These questions are intended to try to determine what you may consider the "baseline" between what should be considered "valid collegiate discourse" and what should be considered "violation of the civility policy" (incivility). Please be as specific as you can in your responses.
When one is physically present when speaking with another person, body language, intonation, setting, and other physical factors, can suggest the intent of words in a way that words written on a page cannot.
Example: if a person is having a casual conversation with friends over a table covered with beer glasses and one of them wishes to contest a point another has made they might prefect their remarks with "listen up asshole and I'll explain it to you." If they are smiling and raising a glass towards the person this remark is pointed, it can help the words to be taken in the lighthearted manner in which it was intended.
Should such interaction as noted in the example above be considered incivility in the collegiate, collaborative environment of Wikipedia? Should the talk page location matter (such as whether the discussion is on a user talk page, an article talk page, or Wikipedia project-space talk page)?
Should all profanity (such as the use of "bad words", "four letter words", "the Seven dirty words", etc.), be considered incivility?
There is an established convention when using technology to communicate through a typed format that WRITING IN ALL CAPS is considered "yelling" and is generally not acceptable. Individuals also sometimes use italics bolding green or other colored text or even enlarged text or other formatting code to attempt to indicate intonation, or to otherwise emphasize their comments.
Should there be limits as to when this type of formatting should be used in a discussion? Is there any type of formatting which should never be acceptable in a discussion?
Who is responsible for maintaining a civil environment for collegiate discussion? Should it be it the responsibility of administrators, the arbitration committee, the broader Wikipedia community, or some combination of these?
What sanctions, if any, do you think are appropriate for incivility? Should blocking be considered an appropriate response to incivility? Should topic banning or interaction banning be considered an appropriate response?
Should the context of the situation be taken into account when considering whether to apply sanctions to the individual due to incivility?
How severe should a single incident of incivility need to be to merit some sort of sanction?
a.) Should multiple instances of incivility in the same discussion be considered one offense or several? b.) If a user is civil most of the time, but occasionally has instances of incivility, should these incidents be excused? If so, how often should such incivility be excused?
Should the quality and/or number of contributions an individual makes outside of discussions have any bearing on whether an individual should be sanctioned due to incivility? Should the incidents of incivility be taken on their own as a separate concern?
In the past, when an individual has been blocked from editing due to "violating the civility policy" (incivility), there has, at times, been an outcry from others concerning the block, and sometimes the block has been overturned subsequent to that outcry.
In an effort to reduce incidences of such an outcry ("drama"), should incivility be deprecated as an appropriate reason for blocking an individual? Should admins instead be required to have a more specific reason (such as personal attacks, harassment of another user, etc.), when blocking a user for incivility?
Should a demonstrable consensus formed through discussion at WP:AN/I (or other appropriate forum) be required as a prerequisite to blocking an individual due to incivility? If so, should there be a minimum time frame for such discussions to remain open before the individual may be blocked?
A request for comment (RFC) gives the community the opportunity to discuss a behavioural concern (such as incivility) directly with the individual, with the intended goal of attempting to find a voluntary solution.
Should an RFC be required as a prerequisite for blocking a user of incivility? Should it be suggested and/or encouraged?
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (RFA) is a place where an editor requests the additional tools and responsibilities of adminship. In the discussion concerning the specific request, each commenting editor is to convey whether (and why) they would (or would not) trust the requester with those tools and responsibilities. Due to this, typically the requester's actions, behaviour, and contributions are noted, evaluated, and sometimes discussed.
Due to the nature of RFA (a question of trusting an individual), should it be considered necessary for the standards concerning personal attacks be somewhat relaxed at RFA? What, if any, should be the limits to this? How personal is "too personal" at an RFA? What types of criticisms cross the line between being considered merely an evaluation of a candidate and being considered an unwarranted attack? Should comments considered to cross that line be left alone, stricken, moved to the talk page, or simply removed altogether?
The Wikipedia community has a long tradition of not tolerating personal attacks. However, it may be difficult to differentiate whether an individual is commenting on a user's ideas or is commenting on the user themselves. The same is true concerning whether an individual may understand a particular idea.
How should this be determined? Should any of the following be considered a personal attack? Should any of these comments be considered the kind of incivility that we should not tolerate on Wikipedia?
In this section example comments will be presented. You are asked to evaluate each comment on the following scale:
(Assume all removals were done by a single user and are not part of a suppression action for privacy, libel, etc)
The general idea that Wikipedians should try to treat each other with a minimum of dignity and respect is widely accepted. Where we seem to have a serious problem is the enforcement or lack thereof of this ideal. This section will submit various scenarios and ask to you to suggest what an appropriate response would be. Possible options include:
Please bear in mind that what is being asked for is not what you believe would happen but what you believe should happen.
Please use this section for any additional comments, observations, recommendations, etc.
These questions are intended to try to determine what you may consider the "baseline" between what should be considered "valid collegiate discourse" and what should be considered "violation of the civility policy" (incivility). Please be as specific as you can in your responses.
When one is physically present when speaking with another person, body language, intonation, setting, and other physical factors, can suggest the intent of words in a way that words written on a page cannot.
Example: if a person is having a casual conversation with friends over a table covered with beer glasses and one of them wishes to contest a point another has made they might prefect their remarks with "listen up asshole and I'll explain it to you." If they are smiling and raising a glass towards the person this remark is pointed, it can help the words to be taken in the lighthearted manner in which it was intended.
Should such interaction as noted in the example above be considered incivility in the collegiate, collaborative environment of Wikipedia? Should the talk page location matter (such as whether the discussion is on a user talk page, an article talk page, or Wikipedia project-space talk page)?
Should all profanity (such as the use of "bad words", "four letter words", "the Seven dirty words", etc.), be considered incivility?
There is an established convention when using technology to communicate through a typed format that WRITING IN ALL CAPS is considered "yelling" and is generally not acceptable. Individuals also sometimes use italics bolding green or other colored text or even enlarged text or other formatting code to attempt to indicate intonation, or to otherwise emphasize their comments.
Should there be limits as to when this type of formatting should be used in a discussion? Is there any type of formatting which should never be acceptable in a discussion?
Who is responsible for maintaining a civil environment for collegiate discussion? Should it be it the responsibility of administrators, the arbitration committee, the broader Wikipedia community, or some combination of these?
What sanctions, if any, do you think are appropriate for incivility? Should blocking be considered an appropriate response to incivility? Should topic banning or interaction banning be considered an appropriate response?
Should the context of the situation be taken into account when considering whether to apply sanctions to the individual due to incivility?
How severe should a single incident of incivility need to be to merit some sort of sanction?
a.) Should multiple instances of incivility in the same discussion be considered one offense or several? b.) If a user is civil most of the time, but occasionally has instances of incivility, should these incidents be excused? If so, how often should such incivility be excused?
Should the quality and/or number of contributions an individual makes outside of discussions have any bearing on whether an individual should be sanctioned due to incivility? Should the incidents of incivility be taken on their own as a separate concern?
In the past, when an individual has been blocked from editing due to "violating the civility policy" (incivility), there has, at times, been an outcry from others concerning the block, and sometimes the block has been overturned subsequent to that outcry.
In an effort to reduce incidences of such an outcry ("drama"), should incivility be deprecated as an appropriate reason for blocking an individual? Should admins instead be required to have a more specific reason (such as personal attacks, harassment of another user, etc.), when blocking a user for incivility?
Should a demonstrable consensus formed through discussion at WP:AN/I (or other appropriate forum) be required as a prerequisite to blocking an individual due to incivility? If so, should there be a minimum time frame for such discussions to remain open before the individual may be blocked?
A request for comment (RFC) gives the community the opportunity to discuss a behavioural concern (such as incivility) directly with the individual, with the intended goal of attempting to find a voluntary solution.
Should an RFC be required as a prerequisite for blocking a user of incivility? Should it be suggested and/or encouraged?
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (RFA) is a place where an editor requests the additional tools and responsibilities of adminship. In the discussion concerning the specific request, each commenting editor is to convey whether (and why) they would (or would not) trust the requester with those tools and responsibilities. Due to this, typically the requester's actions, behaviour, and contributions are noted, evaluated, and sometimes discussed.
Due to the nature of RFA (a question of trusting an individual), should it be considered necessary for the standards concerning personal attacks be somewhat relaxed at RFA? What, if any, should be the limits to this? How personal is "too personal" at an RFA? What types of criticisms cross the line between being considered merely an evaluation of a candidate and being considered an unwarranted attack? Should comments considered to cross that line be left alone, stricken, moved to the talk page, or simply removed altogether?
The Wikipedia community has a long tradition of not tolerating personal attacks. However, it may be difficult to differentiate whether an individual is commenting on a user's ideas or is commenting on the user themselves. The same is true concerning whether an individual may understand a particular idea.
How should this be determined? Should any of the following be considered a personal attack? Should any of these comments be considered the kind of incivility that we should not tolerate on Wikipedia?
In this section example comments will be presented. You are asked to evaluate each comment on the following scale:
(Assume all removals were done by a single user and are not part of a suppression action for privacy, libel, etc)
The general idea that Wikipedians should try to treat each other with a minimum of dignity and respect is widely accepted. Where we seem to have a serious problem is the enforcement or lack thereof of this ideal. This section will submit various scenarios and ask to you to suggest what an appropriate response would be. Possible options include:
Please bear in mind that what is being asked for is not what you believe would happen but what you believe should happen.
Please use this section for any additional comments, observations, recommendations, etc.