User talk:HarveyCarter

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[edit] Sockpuppetry case

You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/HarveyCarter for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Xiahou 23:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please consider making constructive contributions.

I'm posting this on your talk page to encourage you make constructive contributions. You have been posting disruptive and offensive comments. Those comments are generally not welcome and have no place here at Wikipedia. Also the manner in which you are stating your point of view is generally hostile. Hopefully after reading this page you will have a chance to reflect on your contributions to Wikipedia. Good luck on your future posts. --ProperManner 05:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recommended reading for user HarveyCarter and JohnRobertsly, part 1.

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 be careful to avoid offending people unintentionally.
Wikipedia policy
Article standards
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
No original research
Biographies of living persons
Working with others
Civility
Consensus
No personal attacks
Dispute resolution
No legal threats
Global principles
What Wikipedia is not
Ignore all rules

Civility is a code for the conduct of editing and writing edit summaries, comments, and talk page discussions on all Wikipedias. Whereas incivility is roughly defined as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress, our code of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another.

Our Wikipedia community has by experience developed an informal hierarchy of core principles — the most important being that articles be written with a neutral point of view. After that we request a reasonable degree of civility towards others. "Civility" is the only principle that we can apply to online conduct, and it's the only reasonable way to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable. We cannot always expect people to love, honor, obey, or even respect one another. But we have every right to demand civility.

Problem
Visitors are invited to improve the text in Wikipedia. But often there are differences of opinion on whether a change in text is an "improvement". When editors weigh the pros and cons of whether a change is an improvement, it may be difficult to criticize text without being subjective about the situation. Editors, in trying to be clear, can be unnecessarily harsh on the giving end. Conversely, on the receiving end, editors can be oversensitive when they see what they wrote replaced by something that claims to be "better", despite it being the opposite of what they wrote.

Silent and faceless words on Talk pages and Edit summaries do not transmit the nuances of verbal conversation, leading to small, facetious comments being misinterpreted. One uncivil remark can easily escalate into a heated discussion which may not be focused objectively on the problem at hand. It is during these exchanges that community members may become uninterested in improving articles and instead focus on "triumphing" over the "enemy".

Examples
Petty examples that contribute to an uncivil environment:

  • Rudeness
  • Judgmental tone in edit summaries ("fixed sloppy spelling", "snipped rambling crap")
  • Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
  • Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another (cite as WP:CIV#ICA)
  • Starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..."
  • Calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel. Even if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute.

More serious examples include:

  • Taunting
  • Personal attacks
    • Racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
    • Profanity directed at another contributor
  • Lies
  • Defacing user pages
  • Giving users derogatory names via Pagemove vandalism
  • Calling for bans or blocks
  • Indecent suggestions

Incivility happens, for example, when you are quietly creating a new page, and another user tells you, If you're going to write a pointless page, could you spell-check it?.
Escalation occurs when you reply, Mind your own business.

This style of interaction between Wikipedians drives away contributors, distracts others from more important matters, and weakens the entire community.

[edit] Recommended reading for user HarveyCarter and JohnRobertsly, part 2.

[edit] Removing uncivil comments.

  • Strike offensive words or replace them with milder ones on talk pages (this is often seen as controversial, as is refactoring other people's words)
  • Remove offensive comments on talk pages (since they remain in the page history, anyone can find them again or refer to them later on)
  • 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)
  • 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)

[edit] Caution the offender

This is a clear case of ongoing incivility. --ProperManner 05:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)