User talk:Serpent's Choice/NPA/Proposal

Arguments about personal attacks on talk pages
I made one change of substance to the proposal, which I want to note here - a strong recommendation in the policy against replying to personal attacks on the talk page of an article. The intent is to try to keep such discussions (about personal behavior) on the talk pages of editors rather than articles. This serves several purposes: (a) the matter is less likely to escalate into a running commentary; (b) such arguments blight talk pages, which should be about content, not behavior; (c) posting to an user talk page establishes a record that is much more easily reviewable by an admin or other editor, compared to looking on a bunch of article talk pages; and (d) a user can delete such postings as part of ending (or stopping) a dispute, whereas deleting "personal attacks" on article talk pages is much less acceptable; deleting increases the chances that an editor will decide to put the matter to rest. Talk page guidelines say that there should be no personal attacks on talk pages; perhaps that guideline should also say that should an editor feel that a personal attack has occurred, the editor should not respond on the talk page. John Broughton |  Talk 15:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Heartily endorsed, along with your excellent work at copyediting! Serpent&#39;s Choice 23:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Misuse of the policy
Hi, Serpent. I haven't really been following the debate, but I took a look. I would like to see more emphasis on the misuse of WP:NPA, as I consider it the most abused of our policies (possibly excepting WP:AGF). How many frivolous templates have you seen on user talk pages? And how many of them have been mere wikilawyering in a content dispute? And then the perps post at ANI to complain about the heinous vandals removing these valuable templates from their pages, sigh... I'll think about it and try to come up with a paragraph or a few sentences, because I consider this infestation of the wiki and attempted intimidation of opponents to be of great concern. As for WP:RPA, have you even seen it used in good faith ever? I would emphasize the lack of policy and guideline status for it, right here in WP:NPA. Let me get back to you. Bishonen | talk 10:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC).
 * First and foremost, thanks for the excellent input! The reference to RPA is more of a historical artifact than anything else (I tried not to rewrite too aggressively either in January or now).  It probably should go.  As for the abusability issue ... there was a "Be aware of WikiLawyering" section prior to the January rewrite (see here).  It was one of the sections struck after that round of discussion &mdash; consensus at the time was that having a policy page expressly admit that it was misused ran counter to establishing the policies as reasonably official standards.  But, with recent issues in mind, I'll also think on what can be done.  I don't think the old disclaimer-ish approach is the way to go, though.  Serpent&#39;s Choice 10:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I didn't understand that "Consequences of personal attacks" was where I needed to go to see a discussion of possible sanctions. (I thought "consequences" referred to something like "Personal attacks upset people"). I definitely think the heading should be "Sanctions for personal attacks". That's especially as the question of sanctioning them at all is a vexed subject and needs plain speaking. I've provisionally changed it (though I feel distinctly weird about changing stuff in your userspace). Bishonen | talk 10:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC).
 * Well-observed that the section might need retitled, but I'm nervous about "sanctions" due to it being a contronym. Would "Consequences for making personal attacks" be clearer?  And don't worry about this being in my userspace; I don't consider this mine.  Until recently, in fact, it was a subpage in projectspace, but was moved here by an admin who felt that it was impermissable at its former location.  Not that I care where it is; what is for is all that matters.  Serpent&#39;s Choice 10:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * A contronym? Ok, good point. But I don't think "Consequences for" is proper English, nor very clear. Tricky, but I'd go for clarity before subtlety, politeness, or, well, everything else: "Penalties for making personal attacks." Seing that baby in the TOC, nobody could be uncertain aboout where to look for the sanctions, blocks, etc. And I feel that half the time, that is exactly what people would be looking for. Bishonen | talk 11:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC).
 * That one should have been obvious to me from the beginning. Would you also take a look at the "Removal of text" section.  Beyond just the RPA ref, which I'm striking, the core of the debate over the last month has dealt with removing links to sites that host personal attacks/outing.  I've been trying to walk a line of compromise.  Does this need to be worded more firmly?  Serpent&#39;s Choice 11:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A side aside: There is very little logic in applying NPA to the posting of attack sites and therefore little logic in trying to address that habit with any draft of the policy. If NPA is to have any meaning (and I doubt it can), then we have to apply it solely within our own borders.  The people who post a link to WR or the like are little different from those who post a link to www.theonion.com or www.fark.com or any other site that is wholly unencyclopedic, totally irrelevant, and designed to be "funny" or "shocking."  The linking to such sites is nothing but the old "goatse" trick.  Those who make such links are easily and properly blocked for disruption.  The "attack" is being performed by an external site, and we have neither control over that nor should we have any concern.  Posting the link is not an attack, either.  It is, instead, pure disruption, as posting it is designed to stop all encyclopedic activity and provoke a fruitless conversation/yelling match.  Geogre 19:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * At the risk of appearing to foist this discussion off on the next group of editors ... should an effort be made to push it to WP:EL instead of WP:NPA in your opinion? I think I could help make the case for that, although I worry about reaching the point where shuttling this problem around becomes turtles all the way down.  Serpent&#39;s Choice 01:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)