This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
If I warn a user with {{ npa}}, but they remove it, what can I do? -- Lethargy 04:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Currently, only direct threats and direct insults are noted as being personal attacks. I suggest that suggestions of self harm ("Why don't you jump off a cliff") should also be specifically noted as personal attacks. Common sense implies the inclusion, but there will always be someone who tries to use the letter rather than the spirit of the rule. Thoughts? Rhialto 06:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I just wanted to know whether Is this [1] a personal attack. I don't want any action as I assume Good Faith thinking that this is just a (mis)sense of comedy (this being the first instance) but just want to know the opinion of the community. Doctor Bruno 02:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to start a discussion of false accusations being used to personally attack another user. This seems rather obvious to me that falsely accusing another user of something derogatory, without evidence, is a method of personal attack. I request comments on this.-- Fahrenheit451 19:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Only there was no "high-resolution copyright difficulty" as Terryeo alleges. False accusations are a method of personal attack. I think that this needs to be explicitly addressed in Wikipedia policy.-- Fahrenheit451 19:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a separate (but related) question regarding this topic; a user has repeatedly accused me of personal attack for leaving a civility warning on their talk page (not unwarranted), though I have reminded them of the seriousness of the accusation and that the template is certainly not in and of itself an attack (that is their only "basis" for accusation). I am not sure of what I should do here; is their some proper action I can take to get the user to stop making false claims against me? Thanks. Shannernanner 14:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I've created a template to censor obscene comments at User:nkayesmith/censored (see it in action on my talk page). I feel that it's a good compromise between deleting the comment and allowing it to remain. What does everyone think? -- nkayesmith 09:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks/Death threats and its talk page for discussion on that topic (recently moved to that subpage). One suggestion was to make the wording here stronger, and to specifically mention what to do in the case of death threats, as opposed to having a separate page. I'm recording this suggestion here, so that it can be discussed. See also Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Suggested addition. Carcharoth 01:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I am not so aware of cabals but I agree that the policy actually restricts free speech and accurate description of facts. For instance, I have been warned for descibing one POV-pushing editor's ideology as "nazi" and "racist", which is blatantly true, and agreed by other respected editors. He wikilawyered against me for that and got his prize and now I find myself unable to speak up properly and constantly threatened with WP:PAIN actions. While these terms can be abused, I see no reason to protect with "invisibility cloaks" the activity and motivations of such users, normally complex vandals with no respect for Wikipedia's way-of-life and NPOV policies. In fact it is counter-producing as it favors wikilawyering against realistic discussion and consensus making. We can't be assambleary and non-violent while protecting under the excuse of civility violent and anti-assambleary behaviours. Also, we should not give special protection to certain ideologies. Why are nazism and racism given that invisibility cloak that other ideologies don't have nor need? It's totally against the spirit of Wikipedia. -- Sugaar 12:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No matter how it's phrased, this whole policy is a prime candidate for wikilawyering up hill and down dale by those skilled in goading others without laying themselves open to the dreaded PA charge. That kind of can't be helped. But I think some of the section "Examples that are not personal attacks" is unnecessarily encouraging to the PA tightrope dance, and I have edited accordingly. Please take a look. The vaunted "subtle difference" between "You are acting like a troll" and "You are a troll" comes down, IMO, purely to the not-so-subtle difference between those who know how to skirt the NPA policy and those who don't. The difference between commenting on motive and commenting on actions just isn't that technical: the implication is the same in both cases. I took it out. Also, I took out a little lawyerspeak ("include, but are not limited to"—please let's not positively encourage a law-book attitude here) and performed emergency surgery on a sentence stating that personal attacks should under certain circumstances not be construed as personal attacks (I swear, it did say that). Finally, I changed the statement that "a comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is a not a personal attack," because I'm just tired of seeing it. "Vandalism" is thrown around much too lightly, it's a very serious and wounding accusation, and it goes to intention and motive, not just action. What more do you want? It's a personal attack. It's only not a personal attack if you are indeed reverting vandalism, and vandalism is very clearly and narrowly defined at WP:VAND, which also makes the excellent poinit that "If a user treats situations which are not clear vandalism as vandalism, then he or she is actually damaging the encyclopedia by driving away potential editors." If somebody tells me they've reverted my "vandalism" to their page, that's a much more personal attack than if they tell me to fuck off. (That's not a nice thing to say, but what exactly's personal about it?) Anyway... yes, the section ended up rather different.
Wikipedians engaging in debate is an essential part of the culture of Wikipedia. Be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when stating disagreements to avoid personalizing them and try to minimize unnecessarily antagonistic comments. Disagreements with other editors can be discussed without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to personalize comments that are directed at content and actions, but it is equally important not to interpret such comments as personal attacks. Specific examples of comments that are not personal attacks include, but are not limited to:
* Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks. * Personal attacks do not include civil language used to describe an editor's actions, and when made without involving their personal character, should not be construed as personal attacks. Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack — it is a statement regarding the actions of the user, not a statement about the user. There is a subtle difference between "You are a troll" and "You are acting like a troll", but "You seem to be making statements to provoke people" is even better, as it means the same without descending to name-calling. Similarly, a comment such as "responding to accusation of bad faith by user X" in an edit summary or on a talk page is not a personal attack against user X. * A comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is not a personal attack. However, it is important to assume good faith when making such a comment — if the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism.
Debate is an essential part of the culture of Wikipedia. Be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when stating disagreements to avoid personalizing them and try to minimize unnecessarily antagonistic comments. Disagreements with other editors can be discussed without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to personalize comments that are directed at content and actions, but it is equally important not to interpret impersonal comments as personal attacks. Examples of comments that are not personal attacks include:
* Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks. * Remarks describing an editor's actions and made without involving their personal character should not be construed as personal attacks. Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack — it is a statement regarding the actions of the user, not a statement about the user. (It can however be a harmful statement if it's untrue.) A comment such as "responding to accusation of bad faith by user X" in an edit summary or on a talk page is not a personal attack against user X. * A comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is a not a personal attack if it's concerned with clear vandalism, although otherwise it is. "Vandalism" imputes bad intentions and bad motives to the person accused. If the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what is and isn't vandalism.
Feel free to edit and/or change back, please. Bishonen | talk 06:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC).
I've come across this one a lot. People will often say "but this person attacked me first" and use that as a reason to make an attack on their own (though, quite frequently, the first person did not). I propose adding a section saying, "because the other person attacked isn't reason for you to do it too." - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 01:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
While I generally agree, we cannot demand that everyone have the forbearance of a saint. For example, if someone suggests that you engage in unnatural sex acts with your parents, that you eat shit, and that you ought to be impaled with a hot poker (none of these are made-up examples, by the way), you can hardly be faulted for describing this person as "thoroughly unpleasant". Or something rather more strongly worded than that. - Jmabel | Talk 08:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been editing the George W. Bush page and this user User:ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE has engaged in alot of arrogant insinuation that his edits are justified. I browsed his contributions that he made to wikipedia and he's not able to restrict his personal opinion in the NPOV environment. Which I found out was evident here Talk:Bumfights especially at User talk:ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE. Thank you for looking in. ViriiK 06:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Is a polite reminder not to feed the trolls a personal attack? I just read this article and realized maybe I was making personal attacks in some instances. Any thoughts on this? Does it constitute a personal attack?
Dylan Slade 22:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If this policy doesn't already cover this, I think it would be a good idea to add details about ad hominem attacks against other users. This issue generally arises in XFD's, and should be discouraged.-- Ed ¿Cómo estás? 02:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
At what point is something considered polemical, and subject to removal? If someone placed a comment on their user page saying "Muslims are one step away from being satanists!" and linked it to a page listing self identified Muslim Wikipedians, is that considered polemical? Is it considered a personal attack?-- Vidkun 22:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I reviewed the web pages Sugaar referred to and didn't find anything offensive, they're just center-right political views, clearly Sugaar is someone who considers Fraga, Aznar, and Mariano Rajoy extreme-rightists, when in fact they're just tepid social democrats. Or maybe Sugaar himself is a radical leftist a la Castro, Chávez, Evo Morales? Cheers.-- SanIsidro 13:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how, within NPOV, we can allow support for Bush but not for Hitler. Nazism is an unpopular POV, and one that I personally abhor, but Hitler had millions of supporters in his time. If a pro-Nazi userpage is unacceptable now, would it have been so in the 1939 edition of Wikipedia? I think of this principally as a failure of NPOV. I've come across people using this policy to defend all manner of extremist positions.
Let's assume...Emma told me in P page that I'm XYZ. She also implied it in another of her remarks. XYZ is a personal attack. Then later, on same page and other pages, she says: "Lots of XYZ's on P page" "XYZ's are trouble makers" etc... (without directly referring to me). Is this a personal attack? Should I be offended? Is it still a personal attack despite not being an attack against me but against anonymous editors? Lukas19 20:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Where can I find out about using real names of editors? Some editors like myself would prefer not to have our real names and identities divulged on articles and talk pages even if they are known to other editors, who may be prepared to use this information maliciously on and off-wiki. The point, "Treat others as you would have them treat you" is a pointer in the right direction but is not clear enough and may need expansion.
Is this article the correct place to make a mention of how real names of editors should not be divulged especially if this has been expressly asked by the editor? Or does another article deal with that subject? Thanks. I have also registered this query at WP:WQT talk page. ekantiK talk 03:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I noticed the following comment by Jimbo on his talk page and strongly think that it should be included here as a "Jimbo quote" under the Community Spirit section, just like has been done by other WP Policy articles. Here is the quote which is also displayed on my userpage:
source. We do not need to display it in this way with a boilerplate (unless that is agreed upon as a headline of some sort?) but it would be sufficient to just add the quote without the date also. ekantiK talk 05:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If an editor creates a talk-subpage or a section of the talk-page that specifically attacks other editors on the basis of what they see as bad faith or POV on the part of the "attackee", and especially in regards to off-wiki disputes that may or may not have anything to do with edits made on Wikipedia, is this a good example of a personal attack?
If so, I'd like to make an amendment to the Examples section of this article to include a sentence or two about 'Talk-Page Attacks'. ekantiK talk 16:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Is there no way to make clear that saying to someone you are in dispute with "be civil" or " WP:NPA" hardly ever improves the situation? Is it not time to say that warnings about personal attacks should be done by someone other than the (usually) two people involved? In other words, never say "you are being incivil to me", but rather say "don't be incivil to that person". Would this idea fly? Has it been proposed before? Carcharoth 19:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
A major bulk of my edits are reverting vandalisms, and seldom there are questions on whether my reverts are actually vandalisms.
However, some vandals whose edits were reverted by me and I have gave warning for would vandalize my userpage. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Previously I dealt with that through WP:AIV, but since these falls onto WP:NPA since these people attacks me on the basis of my vandalism reverts, what should I do, AIV or NPA? -- Samuel CurtisShinichian-Hirokian-- TALK· CONTRIBS 04:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Based on some of the disucssion at the
PAIN MFD, I came here to read exactly what we're saying in WP:NPA. I'm a little surprised that nothing in the policy suggests that it can ever be best when water rolls off a duck's back. The remedies demand retribution: the first thing the attacked person should do is to "ask the attacker to stop and note this policy". After that, its
the comfy chair
dispute resolution and
blocking. Obviously, there are exceptions: persistent or extreme attacks such as death threats are a different creature entirely from being told you are "an idiot". But in general, might
civility be better served by suggesting that, at least sometimes, the best way to respond to an angry talk page comment is ... not to respond at all?
Serpent's Choice
06:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Per the original comments by Serpent's Choice above, per recent comments in the MfD of WP:PAIN, and per comments at the village pump (policy} regarding WP:Kettle, I have made these additions to the policy here, including an emphasis on ignoring personal attacks as a first response, and on seeking dispute resolution for WP:KEttle situations, with a cautionary note that pushing hard for intervention in such situations may result in intervention distributed equally over both parties.
It may not be worded quite as well as it could be though, so please edit as required if you feel it needs it. Crimsone 17:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The core elements of this major edit have been being discussed for some days now. They have been through several rounds of copyediting, a partial reorganization, and many sets of eyes. I'll be the first to admit, there have been objections to these changes. Some of the objects, I hope have been settled through discussion and compromise. Some may still be outstanding. While these changes may not therefore have unanimity, I believe they have consensus. As a point of note, changes to the live version of NPA that have taken place since this proposal work began (largely by Crimsone have been incorporated in this edit wherever possible. I do not want to give the impression at any point that I'm doing this alone.
I have encouraged a change in WP:NPA for several reasons, each of which I hope this edit addresses:
My promotion of these changed to the live version are admittedly at least somewhat bold. I hope that any objections or problems can be discussed here. On many issues, I'm more than amenable to compromise. I'm not looking to start an edit war, I'm looking to work with other editors to build better policy pages for this encyclopedia project.
Thanks! Serpent's Choice 09:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering why the "examples" section was removed? I found that section extremely helpful, especially the part that described merely pointing out personal attacks was not an attack itself, it said: "Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack". Without that statement in the policy, attackers now just respond by saying we're attacking them by merely pointing out abusive behavior. I respectfully ask that the "examples" section be put back. Thanks! Dreadlocke ☥ 00:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
This kind of serves as a report/question, etc, but recently one of the users "Osfan", has been repeatedly harrasing me. This situation occured after he posted some drivel about my contributions, and I deleted it, not knowing that this is not encouraged or permitted. He has continued to post comments time and time again insulting me, getting more hostile each time I deleted his comments (because they offered nothing of worth compared to other...angrier posts I've had debating my editing preferences).
Eventually, Osfan was reported, and warned to stay away from me. Unfortunatly, he's returned, and is showing no signs of stopping. It's becoming obvious he's trying to bait me into an aggresive flame war, and has seemingly done this with other editors despite constant warnings.
The question is, should deleted comments, which are archived in the "History" section, be more encouraged if they do not serve any kind of functional discussion and serve only to bait and insult?
Thankyou.
...And I seriously hope a mod checks my talk page "history" to see what Osfan has been doing.
Dr. R.K.Z ( talk · contribs), 03:06 12th Janurary 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
If I warn a user with {{ npa}}, but they remove it, what can I do? -- Lethargy 04:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Currently, only direct threats and direct insults are noted as being personal attacks. I suggest that suggestions of self harm ("Why don't you jump off a cliff") should also be specifically noted as personal attacks. Common sense implies the inclusion, but there will always be someone who tries to use the letter rather than the spirit of the rule. Thoughts? Rhialto 06:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I just wanted to know whether Is this [1] a personal attack. I don't want any action as I assume Good Faith thinking that this is just a (mis)sense of comedy (this being the first instance) but just want to know the opinion of the community. Doctor Bruno 02:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to start a discussion of false accusations being used to personally attack another user. This seems rather obvious to me that falsely accusing another user of something derogatory, without evidence, is a method of personal attack. I request comments on this.-- Fahrenheit451 19:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Only there was no "high-resolution copyright difficulty" as Terryeo alleges. False accusations are a method of personal attack. I think that this needs to be explicitly addressed in Wikipedia policy.-- Fahrenheit451 19:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a separate (but related) question regarding this topic; a user has repeatedly accused me of personal attack for leaving a civility warning on their talk page (not unwarranted), though I have reminded them of the seriousness of the accusation and that the template is certainly not in and of itself an attack (that is their only "basis" for accusation). I am not sure of what I should do here; is their some proper action I can take to get the user to stop making false claims against me? Thanks. Shannernanner 14:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I've created a template to censor obscene comments at User:nkayesmith/censored (see it in action on my talk page). I feel that it's a good compromise between deleting the comment and allowing it to remain. What does everyone think? -- nkayesmith 09:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks/Death threats and its talk page for discussion on that topic (recently moved to that subpage). One suggestion was to make the wording here stronger, and to specifically mention what to do in the case of death threats, as opposed to having a separate page. I'm recording this suggestion here, so that it can be discussed. See also Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Suggested addition. Carcharoth 01:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I am not so aware of cabals but I agree that the policy actually restricts free speech and accurate description of facts. For instance, I have been warned for descibing one POV-pushing editor's ideology as "nazi" and "racist", which is blatantly true, and agreed by other respected editors. He wikilawyered against me for that and got his prize and now I find myself unable to speak up properly and constantly threatened with WP:PAIN actions. While these terms can be abused, I see no reason to protect with "invisibility cloaks" the activity and motivations of such users, normally complex vandals with no respect for Wikipedia's way-of-life and NPOV policies. In fact it is counter-producing as it favors wikilawyering against realistic discussion and consensus making. We can't be assambleary and non-violent while protecting under the excuse of civility violent and anti-assambleary behaviours. Also, we should not give special protection to certain ideologies. Why are nazism and racism given that invisibility cloak that other ideologies don't have nor need? It's totally against the spirit of Wikipedia. -- Sugaar 12:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No matter how it's phrased, this whole policy is a prime candidate for wikilawyering up hill and down dale by those skilled in goading others without laying themselves open to the dreaded PA charge. That kind of can't be helped. But I think some of the section "Examples that are not personal attacks" is unnecessarily encouraging to the PA tightrope dance, and I have edited accordingly. Please take a look. The vaunted "subtle difference" between "You are acting like a troll" and "You are a troll" comes down, IMO, purely to the not-so-subtle difference between those who know how to skirt the NPA policy and those who don't. The difference between commenting on motive and commenting on actions just isn't that technical: the implication is the same in both cases. I took it out. Also, I took out a little lawyerspeak ("include, but are not limited to"—please let's not positively encourage a law-book attitude here) and performed emergency surgery on a sentence stating that personal attacks should under certain circumstances not be construed as personal attacks (I swear, it did say that). Finally, I changed the statement that "a comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is a not a personal attack," because I'm just tired of seeing it. "Vandalism" is thrown around much too lightly, it's a very serious and wounding accusation, and it goes to intention and motive, not just action. What more do you want? It's a personal attack. It's only not a personal attack if you are indeed reverting vandalism, and vandalism is very clearly and narrowly defined at WP:VAND, which also makes the excellent poinit that "If a user treats situations which are not clear vandalism as vandalism, then he or she is actually damaging the encyclopedia by driving away potential editors." If somebody tells me they've reverted my "vandalism" to their page, that's a much more personal attack than if they tell me to fuck off. (That's not a nice thing to say, but what exactly's personal about it?) Anyway... yes, the section ended up rather different.
Wikipedians engaging in debate is an essential part of the culture of Wikipedia. Be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when stating disagreements to avoid personalizing them and try to minimize unnecessarily antagonistic comments. Disagreements with other editors can be discussed without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to personalize comments that are directed at content and actions, but it is equally important not to interpret such comments as personal attacks. Specific examples of comments that are not personal attacks include, but are not limited to:
* Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks. * Personal attacks do not include civil language used to describe an editor's actions, and when made without involving their personal character, should not be construed as personal attacks. Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack — it is a statement regarding the actions of the user, not a statement about the user. There is a subtle difference between "You are a troll" and "You are acting like a troll", but "You seem to be making statements to provoke people" is even better, as it means the same without descending to name-calling. Similarly, a comment such as "responding to accusation of bad faith by user X" in an edit summary or on a talk page is not a personal attack against user X. * A comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is not a personal attack. However, it is important to assume good faith when making such a comment — if the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism.
Debate is an essential part of the culture of Wikipedia. Be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when stating disagreements to avoid personalizing them and try to minimize unnecessarily antagonistic comments. Disagreements with other editors can be discussed without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to personalize comments that are directed at content and actions, but it is equally important not to interpret impersonal comments as personal attacks. Examples of comments that are not personal attacks include:
* Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks. * Remarks describing an editor's actions and made without involving their personal character should not be construed as personal attacks. Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack — it is a statement regarding the actions of the user, not a statement about the user. (It can however be a harmful statement if it's untrue.) A comment such as "responding to accusation of bad faith by user X" in an edit summary or on a talk page is not a personal attack against user X. * A comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is a not a personal attack if it's concerned with clear vandalism, although otherwise it is. "Vandalism" imputes bad intentions and bad motives to the person accused. If the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what is and isn't vandalism.
Feel free to edit and/or change back, please. Bishonen | talk 06:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC).
I've come across this one a lot. People will often say "but this person attacked me first" and use that as a reason to make an attack on their own (though, quite frequently, the first person did not). I propose adding a section saying, "because the other person attacked isn't reason for you to do it too." - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 01:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
While I generally agree, we cannot demand that everyone have the forbearance of a saint. For example, if someone suggests that you engage in unnatural sex acts with your parents, that you eat shit, and that you ought to be impaled with a hot poker (none of these are made-up examples, by the way), you can hardly be faulted for describing this person as "thoroughly unpleasant". Or something rather more strongly worded than that. - Jmabel | Talk 08:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been editing the George W. Bush page and this user User:ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE has engaged in alot of arrogant insinuation that his edits are justified. I browsed his contributions that he made to wikipedia and he's not able to restrict his personal opinion in the NPOV environment. Which I found out was evident here Talk:Bumfights especially at User talk:ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE. Thank you for looking in. ViriiK 06:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Is a polite reminder not to feed the trolls a personal attack? I just read this article and realized maybe I was making personal attacks in some instances. Any thoughts on this? Does it constitute a personal attack?
Dylan Slade 22:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If this policy doesn't already cover this, I think it would be a good idea to add details about ad hominem attacks against other users. This issue generally arises in XFD's, and should be discouraged.-- Ed ¿Cómo estás? 02:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
At what point is something considered polemical, and subject to removal? If someone placed a comment on their user page saying "Muslims are one step away from being satanists!" and linked it to a page listing self identified Muslim Wikipedians, is that considered polemical? Is it considered a personal attack?-- Vidkun 22:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I reviewed the web pages Sugaar referred to and didn't find anything offensive, they're just center-right political views, clearly Sugaar is someone who considers Fraga, Aznar, and Mariano Rajoy extreme-rightists, when in fact they're just tepid social democrats. Or maybe Sugaar himself is a radical leftist a la Castro, Chávez, Evo Morales? Cheers.-- SanIsidro 13:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how, within NPOV, we can allow support for Bush but not for Hitler. Nazism is an unpopular POV, and one that I personally abhor, but Hitler had millions of supporters in his time. If a pro-Nazi userpage is unacceptable now, would it have been so in the 1939 edition of Wikipedia? I think of this principally as a failure of NPOV. I've come across people using this policy to defend all manner of extremist positions.
Let's assume...Emma told me in P page that I'm XYZ. She also implied it in another of her remarks. XYZ is a personal attack. Then later, on same page and other pages, she says: "Lots of XYZ's on P page" "XYZ's are trouble makers" etc... (without directly referring to me). Is this a personal attack? Should I be offended? Is it still a personal attack despite not being an attack against me but against anonymous editors? Lukas19 20:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Where can I find out about using real names of editors? Some editors like myself would prefer not to have our real names and identities divulged on articles and talk pages even if they are known to other editors, who may be prepared to use this information maliciously on and off-wiki. The point, "Treat others as you would have them treat you" is a pointer in the right direction but is not clear enough and may need expansion.
Is this article the correct place to make a mention of how real names of editors should not be divulged especially if this has been expressly asked by the editor? Or does another article deal with that subject? Thanks. I have also registered this query at WP:WQT talk page. ekantiK talk 03:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I noticed the following comment by Jimbo on his talk page and strongly think that it should be included here as a "Jimbo quote" under the Community Spirit section, just like has been done by other WP Policy articles. Here is the quote which is also displayed on my userpage:
source. We do not need to display it in this way with a boilerplate (unless that is agreed upon as a headline of some sort?) but it would be sufficient to just add the quote without the date also. ekantiK talk 05:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If an editor creates a talk-subpage or a section of the talk-page that specifically attacks other editors on the basis of what they see as bad faith or POV on the part of the "attackee", and especially in regards to off-wiki disputes that may or may not have anything to do with edits made on Wikipedia, is this a good example of a personal attack?
If so, I'd like to make an amendment to the Examples section of this article to include a sentence or two about 'Talk-Page Attacks'. ekantiK talk 16:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Is there no way to make clear that saying to someone you are in dispute with "be civil" or " WP:NPA" hardly ever improves the situation? Is it not time to say that warnings about personal attacks should be done by someone other than the (usually) two people involved? In other words, never say "you are being incivil to me", but rather say "don't be incivil to that person". Would this idea fly? Has it been proposed before? Carcharoth 19:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
A major bulk of my edits are reverting vandalisms, and seldom there are questions on whether my reverts are actually vandalisms.
However, some vandals whose edits were reverted by me and I have gave warning for would vandalize my userpage. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Previously I dealt with that through WP:AIV, but since these falls onto WP:NPA since these people attacks me on the basis of my vandalism reverts, what should I do, AIV or NPA? -- Samuel CurtisShinichian-Hirokian-- TALK· CONTRIBS 04:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Based on some of the disucssion at the
PAIN MFD, I came here to read exactly what we're saying in WP:NPA. I'm a little surprised that nothing in the policy suggests that it can ever be best when water rolls off a duck's back. The remedies demand retribution: the first thing the attacked person should do is to "ask the attacker to stop and note this policy". After that, its
the comfy chair
dispute resolution and
blocking. Obviously, there are exceptions: persistent or extreme attacks such as death threats are a different creature entirely from being told you are "an idiot". But in general, might
civility be better served by suggesting that, at least sometimes, the best way to respond to an angry talk page comment is ... not to respond at all?
Serpent's Choice
06:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Per the original comments by Serpent's Choice above, per recent comments in the MfD of WP:PAIN, and per comments at the village pump (policy} regarding WP:Kettle, I have made these additions to the policy here, including an emphasis on ignoring personal attacks as a first response, and on seeking dispute resolution for WP:KEttle situations, with a cautionary note that pushing hard for intervention in such situations may result in intervention distributed equally over both parties.
It may not be worded quite as well as it could be though, so please edit as required if you feel it needs it. Crimsone 17:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The core elements of this major edit have been being discussed for some days now. They have been through several rounds of copyediting, a partial reorganization, and many sets of eyes. I'll be the first to admit, there have been objections to these changes. Some of the objects, I hope have been settled through discussion and compromise. Some may still be outstanding. While these changes may not therefore have unanimity, I believe they have consensus. As a point of note, changes to the live version of NPA that have taken place since this proposal work began (largely by Crimsone have been incorporated in this edit wherever possible. I do not want to give the impression at any point that I'm doing this alone.
I have encouraged a change in WP:NPA for several reasons, each of which I hope this edit addresses:
My promotion of these changed to the live version are admittedly at least somewhat bold. I hope that any objections or problems can be discussed here. On many issues, I'm more than amenable to compromise. I'm not looking to start an edit war, I'm looking to work with other editors to build better policy pages for this encyclopedia project.
Thanks! Serpent's Choice 09:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering why the "examples" section was removed? I found that section extremely helpful, especially the part that described merely pointing out personal attacks was not an attack itself, it said: "Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack". Without that statement in the policy, attackers now just respond by saying we're attacking them by merely pointing out abusive behavior. I respectfully ask that the "examples" section be put back. Thanks! Dreadlocke ☥ 00:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
This kind of serves as a report/question, etc, but recently one of the users "Osfan", has been repeatedly harrasing me. This situation occured after he posted some drivel about my contributions, and I deleted it, not knowing that this is not encouraged or permitted. He has continued to post comments time and time again insulting me, getting more hostile each time I deleted his comments (because they offered nothing of worth compared to other...angrier posts I've had debating my editing preferences).
Eventually, Osfan was reported, and warned to stay away from me. Unfortunatly, he's returned, and is showing no signs of stopping. It's becoming obvious he's trying to bait me into an aggresive flame war, and has seemingly done this with other editors despite constant warnings.
The question is, should deleted comments, which are archived in the "History" section, be more encouraged if they do not serve any kind of functional discussion and serve only to bait and insult?
Thankyou.
...And I seriously hope a mod checks my talk page "history" to see what Osfan has been doing.
Dr. R.K.Z ( talk · contribs), 03:06 12th Janurary 2007 (UTC)