Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks

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[edit] Proposal 1: Violent communication is not tolerated in wikipedia, be constructive and focus on content

Support as NominatorI'm not entirely sure how this works/whether this is how this works- but hey!--Keerllston 10:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, violent communication (and even the occasional direct personal attack) is allowed on Wikipedia. Per policy it isn't, but try pushing the issue if you were the one complained about and point out that the complainer had been directly attacking while you had only been aggressive (without name-calling), as an example. I just made a note of that on my User Talk page, actually, a few days after never hearing back from the Admin who tagged me but didn't tag the other party, even after it was clearly demonstrated and even requested. Ultimately, though, we all have to let go - as I have - and move on. That editor and I get along somewhat well now (though we staunchly disagree sometimes) and at least are WP:CIVIL with each other pretty much. Anyway, I like the policies the way they are mostly because I believe that the flaws they have (and there are many, as you rightly point out) are the lesser... they could be worse or be more numerous. Does any of that make sense? I hope it did. VigilancePrime (talk) 03:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] common sense, m:dick (and external links)

I just boldly added this. It occurs to me that much of the previous heated discussion here could be avoided if we emphasized the common sense aspect of things a bit.

"There is no bright-line rule about what constitutes a personal attack as opposed to constructive discussion", "These examples are not exclusive. Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done. When in doubt, comment on the article's content without referring to its contributor at all." and WP:NPA#Consequences of personal attacks go in the same direction, but I think it could be useful to (carefully, of course) take it one step further by making it clear that WP:NPA is based both on previous experience and on the common sense approach outlined in m:dick. It follows (and imo should be mentioned) that (i) everybody should try not act like a dick (ok, I don't propose this exact wording...but it's what it boils down to in the end), and that (ii) evaluation (esp. by admins/at ANI) will not only be based on WP:NPA, but also on the basic notions outlined in m:dick and that (iii) when in doubt, not including certain things in a comment (like e.g. external links or names of websites; and why not explicitly mention this?) should be a matter common sense and a matter of course.

You see, I think the bottom line is that imo we already are on the same page here (npi), and that this policy doesn't even need to go into so much detail. Imo, we may want to carefully emphasize (the fact, imo) that this policy was written with common sense in mind.

I believe such an addition may encourage a generally serene approach on all sides, and at the same time give a clear message that dickery will not be tolerated, however it takes place. As I said above, I think most of this is already present in the guideline, just that formulating it into a short paragraph of its own might make for a good extension (perception as a pun encouraged here). I dorftrottel I talk I 17:52, November 25, 2007

As to the question of whether to include a specific link in an article or not, the same holds true. Wikilawyering either way will never override common sense, and a flexible approach is in our all best interest. Between us: I'm actually trying to implicitly pay tribute to the apparent fact that the discussion on the issue of external links will likely never end. Maybe it's not supposed to. I dorftrottel I talk I 18:07, November 25, 2007
Addendum: while m:dick focuses on behavioral aspects, common sense is of course in equal measure based on the positive and negative definitions of WP. See Nutshell thread above. I dorftrottel I talk I 18:22, November 26, 2007

[edit] First section

Hopefully this won't be contentious - if it is please revert and bring it here.

The first section was long. It was titled "what is considered a personal attack", but was made up of two parts, one of which was about normal debates (and what isn't an attack), the other of which was mainly a list of things which are attacks.

I have therefore split the section into two. The aim is that a section purely on personal attack is likely to help editors, by avoiding the "too long; didn't read" feel of the original. I also moved one sentence for flow (there was a short paragraph where it fitted nicely).

Again, if anyone feels this was unhelpful, let me know, or discuss here.

Thanks!

Diff: [1]

FT2 (Talk | email) 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I like it, except for the moving of "Accusing someone without justification of making personal attacks is also considered a form of personal attack."
It now reads, which I think is less plausible:
  • These examples are not exclusive. Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done. Accusing someone without justification of making personal attacks is also considered a form of personal attack. When in doubt, comment on the article's content without referring to its contributor at all.
I had recently moved it to what I still think is the best place to incorporate it:
  • The appropriate response to such statements is to address the issues of content rather than to accuse the other person of violating this policy. Accusing someone without justification of making personal attacks is also considered a form of personal attack.
I dorftrottel I talk I 18:47, December 1, 2007
I moved that sentence now[2], but feel free to revert. I dorftrottel I talk I 18:12, December 3, 2007

[edit] Why is this?

Hi.

I saw this:

"Removing unquestionable personal attacks from your own user talk page is rarely a matter of concern. On other talk pages, especially where such text is directed against you, removal should typically be limited."

But *why* should it be limited in that case? If someone says something that is obviously a personal attack (eg. "You're a stupid, miserable little **** that I don't give a **** about" or something like that) on you, what is wrong with removing it? It has not logical validity, as it does not address your argument, it just attacks you. In the given scenario the quote implies the personal attack is unquestionably such, so there does not seem any reason removal of one directed against you on article talk pages is any different than it directed anywhere else on your own talk page, especially as long as all you remove is the unquestionable attack and nothing more. mike4ty4 (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

There are several reasons for this. First, many of the statements that individuals perceive as personal attacks against them, really aren't. Your example is egregious, but far less common than statements such as "User X doesn't have his facts straight/is twisting things to his own advantage/is unaware of policy" etc., all of which have been perceived as attacks. Second, in those kinds of cases, it is often better to ask the person making the statement to refactor (or strike out) their comments, allowing everyone to save face. Third, removing the "perceived" attack may result in a disjointed and illogical discussion when read later; often the post with the perceived attack will include information relevant to the subject at hand, as will the response to the perceived attack. Finally, in larger discussions, other users can better understand the working relationships, and can also intervene to request refactoring or to identify personal attacks in a disinterested way, and treat such behaviour accordingly. It also prevents people from "gaming" the policy to remove information provided by another party under the veil of "personal attack". Does this help? Risker (talk) 01:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfC of interest

There is an RfC on WP:CIV that may be of interest to contributors here, as it may fall under NPA as well. Dreadstar † 02:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimail

Does the Wikipedia have any policy regarding personal attacks sent from wikimail. I'm asking because in the Swedish WP we have problems with a user sending very hostile mails to the administrators each time (s)he is blocked. Vints (talk) 14:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I dont know the rules here but it seems fair to block a user if he or she is disrupting efforts to create a good encyclopedia or attacking other editors! Funsides (talk) 10:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
If proof can be given of the attack, then the user who is doing the attacking would be warned. If it continued, the user would be banned. Undeath (talk) 06:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the page should say something about this. Vints (talk) 07:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I see personal attack in wikipedia

Although it is the general policy of wikipedia, I see personal attacks in wikipedia. I think open issue of wikipedia has brought hostility here.

People can use weapons against each others, as any claim is granted without professional judgment.

I think editors or moderators should pay a particular attention to this issue to clarify they are who control the pedia, otherwise there'll be no good future for the pedia.

Thanks to the service, I'm using it for a long time :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.226.28 (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Claims might be granted without so called "professional judgement" but it is still better judgement than what most could deliver. The admins do a good job on the 'pedia. I don't think wiki is in any risk of becoming over run with vandals. No one gets far with vandalism here. Undeath (talk) 12:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:ILIKEHIM and IDONTLIKEHIM

Another essay along these lines... Maybe it could be incorporated into this page somehow, or into Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions... What do you think? Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 02:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving the "spoken word" file here

I am moving this file over here and removing it from the policy. It was posted in April 2005, nearly three years ago, and is terribly out of date. It's my belief that policies should not have spoken word links that fail to reflect the actual policy. Now, others may choose to revert me. Better yet, maybe someone will feel motivated to create an up-to-date spoken word file. Risker (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Has this come up before?

No sense reinventing the wheel if it has, but I was curious as to why the example of a personal attack (in the "Personal Attacks" subsection of "What is considered a personal attack?") says:

"Threats of vandalism to userpages or talk pages."

instead of:

"Threats of (or) vandalism to userpages or talk pages."

It would seem to me that the actual vandalism, and not just the threat of such, is a personal attack in and of itself. If the person's page is, for example, an attack page, then the logical action would be to head on off to report the page at AN/I, and let them make the call. Thoughts? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism to user or user talk pages is covered under WP:VAND and is not necessarily a personal attack. I will revert your changes. Risker (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I think I would ahave appreciated the opportunity to discuss the matter further before you reverted, Risker, but this way will also work. The difference between a vandal and someone making a personal attack is that the vandal is indiscriminately adding info to "undermine the integrity of Wikipedia," whereas the person altering a user's page is seeking to undermine the integrity or reputation of another editor's account page. Therefore, while both are vandalism, the person making the personal attack doesn't get to hide under the blanket of indiscriminate vandals. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 23:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I hope you will appreciate my perspective that policies, because adherence to them is mandatory, should not have significant additions made to them without having been discussed, and consensus achieved, in advance. This particular policy has been to Arbcom three times in the past year, subject to multiple edit wars, and has been locked for about 15% of the time since last April. It took months to finally hammer out a policy amongst dozens of editors that most people could live with, so changes shouldn't be done on the fly.

Vandalism does not need to be in this policy because it has its own policy and can be dealt with much more easily by anyone without really thinking about it; and I can't ever remember someone writing "Hey, if you don't do what I want I will go vandalise your user page!" - so it's a bit unrealistic to be adding "threats of vandalism" to the list. Vandalism is not at all in the same category as personal attacks; vandals tend to be "new", badly behaved editors or repeat offender sockpuppets, whereas personal attacks tend to come from SPAs in article space, or longer term editors in user and project space. Vandalism is very obvious - page blanking or replacement with "User X is a weenie!" is the most common - whereas personal attacks are often more subtle, and they aren't vandalism or they would have been considered to be covered under that policy. I hope this helps a bit. Risker (talk) 00:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your assertion regarding changing the page, I guess I can understand, even though it doesn't really follow the WP:BRD model. I will await the outcome of the discussion here before considering another change to the page.
If you will read what I posted above, I did not specify that vandalism and personal attacks were of the same root. I am saying that the policy needs further revision if the policy article fails to address page refactoring as a personal attack. Maybe I am interpreting malicious refactoring of commentary as vandalism. While most vandalism is obvious and committed by noobs or SPAs, some of the refactoring done on others' user pages, or using one's own user page as an attack page (this one has been left unaddressed for over six months) seems a personal attack. Sometimes, the vandalism is not as simple as 'Jonny is teh fukwad'; sometimes Johnny's user page is altered to make it seem that he advocates political or sexual agendas not his own. Such is an attack, and sometimes those attacks are pretty sneaky. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 06:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree - it's still vandalism. Sneaky vandalism, but still vandalism. Keep in mind that some of the most difficult-to-address and most frequently missed vandalism in articles are the subtle changes to dates, spellings of words, and information contained in references. Operation Spooner's page isn't an attack page, although it may be on the pointy side; he actually has some valid points there, and I have seen just about all of them in action at some point or another. (I may even have been "guilty" of a few of them.) Perhaps you are looking for WP:USER? Incidentally, I think this is completely following the WP:BRD model - you were bold, I reverted, now we're discussing. Risker (talk) 13:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Some good points... I don't think it's a good idea to try to put a square peg in a round hole by making NPA also include policy provisions regarding vandalism, since they're different issues. Yes, vandalism may on occasion be motivated by a desire to attack somebody, but that's not always (or even usually) the case. *Dan T.* (talk) 12:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Harasser won’t go away

We have all seen users that seem to take on a personal vendetta on other users, repeatedly contesting anything their target posts. Or taking their grip to the users talk page and harassing them when they don’t get their way in a AfD. Wiki Personal Attacks page should have some type of resolution for dealing with harassers that don’t give up and go away. If you are involved in personal attacks from another user, I suggest we ask the other to stop harassing you. If they continue then tell them this is a second warning and if they still don’t back off, then they should be reported to admin for resolution. I’ve asked another user many time to go away and leave me alone, but he is persistently relentless, I wish I could block him from my user pages because he is so disruptive and wasting my time, that I would rather be using being constructive and contributing.(Lookinhere (talk) 07:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Where to report ATTACK

I recently made this report of an attack to WP:ANI. While it was actioned, the actioning admin requested future such reports go to WP:AIV instead. If this is normal practice (I have no cause to doubt that it is) then surely there should be some such indication on WP:ATTACK.LeadSongDog (talk) 18:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, the edit involved in your report is (sadly) pretty run-of-the-mill vandalism, and can simply be reverted in the normal course of editing, with a standard vandalism warning to the editor who inserted the information. Repeated or particularly egregious vandalism should be reported to WP:AIV, although reporting to WP:ANI was a reasonable option, given the nature of the statement. The No personal attacks policy is addressed more to behaviour between editors, and not so much to article content unless the article content also contains a personal attack aimed at a Wikipedia editor. I hope this helps; if not, please feel free to ask more questions here, or on my userpage. Risker (talk) 19:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, if you look at his edit history it was repeated, so admin intervention was necessary. I suppose we could alternatively have a {{uw-vandal5}} template that would generate the AIV entry directly from the vandal's talk page. It doesn't really make sense that we have to bounce from the vandalized page to the vandal's talk page to the AIV page to file the report, cutting and pasting as we go.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(Addendum) My main point though was that WP:ATTACK fails to clearly guide the reader to the desired venue for response, whether that be ANI, AIV, work it out for yourself, or dial 911. That would seem to create unnecessary workload for the reporting editor, the admins, and the servers.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How should we deal with it?

I have seen too many great editors leave Wikipedia because of harassment. There does not seem to be a working policy against personal attacks and stalking, and that is IMO unacceptable. WP needs all the hard-working editors it can get. What can be done about it?--Berig (talk) 15:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

who has left wikipeoadia because of harrassment? I never saw any. I also think the one warning before going to some dispute board is a bit too much. I say you have to give 3 warnings over a period of time. That would weed out the temporary problems, user posting warning in bad faith (to be like *gothca!*), you know false positives and stuff... JeanLatore (talk) 23:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some people just need to be attacked. Especially if they have no clue what they're talking about.

. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rufusmcdoofus (talk • contribs) 15:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indecent suggestions

What do you think about adding these to the list of behaviour that is never appropriate? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You know, I'd be really hesitant to add that; what's indecent or obscene to one person is quite acceptable to another, and there are a lot of shades of grey there. Context is often important, as is the relationship between the individuals involved in the exchange. I seem to recall that there was an arbcom case where one issue was a post on a user talk page that was called "obscene"; it clearly wasn't considered such by any of the individuals involved in the relevant conversation, nor (when it was explained that it related to the title of an actual WP article) was it seen to be anything but a joke by the arbitrators. Risker (talk) 14:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:VPP

There is a debate going over at VPP about WP:ATTACK and its First Amendment implications.JeanLatore (talk) 00:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, folks, there's not. There's JeanLatore trying to claim that there's First Amendment implications, and there's everyone else who has had anything to say about the issue saying that there aren't, including a summary of the situation by a lawyer I know who looked it over. Nothing to see here. Rdfox 76 (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Is he a constitutional lawyer? I highly doubt that he is. Plus, different lawyers can have different opinions. Caveat . JeanLatore (talk) 16:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)