Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy/Personal attacks/Archive 2

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Purpose of blocks?

I'm going to lead a bit of a segue off into philosophical territory, here. I am curious as to how people would answer the following question:

What is the purpose and intent of blocking?

Overall, our goal is to produce a top-notch, neutral, thorough, detailed, relevant encyclopedia. Blocking–like everything we do here–must somehow be a means to that end.

By blocking vandals we preserve the quality of Wikipedia content. By blocking after 3RR violations, we hope to chill revert wars before they persist. In blocking editors who insist on making repeated personal attacks, presumably we would make Wikipedia editing more pleasant for our polite contributors and so retain their interest, effort, and support.

Blocking should not be used as a punishment tool alone. That leads to accusations of an admin cabal, personal vendettas, and assorted other unpleasantnesses. It should be carried out as a means to an end—to improve Wikipedia (or at least prevent its decline.) Not so long ago, an editor was complaining that following a report on AN/3RR nobody had been blocked despite the notice being up for a full week. I would suggest that this is a good thing; not that the report was neglected, but that no block was carried out after the dust settled. If the revert war settled down without admin intervention or blocking, then a block would serve no purpose but to create further animosity.

We should be similarly careful here. After two warnings, a third personal attack should lead to a fairly prompt blocking, if one is to be carried out. Temporary blocks shouldn't be seen as punishment, rather they are a way to (bluntly!) apply social pressure. Might I suggest an escalating scale by incident, with a (mandatory?) referral to RfC or RfAr following a certain number of blocks? Some new editors are just plain clueless, and a short block (1 to 3 hours) to show that our policies have teeth could be enough to scare them straight.

Based on the two warnings followed by blocking model proposed, perhaps something like the following schedule?

  1. First personal attack: Polite warning
  2. Second attack: Stern warning
  3. Third attack: Block for up to 3 hours
  4. Fourth attack: Block for up to 24 hours
  5. Fifth attack: Block for up to 3 days
  6. Sixth attack: Block for up to 7 days

Any thoughts? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:16, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Sounds reasonable. By the way as a rationale - personal attacks are not constructive. Personal attacks, however, can serve to turn away other editors. Thus, allowing too many personal attacks harms the community spirit, and by driving away contributors it is ultimately detrimental for the encyclopedia. Radiant_>|< 18:29, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Who can warn?

Can just anybody issue a warning? I've seen situations where person A says "That statements is a violation of Wikipedia's No personal attack policy", and person B responds "Your saying that is a personal attack on me". Jayjg (talk) 18:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Are you claiming that no one has ever made snide personal comments while warning a person? Don't expect people to listen to warnings from others who do not warn in a civil manner. Many people simple stop reading a message as soon as they see it contains a personal attack, especially when the message is long because it's simply unproductive. --AI 05:15, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I think that anybody should be able to warn, simply because admins should not have the exclusive right to that (but, disallowing anons to warn sounds not unreasonable). However, the block can only be placed by an admin. Just as admins must review the situation before doing a page protect (per WP:RPP) or page deletion (per WP:VFD), they must look at the warnings, and see if they're valid. I'd say the {{npa-warn}} must include a diff of the attack.
  • Corollary, false accusations are going to happen. This is a wiki, after all. Excessive false accusations are a form of vandalism (since they're basically inserting nonsense, and inserting nonsense after being repeatedly told not to, is vandalism).
  • As a side point, if X attacks Y, and Y retaliates by counterattacking, then the neutral and objective admin should of course admonish both. "He started it" is not an excuse anywhere outside kindergarten. Radiant_>|< 18:29, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Neither should be abolished if none have been warned yet. A gradient scale as above should be applied. --AI 05:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Where to warn?

Ideally on their talk page, but you are allowed to revert your talk page. So if someone is warned repeatedly, and manage to remove the warning quickly enough, multiple warnings might not be noticed. Guettarda 20:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • True enough. So a warning should ideally have a clear edit summary stating it to be such. This policy should also state that removing NPA warnings within a week after their placement is bad form. Would warning both at the talk page and at the relevant discussion be appropriate? Seems to me that the other people in the discussion would then be less tempted to retaliate. Radiant_>|< 08:13, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Ahem, the system should not rely on offenders talk pages to verify if they have been warned or not. --AI 05:12, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Discussion moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

The recent discussions here and at AN/I got me thinking about personal attacks. If people sometimes leave our project, then the overall atmosphere is a plausible reason for their departure, and the most obvious poisoning of the atmosphere is childish namecalling and the like. On a related note, we have a huge backlog on WP:VIP. It seems most admins prefer not to work at there. And a plausible reason for that would be retaliation if they block a vandal - again in the form of personal attacks9 e.g. Marmots immature reaction to Linuxbeak on AN/I). This leads to the age-old question, why do we tolerate personal attacks in the first place?.

I believe the answer to that is, simply, because we haven't seen a suitable wording of such a policy yet, that would not lead to abuse (such as calling a mere disagreement an attack, and blocking concurrently). However, it would be in our best benefit to create such. First, I don't believe that any right-thinking person would want personal attacks here. Second, the sheer fact that people get away with it encourages other people to behave similarly. On the contrary, if we had a policy that allowed blocking in such a way that it rarely occured, then still the threat of that policy would discourage people from making personal attacks. Psychology works.

Thus, I'd like to have some people join me in brainstorming on Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks. The first thing that comes to mind would be some sort of warning template that can be sent to the attacker but not by the victim, and if a person has received a number of those for separate occasions and by separate people within a week or so, he can be blocked.

As usual, thoughts welcome. Radiant_>|< 17:32, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I think trying strikeout as the dominant method of "removing" personal attacks for a while will show disapproval of personal attacks enough to discourage them and give warning to those who make them, but will also leave in place any questionable attacks for others to judge for themselves. I think if we try that for a while as the primary guideline, rather than the much more provocative removal and refactoring, we'll see most of the heated arguments cool off. --Unfocused 18:01, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
On the other hand, we might also start seeing more revert wars over striking out remarks perceived as personal attacks...which then leads us to some (perhaps incredibly petty) arguments over the relative weight given to WP:NPA versus WP:3RR. I can think of one User Talk page where there have been twelve cycles of strikeout/revert over one attack.
It's worth noting that Radiant's proposal doesn't involve immediate blocking for a personal attack. It requires at least two warnings by two separate editors (on two separate incidents), and a third (admin and incident) to place the block. In addition to warnings to the user, perhaps struck out text could also be used? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:28, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Revert wars already have their own disincentive policy. We could make it that if one person believes that there is a personal attack, the strikeout is justified. This allows the offended party to decide, but shows whether they're being "too sensitive" or not at the same time. That's why I like the strikeout; the disputed comments are still there, and then everyone and his brother can leave a comment either in place, or on a user's page if they're being overly aggressive with the strikeouts. Peer pressure almost always works better than punishment. --Unfocused 12:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Inevitably this would be abused, and it would suffocate dialogue. People already abuse things like WP:POINT in order to win arguments ("You're making a WP:POINT." "No, you're making a WP:POINT!"). Furthermore, I am highly skeptical of the value of temporary blocks in most situations—they seem to just increase animosity, because as it turns out most Wikipedians are not eight years old and don't like being given time outs. Personal attacks should be regarded as the kind of thing that is not punishable by itself, but can be serious evidence against a user if the community determines that they are doing more harm than good and need to be gotten rid of. Therefore, I say discourage them but don't directly punish. Everyking 18:12, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I got news for you. Even eight year olds don't like being given time outs. They quickly learn the value of apologies and good manners. Another aspect of time-outs is that the other "children" (of any age) discover that nasty comments simply are not tolerated, and they feel more free to interact in a healthy way. "I don't have to worry about challenging X on this, because I know he's not going to insult me or anything." -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:16, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
There are those who would argue that personal attacks are–in and of themselves–harmful. They tend to poison the community atmosphere and inflame debates. They are the antithesis of the community cooperation we are trying to achieve. I would agree that the goal is to discourage rather than punish; rehabilitation is preferred to retribution. What approach would you recommend to dealing with persistent personal attacks? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:28, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Like I said: severe cases can go to arbitration, but blocking good users who get frustrated now and then is just silly. In the rare cases of users who are generally good but prone to persistent and serious personal attacks, a personal attack parole might be in order. But I definitely think it's a bad idea to empower admins to go around blocking anybody and everybody for making personal attacks. That's far more likely to infuriate and drive away good users than get them to stay. If personal attack blocks were put to quickpolls, it could be somewhat more acceptable, although I still wouldn't really like the idea. Everyking 19:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • While that was roughly the text of the first two proposals, it is precisely not what is being proposed now. It does in fact somewhat resemble quickpolls, in that multiple opinions are required, and that the victim's opinion does not count. Radiant_>|< 19:26, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
This is one (very rare) case where I'll agree with Everyking that it's something admins should not be able to do. Consider the three revert rule as a good precedent -- it used to be that only the arbitration committee could block for violations, but Jimbo (on prodding from the committee) delegated that power to the admins. The result has been mostly good, but admins tend to be a bit too mechancial in their application of it. The whole idea of a personal attack is extremely subjective (9 times out of 10 I see people complaining about a "personal attack" which isn't a personal attack) and as such, I don't think it's a good idea to give the admins that authority. →Raul654 19:24, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Please read the proposal first, it is different from what you think. Radiant_>|< 19:26, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • As an alternative notion for consideration, could there be a way to fast-track personal attack paroles through ArbCom or some subset thereof? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm slightly against removing personal attacks. There are too many instances of revert wars on talk pages. Also, people should not remove personal attacks that are directed against them - ask someone else. There are too many instances of people in a dispute editing each others' comments. Rhobite 18:21, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Removing personal attacks can be effective, though it certainly doesn't always work. Even if it doesn't dissuade the attacker, it can at least cool down the discussion. Going to a page and seeing it full of insults can raise the temperature of the debate even if the more recent comments have been OK. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:43, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm against removing personal attacks; I prefer to leave them there as an honest representation of the discussion. On the other hand, I'd support a means of sanctioning people who make personal attacks. Jayjg (talk) 21:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I respectfully disagree. I think they scar Wikipedia and create continuing harm. But rather than repeat my reasoning, may I point participants in this debate to Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks and Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks/Temp which may be more appropriate places for the discussion about removing personal attacks. Please remember that the specific proposal on this page has to do with blocking the attacker. Rossami (talk) 04:02, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • The backlog on WP:VIP has a lot to do with people not updating the page noting the block has been performed. (Most likely because they heard about it through other means) It takes too much time to check if someone has already been blocked through the block log, while also going through edit histories to see if they are persistent vandals who received warnings before. I tend to stick with clear cases. - Mgm|(talk) 07:16, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Gaming the system?

Can we leave the number of warnings and the time period open to admin judgment? We wouldn't want people getting 3 insults per week, like clockwork, from somebody gaming the system. (by User:Ed Poor [1]).
  • I think this should work like the 3RR. We give a set limit, beyond which a user would be out of order. The 3RR does not grant users the inalienable right to do three reverts per day. Neither does the BPPA grant users a right to a number of attacks per week. Anyone treating it as such could probaably be dealt with by RFC. Radiant_>|< 08:13, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Offensive user pages

A related issue would be offensive user pages. Personal attacks are usually found either on talk pages or on discussion pages in Wikipedia namespace, and if placed in for instance article space they would be reverted as vandalism. However, some users put personal attacks against others on their personal userpage, or subpages thereof. That includes such hate lists as "list of idiotic editors". It would be nice to have a way of dealing with those - but you can't 'warn' people for this since it's usually a single edit with longstanding effects; and blanking or reverting such pages (per the disputed WP:RPA) seems prone to abuse.

Therefore, a workable proposal may be that such pages can be taken to RFC (or, possibly, a subpage of WP:AN dealing with that). If there is consensual support (say, 2/3 or better) that the page is needlessly offensive, it may then be blanked or reverted to non-offensive form. At that point, if the user reinstates that or a similar attack page, they may be warned per this policy. Thoughts welcome! Radiant_>|< 11:39, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Block users, yet leave the attacks themselves?

This proposal has entirely too much instruction creep. I mean things like trigger mechanisms, punishment schedules, who can do this, who can do that and when, an "official template" to use, etc.

Further, why would we block users for personal attacks if we're not even in consensus that we should "block" (remove) the attacks themselves?

Wouldn't it be more productive and useful to seek consensus that repeated personal attacks are vandalism and disruption of Wikipedia, both already blockable offenses?

We don't need instruction creep; otherwise, we'll end up with so many policies that administrators will have to pass the Wikibar exam to get their admin licenses.

Having said all that, I think a suggested schedule of escalating enforcement measures, placed in an easily accessable location, could be very useful to admins to help make enforcement decisions. --Unfocused 16:18, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What Unfocused said. I cannot, however, agree that personal attacks are vandalism although I do agree that they soon become disruptive. I think that a guideline of, say, three personal attacks in a month (not a week, because the hurt often lingers longer than that) meriting blocking is appropriate. I also feel that it should not need three different people to get involved. Admins can make a judgement about whether three cited attacks merit a block; if the admin is uncertain then it behooves him/her to solicit the opinion of others.

Civility to be enforced

I like the new policy proposal. It shines, it glows (hi, radiant).

How soon does it go into effect? Do we have to vote on it, or something? -- Uncle Ed (talk) July 1, 2005 15:47 (UTC)

Uncle Ed, I haven't studied this new policy, only the proposed "definition" of what is a personal attack. That definition gets my vote of support. --AI 09:52, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Personal Comments

This Blocking Policy is not an yet an official policy and it states:

What is a personal attack

"Tough call, and a pure definition is not going to work. However, we can make some guidelines. In particular, adding such tags as 'POV', 'cleanup' or even 'Delete' to an article is never a personal attack.

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 ("The despots here…"). Derogatory humour only avoids being a personal attack if the subject agrees that it is funny.
Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks#What is a personal attack

I agree with this proposed definition. Usage of POV, cleanup, Delete and similar editorial terms are acceptable. Furthermore, official policy WP:NPA currently states:

"Comment on content, not on the contributor."
WP:NPA#Don't do it Official Wikipedia policy

That is Wikipedia's only current hint of any official policy "definition" of a personal attack. The definition in both policies should match eachother by editing both to the same wording. Personal comments are not allowable. Civil contributors can discuss content without ever making any type of personal remark, whether it is a comment or an attack. For example, "Idiosyncratic" refering to a person's style, attitude, interpretation, ideas, etc, is not acceptable. BTW, what do we do when a user uses personal attacks in his RfArb statement and has influenced the arbitration to his side? [2] --AI 09:52, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

"Comment on content, not the contributor" is usually good advice, but it is not a definition of the term "personal attack". Commenting on content instead of the contributor is neither necessary for avoiding personal attacks, e.g. "you are an outstanding contributor" would be a "personal comment" on your definition, but we don't want to go around and block people for that. Nor is commenting on content sufficient for avoiding personal attacks: something like "this stub is infantile drivel and should be taken out and shot" (hypothetical; it gets a lot nastier in reality) is a clear example of incivility, but it is technically and on a superficial reading only a comment on content. --MarkSweep 23:59, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

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