Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Archive 1

This was the discussion page during the first phase of the RFC, an open discussion which ran from October 4-28, 2012.

Links in lead?
Might be good to add links to Wikipedia talk:Civility and possibly Civility to the lead somewhere? I understand the desire to not distract, but there is much of use within both links, and many editors will be coming to the page unfamiliar and wanting to learn more background before jumping in. —Quiddity (talk) 08:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh no, more parallel discussions :( Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * PS: I also started this one - Civility/Poll in mid 2009. Beeblebrox do you want to make a hotlink to all previous discussions somewhere? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Huh. i had not realized there was another discussion going on right now. They didn't do a real good job making sure people knew about it. Anyhoo, it probably would be a good idea to add links to previous relevant discussions. I'll knock something together and any other discussions I may have missed can be added to it. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

We should clerk this
Based on historical patterns, I don't think it unreasonable to say that successful conclusion of this RFC will be difficult to achieve. (I'm defining successful as a meaningful consensus on definition of civility and how to encourage it is achieved.) I think discussions about specific editors (or topics (birthers) will make achieving such consensus more difficult to achieve. It would be useful if we could agree on scope of discussion and find one or more clerks to keep the discussion on track. Nobody Ent 18:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * the first RFC I opened on pending changes last year went through several "structural changes" as it progressed, we might want to try something like that here. First we had sort of a free-for-all open discussion and then an "endorsement phase". In this case I elected to try and hybridize those two but now I am wondering if that was such a hot idea as it is getting very sprawling. I have been toying with the idea of doing a questionaire to accompany this RFC, similar to the "review/recommend phase" of one of the many attempts to fix RFA. It didn't fix RFA, but the underlying idea of how to gather opinions with a minimum of rancor is sound. How it worked was that each participant created a subpage where they copied over the questionaire and then answered the questions. When they were done they just added a link to the main page of the project. As an example here is my subpage. Since defining the terms/limits of civility is, in my option anyway, one of the most serious problems involved here this seems like a good way to gather a broad spectrum of opinion in an easy to read way, as a opposed to the long, disjointed conversations we are seeing here now. If anyone else thinks this might work we could start pitching questions here and try to assemble this thing. This is a very big issue and if we are serious about resolving it we should be willing to take a long view and plan on spending months trying to get it done. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This is why I am nonplussed by unformatted RfCs - we have a bunch of statements all over the place and no method of rating or aligning them. What I would have done (and am tempted to do still) is at the very least try to get some polling to quantify how folks feel - a bit like the poll in 2009 -see Civility/Poll. How is any admin going to read this page? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It will be tough; it does not appear in its current manifestation to be more than a talk shop (which is fine in its own way) but it won't lead to anywhere. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So do you think a poll, which can allow some form of graphing or plotting out of points of view is worth redoing three years after the first one..? Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, thankfully or not, I am not that familiar with the use of polls, on Wiki, or that poll, in particular, (was it seen to help?). It certainly sounds more promising to the goal of finding ways forward. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)  It appears there maybe areas or types of dialogue where incivility arises (more often) and it seems tied to 'making it personal.'  So, are there ways to segregate those area and make it less about the personal and more focused on 'edit not the editor' and can a poll help, do that? Probably. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am going to bed now (very late here in Oz) - feel free to examine mine or any other polls and cut and paste/copy or do whatever it takes to try and get some global sense of how folks feel...good night. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (sound of head hitting keyboard) Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It's gotten pretty long at this point and a lot of people like me have stopped reading. I know I look at COI a bit differently now, but is there a reason to change policy? Is there one proposal to sink teeth into? That's what SOMEBODY'S gotta figure out. CarolMooreDC 15:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Never been a big fan of straight polling, does anyone have any thoughts on the questionaire idea I floated up near top of this section? Beeblebrox (talk) 20:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Is a questionnaire that different from a poll? It looks like in a poll there are sections for discussion? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion sections are critical yes. And I see the two as being pretty similar. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:41, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not wholly unlike a poll but it is not an open discussion. Each user would answer the questions on their own separate subpage. The idea is meant to supplement rather than replace the main RFC, just a means of gathering wide input without requiring users to navigate this sprawling RFC. it would go something like this:
 * Formulate the questions and submit them to the community
 * Have an open period during which users sub,it there answers, say several weeks or maybe a whole month
 * This would be the hard part. Reading all the answers and finding whatever commonalities they may have
 * Use those results to formulate a concrete proposal to present to the community

The format would be more nuanced than polling as it would allow users to answer the questions in any way they wish. However, interpreting those results is also going to be a bit more of a nuanced process than just collating poll results. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * To give everyone a better idea of how this might work I have created a very incomplete draft version at User:Beeblebrox/sandbox. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:48, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Honestly (in response to your edit summary) -- personally I'm getting truly depressed by the fact that there are many editors on WP:AN right now commenting about how disruptive Br'er Rabbit has been with his incivility but so few appearing here to work towards a systematic solution. Hopefully a more focused approach might get more response. Just a few points.
 * The major one, of course, it many of the answers depend on context. A lot of what I saw at WQA was one editor making a slightly snippy comment, and then another with a slightly more snippy comment, etc. So it's hard to draw a line in the sand cause you just know some Wiki warriors will go right up to the line and try to goad the other editor over. So I think the results could be useful but at as a general guide, not a general limit. We must almost deal with the IDHT and innuendo types of incivility.
 * Could you add a section specific to a user's own talk page? (e.g. the "fuck off" example)
 * Under removal, could you add hatting and the rpa template? Nobody Ent 23:16, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does have guidance on these issues (eg., WP:NPA and WP:Civility), so it seems those would be a starting point for questions, about what is agreed upon? Or is that a common basis for understanding these issues?  Or do users have widely different interpretations of what is said there?  Are there ambiguities there that could be cleared up? Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Bookend the problem
Would it make sense, given the historic difficulty at reaching a common agreement on exactly where the civility line in the sand is, to try to first bookend the problem? That is, see if we can all agree on two extremes: "this" is definitely not okay, and "that" is definitely okay. For example, I think a consensus majority of WP would agree to the standards set in User:Giano/On_civility_%26_Wikipedia_in_general as one end. Nobody Ent 21:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

A few thoughts
I had a few thoughts, but I wasn't sure if they were worth inflating the already huge RfC with:


 * As I've said in the previous RfC "Civility is treating every other Wikipedian with respect, be they newbie or your mortal-wiki-enemy."
 * Wikipedia should not be restricted to only those with the thickest skin, nor to a single idiom of language. We should always stretch out who "belongs" here as much as possible.
 * Wikipedia is enormous, and we are few and volunteers all. We should appreciate everyone, and no one should have to "earn" the right to be respected generally, and as a community member specifically. The proper response to a volunteer only showing up to fix small things here and there is "thank you" not "who the hell do you think you are?"

If this overlaps entirely with what has already been said, my apologies and please disregard.--Tznkai (talk) 05:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Question phase pretty much ready
I've been working on this a bit and have moved it to Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Questionnaire. as you can see it is somewhere in between a discussion and a poll.The goal is to find commonalities in how we perceive incivility and how to deal with it so that a concrete proposal can be formulated and presented to the community. Nobody seemed to have any serious objections when I mentioned it before but I thought I'd just double check here before going forward with it. Any and all feedback on the layout, the questions, or whatever would be appreciated. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding your draft on "Requests for adminship"": Why is RFA a discussion of the user, instead of a discussion of thier edits? (ie., this edit shows x; those edits show Y; lack of these edit shows Z, etc.) That standard that you articulate maybe where the problem lies in that area. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Where we draw the line is what the question is all about, the community will need to make the distinction more clear if they expect enforcement. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * A little common sense must prevail; in the context of Rfa, repeatedly saying "the edits of" X rather than simply saying X would increase the amount of text without adding much value. Nobody Ent 20:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That maybe but that is a different point from the subject that is assumed in the question. In the question, the assumption is given that it is a discussion of the user, instead of a discussion of their edits.  But if we are discussing the user, than propositions like, "the user is stupid,"  "the user is evil," "the user is lovely", "the user is brave" are what we are already meant, even required, to discuss. In short, the question assumes the answer, or is a leading question.  Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * get what you are saying, sort of anyway, but I'm not sure how to rephrase the question to accomodate your concerns. When we talk about a users "temperament" and fitness for a particular role we are of course talking about their edits as that is generally all we know about them, but we are also often discussing the general feeling we get from a user as opposed to a specific edit. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Just leave the introductory clause out of that question. Also, its a bad idea to distribute the questionarire without mooting of the questions for say a week. In which they can be edited (added, subtracted) and discussed on a talk page (perhaps with a moderator or two or three to oversee the process)  Also, than we may decide to split it into public private/parts; all public; or all private.  (It still seems Casliber's point about discussion, seems especially important in this matter)Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Nobody Ent 20:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * To address Alan's points: that specific question has been rewritten, and various other improvements made. I don't think we need to form a committee to discuss the questions, they have been available for review for some time now already and as you can see there has not been much feedback but what we have gotten has been incorporated. If there are not serious objections I am planning to implement the question phase in the next 24 hours. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Timeline
this has now been open for twenty days. It seems like discussion is slowing to a trickle. I propose that this be closed by the end of this week, that the discussion be archived for future reference, and that it be replaced with a pointer or a transclusion of the question phase. A closing statement is probably not needed since we aren't actually done, and it would be basically impossible anyway. A simple "thanks for your input, welcome to the second phase of this process" is probably sufficient. I would suggest that the question phase remain open for a full month in order to solicit the broadest possible spectrum of replies and give time for organizing of the team that will be needed to collate those replies and use that information to (hopefully) formulate some sort of specific proposal for the community to consider for approval. This would mean a break in the action after the question phase as the needed analysis is done, followed by a third phase where the resulting proposal is discussed, probably another month. Thoughts? Beeblebrox (talk) 01:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Closing statement is there's strong support for civility, but we still haven't a clue as to what it actually means to us. Timeline sounds good. Nobody Ent 02:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, quite a few editors are absolutely certain that they know what incivility is when they see it, but they can't agree with others on what it is. It's sad how many posts here have been in the form of what we absolutely MUST do about the incivility that's obvious to all, without any acknowledgement of the difficulties pointed out by others. In fact, I regard such posts, ignoring what others have posted, as quite uncivil, even though they don't use naughty words. HiLo48 (talk) 07:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that's what some are saying but it appears most editors are saying that civility includes a broad range of speech but that it crosses the line when it is made personal. For example, the comment you just made, to an overwhelming number of Wikipedians would not appear uncivil.  They may disagree with your argument (for any number of reasons) but uncivil, no.  It also does not appear to third parties you meant it to be uncivil, nor that you think what you said is uncivil.  That being the case, that you and most Wikipedians would agree that your comment is not uncivil, means that most Wikipedians know what civility is.  Sure, there is the occassional hard case (there are the unusually easily offended, and the unusually easily offensive -  often these two types are combined in one User) but there are always hard cases in everything the Project does. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It would be nice if someone who's paying more attention than me AND is a really good and NPOV synthesizer could create a New Section with a sliding scale of views on the topic and then let us all support those we agree most with. Then we at least might know the maximum amount of civility enforcement a great majority might support and see if that can be reflected in any policy tweaks. Who wants to volunteer... CarolMooreDC 18:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That is more or less what the question phase aims to accomplish. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But it never will. We have a very wide range of capabilities among editors. Here we are discussing at a fairly meta-awareness level some of the details about how people debate. That can happen on article Talk pages too, and can become quite complex. But some editors are incapable of doing much more than express an opinion, which is often really not much more than something like "All swearing is bad." They don't attempt to define swearing (it varies by culture), and don't respond to points already made by others about the need to define uncivility (it's obvious to them). I don't know how we can ever get a solution that will appeal to all. (And they wouldn't be capable of responding to that sentence constructively either.) Does the opinion of such less capable debaters matter? If it dpoes, this really just becomes a vote, and that would be bad. HiLo48 (talk) 20:46, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That nothing will come of all this is a distinct possibilty, but we should not let that stop us from trying. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sure I could do a bang up job if I tried, but I'm pretty good at dealing with incivility so not as motivated as could be (plus against my better judgement in middle of big changes to several articles). Dealing with aggravating disruptive editors more my focus now. grrrr... CarolMooreDC 23:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)