An essay (counter essay?) created on October 2007. MfD participants Civility noticeboard MfD Wikipedia/MfD Civility noticeboard MfD before being redirected to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts WP:CIVIL WP:Civility MfD Wikipedia/MfD Civility policy MfD before being kept. Wikipedia community Wikipedia:Assume good faith Wikipedia long-standing page Wikipedia community Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers Wikipedia long-standing principle Carcharoth Category:User essays on civility Category A category containing all user essays on civility (incomplete). Various editors Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation Article A very encyclopaedic article about George Washington and civility. Moreschi User:Moreschi/Alternative Civility Policy Userspace/subpage Moreschi and his views on civility. KIDB User:KIDB/Civility Userspace/subpage KIDB and his views on civility. Shoemaker's Holiday and Newbyguesses Wikipedia:How to improve civility Wikipedia Shoemaker's Holiday and his views on civility. Elaragirl User:Elaragirl/wpphil#Civility Userspace/subpage Elaragirl and some of her few words about civility and personal attacks. Filll User:Filll/Abuse of Civil Hall of Fame Userspace/subpage Filll and questions concerning some would-be instances of incivility. Filll User:Filll/CIVIL examined Userspace/subpage CIVIL examined by Filll. Geogre User:Geogre/Civility Userspace/subpage George and a long analysis on civility. Giano User:Giano/On civility & Wikipedia in general Userspace/subpage Giano on On civility & Wikipedia in general. Retired Raymond arritt User:Raymond arritt/Expert withdrawal Userspace/subpage One of the points Raymond arritt discusses in his Expert withdrawal concerns incivility. Cyde User:Cyde/Don't be a ******* douchebag Userspace/subpage An essay created on July 2006. Bishonen User:Bishonen/Civility Userspace/subpage Bishonen's evidence at "civility" RfARs for His Excellency and Ghirlandajo in 2006. ATren User:ATren/Civility Userspace/subpage ATren and his views on civility. GT User:GT/Civility Userspace/subpage GT and her views on civility. Gerardw User:Gerardw/Civility Userspace/subpage Vassyana User:Vassyana/insanity/Civility 001 Userspace/subpage 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 people wherever possible. Vassyana User:Vassyana/insanity/C Userspace/subpage A more detailed view of Vassyana. Souljaman User:Souljaman/Restoration of Civility Userspace/subpage Why is this box black? Fetofs User:Fetofs/Civility and community Userspace/subpage Fetoes talking about civility and community and mentioning the "Wikibreak of Concordia (that followed the wikibreak of Esperanza)". Littleolive oil User:Littleolive oil/Civility artifacts Userspace/subpage On Civility and lies Art LaPella User:Art LaPella/Devil's Dictionary of Wikipedia Policy Userpage/subpage Art LaPella's Devil's Dictionary includes something about civility. MrCEO User talk:MrCEO#Civility support User talkpage A proposal by MrCEO? Raul654 Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing Wikipedia Essay discussing the intersection of civility and content guidelines Other pages including some views on civility and other related issues Main contact Page Namespace Notes Antandrus User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior Userspace/subpage Refer to point 41. FT2 Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic Wikipedia Refer to point 5. Durova Wikipedia:No angry mastodons Wikipedia It should be read in conjunction with the Wikipedia:Civility. Wikipedia editors Appeal to emotion Main Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. Wikipedia editors Appeal to spite Main An appeal to spite (also called argumentum ad odium) is a logical fallacy in which someone attempts to win favor for an argument by exploiting existing feelings of bitterness, spite, or schadenfreude in the opposing party. Etiquette Contact Page Namespace Notes Community Wikipedia:Etiquette Wikipedia The Wikipedia etiquette guideline. Its motto is "Civility, Maturity, Responsibility". Instructions Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts Wikipedia Wikipedia's etiquette alerts Symode09 Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia/rules and etiquette Wikipedia/Wikiproject A Wikipedia project dedicated to etiquette started on April 2007 with no apparent activity. ArielGold User:ArielGold/Etiquette2 Userspace/subpage An Etiquette Guide for Recent Change Patrol by Ariel Gold. Thought User:Thought/Wikipedia Standards and Etiquette Userspace/subpage Standards and etiquette.

Wow, that is a great table, Fayssal! You may have missed some things, but you found a lot more than I did. I like the way you've included a selection of articles as well. Sometimes Wikipedia articles are not that helpful in situations like this. At other times they are very helpful. The same applies to Wiktionary links. I think the civility policy page should eventually end up with a carefully selected range of links to appropriate articles and dictionary definitions, and, if not links to the essays, at least a link to a page (maybe a table like this) introducing people to the essays in more detail than the category I created (see Category:User essays on civility - it is hard to annotate categories). This will give people a flavour of the range of opinions that exist, though the policy page should still aim to be absolutely clear-cut and easy to understand (if this is possible), and (as people have said above) avoid bloat. For now, I'm going to add this survey (that is the correct term, I think) to the category (both as a member and as a link in the category text). Fayssal, do you think some version of your table could eventually be linked to from Wikipedia:Civility, or actually be moved to be a subpage of the policy and linked from it? Carcharoth (talk) 04:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Be bold and do whatever it takes to make the encyclopedia better, Carcharoth. This table is open to editing, copy-editing, being linked to from whatever, etc... fayssal / Wiki me up® 06:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)