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Should we rewrite this page as a guideline or file it away? If it's rewritten as a guideline and the survey still applies it would be good to leave it in to see what people said about it. Zocky 12:50, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


This is just a proposal. It is an experiment that I would like to run for a while to see how it works out -- I don't think it can do much harm, if any, with the framework described here. I believe the benefits to the Wikipedia discussion climate could be great, and it might be a good way to harness the power of wiki -- talk pages are kind of clunky, but this is one of the things you can't do on a bulletin board or mailing list.—Eloquence 06:31, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

Please read the complete proposed guideline before adding your username to one of the positions below.

Should we do any refactoring/removal of attacks?

Let's definitely do it, and keep doing it (refine guideline if necessary):

  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  2. Martin - I already do this. If people genuinely feel that their sniping adds value, they are of course free to reinstate it.
  3. Definitely do it. There is one certain user page that is in dire need of this kind of atttention. Arno 07:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  4. Angela 16:09, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
  5. subject to guidelines. - Hemanshu 18:50, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  6. Perl
  7. ugen64 00:34, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  8. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  9. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) - removal but not refactoring. Replace with the piped link personal attack removed.
  10. Per Rossami. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  11. AI 09:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Let's give it a try and see how it works:

  1. —Eloquence 06:31, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Toby Bartels
  3. Kosebamse, methinks that attacks should perhaps not be removed entirely, but disinfected (i.e. replaced by "personal attack removed"), so that the intention of a comment can still be inferred. After all, we want to be able to spot problem users, and we don't want to give them a censorship argument for free.
  4. Morven, I'd like to see some way of cutting down on the heat and smoke and let us focus on what matters.
  5. Fantasy with two changes: User should reword himself, only if not collaborative a uninvolved/neutral user should delete, see comment below.
  6. Anthère; removal or refactoral should be done only per attacked user request; the attacker should be asked to rephrase first. If he does not, a neutral party should do the job. In case of long term issue (such as an edit war, refactoring by a neutral party should only be done after the debate is over, to be meaningfull of people action for those coming late in the debate
  7. Dandrake: partly agreeing or mostly disagreeing with Anthère. Comments below.
  8. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  9. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Generally not:

anthony 01:12, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Let's not do this at all:

  1. Taku 08:12, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Tim Starling, reasons below.
  3. Daniel Quinlan, reasons below.
  4. sannse, reasons below (summary: don't delete, reply positively.)
  5. Fred Bauder 11:13, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC) Let's not do this particular thing, but routinely ban users who engage in ugly behavior such as this.
  6. NetEsq 20:44, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC) Strongly opposed to this proposed policy, reasons below.
  7. Axlrosen 21:52, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC) I agree with Daniel - OK in rare cases, but creating a policy will do more harm than good.
  8. Eslios 05:35, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC) My vote is eloquent, no censure, no rules but responsabilisation, ok ?
  9. Fuzheado 00:32, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) politeness police dangerous, don't subtract important social interaction in a blanket manner, let individuals work it out, see below
  10. MadEwokHerd 22:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  11. Steve
  12. ChrisG 00:56, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC) reasons below
  13. orthogonal 02:01, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC) This is dangerous. It is too easily applied subjectively; it can lead to a stifling application of "political correctness" (see the appeal to "recent research" to make an analogy between criticism and physical violence); and has the possibility of (despite the saving of earlier versions of the page) allowing the creation of Orwellian "memory holes". The cure is worse than the disease.
  14. Absolutely not. This would be censorship. This would be pretending that some individuals are not mean. I am all for striking-out someone's nasty comments, but removing them would let that someone off the hook. Every comment should be left on the talk page in question and eventually archived. It makes it much easier to see people's actions. It makes it more difficult for people to hide their ugly side. The true colors of an individual will be easier revealed. Yes, a community needs forgiveness, but forgiveness comes after justice. A rude wikipedian should be disciplined. Forgiveness comes after discipline. The bad behavior of an individual won't change if you don't hold them accountable. We need evidence to hold them accountable. We cannot go deleting the evidence. Someone who deletes evidence is trying to hide something. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC) P.S. I think we need to make a policy that mandates no more blanking of talk pages. P.P.S. Talk pages are not clunky.
    That assumes that people are immune to stricken-out stuff. If I were to post links to goatse, call you as many curse words as I could think of, and compare you to Hitler... then add "go **** yourself" for good measure, would you (or someone else) not be offended? Or, if I posted this: [*link to goatse* go here for more info], assuming that the *link to goatse* was actually a link to goatse, would many people not be tricked, go to that site, and get offended? People could notice the large amount of profanity on the site (if someone blanked Talk:Main Page and cursed all over it) and be offended, never to return. Now, this heading says "lets not do this at all". There should be at least some exception. ugen64 00:33, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
    For a discussion on the law, you have to realize that "freedom of speech" as defined by the Bill of Rights only extends to the national (and later state) government. We obviously censor alot of stuff here; why not patently offensive and useless remarks? According to the users who have voted here, we should never delete anything; rather we should strike it out (which does nothing except attract attention and show that the stuff should have been removed). I completely disagree. ugen64 00:33, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  15. silsor 08:19, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
  16. Wholesale deletion of vandalism or nonsense is one thing. Taking it upon oneself to deface or remove other people's comments because we feel they are unpleasant is a judgment Wikipedia should not encourage anyone to make. See my comments on Wikipedia talk:Civility under the heading Defacing others' talk comments considered harmful. FOo 04:37, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  17. Wrong under any circumstances, except possibly for the most egregious threats or for unauthorized posting of personal information. I think (but am not positive) that it's a form of censorship. However, there's another issue here too. If someone attacks me personally, I'd want to use the dispute resolution system (without "sanitizing" the evidence) -- and then I'd want to leave their attacks up for all to see. I don't like the idea of an admin saying "user:Idiot made some personal attacks that got him blocked for a week. In fact, the attacks were so horrible that we're not going to let you see them". Isn't one of Wikipedia's strengths the fact that users are able and encouraged to make up their own minds? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 19:09, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  18. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC): use strike, or some small notice (that it is banned/ignored), or replace it with a link to the diff of the personal attack post

Other / undecided:

  1. Vancouverguy 16:04, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Implementation poll

If you are in favor of refactoring under some circumstances, please specify the details below. Please see the arguments for and against each option on the guideline page before voting. [strikethrough by TS -- everyone should be allowed to vote]

Who can refactor/remove?

All persons, including the one being attacked:

  1. —Eloquence 07:25, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Angela 07:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  3. Tim Starling 09:24, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  4. Martin 11:11, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC) (I would strongly prefer it to be done by the person who made the attacks in the first place - but if not, then fair game for anyone)
  5. Dandrake 15:54, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC); see Martin's comment above.
  6. Eslios 04:31, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  7. Arno 07:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (though mention of this could be referred to a sysop with no involvement in this matter)
  8. Kosebamse 18:15, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) - agree with Martin (see above)
  9. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  10. Hemanshu 18:57, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  11. Perl
    anthony
  12. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  13. ugen64 01:53, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  14. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  15. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  16. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  17. Samboy 08:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
  18. AI 09:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

All persons except for the one being attacked:

  1. Who defines what is an attack? Sam Spade 07:53, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Only those with no involvement in the matter:

  1. Fantasy 10:00, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Only the person who made the attack

  1. MadEwokHerd 22:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    anthony
  2. It's a person's business to withdraw their own comment, deleting it entirely. On the other hand, rewriting it in such a way that others' responses seem disproportionate is unacceptable, since it effectively misleads as to those people's intentions. FOo 04:37, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not even the person who made the attack. Think before you post

  1. orthogonal 23:49, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC) Note: not that I'd ever attempt to enforce this. But as a personal matter, I'd consider myself disingenuous if I edited away my own overly hasty words. Far better (and more satisfying to the person attacked) would be to make an apology.
  2. No way! You can't go back and change the personal record. what is said is said. Live with it. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  3. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC): let attacker make an apology instead

When to refactor/remove?

Whenever you see a personal attack:

  1. —Eloquence 07:25, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Angela 07:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  3. Dandrake 15:53, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  4. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  5. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  6. Arno 07:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  7. ugen64 01:54, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  8. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  9. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  10. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  11. AI 09:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Only after the flamewar has died down:

Only after the flamewar has died down, except in egregious cases

  1. Tim Starling 09:24, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Fantasy 10:00, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  3. Martin 11:14, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC) (unless they are your attacks and/or you have consent)
  4. Anthère
  5. Fuzheado 01:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  6. Eslios 04:31, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  7. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  8. Kosebamse 18:15, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  9. MadEwokHerd 22:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  10. Sam Spade 07:56, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC) egregious cases needs defined.
  11. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Any time is equally valid

anthony

Preserve flamewars indefinitely. Archive them when you run out of talk page space:

  1. This is important evidence when a user is up for being banned. This is important for all of us to read to understand that user in question. Do not censor someone's ugliness. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. Preserve the facts for future readers who wish to understand the issue. That an issue provokes unmitigated nastiness is itself a relevant fact -- and quite useful to future editors who may want to know where the minefields are, for instance. FOo 04:37, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  3. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC): preserve the fact for accessibility and governance transparancy, especially, when the attacker is punished in some way, and some newcomer want to reinvestigate that case

What to remove?

Only egregiously offensive comments ("Moron!","Fascist!"):
  1. Tim Starling 09:24, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Fuzheado 01:54, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  3. Eslios 04:31, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  4. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
All purely personal attacks that add no information value:
  1. —Eloquence 07:30, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Angela 07:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  3. Fantasy 10:00, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  4. Martin 11:17, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC) (but concentrate on egregriously offensive comments)
  5. Dandrake 15:54, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  6. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  7. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  8. Kosebamse 18:15, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  9. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  10. Hemanshu 19:00, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  11. Sam Spade 07:57, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC) Agree with Martin.
  12. ugen64 01:54, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  13. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  14. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  15. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  16. AI 09:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Only attacks which have consensus for removal
anthony
Nothing except graffiti
  1. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC): except graffiti or nonpublic personal information or something like this

How to deal with pure personal attacks?

(in terms of the page itself - see What to do with the excised language? for suggestions on what to do with removed text)

Just remove them:

  1. —Eloquence 07:25, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Angela 07:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  3. Tim Starling 09:24, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  4. Fantasy 10:00, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  5. Martin 11:35, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  6. Dandrake 15:55, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  7. Anthère
  8. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  9. Arno 07:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  10. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  11. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  12. Samboy 21:27, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  13. AI 09:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Use ellipses [...] like that

  1. Martin 19:00, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (in some cases)
  2. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  3. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Use [personal attack redacted by XXX]

anthony
  1. ugen64 01:55, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) - actually, I prefer the more recent trend to replace the redacted text with the piped link personal attack removed
  3. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Strike them through like this:

  1. Yes, I will accept this. It tells the reader that the words are not approved of, but allows the reader to know what the user in question actually said. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

How to deal with part personal attacks, part factual remarks?

Refactor [using square brackets]:

  1. —Eloquence 07:30, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Angela 07:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  3. Fantasy 10:00, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  4. Martin 11:37, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  5. Dandrake 15:56, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  6. Anthère
  7. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  8. Kosebamse 18:15, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  9. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  10. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  11. ugen64 01:55, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  12. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  13. Samboy 21:24, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  14. AI 09:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Use [personal attack redacted by XXX]

  1. anthony 01:21, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) (again, as modified by recent practice)
  3. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Delete entire remark and ask attacker to better phrase it

  1. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Do not refactor (leave those as they are):

  1. Tim Starling 09:24, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
  2. Fuzheado 01:52, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) - refactor==revisionism,let the two parties decide to keep/delete, not a community decision
  3. Eslios 04:31, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  4. MadEwokHerd 22:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  5. orthogonal 23:53, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC). As Fuzheado said, refactoring inevitably injects the POV of the refactorer.
  6. Refactoring is a form of censorship. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  7. "Refactoring" is a disturbing word to use for the action of changing another person's signed words. One can refactor one's own work or a shared work, such as a Wikipedia article. To call it "refactoring" when one is changing the wording of someone else's signed opinion borders on Newspeak. Don't do it. FOo 04:37, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  8. Ans (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC): do not refactor the existing paragraph, but put the refactored text in a new paragraph

Which pages do we care about?

Just article talk pages:

  1. Martin 11:43, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC) (except in egregrious cases)
  2. Fantasy (User pages can be "cleaned" by the user.)
  3. Kosebamse 18:15, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) not really sure about this but would suggest to start with article namespace, possibly later extend to other
  4. Dandrake 01:16, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC) (In User space, anything goes. Personal attacks on contributors in Wikipedia space should just be damn well deleted on the spot. IMNAAHO)
  5. Sam Spade 07:59, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC) People can edit their own user page, I do.

All pages, including pages in the wikipedia: and user: space:

  1. —Eloquence 12:16, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC) (only Wikipedia: pages which are used in ThreadMode)
  2. Anthère 16:21, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)(but user pages should mostly been cleaned by the user himself)
  3. SimonP 00:43, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  4. Arno 07:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  5. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (not sure about others doing this in the user: space)
  6. Angela
  7. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  8. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  9. ugen64 01:56, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
  10. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  11. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  12. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  13. AI 09:13, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

What to do with the excised language?

Just remove it:

  1. Martin 18:36, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (in most cases. Sometimes moving to the user's talk page may be more appropriate. Judgement call)
  2. Angela
  3. Jwrosenzweig 16:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) (The page history will record it)
  4. Ruakh 05:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) (but provide link to old, pre-refactoring version if appropriate; use judgment)
  5. Rossami (talk) 17:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) - It's still in the page history if you need it.
  6. —Korath (Talk) 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Move to user's talk page:

Remove from talk space. If it is a personal comment move to user's talk page

  1. AI 09:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Add into attributed list of insults which is cleared periodically:

  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
  2. ugen64 01:56, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

Save it in a permanent record of such insults and who made them:

  1. BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:57, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (perhaps a symbol that indicates an attack was removed or a note on the talk page if it exists)

Place it right back from where it was removed, as if it was never removed in the first place

  1. Kingturtle 07:49, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Examples

Talk:Zionism and racism, wikipedia:votes for deletion/copyvio [1], Talk:Anti-Semitism (archive 2), ...

Longer comments

I've been staunchly anti-refactored-talk for quite some time now. Refactoring leads to confusion. A personal attack permanently changes the attitudes of the participants in a debate towards each other -- refactoring does nothing but confuse late-comers by obscuring the reasons for the attitudes subsequently expressed. I would happily revert the removal of personal attacks directed at me. -- Tim Starling 08:20, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

Why should latecomers care about the attitude of people towards each other? Article talk pages are for discussing articles, not people, and not attitudes. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It's different on a user talk page, of course, where standards can be more relaxed. Martin 12:55, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
true. But if someone tries to mediate an issue, but do not understand the history of the fight, he is likely to do a poor job. Articles matter, but they are written by people, so those matter as well. Anthère 14:14, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I dunno. Mediators are generally advised to avoid trying to find out the truth, such things being an issue for arbiters (who should be checking the page history anyway). I do see your point though - and you're right: people do matter. Still, if reworking obscures the fact that Alice hates Bob's guts, I'm unsure what has been lost. Martin 17:15, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think this as an actual policy will hurt more than it helps. I'm okay with people removing personal attacks in rare situations, but I don't want to see this policy-ized. For one thing, I think personal appeals from more experienced users often work better than a forceful edit surrounded by subjective judgements about what is a personal attack and what is not. The gray area is too big. It's just too heavy-handed. Daniel Quinlan 08:24, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

My suggested tweak would be that removed insults be stacked like BJAODN into a central file, attributed, and purged monthly, fortnightly, quarterly or whatever (see forgive and forget). The Jubilee is a milennia old institution. This would curb overenthusiasm in editing others texts, and also leave a centralised paper-trail of repeat offenders. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 12:56, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I do not like the option to stack lists of attack in a central place, unless it is clearly meant in the goal of having a procedure taken against the attacker. Otherwise, it is gonna against forgiving to let insults stand somewhere Anthère
That's one of the reasons I don't want this: the politeness police. Your suggested tweak is akin to the dreaded and semi-mythical "permanent record" or demerit system of high school. "I have removed insults from [name of person who I don't like] and placed them in the insult file.", etc. If you want to drive all but the most politically savvy Wikipedians away, then it might work. Politeness should not be enforced, but lead by example. I doubt any of us is perfect, some less perfect than others, but this big brother approach is a bad idea. Daniel Quinlan 09:05, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I doubt if it would really work in that worst case scenario manner. The "blowing off steam" file might infact give some perspective to how a particular users rhetoric should be evaluated, in reference to his usual register of expression. When newcomers come here, they generally don't know that this or that user has a wider register of expressing displeasure than others. This might even lessen the impact of rudeness, when newcomers can quickly learn to understand that User X always talks that way, and it need not be taken too seriously.
I frankly don't see there is any enforcement aspect to this as such. Any enforcement of civility would procede just about like it does now. Only the debates on talk pages would be more focused on useful information, and new and old users would have a central place to check to see what kind of rhetorical palette other users are in a habit of employing. Any and all formal repercussions for uncivility would of course be a totally unrelated matter. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 09:27, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I agree. One does take attacks much more easily when he knows it is in the attacker habit to do so. This should not remove the right for an attacked one to ask for the attack to be removed. Anthère

Two changes:

  • As in real live, The offender should be able to say "I am sorry, I take back what i said". To get to this point, we should have a standard-phrase like "Dear XY, in Wikipedia we agreed on not to accept personal attacks (see xxx). Could you please try to reword your comment on page yyy. Thank you very much, your Wikipedia community"
    • Only, if the person is not willing to collaborate, there should be "action taken", but a comment should be left like "offensive wording deleted" or so.
  • The person deleting the offense or taling to the offender should be always a person not involved in the discussion. I see this as very important. We have neutrality as our high value in Wikipedia and a person involved in a discusson can not be neutral.

Just my thought :-) Fantasy 09:25, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure a standard phrase is good, but discussion is good. Sometimes that's best in advance, sometimes best afterwards: "I removed a few harsh words you wrote on such-and-such a page, because I think they obscure your (very valuable) point. Hope that's ok with you. :)". Martin 13:23, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

-

My concern is that perception of personal attacks varies drastically. I've often seen comments described as attacks when I really can't see them as such. I think removing comments usually leads to more conflict and makes conversations impossible to follow. I would prefer to see people subject to personal attacks refusing to respond in kind. If a comment feels like an attack, ignore that part of the message and respond as though you read the comment as friendly criticism.

  • "Your prose is horrible, it could have been written by a third grader."
    • "Thanks for your feedback. I will reread my work and see if I can improve the writing. Perhaps you could also make any improvements you feel would help?"
  • "Once again, you have shown that you have no interest in being neutral."
    • "I understand that you feel the article has neutrality problems, could you explain which parts you think are a particular problem? Maybe we can work together to clarify them."

Even a comment such as "This is just typical for you and your ilk" usually comes with other comments that can be responded to positively. It's better to ignore that part of the comment than inflame things by deleting.

I would agree to a policy of removing attacking comments some time after a dispute has ended. But if the attacks are neutralised in this way it probably isn't necessary. I think just moving old conversation to archive is enough. I'm tempted to say *very* strong attacks should be removed, but that just reintroduces the problem of interpretation.

sannse 09:42, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Don't delete personal attacks, just try to turn the conversation away from them. Concentrate on other aspects of the comment in your reply. Try to understand the other person's point of view -- if the point they were trying to make was obscured by emotion, ask them to clarify. And above all, don't get angry. -- Tim Starling 09:51, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
that is all true. But first it is not necessarily easy to do in practice :-) and second, if the matter of interpretation is difficult, I think it is up to the one attacked to be the main judge of how offended he thought he was. Anthère 14:14, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Good advice in all seasons, but does not in and of itself alter the fact that the mere presence of nastygrams on talkpages has a bad effect on wiki-atmosphere whatever the target does.
As to Sannses objection about differing interpretations of what is offensive. Maybe this problem could be eased by a graduated response. Like for instance adding <s> and </s> tags around mild personal insults, and only egregious examples cut and moved to the specific file intended for such. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 10:09, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I don't want to sound hypocritical, so I should mention one other thing: sometimes I ridicule personal attacks, implying that they are simple minded and challenging the person to say some intelligent about the actual subject. That's a sign of anger, so I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. -- Tim Starling 10:00, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I feel that having attacks present, but handled well, will give a better atmosphere than deletion of attacks. To me, deletion says we are unable to respond well to attacks and prefer to brush them under the carpet. I think it also risks making the person writing the comment feel victimised or ignored and so escalating the conflict. Refactoring is an improvement over deletion in some ways. If "you write like a child" is changed to "I think the writing standard in this article needs improvement" then the writer would at least feel that their comments are not being totally disregarded. But there would still be potential problems: perhaps they really meant, "too many words in this article are misspelled" or "this article doesn't cover enough technical aspects". Refactoring to one of these specific criticisms would potentially be putting words into their mouth.
(cutting in) serves them right for speaking filth. If you don't respect civilisation, civilisation won't necessarilly respect you. We'll do our best, but if you get screwed over by your own inability to be polite... oh well. *shrug* Martin 12:52, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I think Cimon Avaro's suggestion of a graduated response is a good one. If this policy is introduced I'd like to see that as part of it. I don't think it totally removes the problem of interpreting benign comments as attacks, especially if a person is feeling particularly sensitive and is prone to interpret all comments as attacks. I think Fantasy's point that the people involved in the dispute should not be the ones refactoring is very important. That would help remove some of the interpretation problems caused by being too emotionally involved. -- sannse 11:38, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Under no circumstance should the "target" be the one to implement the policy. Well, I can actually envision one circumstance, where that might be permissible, but that would be a circumstance in which I would expect the target to have every right to respond under the system we have now. (i.e. so called simple vandalism). But letting the target remove the insult is definitely not a good idea; bound to bias the interpretation in almost every case. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 12:13, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
Another obvious circumstance: I insult Alice, Alice insults me back, and I refactor to remove both my insult, and Alice's response, and apologise to Alice on her talk page for my completely unnecessary departure from the requirements of the civilised world. If I only removed my own comment, that would be unfair on Alice.
The people throwing mud and having mud thrown at them often have the most to gain from it being cleaned up. Ideally people would clean up after themselves, instead of leaving the talk page looking like the inside of a slaughterhouse, ready to "delight" the next visitor who only wanted to, say, check Mother Teresa's middle name. Martin 12:52, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Mmmm... Martin and I have crossed swords on this one before. I respect Martin's opinion, but unfortunately this sort of refactoring gets on my nerves. -- Tim Starling 13:25, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
And likewise I respect Tim's opinion (and thus tend to avoid reworking his words). He's right that when reworking is done badly, it can obscure more than it can enlighten. Mind you, refactor later reduces the problem of different people reading different versions of events. If I rework a flame war from a couple of years ago, nobody will be mad at me - if I do the same to Erik's recent bout of fisticuffs with James, there's more of an issue. Martin 17:27, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It also matters where insulting comments are found. I really don't care much if somebody insults me on my or their talk page, and unless such insults include falsifications or biased statements of facts, I would perhaps leave them as they are and let them speak for themselves. On an article talk page however, I would like to see article-related discussion and not much else. Sometimes personal arguments are moved elsewhere (subpages, "deletion" pages, personal talk pages) and that looks like a sensible approach. Perhaps it would be a good first step for the proposed sanitization of Wikipedia to tackle article talk pages and move insulting comments out of these (or, which I would prefer, rephrase them). Kosebamse

I think setting up a page to say it is "authorized" to remove or refactor personal attacks is important; it makes it possible to point to a page in case we do so, when the opponent objects to the removal or refactoring of his bad talk.

However, I think in the term "personal attack", there is an important word that is "personal". Personal attacks may be bad in two ways : either because they are "hurting" the one who is attacked, or either because it could damage somehow wikipedia image.

In the first case, it is up to the person attacked to decide whether she finds it offensive, not to anybody else. Because he may not have the same sensibilities than others, or because different culture do not have the same references of what is offending. That means, for this case, it should be the attacked one prerogative to indicate the comment is offending and that he wishes that something is done about it. I don't think it would a good idea that other people decide what is offending, and start remove stuff because of their perception. Likely, most people will not be offended very often, because usually they handle attacks well. It means most attacks should stay. When someone feels attacks, he should have the right to request that the offense is either removed or refactored. It should always be asked to the offender first that they remove or refactor, because again, it is very likely it was just something said too quickly, or in the middle of a war; and thought too hasty afterwards. However, if the attacker refuses to comply, someone neutral should do the job. As respect to the attacked one. In any case, rephrasing is *much* better than removal; Removal should be avoided.

When it comes to the point it could be said to be hurting wikipedia image, probably because it is common practice by the attacker, and done at large scale, I think it requires a community approach. In this case, the issue is not so much to remove the attack, than to find a way to convince the attacker to be nicer, more often, in his comments. Perhaps in this case, the attacks should not be removed, so there is a clear trail of the user behavior. Anthère 14:14, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I differ here: The idea is that personal attacks are bad in principle, causing cumulative damage to Wikipedia. Naturally, the attackee's opinion is significant, but attacks are everyone's business.

The normal action should be a polite request for a change, made directly to the offender. If the piece is unsigned, one shouldn't feel obliged to take time finding the author; forget courtesy and grace periods, and just make the change.

Some few attacks may be so serious as to call for an immediate change. In any case, if there's no prompt response to the request, the person making it should proceed with a change. Older hands may be able to suggest what's a reasonable time here.,

No file of deleted insults seems necessary or desirable; there are other ways of looking up someone's old offenses. Vandalism, edit-warring, personal attacks: all are handled by the fact that people notice how people are behaving, and call attention to it when it seems necessary (and resent this waste of their time, but it's the price for being open to every bozo on the Internet, which is conscious policy). Dandrake 16:46, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)


Forced politeness and enabling passive aggressive behavior

A policy such as the one being discussed would lead to a culture of forced politeness and give yet another weapon to those who engage in passive aggressive behavior. -- NetEsq

Oh, yeah? What the HELL is that supposed to mean? (Oops, I think I just proved N's point ;-) --Uncle Ed 18:34, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Could you clarify what the problem with this would be? What precise kind of passive aggressive behaviour would be facilitated? And what would be bad about people being forced to be polite? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 21:10, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
<< Could you clarify what the problem with this would be? >>
For me, the work is the important thing, and a culture of forced politeness tends to diminish the quality of people's work; ditto for passive aggressive behavior (i.e., trolling). People should feel free to express themselves without fear of being censored. -- NetEsq 02:31, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Flaming trolls isn't a hugely succesfull way of dealing with them. Maybe important for letting off steam? Martin 11:41, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, Larry Sanger cited "naming and shaming trolls" as one of the noteworthy exceptions to the "No personal attacks" policy. -- NetEsq 20:18, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
<< What precise kind of passive aggressive behaviour would be facilitated? >>
See generally More heat than light. -- NetEsq
<< And what would be bad about people being forced to be polite? >>
Nothing, if you're in kindergarten. -- NetEsq 02:31, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Hm. Kindergartens must be very different over where you live. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:09, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
Also bear in mind that the proposal only covers article talk pages, user talk pages and policy pages like this would still theoretically remain as a free fire zone (of sorts). -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 22:15, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

I'm getting mixed messages from these proposed guidelines. I see two separate issues here: firstly, moderating an ongoing war, and secondly, cleaning up after a war is over. The guidelines page doesn't make clear to me which is being discussed at which point. Furthermore, there seems to be a lot of internal contradiction in the page about whether editing other people's comments is actually a help or a hindrance in the first case. Part of it ("It's often better to refactor later - wait till the hot blood has died down a bit, and then get rid of the junk. If you refactor as you go, that can inflame the discussion - in a flame war, people often fail to assume good faith.") seems to be recommending editing people's comments only after fighting has stopped. Other parts recommend removing certain types of comment straight away.

To me, changing people's comments during the heat of battle seems an entirely bad idea. If I'm annoyed about something and I'm having an ongoing argument about it, finding parts of my argument being changed by someone else would very likely only increase my annoyance, and thus exacerbate the problem. I expect the same would be true of other people.

Disregarding the effect on the attacker, what effect does the editing have on the attackee? If Person A attacks Person B, and then Person C edits the comments afterwards, that doesn't alter the fact that the attack was made. If someone attacks me, and if their attack is then removed by a third party, would this make me feel less angry towards the person who attacked me? I don't see how it could. Changing words on a page doesn't change history. What's said is said, and that's going to affect things later on even if you try to rub out the evidence.

As for cleaning up afterwards... Well, talk pages are records of past conversations. I see editing the wording of past conversations, however well-intentioned, as a falsification of history. People will read what they think is a transcript of an argument, but really it will be someone else's idea of how the argument should have gone. I suppose it's not so bad if the editing is explicitly acknowledged, e.g. with a note appended saying, "comment edited by Asdfg 20:11, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)" or some such thing, but all that does is force me to go through the page history to find out what was actually said, which is just extra work. (What, you expect me not to be curious? ;) -- Oliver P. 04:38, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think this is the clitoris argument again. The idea is not to hide the troubling material, but to make it so that you have to click a few extra clicks to see it, and you don't have to have it thrust into your face. (Except of course this time I am in favour of those extra clicks ;) The history not only remains, but in fact the edits, rather than falsifying history, in fact become part of that history, as they also become part of our mores. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 05:11, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it's falsifying history: the history is stored in the version history, and if you care about the state of a talk page at a certain time, that's where to go. Ideally the current version of the talk page is the useful subset of everything that's been said. Martin 11:46, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Okay, okay, I'm converted. Well, partly. :) I suppose that if edited comments are always marked as such then the facts are not being hidden. But I think it should be a rule that if you edit someone else's comments, or you own if they have been replied to (the wording of the reply often depends on the wording of what it is a reply to), the fact that editing has been done should be made clear. The page says that words added by an editor should be put in square brackets, which is good. I think we should mark removals as well, though. Perhaps as "[...]" or some such thing. -- Oliver P. 04:09, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
[...] is at least less intrusive than <s>strike-through</s>. I could live with that if people decided they liked it. I'll add it as an option. Martin 18:56, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
We should not implement a "delete all personal attacks" policy because it removes important social interaction necessary for good article writing and a strong community. That may sound counterintuitive -- that removing angry speech will hurt things. But I feel implementing a "politeness police" will do more harm than good. User:Daniel Quinlan and others have described the problem well. I'm more in sync with User:Tim Starling too, and this term "refactor" is a euphemism for what would otherwise reveal how uncomfortable a practice this really is -- revisionism and censorship.
When I had a dispute with User:Tannin a few months ago about the BBC, it got a bit charged, with both of us throwing around some personal accusations in the heat of battle. As a result, we backed off and compromised. We both agreed to remove the personal attacks later, after feeling some remorse. It's clear to me now that Wikipedians need this ability to push the envelope on confrontation, let the social circuit breakers kick in, have a moment of realization, show remorse, and agree upon what to keep "on the record." It should be done by individuals first and foremost, in the tradition of the independent non-oppressive nature of Wikipedia.
I fear this measure (and the already widespread call to punt to "mediation" by outside parties) is removing the focus on individuals working things out, which made Wikipedia so attractive and interesting in the first place. Instead, there is a troubling trend towards heavy-handed oversight. In a small number of extreme cases, mediation and other procedures are necessary, but we should not let it hang over each and every edit in Wikipedia. Fuzheado 02:01, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I agree. I think refactoring is a form of censorship or revisionism, and I think it inhibits the usual social means of sorting out differences. But I would also add this: what are we trying to achieve by removing a personal attack after the target of the attack has read it? Does it change anything between the two people involved? Does reverting an edit act as a time machine, simultaneously reverting the injured feelings of the target person? By removing an attack, you decrease the chance that the attacker will apologise, and the chance that the victim will forgive. Instead, we should apply peer pressure -- we should let the attacker know that they have stepped outside the bounds of community norms, and try to convince them to apologise. In some cases, this peer pressure may include threats of banning. -- Tim Starling 05:03, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Fuzheado writes We both agreed to remove [our] personal attacks later, after feeling some remorse. I think that's great! And I want to encourage people to do just that, without feeling that they're somehow distorting the truth or "covering up" their mistakes. I can understand that some things here are controversial, but I hope we can all agree on that the sort of reworking Fuzheado is describing here is beyond reasonable criticism. Martin 18:56, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think it would have been far better if they had instead of cleaning up what they had written; they had added apologies to each other in the text, to show a heated argument happened and the two people then made up their disagreement. That stops history rewritten; but at the same time removes the negative connotations against the two contributors because they both were big enough to overcome their disagreements and apologise to each other :ChrisG 21:25, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Could mediation be an alternative?

A far better solution would be for cool-headed Wikipedians to intervene as they see fit when they see personal attacks, to do so as individuals (i.e., without the imprimatur of an official policy), and to do so without censoring the commentary of other Wikipedians. -- NetEsq 20:44, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The only problem with that is that such attempts too often descend to a free for all, or the person trying to mediate leaving in disgust, when neither of the participants has any interest in moderating their language. I am sorry, but that is how it works in the real world. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 21:14, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's an either/or. It'd be great to see folks intervene to try and calm things down - mediating, if you will. Once everyone's calmed down (or at least calmer), then personal attacks can be deleted - or at least removed from article talk pages. The two are not necessarilly incompatible. Martin 21:47, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Page updates, new poll

I have restructured the page to summarize the different positions on how to refactor / remove attacks, and added some new answers to objections that have been raised here. I have also added a new "#Implementation poll", at the top of this page, and I ask everyone who is in favor of some refactoring to vote in that poll.

I would like to ask those who have voted against the guideline to reconsider their vote, as it now means: "I'm against all types of refactoring, including the milder ones." Please take a look at all the options and try to find out if one of the implementations might be acceptable to you.—Eloquence

Regarding "it now means: 'I'm against all types of refactoring'...": Not exactly. If the implementation poll seems to be tending in favour of extreme refactoring, and the voter thinks that no refactoring is better than extreme refactoring, then strategically, they would be better advised to vote against it altogether. I missed the latest mailing list discussion on voting. What's the general sentiment regarding software-assisted Condorcet voting? That would be a much better solution in this situation. -- Tim Starling 07:56, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
Don't forget that those who vote for refactoring now, can also change their vote against it (i.e. reconsider) if they feel the regime is too stringent.
Software-assisted voting good. Manual complex voting bad. If you want to implement Condorcet in MediaWiki, you have my blessing. I would prefer a generalized voting system that offers two or three different methods, of course, but then I never get these things done because I always want solutions that cover everything ;-).—Eloquence
Hmmm. Maybe we should have approval voting for each category, and then (sorry) a ratification process for the final version. <ducks> Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 09:08, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
I thought it was just an opinion poll, rather than any kind of binding vote? I'll be paying more attention to people who say "no, unless" than "no", as I can change my habits to keep the former happy. Martin 11:20, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Like with most policies, we'll keep this poll open, and everyone can choose to adopt this guideline or not based on the outcome. If there's a clear result in one of the categories (the strike through solution does not seem to have much support, for example), we can update the text accordingly.—Eloquence 12:00, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Refactoring as a concept?

Perhaps I find it odd that Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks uses the term "refactoring" without ever having defined what it means. Is it considered so common a term that it doesn't need explicit definition? To be honest, this is the first time I've seen it used. The Wikipedia definition of refactoring: "Refactoring is the process of rewriting written material to improve its readability or structure, with the explicit purpose of keeping its meaning or behavior." Fuzheado 07:36, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've posted an alternative version of this policy which tries to be less heavy-handed by putting a threshold beyond which a comment is deemed a personal attack. See main article, comments welcome. Fuzheado 08:36, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, Fuzheado. Let me assure you that I fully understand your concerns about history being lost etc. But I've been pretty amazed by this wiki thing from day one, and often it has turned out that using wiki-methods is preferable to using force. I do not see personal attacks as a valuable aspect of social interaction among contributors.
Your proposed alternative version appears to pretty much eliminate the policy altogether, because it makes it necessary to prove "intent to harm", and I have no idea how that is supposed to be done. So I do not see this as a solution I could support, and would prefer the alternative version to be either developed as a comment on this discussion page, or as a separate proposed policy.
This proposed policy, like all policies, is inherently POV. Usually what we do is try to make these policy documents reflect the point of view of the people who at least basically support them, and keep the discussion on the talk pages. Our goal is to reach consensus or at least an 80% majority. If this fails, it will be difficult to justify applying this policy routinely, and depend highly on the individual judgment of Wikipedians.
I would like to invite you to be open with experiments -- my suggestion is to let us try doing this for a few weeks, and then revisit the issue. I have no idea if this will work, but I think it's worth giving it a shot, and by voting "No", you basically say that you know it cannot work and think it isn't worth trying. It is often much easier to see if crazy ideas work after one has seen them in action. So my invitation is for those who oppose the policy to support the "Let's give it a try" option, with a clear limit on how long, with a pledge from those who support the policy to engage in constructive discourse with all concerned parties later.—Eloquence 08:57, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
Eloquence, I too have the utmost respect for WikiPower. My hesitation lies in the fact that Talk pages have been pretty much "holy ground" in the life of Wikipedia. Even shuffling around some Talk page words, names or dates -- not even deleting -- gets many people tied up in a twist. Talk pages contain personal speech, and so far no substantial editing of others' speech has occurred on Wikipedia, so this is a very profound shift in philosophy. Even if it is for altruistic reasons, we seem to make Wikipedia more vulnerable to being charged with the C word we all dread -- censorship. Are personal attacks so widespread and epidemic that we risk this? Fuzheado 09:54, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Just to butt in, personal attacks may not be a widespread epidemic now, but we have also to consider what the established mores in evidence are, when we get inundated with an unending stream of newcomers! Many of them will take the robust dialougue between users who know each other from a looong way back as a model for the rhetorical sthrengh they should employ in their dialogue with every other user. Lets face it, Wikipedia is going to have a lot more users, by and by. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 10:31, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)


As I tried to make clear on the main policy page, there is already a policy against personal attacks, and so far our attitude has been: If a user repeatedly resorts to them, that user can be banned temporarily or permanently. That has happened in the past.
I see this policy primarily as an alternative to more drastic measures -- instead of not allowing people to contribute anything, we only remove the part of their contributions that is without any discernible value whatsoever. That's why I think we should have clear definitions of what can be changed, and clear demarcation of anything that has been changed. We keep a copy of every version back to the first around in any case -- so I do not think that there is a legitimate case of censorship that could be made. Anyone who notes the change markers can look up the old version and see what was removed.
As for the problem being widespread, I would say that depends on what you do on Wikipedia. You are more likely to run into personal attacks if you edit controversial articles, and many users deliberately avoid editing an article when they note that the discussion climate has become hostile. This kind of deliberate evasion of course is a very effective way to never be victimized by personal attacks, but it does nothing to help those who are. Saying "everyone should leave" is no help, because that would then allow the attacker to do what he/she wants without intervention. Not every rude person goes away.
I have also made the experience that it becomes difficult to maintain peace and good relationships if you keep stumbling over old debates filled with hostilities. Debates are kept forever. Forgiving and forgetting is an integral part of social relationships, and online communities like ours might suffer if they do not provide an equivalent to what is commonplace in normal, real world affairs.—Eloquence 10:33, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
Let's not forget that talk pages are only the most visible part of Wikipedia where hostilties occur. Some mailing list threads are just nauseating, and some edit summaries as well. I'm afraid we can't get rid of rude behaviour, but we can try to contain it so that WikiLove and all of the social interaction here don't suffer too much. I see this policy rather as a kind of emergency measure, but a necessary one. Kosebamse 18:52, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm quite unafraid of the "C word" of censorship. If someone scrawls pure attacks over a user page, then they get censored. Swiftly, effectively, and with the minimum of comment. It's a fairly light form of censorship, because everything is in the history, but it certainly is censorship, and we should be unashamed about that. We're not a forum for unresricted free speech: that's not the purpose of an encyclopedia.

If someone really has an urge to drag my name through the mud, they're quite free to go somewhere else and write whatever they like there. However, I don't believe that an encyclopedia should be providing space for people to launch attacks on one of the writers of that encyclopedia, and I will continue to feel free to remove them. There are other places for such things. Martin 19:44, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Louis speaks

While removing personal attacks is well-meaning, I believe it will only lead to greater conflict and confusion. I don't recommend it. Instead, the community should respond to personal attacks with a simple outpouring of disapproval. It should look something like this:

User:blahblahblah has no couth and his methods are crude. User:BadPerson 11:41, Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)
User:BadPerson, your comment is out of line and not appropriate for Wikipedia. User:example1
User:BadPerson, please limit your commentary to the article and the facts of the discussion. User:example2
User:BadPerson, comments like that contribute to an unfriendly atmosphere at Wikipedia. You should not make them even if you believe there is some truth in them. User:example3

It may also be appropriate to move the problem users' entire edit to their user_talk page along with a comment like the one above. In some cases it may be appropriate to ask the person who made the attack to remove it.

Here's why:

  1. As a practical matter, I believe that historically, here on Wikipedia, refactoring of discussions has not helped achieve consensus.
  2. Pressure from multiple community members is the most powerful tool we have to discourage unwanted behavior. Removing personal attacks without demonstrating community consensus first undermines this powerful tool.
  3. Refactoring personal attacks makes it more difficult to back up and try to follow a discussion and see what was actually written by each of the people involved. It makes it hard for us to have a shared understanding of the nature of a users' contributions.
  4. It gives manipulative users another tool to use for affecting the course of the discussion.

Louis Kyu Won Ryu 17:37, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. Though only difference I would have is that the comments should be copied to their user page, not moved, so retaining the original talk page as well. It is a far better way of asserting community ethos and displaying a disquiet with someone's comments
An altering of the historical record rewrites history. Talk pages are one way people build reputation on Wikipedia. If talk pages are treated as sacrosant then they provide an effective way of checking on someone'e behaviour. People who make use of personal attacks will garner disrespect and if their behaviour is too extreme it will be banned. The historical record would provide a paper trail which justifies any action. Refactoring suggests censorship. I realize the real paper trail is avaliable in version history, but checking version history for the true history takes a lot of time. It would be far easier to check the talk page and archived talk pages if contributors have a policy of not altering its content. : ChrisG 20:55, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
We're not altering the historical record though- that's still there in the page history. If the issue is over the fact that it makes it harder to find, perhaps some store of links to removed versions would be a good idea. Angela 07:24, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have nothing at all against summarising past discussions in the current talk page , and archiving the old material, that adds information, especially if people disagree with the summary. What I am against is the idea of refactoring the flow of the argument as it really happened, so anyone taking a casual look thinks there is no argument etc, in doing so you lose information. Of course it is in the version history, but how many people have the patience to trawl through that? That kind of thing screams of coverup to someone like myself who only joined a month or so ago. When I joined I was so impressed with the level of community and unity of purpose on Wikipedia. The most negative thing on the whole of wikipedia I have discovered is this serious debate on refactoring which to me it simply censorship. It just makes me wonder where the bodies are buried. If I hadn't with much relief seen your conversation with Orthogonal on the Village pump I would have been launching into an even longer rant today. One should not confuse community with lack of conflict. True community is being able to absorb and accept conflict, without losing sight of the overall goals of the community: ChrisG 12:20, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Ed's objection

Objection: I don't think there should be a vote. I just think we shouldn't attack each other (then there would be no 'personal attacks' to have a vote on removing. Did you ever think of that? Huh? Did you?? --Uncle Ed 18:28, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think most people agree with that. Cf wikipedia talk:no personal attacks. However, that approach has proved insufficient. Martin 19:07, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
<< I think most people agree with that. Cf wikipedia talk:no personal attacks >>
Good point: The no personal attacks policy, imposed from on high, is in itself controversial. Quoting Lee Daniel Crocker:
"If calling a troll a troll or pointing out someone's statements to judge their credibility helps produce better articles, then an occasional personal attack is warranted, as long as it serves our goal. Obviously physical threats are out of place, as are impugning someone's race, gender, nationality, etc., but character and credibility are fair game. Just blindly calling someone an idiot without explanation or reason serves no purpose, but even those should be judged case-by-case. All `zero tolerance' rules are bad; human beings should exercise judgment, and not be afraid to stand behind those judgments."
I did say most. Martin 23:55, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)~
<< [T]hat approach has proved insufficient. >>
Since there is no agreement on what the objective should be, is it any wonder that the means has proven ineffective? IMHO, the objective should be to produce high quality Wikipedia articles, and I don't care if someone wants to take a cheap shot at me in the process of doing that. At the same time, I do care about the sensibilities of Wikipedia contributors who are the victims of unprovoked and/or unwarranted personal attacks, so (as a general rule) I do my best to intercede as a moderating influence when I witness such attacks. I do not need a policy that legitimizes censorship to intercede in such situations, and I believe that such a policy can only make things worse for everyone. -- NetEsq 20:02, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Of course the approach should be to produce high quality articles. That can only be done in a reasonable discussion climate, because otherwise the people who are willing to invest the most time to push others around can easily dominate any article they want, with users who just want to write articles leaving in disgust. The attackers just have to fling as much mud as possible and hope that some of it sticks.
Wikipedia is not Usenet with its endless, repetitive flamewars. We should use the facilities the wiki provides us to improve discourse. As Martin explains, the censorship argument is very weak at best. I don't agree that it's censorship, but even if you want to call it that, so what? You don't have to prove that it is censorship, you have to prove that it is harmful. And the best way to test that hypothesis is to try it.—Eloquence 00:33, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)
<< Of course the approach should be to produce high quality articles. That can only be done in a reasonable discussion climate . . . >>
And a reasonable discussion climate can best be defined as one where people have the freedom to express themselves without fear of censorship.
<< [T]he people who are willing to invest the most time to push others around can easily dominate any article they want, . . . >>
The truth of this assertion remains the same whether or not we have a policy that purports to legitimize censorship.
<< [U]sers who just want to write articles [will leave] in disgust . . . >>
Actually, the exact opposite is true. To wit, qualified people who find their commentary censored will be the ones to leave in disgust.
<< As Martin explains, the censorship argument is very weak at best. >>
I wholeheartedly disagree. The censorship argument recently won over one convert. Accordingly, as someone who stands opposed to a policy that purports to legitimize censorship, I encourage you to tell us why (in your opinion) the censorship argument is so weak.
<< You don't have to prove that it is censorship, you have to prove that it is harmful. >>
I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, ceteris paribus, censorship is harmful per se, with unknown and unknowable consequences. This is why there is such a large body of law that prohibits governments from suppressing free speech. Notwithstanding the enormous amount of government censorship that most people consider necessary and reasonable, courts typically require a government actor to demonstrate a compelling state interest before imposing any restrictions on freedom of speech.
<< [T]he best way to test that hypothesis is to try it. >>
Once again, I wholeheartedly disagree. Under ceteris paribus conditions, censorship is harmful per se, and it has unknown and unknowable consequences. And as far as I am concerned, this is not a hypothesis; it is a self-evident a priori statement that requires no proof. -- NetEsq 01:11, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I agree totally with user:Netesq I think if you take any kind of look at history. Free societies have opposed censorship, and dictatorship have tried to enforce it. Everything about Wikipedia implies it is attempting be a free society, so why this talk of 'refactoring'? Refactoring it is like having a war, and then rewriting history to say it didn't happen. But the war happened and that is information, which is valuable to later generations to assess the two parties involved. This is not to say that personal attacks should go unactioned against by the community, but Louis' proposal above is far more in keeping with community ethos. And this is not to say that one or both can't apologise on the talk page in the future, indeed that is the best example you can have. : ChrisG 21:15, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
We're not rewriting history - the page history of every page remains untouched. Martin 20:00, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Chris: You might want to add your name to the list of those voting against implementation of this policy. -- NetEsq 00:27, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

November village pump discussion

The following text was moved from WP:VP

Do we have a guideline on editing other people's remarks in discussion pages?

I'm quite happy if somebody corrects a typo or spelling error, but a complete rework of my remarks - even when done expertly and with no sinister intent - leaves me a bit nervous if it is still tagged with my signature. Anjouli 06:18, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Don't know of any guidelines, but I wouldn't sign anything with anyone else's name. That is just misrepresentation, no matter how accurate. Something like "Anjouli said: [synopsis]" should be OK though. --snoyes 06:27, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I would consider even the correcting of spelling errors a break of Wikiquette. Dori 06:33, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)
Correcting a typo or spelling error is okay, other forms of editing are quite unacceptable, IMHO. --Yacht 06:43, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Agreed. But allow the editing of tabs, indents and whitespace where these are clearly wrong.
What about where somebody fails to sign (even with an IP)? That can be very confusing if the following paragraph has the same indentation. I usually put "Anjouli starts here". Is that correct protocol do you think? Anjouli 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
You can do that, or you can sign for the anon by finding their IP from the history or just writing (anon) after their comments. Angela
This may often be necessary. The lack of signature can be very confusing, especially if the unsigned poster and signed replier both do not indent and end up looking like they are the same person... the horror. --Menchi 00:04, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Whatever the consensus, I think it needs to be written into the guidelines. Anjouli 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)


It's perfectly fine and even encouraged by policies [proposed policies] such as Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks. Please note the statement at the bottom of every page:
If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here.
Angela 07:08, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi Angela. Surely by implication that means articles, not signed remarks in discussion pages? Anjouli
No, it means [I think, it should refer to] everything - pages, talk pages, user pages. See Wikipedia:Talk page#Refactoring talk pages and Meatball:RefactorAsYouGo. Angela
That's another case, what's about editing ur point of view to the opposite one? like, say, changing "I agree with you" to "I disagree with you"? --Yacht 07:16, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Well that would be a violation of Wikiquette but editing your comments to cut the size of an overly large page or to add clarity is [in my opinion] to be encouraged. Angela
Editing other people's comments is evil and should be outlawed. Roughly half the editors agree with this, see Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks. Join us, Anjouli! :) -- Tim Starling 07:46, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)
Some guidelines on this would make things a lot easier. Personally I think nothing should be changed, except typo's. The problem gets more tricky though when you are discussing things. For instance, is it okay to reply to another contributor point by point (which is a lot easier) by interspersing comments? The problem being that may break up the flow of their argument and possibly weaken their argument.  : ChrisG 12:58, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
There are no guidelines because opinion is deeply divided and Jimbo hasn't made any declaration. I can only suggest that you read Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks carefully, and perhaps add your own observations. -- Tim Starling 13:14, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)
With all due respect, Angela, you're incorrect. According to Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks (emphasis mine): "Following is a policy proposal regarding removing personal attacks from discussions. After a discussion and a vote on the talk page, no clear consensus was reached. Thus, the practice of removing personal attacks remains subject to personal preference". So there's no such supporting policy, despite your claim. orthogonal 01:41, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I hadn't realized there was so much disagreement with the policy, so yes, it is only a proposal at this stage, although some people are following it now. Angela
Orthogonal: the paragraph you quote was entirely written by me, long after the discussion ended. So Angela can hardly be blamed for not having read it. -- Tim Starling 12:32, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
As for me, I think any alteration of a user's opinions or statements on a talk page, other than re-formatting indentation, has the potential to disingenuously distort the user's intent, and should therefore be entirely avoided. I would, in fact, consider any such alteration of my own posting, where my signature continued to be attached, to be itself a personal attack. orthogonal 01:41, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)


There is a danger of distortions occurring, so obviously if it is done, it needs to be carefully. Angela 03:47, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Would you rather your signature just be removed then if there is a need to refactor the page? There is no reason to keep talk pages in their original state. This is not useful for developing the article, which is what the talk page is supposed to be for. Angela 01:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)


I think the talk page should be archived, in this case. I'm not against reasonable and NPOV summaries of the arguments to date, but there is (and should be) a distinction been quotes, paraphrases, and summaries. "Angela said, 'xyz'" is entirely different from "Angela argued for xyz". If someone is summarizing a page, there's no need to keep signature lines in any case. The greatest care must be taken not to attribute to persons, as direct quotes, something they did not say. Indeed, I consider it disingenuous to alter my own comments (except for typos) after they've been commented on. It's far too easy to moderate one's comments after the fact, and thus make a measured response seem overly strident or off the mark. Once a comment has been replied to, the original comment should be considered part of the record. orthogonal 01:52, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Ok, so maybe it would be better for a policy to state that refactoring should change things into the third person, rather than allowing editing of first person comments, or the removal of signatures. That seems sensible to me. Angela 03:47, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Please correct me if I'm wrong: is Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks a policy or a proposed policy? orthogonal 01:54, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, just proposed. Angela 03:47, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

My suggested guidelines would be that even typos should not be 'corrected', remembering that Wikipedia accepts variant spellings. I'd regard it as a cultural faux pas for someone to change my quite deliberate UK English spellings to American, for example, if it were to be done in something I've signed. If it's really important, leave a message in my talk page so I can fix it. But is it? The bottom line is the articles. I'm only interested in stuff in other pages that leads to more and better articles.

A summary should use indirect speech, or remove the attribution altogether. Either is acceptable. The idea of refactoring is to improve the value of the information, often by making it more concise, using summaries or lists. We do far too little of this in talk pages currently IMO. But, if you change what has been said in any way and leave the signature intact, this is inaccurate. Andrewa 01:26, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why on earth would anyone object to their typos being fixed? [Perhaps a little harsh, but in my opinion, this should be done] [2]. I really wish people would fix mine. If you're not happy about your comments being edited, perhaps you shouldn't sign them in the first place. Angela 01:39, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Angela, I think your tone is unfortunate. Asking "[w]hy on earth would anyone object to their typos being fixed?" implies that there is no sensible reason for the objection, and thus that the person disagreeing with you is incapable of reasoning. This despite that person having explained their reasons in the very comment you're responding to: Andrewa considers it to be inaccurate. You go on to suggest that those who disagree with you not sign their comments at all -- which doesn't change the problem -- it's still their words, signed or not. orthogonal 02:18, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you feel my tone was inappropriate as I am certainly not saying that those who disagree with me are "incapable of reasoning". I just meant that I can't see a reason. As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference between that a text editor with autocorrect changing your spelling for you. Angela 03:47, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
My reason is that I don't see where you draw the line. What you are confident is a typo might be an attempt at humour which you don't appreciate, for example. So I'm suggesting it's safer not to even fix 'obvious' typos. The other side to this is, the more obvious the typo is, the less reason there is to fix it. Remember we are talking about talk pages here, not articles. Typos here do the articles no damage at all, conversely, fixing them has no obvious benefit. So fixing them, even if correctly, is a minor waste of time. 'Fixing' them incorrectly will just cause friction and is a colossal waste of time. I admit I didn't express that very well before. Is it any clearer now? Andrewa 08:36, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It also gives the impression that you're saying that those who don't agree with you should either acquiesce to being edited by you or not participate in Wikipedia. So does your reply to me, above: "[w]ould you rather your signature just be removed", which suggests my choice is to acquiesce to your edits or have any note of my participation erased. As I'm sure you don't mean to suggest that those who disagree with you are not reasonable, or to give the impression that users can either do things your way or not participate at all, I hope you'll take the opportunity to correct this impression. orthogonal 02:18, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I am definitely not saying that. It was just a suggestion. I realise now it was a stupid suggestion and I'm sorry I made it. It was just a suggestion though. I didn't go and set up an official policy called Wikipedia:Those who disagree with user:Angela must not sign their comments. :) Anyway, it would be nice to now delete the suggestion and stop this section getting way too long, but I expect some people might object to that, so I shall leave it there despite the fact it does not no reflect my current thoughts on the matter. Angela 03:47, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing the air. I think it's well known to everyone (everybody who looks at Recent Changes, anyway!) at Wikipedia how hard you, Angela, work to maintain and to expand Wikipedia, and I know that your motivation has solely been to improve everyone's experience here. Personal attacks are unseemly, unnecessary, and unwarranted, and no one is -- I hope -- suggesting they should be encouraged or go unanswered. I am thankful for your attempts to discourage such unpleasantness. I also realize much of this discussion was motivated by a question about unsigned comments, and from personal experience I can attest that unsigned comments on Talk pages make following the thread of discussion extremely difficult. And I think most users agree with you that Talk pages can accumulate quickly and become unwieldy, and that some sort of pruning is occasionally required. Please don't think that my disagreements about methods -- not goals! -- in any way detract from the respect I have for you, and your work at Wikipedia. (P.S., I'm one of those curmudgeons who's never gotten used to text editors with autocorrect.) orthogonal 04:15, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hear! Hear! on the hard work... just for the record, Angela, you are one of my heroes. Hmmmm. I also turn off autocorrect, it wastes far more of my time than it saves. I leave it in a mode which flags probable errors but I never let it do its thing unfettered. Partly that's because I spent three years recently using MS-Word for serious linguistics papers... which was horrendous... Andrewa 08:36, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Just a quick comment on personal attacks. As keen as we all are to prevent them, is removing them the right path? For instance a racist and unreasonable user could be made to appear a moderate if others carefully edit her/his comments. Scrub the stripes off the tiger and people may think it is a pussy cat. I think we should leave them alone, or at most put a few hashes or stars in grossly offensive text. Anjouli 06:20, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia is not to expose racists as either tigers or pussy cats - the guy who wrote the first version of Johnny Rebel was a nasty piece of work, but I don't think you care about that, and I can't remember what his name was, and I don't think we lose anything by that. However, we do lose if someone later comes along and sees one of his more unpleasant comments, and reacts by either (A) taking offence and leaving Wikipedia, (B) concluding that Wikipedia is itself racist, or (C) flaming everyone in sight. Fortunately, that won't happen, because I cleared up after him. And at no extra cost. :)

Regards spelling and grammar: missspellt wurds komprehentsion affekt badlee und dis misorderered wurdsmugging klasse dint help nither. So fixing such issues helps later readers of the talk page - they can read faster, so they can read more, so they're in a better position to edit the article in question. (by contrast, if what you've written on Talk won't help people edit the article, why not just delete it?). It might not be the best way to spend your time, but I strongly believe in allowing people to fulfil their Wikipedia addiction however they like, as long as the encyclopedia is at least as good after their edits as it was before their edits.

The thread on editing spelling and grammar needs moving elsewhere. Ho-hum. Martin 19:57, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

{Chant}
New life,
I bring to this
proposal,
in light of recent
hostile exchanges
about the Mean
Ing of hostility.
{/Chant} -SV(talk) 03:24, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

  • heahehahhea! that's awesome! Kingturtle 03:35, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Semi-policy

Orthogonal wrote: (It is suggested by whom? Based on what consensus? Is this like the Nixon White House where "mistakes were made" in the passive voice?)

  • By whom? It is not an encyclopedia article. It doesn't really matter "by whom" the term semi-policy was introduced. Anyway, the answer should be normally sought at the page in question, i.e., at 'Wikipedia:Semi-policy'.
  • Consensus: to make assugestion, no consensus required.
  • Nixon: not applicable. Wikipedia keeps track of the history of edits and archives talk pages, in part, to have answer to your question. Mikkalai 16:02, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Snowspinner's historical comment: Removed "and is not enforceable" because I have trouble wrapping my head around the concept of enforcing it. (Would we block people for not removing personal attacks?)) You are right. I didn't read the policy carefully enough. Mikkalai 04:20, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Abuse

The idea of removing personal attacks is abused by some people. Clearly it is not pleasant to be accused of, say, being biased - but if this is relevant to the discussion at hand, such allegations should never simply be removed. Instead, one should calmly explain why the excusion is ungrounded. As an extreme measure, cross out the attack, but do not delete it if it is relevant to the discussion. Radiant_* 13:38, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

Removing personal attacks is not Wikipedia policy, is not "semi-policy", and should not become either. The vote above shows that there is strong opposition to the censoring, silencing, defacing, or removing (however you choose to put it) of other people's signed comments.
The last time this came up was on Wikipedia talk:Civility. The problems with this proposal that I described there still stand:
  1. Defacing other people's comments is likely to escalate rather than defuse a tense or hostile situation. A person whose comments are defaced is likely to perceive the act as a further personal attack. This perception is entirely understandable and predictable. Therefore, the defacement is an uncivil act and a breach of more general principles of Wikipedia policy.
  2. Removing part of a comment gives the appearance that a person wrote something other than what they did. Talk comments are not Wikipedia articles; they are here to record the views and coordinate the plans of Wikipedia contributors. They are also signed. To alter a signed document so that it appears to say something different from what it said when the author signed it ... is called forgery. Even where it is not a breach of the law, it is a breach of trust with the reader and of the moral rights of the author. Even a person who has written something nasty has the right to not be falsely quoted.
  3. Removing, or particularly striking out, another person's words has the appearance and connotation of censorship or suppression of views, even when it is not technically an act of censorship. We do not want editors to get in the habit of deciding which of other people's opinions should be left to be read, and which should be stricken from the record.
  4. Removing comments confuses the record, hiding problems from new contributors to the discussion. On an uncensored talk page, it is tolerably obvious to the casual observer when an editor is behaving uncivilly. (Often, it isn't just one editor who's doing so.) Since one of our responses to conflict on Wikipedia should always be to ask for help -- to solicit others' advice via WP:RFC or other means -- we need to be sure that these others can get to know what's going on. If there is a problem contributor, let that person make their problem status blatantly obvious so that others do not waste time trying to reason with the unreasonable.
  5. Defacing or removing comments is simply unnecessary to the task of getting discussion back on track and improving the article. A talk page is a microcosm "marketplace of ideas" for the purpose of improving the corresponding article. And the cure for bad, wrong, and rude speech is not to waste time blotting it out, but to go do some research and come back with good, right, and polite speech -- not necessarly in direct response to the bad speech, but in contribution to the discussion.
As before, none of this is about vandalism. It is about removing the words of a contributor because one judges those words to be uncivil or to constitute a "personal attack". However, it is also disturbing when people conflate the two issues -- for instance, calling someone's comments "tantamount to vandalism" or the like. Because Wikipedia policy is to remove vandalism, this is equivalent to calling for those comments to be stricken, and so is likewise an uncivil response as described above. --FOo 14:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rejected

I have compared this policy and the votes thereupon to other past policy proposals. For instance,

  1. Wikipedia:Preliminary_Deletion/Vote2
  2. Wikipedia:Three strikes you're out policy
  3. Wikipedia talk:Inclusion dispute
  4. Wikipedia talk:Quickpolls

I must conclude that a policy proposal that failed to reach consensus, and caused significant controversion on the relevant talk page, is not a policy, or semi-policy, but simply rejected. As such, and per the explanation of Foo above, do not remove other people's edits, regardless of whether you find them offensive. Radiant_* 15:22, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

Votes are not the only measure of policy. The fact that personal attacks are removed with non-trivial regularity, and that there are past arbcom rulings that encourage the removal of personal attacks both indicate that it is not a clear-cut case of "not policy." I think semi-policy describes the situation better (And I say this as someone who does not currently support the policy). Snowspinner 15:44, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • I've never seen the policy used except in bad faith. E.g. person #1 says something not-nice but true about person #2 (e.g. being biased, or deletionist, or sockpuppet, or otherwise) and person #2 claims this to be a PA and simply removes it. I wouldn't personally mind people removing swearwords, though. Radiant_* 15:47, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
    • I have often seen this used in good faith. Most commonly on VfD discussions where one of the participants (usually a new person) makes a egregiously offensive statement that is completely irrelevant to the question at hand and which is then replaced (not refactored) with the piped link personal attack removed. Anyone who really wants to see the original response can quickly review the edit history, the poster is politely but forcefully rebuked for their failure of civility and the rest of us can focus on the facts and evidence without the distraction of the attack. The times that I've seen it used inappropriately, the edit was swiftly reverted. Rossami (talk) 17:23, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
RPA is my standard treatment for personal attacks. It takes some mastering but once you've got a good feeling for what most people think it is reasonable to remove it's a very useful practise. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:49, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have seen this policy utilized in good faith on a number of accusations, particularly those involving racial or ethnic slurs or related language. On a few occasions, I have removed personal attacks myself, usually reverting the entire edit and leaving a note on the talk page of the perpetrator. I agree with the practice, when applied with careful thought, though I don't think we need a policy on it.

This policy proposal dates from a particularly divisive period prior to the existence of the arbitration mechanism. There was a prevailing sense of a lack of limits and this was one response to it. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Okay, I see your points. Since this is widely used (if somewhat controversial), it qualifies as semi-policy. I would like a paragraph added, however, on when it's not appropriate (e.g. stating that User:Foo may be a sockpuppet is not an attack if the person stating it has good-faith reasoning backing his accusation; such cases should be dealt with by polite rebuttal, rather than removing the statement). I do hold that RPA's status is less 'certain' than that of other semi-pols, but a suitable answer for that may be to discuss whether things like Wikiquette might be official policy. Radiant_* 10:06, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with this. Accusations of sock puppetry can go to appropriate forums such as WP:AN/I, WP:RFC or WP:RFA, so there's no real problem with removing sock puppet accusations as personal attacks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:56, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • That's not really what I meant (okay, I chose a poor example)... what I meant is that accusing <foo> of <bar> is not a personal attack if it happens to be true (for instance, a user who was involved in vote stacking was recently accused of, well, vote stacking, by simple notices in the votes he tried to stack - then he removed those notices per RPA, even if they were true). As a side point in my experience, accusations of sockpuppetry are cheerfully ignored by most people since they cannot usually be proven. Radiant_* 15:44, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Sock puppetry does create a unique problem in that we deliberately refuse to gather enough information to confirm or deny such charges. I think that should change but that's another matter. I don't believe that a plausible concern about sock puppetry is a personal attack; even if it may be, it surely doesn't rise to the level of something that should be removed. I would only remove something that is clearly ad hominem and has no possibility of furthering the discussion, such as "you are a fool, and a troublemaker" [3] or, more famously, "fuck you sick Nazi bastards" [4]. Even then, it's a judgement call, and I only remove attacks when I think it will help defuse the situation. With longtime contributors, as in the examples, it's usually pointless, and therefore better to give them Enough rope. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


It simply isn't true that we don't gather enough information to confirm or deny charges of sock puppetry. Indeed more recently arbcom has been given better access to the tools previously jealously guarded by the developers.

What we do, however, is to conceal information (such as use of IPs by logged-in accounts) that might be abused for other purposes. That information is still recorded, but it isn't made available to editors and administrators.

Whether an accusation of sock puppetry is taken as a personal attack is entirely a personal matter--for some people it might seem routine or trivial, easily laughed off, others may be horrified by such an accusation. I would not hesitate to remove an accusation where I had reason to believe that it was made maliciously or recklessly or seemed to be calculated to put an editor on the defensive on a page that was set aside for the discussion of articles. In general there is more leeway on Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk spaces than elsewhere. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:45, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks, accusations, and uncivil comments

Perhaps a distinction needs to be drawn between pure or de minimis personal attacks, accusations of wrongdoing, and uncivilly-phrased comments.

A pure personal attack would be if someone posted, for instance, "Fuck you" or "You are a jerk" or "Everyone who edits this article is obviously Nazi scum". There's nothing else in the edit, just the insult. I don't object strongly to the deletion of comments like this -- there really isn't a view being expressed here, just an attack.

(Note that "You are a jerk" is a pure personal attack, but "You jerk! Every one of the references you just cited is to your own Web site" is not a pure personal attack -- it is an uncivilly-phrased comment. This sort of comment should not be deleted or edited at all.)

Accusations such as "User:Padberson is a sock puppet of banned User:Badperson" are not personal attacks, but allegations of policy violation. Sometimes such allegations are made out of spite -- however, if they are true then they are still actionable. (If Joe and Bob are long-time enemies and Joe assaults Bob, the fact that Bob presses charges in part out of spite doesn't militate against the seriousness of the charges.) There is no sense in deleting accusations, and doing so leads directly to arguments about abuse of process.

Uncivilly-phrased comments are another matter. If someone makes a meaningful comment adjoined to an insult (such as "You jerk! Prof. Elbow Fitzsnuggly disproved your lies in 1983 in Why Everyone Else is Wrong, ISBN 5555544444 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum. But you're so stupid you never read it") then it may be tempting to try to edit out the insulting parts and leave the citation. However, we should not do this. Doing so would be changing someone else's signed words.

It is true that making uncivil comments is a violation of Wikipedia policy. However, a violation of policy does not justify simply any sort of response we may think up. Altering the signed words of another editor is itself an uncivil, provocative, and unethical response, and is not justified simply because the other guy broke the rules first.

Moreover, we need to be really careful of the slippery slope: if editing out the insulting part of signed comments becomes acceptable, then people will push the envelope towards taking more liberties with other people's signed words. This is not a desirable result. --FOo 16:28, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I take "remove personal attacks" to mean "leave in substantive comments." Perhaps that should be emphasized. In the example you give I'd change it to "Prof. Elbow Fitzsnuggly disproved your assertion in 1983 in Why Everyone Else is Wrong, ISBN 5555544444 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum." The implication that someone is lying is removed without removing the refutation. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:42, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
And I would change the example to "Prof. Elbow Fitzsnuggly disproved your lies in 1983 in Why Everyone Else is Wrong, ISBN 5555544444 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum. (Personal attack removed)" which leaves a clear flag in the comment so that anyone interested can review the redaction by looking at the edit history. Rossami (talk) 20:36, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That is an improvement, since at least it makes clear that the words have been altered by someone not the original author. I am still, however, concerned about the forgery issue: if Joe writes some words and signs them, and Bob comes along and alters those words, but leaves Joe's signature, then a forgery has been committed -- words Bob wrote are left signed in Joe's name. --FOo 22:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's premature to call this any kind of "policy"

I suggest that there is still insufficient evidence to suggest that this "semi-policy" represents acceptable behavior in the Wikipedia community. There certainly was not consensus in favor of it the last time it was put to a vote. In the absence of demonstrated consensus, and in the presence of substantial objections, this should not be promulgated as any sort of Wikipedia policy or "semi-policy".

Non-answers to concerns

I do not think the "Answers to concerns" section of the page treats the issue honestly. It represents the personal views of a few people who want altering other people's signed words to be acceptable. It fails to take the "concerns" it "answers" as serious practical or ethical objections to the practice. It is moreover not seemly for a text which purports to be policy to be so much on the defensive.

There has not yet been any response to my foremost ethical objection to the practice: that altering other people's signed text constitutes forgery and misrepresentation of that person's words.

There has also not been much serious response to my foremost practical objection to the practice: that when the editing gets hot, altering or deleting someone else's text will make the interpersonal situation worse, not better. The answer posed under "Answers to concerns" here seems to rebut this objection, but does not:

Isn't editing a comment a kind of attack?
Only when that action is perceived as unilateral and without basis in policy. Often the ones removing attacks will be the ones being attacked. That is acceptable. However, when the other user acts surprised about this, they need to be pointed to this page, so that they understand that removing personal attacks is a widely accepted procedure on Wikipedia.

This response has three chief problems. First, it really doesn't answer the question it poses. Whether a particular behavior is a kind of attack isn't the same issue as whether there's a policy page to cite in defense of that behavior. Policy cannot define whether people will feel attacked -- and it is people's feelings that are at the core of why we have to deal with personal attacks in the first place. If the response to a personal attack is to do something that can be predicted to provoke original attacker further, that response is an unacceptable one.

Second, it treats a serious problem as if it were a beneficial feature: "Often the ones removing attacks will be the ones being attacked." This is bad! When the editing gets hot, editors should not be looking to find greater fault with one another, as by accusing the other of making personal attacks. They need to be moving towards agreement, or bringing in impartial (or less-partial) editors (as on WP:RFC) to contribute to the decision of what to do on an article. Telling people in an already-heated situation to handle it themselves, and giving them greater ammunition such as deleting each other's comments, will provoke worse situations.

Third, it presumes that "removing personal attacks is a widely accepted procedure" [sic] -- which, of course, has simply never been demonstrated. When the practice has been put to a vote, it has failed to achieve consensus or wide acceptance. It's true that voting is not a perfect way to detect or demonstrate consensus, but it is certainly better than simply declaring that a consensus exists without actually going to the bother of asking the populace who are claimed to have arrived at that consensus.

Let's have another vote

People who are in favor of altering other people's words are quick to claim that this practice is widely-accepted. I suggest that this may easily be a misperception or cognitive bias. Most people do want to feel that their own actions are acceptable to the community. (It's really not that different from everyone wanting to think their own children are "above average". Cognitive bias isn't anyone's fault, but it happens.)

Let's have another vote to find out where the community really is. OK? --FOo 21:30, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Let's not have a vote until we have more discussion. You raise some good points but I believe that the current practice has evolved since the last time this was widely discussed. I also believe that the current practice is not well reflected by the current wording of the policy page. Let's hash those questions out and try to reach concensus before resorting to yet another polarizing vote. Rossami (talk) 00:13, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need a vote or further discussion. I'll just keep on doing it, and if people don't like me doing it they'll tell me so. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:13, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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