Just like real policemen I suppose, the wikicivility crackpots are often just as noticeable for their absence as their presence. I suggested during a recent RfA-related discussion that the editor putting forward a particularly nonsensical proposal was probably not old enough to be allowed to choose his own bedtime, and the skies were quickly full of harpies screaming for my head to be stuck on a pike. Yet when I'm accused of laziness and hypocrisy during a GA reassessment, that passes with hardly a murmur.

So are the rules for what passes as a "personal attack" different in different venues? Do so very few bother with the venues dedicated to improving the encyclopedia that nobody really notices what's said anywhere except on the drama boards? Does it just depend on how big a lynch mob you and your friends manage to drum up at IRC? Or, as I suspect, is it just an ill-considered protocol, inconsistently applied by a bunch of over-sensitive nincompoops who'd have trouble finding their arses without a map?

It's all those things, isn't it?

Enforced civility is crucial to WP's continued survival, at least in its current form, and with its current administrative hierarchy. It's considerably more important to them than article quality, stylistic consistency, coherent organization/categorization of content, sourcing, or "NPOV".... and obviously far more important than accountability, which isn't really important at all.

I don't necessarily blame them, either - it almost has to be that way, or like I say, the site just wouldn't survive. The system, and its inherent flaws, forces people to adopt that basic attitude. The lack of consistency in the way(s) the NPA policy is applied is also inevitable, under the circumstances. It's basically a weapon, and people are always selective in their use of weapons.

But unless I misunderstand, you seem to be saying that "incivility" (presumably in the form of direct insults and "flaming") is on the rise, except that it's mostly confined to article talk pages, non-admin user-talk pages, and the like? That would be a sign of general burnout and decline, if so. When (and if) they lose the enforced civility, they'll lose the community, and then they'll lose control.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, although I do think you make a reasonable case for why some believe it to be so important to stamp down so hard on what they see as incivility, even thiough what they're objecting to would hardly raise an eyebrow in a primary school playground.

Is incivility increasing? I've got no idea, as my thoughts on what's uncivil and what's not are so widely adrift of what the children believe that I'd clearly be a poor judge. What I was really suggesting was that so many of these civility warriors hang out at places which are ultimately destructive, so few seem concerned about writing articles or article writers, and that they' seem to be prepared to sacrifice anything and everyone in their monomaniacal desire to build the most polite web site the world has ever seen.

Building the most polite web site the world has ever seen might be a noble pursuit. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not a polite environment and never will be.

Listen, I don't really understand this recent reaction on WReview against too much civility on Wikipedia.

If people want to go around calling other people "idiots" and telling them to "Fuck Off", they shouldn't be anywhere near an "encyclopedia".

As we are on WR, which has no such pretensions, I have no hesitation in saying that if people can't obey basic civilities to each other while collaborating on a credible body of work, then they should just fuck off themselves. That best applies to the appalling administrator JzG, whose bad attitude wore thin about 3 years ago.

I've lost count of how many times we've discussed this before, but it's pretty obvious to anyone who wants a clue that pretending a high standard for whatever virtue they pretend to care about in the presence of a double standard for every form of conduct under the sun is simply a pretext for doing whatever they damn well please to anyone they please to damn.

Now get a clue and stop participating in the Jimbo's Magical Mystification Tour.

Jon

I guess Universal Hero (T-C-L-K-R-D) must have found out about this thread - otherwise I doubt he would have apologized. Once again, WR to the rescue for those afflicted by the usual uncalled-for insults, hurt feelings, and narcissistic wounding in Wikiland, eh?

Also, let's be realistic - even a minor RFA is going to be much more heavily-trafficked (and therefore conflict-attracting) than a "Good Article Reassessment" for someone like Santosh Subramaniam (T-H-L-K-D), whom very few people (including myself) have ever heard of, BLP subject or no.

Still, we mustn't be too hard on Mr. Malleus here - perhaps he just hasn't quite reached the point of disconnecting his ideals from his expectations. I suspect he'll come around, sooner or later.

I think most of us are waiting for something better to come along if Wikipedia can't fix itself in the meantime.

I naively hope that I will never reach the point where I begin to believe that everyone is a total shit instead of another (at least potentially) rational human being ... perhaps I should finish off my time machine and get back to 1970s Californai ... or perhaps to a future in which all fucktards have been genetically eliminated.


Then perhaps you don't really understand what's being discussed, or what the words you just used actually mean. I'd like to see a convincing definition of what you think constitutes "incivility". Is it rudeness? Profanity? Something you just don't like? I'm genuinely interested in how you'd define it.

What could ever be better?



How is calling someone a 9 year old, who may not be older or younger than 9, not incivility?

Perhaps you'd like to rephrase that question so that it makes sense?

Um, perhaps one shouldn't knock Universal Hero so easily. He's a huge Bollywood film fan, and is generating massive numbers of stubs for Indian films, actors, etc. So, he's more like a Blofeld than anything else. (and he's getting disgruntled too---people keep deleting or marking for deletion the stubs he's making.) Go thru the revs of his talk page for more. And he's apparently a Tamil from Sri Lanka, so one can forgive him some awkwardness with English. (How's your Tamil?)

There is no reason a would-be serious site of any pretension, including a "Review", should publish low quality content of this variety. 'No foul language" hardly sums up the characteristics of a respectable tone, but it's a worthy start.

We have here our GlassBeadGame and Superwikifriend Lara Love who've become famous for their hostile and foul-mouthed outbursts. Blocks and bans are not the way, but someone should clean up after them.

Of all the ways to promote change, setting a positive example never seems to occur to anyone.

I keep trying to tell people that I've never made a single edit to Wikipedia... I guess nobody believes me, then?

I always suspected that, of course.

Check out this Wiki page on Civility Policy...

In particular, note that calling for unjustified bans or blocks is expressly defined as a serious breach of civility.

It occurs to me that the practice of blocking and banning is the single most common (and most egregious) example of incivility in WikiCulture.

It is a practice essentially without parallel in Academia (and in civil society in general).

It's a puzzler. My take on it is he's saying that How (T-C-L-K-R-D) is calling someone (T-C-L-K-R-D) a 9-year-old, and who (T-C-L-K-R-D) may not be the originator of sockpuppets named older (T-C-L-K-R-D) & younger_than_9 (T-C-L-K-R-D) but is definitely not a sock/meatpuppet of incivility? (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Someone should write a comedic sketch based on those ideas. It would be a winner.

Um . . . let me put it this way: NO. Letting loose with the occasional tarted-tongued response to some bit of idiocy does not equal "become famous for their hostile and foul-mouthed outbursts". Besides which, there are any number of members here who have suggested both publicly and privately that you should be "cleaned up after". And they're not all wiki-apologists, either.

yeah!

"Tarted-tongued [sic.]", lol! Take JzG, he's just calling spades spades! (Well, g**d***** f****** spades, to be precise…) Who could have a problem with that?

Someone from the more respectable world outside the wikiverse would see this and draw (correct) conclusions about the seriousness with which this site should be taken.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to this viewpoint, but we're not supposed to be schoolmarms, Mr. Probey... Are you saying we should turn the BadWords filter on, or what? People often come here because they're pissed off, and if we tried to enforce an anti-profanity rule, we'd be spending way too much time on it if we did it any other way.

Some sites have had some luck with "disemvoweling" the entire post if it contains more than a certain number of cuss-words, but it just seems like nanny-state paternalism to me. Others may disagree, of course.

Serious or Socratic? If you tell an adult (or an adolescent, for that matter) that s/he's acting like a 9-year-old, it's unquestionably impolite -- richly deserved though it may be. Even if the person is in fact 9 years old, it's still impolite when alternatives like "please go play outside and let the grownups talk" are available. (And to someone older even that phrasing would be incredibly insulting; use of child-directed speech to a peer (except as endearment) is, I'd say, tantamount to fighting words; if it doesn't quite merit punching then it certainly is cause for shouting or some other threat display.)

Well, you have never been forthcoming about which username over there it is that isn't you; until you do, you have to bear the consequences.

Sorry, I assumed we were talking English here. I see now I was mistaken.

That is English.

I meant the sentence, not the individual words.

The civility hounds have been baying at Cerejota for saying "Yeah, what a [[WP:DUCK|dick]]". They should cut him some slack because he should recognize a dick when he sees one.

He's always been forthcoming, Horrid. NONE of them are Somey. Which of them isn't him? All of them! Do you need a frigging list of all the usernames on WP? Try SPECIAL:LISTUSERS. It's quite entertaining once you get past the first page.

My Favorite!

Ja Ja

You asked why the question made sense. I explained why it is a sensible rhetorical question. If you didn't understand what I wrote, but wanted to, you would have asked for an explanation or clarification. Your actual reply clearly shows that you are simply looking for a fight. I'm not interested.

Indeed I did not ask why the question made sense. In fact I very strongly suggested that it did not.

There's a very high degree of probability that 'emesee' is, in fact, some kind of renegade neo-sentient chatterbot. It's alive! It's aliiiiive!!!

Damn this is funny. They start by debating "incivility" on Wikipedia,
and end up incivilating each other. Comedy gold.