Guild Wars Wiki talk:Be civil

Sigh.... do we really need this? Vlad 11:37, 15 February 2007 (PST)

Unless we generally believe that everyone will always stay civil already, I'd think we should want this. --Rezyk 11:39, 15 February 2007 (PST)

yeah I know...my comment was just one of depression that its needed. Vlad 11:54, 15 February 2007 (PST)

Vlad - I understand your view - my gut reaction is to assume the best of others and say that the concepts here don't need to be explained or officially notated ... but, sadly, I do think we should have something of this sort documented. --Barek 12:44, 15 February 2007 (PST)

Oh, I see...and empathize. =) --Rezyk 13:20, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I like the concepts stated here - but I'm not comfortable with the current wording of the section on removing uncivil comments. I'm not comfortable with how accepting it is of removing the comments. I strongly prefer either only allowing it through striking out text, or only if community concensus accepts removing it. If removal is permitted, I would want to see it replaced with a notice that the text was modified (just an in-line comment "modified text" would be adequate to flag where it's done I think. I haven't had time yet to read the whole thing, so may comment further later on other sections. --Barek 12:44, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I tend to agree with you on that; changing others' comments is a pretty sticky issue. I would even suggest that we go for ratifying this policy without that section for now and figuring it out later as a proposed policy change. --Rezyk 12:52, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I can also see many problems with users editing other users uncivil comments. I could second that this needs to be thought out at a later date and it needs to be looked over more carefully. :—BlackGeneral(talk|contribs) 13:13, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I support removing that section for now. I would go so far as to suggest that any policy and/or guideline on removing text should be in its own article, as it could then easilly be linked from here as well as other policies that may touch on that subject (GWW:NPA being one that comes to mind). --Barek 14:07, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I really don't like the idea of someones comments being edited. I can see in the case of really offensive racial slurs and such, in which case they should probably be replaced with a marker indicating offensive remarks were removed, and the writer would also be strongly cautioned/banned as appropriate. Lesser offensive remarks should be left although the writer should be cautioned in their Talk page and asked politely to re-word/remove the offensive comment. Such remarks reflect more adversely on the writer rather than their target. Vlad 13:54, 15 February 2007 (PST)

Reviewers, please note that the current "serious examples" of uncivil behavior include "Calling for bans or blocks". I could see this being a point of contention. --Rezyk 13:28, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I can see a warning not to abuse the block and ban (assuming it's kept, under whatever name) tags - but the current wording does open the door for anyone to claim a violation of this even when those tags are used appropriately. --Barek 14:07, 15 February 2007 (PST)

What is the policy content of this page?

I'll say this only once and than will shut up about it, because I really dont care that much: That article reads like Conflict management for pre-school children. I do not want a wiki policy telling people to say please and thank you. That is what parents tell their children at around the age of 3, if they have not learned it by the time they figure out how to read a wiki policy page, they wont be convinced by this either. The only "policy" part of this entire page is in Removing uncivil comments. Most of this can be done only by sysops, and the two bullet points which can be done by normal users seem quite controversial to me. By all means approve it if you really think it is needed, but in my opinion this is totally equal to making a policy page with only the words "be nice to each other" on it. And of the two, I would prefer the later. --Xeeron 15:47, 15 February 2007 (PST)

The policy content of this is "Be civil" and the examples it gives. IMO, "being civil" is different from "being nice". For instance, I'd say that both of our responses here are civil but not really nice. Also, nobody has pushed for this to become policy as is; it's just a working draft. Most of the content is simply left over from the Wikipedia porting which hasn't been pared down. If you think that it's too wordy or patronizing to the reader, I am certainly not one to disagree. I'll work on that for you when I have more time. If that's not quite right or enough, please let me know where else you are violating GWW:BeHappy! (You said you will "shut up" about this, but I hope you do not if you have more critical input to give.) --Rezyk 18:58, 15 February 2007 (PST)

This policy is attempting to govern user behavior. We've already had other (failed) examples of such policies. This can be shortened by a lot I believe. Civil people will read it. Those who tend to be not civil also tend to not read such things. Maybe focus this towards guidelines upon which sysops can take certain action. -- ab.er.rant -- 23:20, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I've refactored/gutted much of it. If anyone wants me to try working something back in, or cutting out more stuff, please let me know. And of course, you can just edit the page yourself if you want. --Rezyk 00:03, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Policy Redundancy

I strongly oppose two policies for basically the same thing. I don't really see anything in this policy (in it's current state) that isn't already covered by GWW:NPA or can be covered by it with minor changes to GWW:NPA. --84-175 (talk) 02:14, 16 February 2007 (PST)

I agree, I think GWW:NPA does it better. --Rainith 09:11, 16 February 2007 (PST)

I'm not opposed to merging CIVIL with NPA (as long as surviving one is modified to cover both), but it seems more natural for NPA to be "bought out" by CIVIL rather than the other way around. Perhaps this is just semantics, but I'd say it's possible for someone to be uncivil without making a personal attack, while all personal attacks can generally be considered uncivil (note that it's already listed as one of the serious examples in this article). --Rezyk 11:30, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Here is your examples and how they relate to NPA:

Petty examples that contribute to an uncivil environment:

• Rudeness
  • What is considered a personal attack: 2nd and 4th paragraphs
• Judgmental tone in edit summaries ("fixed sloppy spelling", "snipped rambling crap")
  • Disparaging an editor
• Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
  • Disparaging an editor and/or racial and ethnic epithets
• Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another
  • 1st paragraph: 3rd and 4th sentences; Initial response options: 2nd paragraph
• Starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..."
  • Comment on content, not on the contributor
• a. Calling someone a liar, or b. accusing him/her of slander or libel. Even if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute.
  • a.Insulting or disparaging an editor
  • b.Initial response options: 2nd paragraph; Comment on content, not on the contributor

More serious examples include:

• Taunting
  • Taunting is the same as insulting
• Personal attacks
  • Racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
  • Profanity directed at another contributor
    • Not applicable as it is stated as NPA
• Lies
  • Insulting or disparaging an editor
• Defacing user pages
  • Not applicable as it is vandalism, be it a user page or a main article.
• Giving users derogatory names via pagemove trolling
  • Insulting or disparaging an editor
• Calling for bans or blocks
  • New; consider merging.
• Indecent suggestions
  • Insulting or disparaging an editor

I think it is semantics. Reyzk states, "...it's possible for someone to be uncivil without making a personal attack..." This is true, which is why the 2nd paragraph in What is considered a personal attack is there for. — Gares 14:42, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Policies and guidelines

This is pretty much true for a few of the policy proposals, but it seems here is the best place to discuss it because this is the most obvious example. I feel there should be a clear distinction between policies and guidelines. Policies should be about stuff that we require from our users and which will be enforced by the sysops. Stuff that says what we would like our users to be, but which can and will not be enforced, should not be a policy, but in some other category. In that category I would include this page, "You are valuable", "Assume good faith" and maybe "content over presentation". All of these would be good to have, but we can't ban someone for not following them. --Xeeron 02:59, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Agreed. If one is going to receive the wrath of sysops, there should be a clear distinction as to what a user must or must not do as opposed to things we really hope they do or don't do. Vlad 13:04, 16 February 2007 (PST)

I think the idea behind this proposal should be added to Guild Wars Wiki:Welcome. Perhaps a sentence or two asking new users to be civil towards others as we are a community and strive to work together in a positive atmosphere. — Gares 14:52, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Actually, that sounds like a good idea. Much like Xeeron stated above, I think we shouldn't have this as a policy. ~ dragon legacy 16:47, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Hm?

I'm having a hard time getting the general view of everyone here. What follows is the best understanding I've come up with. Is this correct?

1. It is possible to be uncivil without making a personal attack.
2. The statement "Editors should be civil when stating disagreements." in GWW:NPA just reflects our belief and is not to be taken as a mandate. A user that is consistently uncivil in disagreements is not necessarily breaking policy.
3. Civility is something we want and encourage, but do not want to enforce in itself. If a user is repeatedly uncivil but breaks no policy, there should be no administrative action taken.

--Rezyk 23:59, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Hm, yes. In my opinion, any case of uncivility which is not violating GWW:NPA is not worth any administrative action. ~ dragon legacy 08:30, 17 February 2007 (PST)

That's probably a topic for a different talk page, but shouldn't Admins have a certain degree of autonomity? Not every tiny thing has to be regulated in a policy/guideline. Imho, if someone is overly rude without breaking GWW:NPA, an admin should still be able to take action. --84-175 (talk) 00:57, 20 February 2007 (PST)

I might have been more inclined to agree with that before, but not when we see clear disagreement like we do here. Is enforcement of civility (A) too obvious to bother mentioning, or (B) contrary to what is wanted? Does this article (C) provide too little content to qualify as policy, or does it (D) put too much under policy? Is the line drawn by this proposal (E) redundant because GWW:NPA's line is at least as far, or (F) too far past GWW:NPA's line? To be honest, I have to admit to complete surprise on my part about the position against administrative action. I even thought that the initial issues on this talk page revolved around A/C/E, but now it seems to be B/D/F for some users. --Rezyk 15:51, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Personally, I still see value in such a policy, or at least as a guideline. And I do believe that disruption of the wiki in ways outlined under "More serious examples include: ..." should qualify for at least short term bans if the user continually repeats the behavior despite warnings. In some cases, I can see requiring community discussion before banning; but the examples outlined in that section could potentially disrupt the normal use of the wiki - admins will need some leeway to ban before there's time to gather concensus. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:59, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Then again, much of the type of behavior of which I'm thinking would be classified as vandalism. Do we need a policy to cover vandalism / general disruption of the wiki? Do I really want to ask that question? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:07, 21 February 2007 (EST)

We should have one covering vandalism. What's obvious to some is not always obvious to others. On another wiki, I've seen users who were clearly contributing in good faith (IMO) being banned for vandalism, so one could say it's not obvious to me. --Rezyk 13:35, 23 February 2007 (EST)

@Rezyk: My answer to 1. is yes. For 2 and 3 it is yes, as long as it is not a personal attack.

@Barek: No. Vandalism should be totally obvious, we dont need a policy, just some understanding between the admins to ensure that the punishments handed out are even. --Xeeron 16:20, 21 February 2007 (EST)

To clarify my point, I want to explain, why GWW:NPA is enough for administrative action. Any uncivility which includes a personal attack, is obviously handled already. This includes attacks against ethnicies, against user groups, or any other group. Uncivility which is not a personal attack, can either be a blatant, impolite statement (like "I really don't think you've been asked here") or a more indirect statement (or reasoning) with the purpose of undermining a User's credibility. Again, only those two are not covered by GWW:NPA, but unless we want a policy like "Be nice!", we won't ever be able to define those two cases sufficiently. They're just too vague to catch properly! Thus, I think, the policy proposal is entirely redundant. ~ dragon legacy 17:45, 21 February 2007 (EST)

I've pointed out in #Policy Redundancy that every example here, save calling for bans/blocks is already covered in one form or another in GWW:NPA. You cannot tell people to act civil all the time or you will be banned. Half the userbase will have a ban or two on their record and/or multiple warnings to be more polite. I still believe this should be scrapped and one or two sentences added the the welcome page regarding being civil towards each other to maintain a positive and productive atmosphere is the best recourse. — Gares 10:33, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Each of those examples is treated differently here than in GWW:NPA. In this article, they are explicitly spelled out individually as policy violations. If I understand you correctly, GWW:NPA casts them as policy violations as well, although more indirectly. For that case, perhaps a simpler, more agreeable solution is to just add these examples (save a few exceptions) to the explicit list in GWW:NPA. I'll get that change proposal started. --Rezyk 13:35, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Nobody has suggested telling people to "act civil all the time or you will be banned". It's not a given that every policy violation is supposed to be matched with a ban -- if it was, I'd strongly oppose civility as a policy myself! Enforcement could even be limited to arbitration cases, if we wanted. For me, policy is more about simply drawing the line between "acceptable" and "non-acceptable", and giving all users the tools to work with that line. --Rezyk 13:35, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Still, the tool is there and it's GWW:NPA. If people feel that the abstract is not enough to cover the whole policy, then flesh it out with some examples. But this list is really too much for a policy. And, as we pointed out, it doesn't add new content, it's just stating the obvious. ~ dragon legacy 08:55, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Rezyk types, "Nobody has suggested telling people to "act civil all the time or you will be banned"." You failed to mention I stated that most of the userbase would either be banned or have multiple warnings if this draft of acting polite all the time were to be untagged and changed back to a policy proposal. If a policy is not enforced, then there is no point for that article to be a policy.

If someone helped you with a project and you did not say thank you for his help, would he constitute that as an act of rudeness and state that you broke the Civil policy? As others have stated, this is a redundancy of GWW:NPA, though some feel that GWW:NPA lacks enough of examples to cover everything. However, you cannot cover every type of personal attack through examples. If it is concensus that certain examples here should be added to the listing on GWW:NPA, then I will support that. If the suggestion that the idea of this proposal be added to Guild Wars Wiki:Welcome, I will support that as well. As of right now, however, after reviewing comments from other users regarding this proposal, even while it only has a draft tag placed on it, for the moment it seems the majority is in favor of failing this as a policy. — Gares 08:47, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Okay... Gares states that "most of the userbase would either be banned or have multiple warnings". I disagree. First of all, we don't have anywhere near a majority of users being uncivil. Secondly, we don't need to police every policy infraction with a ban or warning. For example: if a user accidentally forgets to sign a comment when they should, we really don't have to give them a warning that they could get banned! (Maybe just give them a reminder that it's policy?) I'd want it to be enforced, but in a non-draconian manner.

Your second example makes a great point. I see it as an example of "rudeness" that is still civil. I've changed the "rudeness" line item to "aggressive rudeness" as a first attempt to address this. I hope this also helps distance this policy from the idea of "be nice" or "be polite" policies. --Rezyk 00:17, 3 March 2007 (EST)

Going to reject

At last check, this proposal seemed to have some supporters other than myself, but was nowhere near consensus. If nobody opposes or wants to pick up the discussion now, I'll move this to rejected. (to be possibly re-proposed in the future) --Rezyk 21:12, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Reviving as a guideline

I'd like to revive this as a guideline. My main concern is inappropriate comments such as this and this which are outside the scope of Guild Wars Wiki:No personal attacks because they aren't directed at any specific individual. What I'd like is something to cite when issuing warnings about possible future arbitration. -- Gordon Ecker 01:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't cite guidelines, can you? It's like "look here at our rule that couldn't quite become a law, but we're enforcing it anyway, it just takes a bit longer because we're taking the bureaucratic route." It doesn't make sense; either it is law or it isn't. Guidelines are something to help people edit and/or mesh with the community; not something to cite when someone's an asshat.

Aside from that, I don't agree that "fixed sloppy spelling" is rude. "Holy shit, what baboon typed that out?" would be rude, but "fixed sloppy spelling" is stating fact. We don't want to get overly carebear with this guideline. -Auron 01:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This would be nice, but I think we would have to figure out where to draw the line. I'm exaggerating in these examples, but we have to distinguish between "Holy sh*t, what happened?" and "This is a f*cking g*y piece of sh*tty a*shattery". Only in the real world, the line between these two would be much smaller. This could go really wrong if people decide that they are being civil enough to avoid this policy while others think they are going over the line. Arguments could start, NPA would kick in, users would get blocked left and right. Granted, this is probably a worst-case scenario, but I can see it happening. But we have to figure out in hard terms what is right and what is wrong. differentiating personal opinion can send this out the door. -- Wandering Traveler 01:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've removed "fixed sloppy spelling". Arbitration can be requested by anyone at any time with no obligation of advance warning, however Guild Wars Wiki:Arbitration committee/Requests strongly recommends that attempts be made to resolve issues before resorting to arbitration, and I believe that a warning which cites a guideline would be less likely to be perceived as a personal threat than a warning without a citation. -- Gordon Ecker 01:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the point on the first example, or how this would help being an anonymous ip edit and all. On the second, if anything this may hurt. The most appropriate part of this guideline seems to be "ignore it" which actually would have been violated by your commenting on the Skakid's page and telling him not to make such comments. Also, are you absolutely positive that his comment was racist, because while I think it may have been, that should not be enough. Plus, any objection to comments like this in the user space really need to start with the affected user, and it is in fact a user page. (I realize this is a special case, but also realize that we don't need something special for something that is about to disappear as a special case with the ArenaNet name space.) -- Inspired to ____ 02:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

They were intended as examples of inappropriate comments outside the scope of GWW:NPA. As for the warning, the user in question has been blocked several times in the past for personal attacks and trolling, so it would fall under "ongoing incivility". Anyway, I've replaced "clear cases of ongoing incivility" with "clear cases of serious or ongoing incivility". -- Gordon Ecker 03:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

If one comment is offensive but not specific enough to incite a NPA breech, then it should slide (though I hate seeing them). But if it becomes trolling, then that's something the Sysops can work with. Generally, if it's a random offensive banter, then we only act if it rages out of control. I like this guideline, but there really isn't a way we can enforce it. Auron has a point. --People of Antioch 03:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a bad proposal at all. In fact, it's a quite good one. But with something like this, it's policy or bust. You can't enforce a guideline, and people will naturally be civil even without reading this policy. Uncivil people won't read this policy and go "Oh, shit, I'm not being civil". You either are or you aren't, and policy can't change that. Make this a guideline if you want; I wouldn't mind citing it, but it's fairly useless and redundant with NPA. Calor 19:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Offensive comments only constitute NPA breaches if they're directed against specific people, which leaves a fairly large loophole for trolls to exploit. I don't think that this guideline would do much to deter trolls, however I do think that it would impede their ability to claim persecution and generate drama. -- Gordon Ecker 02:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it necessary for this to be enforceable? It's just guidelines. People are free to ignore guidelines (like the formatting guidelines). But with formal guidelines in place, it becomes acceptable for other users to request conformance. For formatting guidelines, users who choose to ignore guidelines will always get their changes modified, and these users can't rightly complain, since their edits are against the consensus of the guidelines. For behavior guidelines, users who ignore them and act outside what is considered proper, in the same vein, can't rightly complain when other users request compliance and they become subject to accusations of disruption and being a dick. Just my thoughts. Having guidelines that you can't directly enforce is better than having no guidelines at all and relying on easily disputable and twisted "common sense". -- ab.er.rant 04:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Then I cannot support it as a guideline either. Being 'civil' can be nice, but it's not what I see as the purpose of the wiki. A proposal wide enough to suggest that stagnation is good would go against what I see as productive. Backsword 19:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite follow how guidelines on civility leads to stagnation is good... -- ab.er.rant 04:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Because it's very wide scope, with defenition rights at the accuser (I mean, it's ok to call harrasment NPA vio?). Thus it includes dissent in incivility.

Sometimes communities needs to be upset. And if someones feelings get's hurt? Even quite a bit of drama? Much better than stagnation. Backsword 23:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)