Wikipedia talk:Civility

Breeches of civility

Civility toward readers?

All the discussion of civility seems to be about remaining civil to other editors or contributors, but nothing, with the possible exception of Wikipedia:Civility#Edit_summary_dos_and_don'ts, which only mentions editors in 2 of its 6 bullet points.

1. Are there policies or policy sections that cover civility to readers specifically?
2. If there aren't, should there be?
3. More narrowly (and the reason why I'm asking), does inexplicable in this edit's summary cross a line by implying no one could possibly find a plausible explanation (as opposed to wording such as "I can't explain/don't understand it", which would acknowledge the editor's subjectiveness on this)?

The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 11:19, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I added a small section right at the end of the civility page. Since the page is concerned with users being civil when editing, readers are not the ones generally in danger of being insulted, so I presume not much guidance is required. Maintaining a neutral point of view seems to mandate that civility be kept because otherwise it wouldn't be neutral. ButterCashier (talk) 12:55, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Just noting that I've reverted this edit - it needs some workshopping. As written it forbids "reference to vitriol or incivility", but this can in some cases be necessary to write a comprehensive article. (If the intention is to prevent edit summaries like the one objected to by the OP, this can be addressed more directly - although I'm not convinced this is necessary). Nikkimaria (talk) 02:54, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I would go further and not include the proposed text even if refactored. WP:CIVIL concerns the interactions between editors. If an editor posts bad stuff in an article (being uncivil towards readers, whatever that means), they might be blocked but it would not be for a breach of WP:CIVIL. Johnuniq (talk) 04:03, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

See my 3rd point and the link in it. It's not about article content. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Why would readers be reading an edit summary? Slatersteven (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

1- some definitely would, after seeing the History tab; one such group would be VCS users. (My case.)

2- since it happens in change comments, I would be very surprised if it didn't also happen in talk pages, which readers definitely use: see all feedback, suggestions, and edit requests. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 18:15, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

It is also hard to see what issue you are talking about, when and how could we be uncivil to readers? Slatersteven (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

By calling reader interpretation "inexplicable". Saying "I can't explain it" would be a statement of fact, and in part at least about the editor's own abilities. OTOH, "inexplicable" is wholly opinion ("no one could explain") and, by its detachment from specific editors' abilities, about the readers only. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Is that referring to readers or editors? Slatersteven (talk) 18:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

If by "that" you mean the comment you're replying to, it's referring to editors failing to be civil to readers, so "both". If you meant something else, please clarify. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 19:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean what we are talking about, how was that edit summary uncivil to the reader, how do we know they meant the reader? Slatersteven (talk) 09:39, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

For this change specifically: note any casual reader in this reply on the talk page, which I understand as leading directly to the change. But asking is better than speculating. Should we ask White_whirlwind whose confusion they called inexplicable?

In general, I would note that all editors are also readers to some extent, and despite over 1500 changes to the articles space I'm primarily a reader. When I first edit an article, it's because I spotted a need for copy editing or proofreading while reading it. I can't tell which proportion of editors fit this profile, but I doubt I'm the only one. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 00:09, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

This could be an example: And anybody who distrusts governments because of what the Nazis did must be extremely stupid. I think some readers that may read this and belong in the targeted set would feel offended. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 18:35, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Feedback proposal

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#To create an Editor Communication Feedback noticeboard that may be of your interest. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Off-Wiki behaviour

I am sure this issue has been raised several times and I'd like someone to point me to the relevant guideline, discussion or ArbCom decision.

Short of harassment (WP:OWH), does WP:CIVIL apply also to off-wiki behaviour? Apparently it doesn't, if I'm not mistaken: Wikipedia's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Wikipedia and so they apply in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians only when they take place on Wikipedia.

A couple of hypothetical examples to clarify the issue:

A) Twitting or posting on a social media something like "Those morons at Wikipedia deleted my article! I'm sure someone is paying them" (without naming editors) - violates WP:AGF - is this sanctionable?

B) "User:Whatever is most blatant rightwing/leftwing POV-pusher I have ever encountered" on a blog or social media (without doxxing) - can this off-wiki personal attacks be sanctioned as such, or can it only be considered an "aggravating factor" in the case of an on-Wiki dispute?

If anyone could link a discussion where this issue came up, I'd be grateful. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would be against this, as (for a start) how do you prove who they are here? Slatersteven (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Let's assume this is not controversial, so as to focus on the principle rather than on the practicalities of its enforcement. We know for a fact that User:Somene posted on twitter that User:Gitz6666 is an idiot (this never happened: it's purely hypothetical). I understand that in principle this is none of the admins' business, right? The sentence Wikipedia's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Wikipedia, including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians can be interpreted in two ways, if I'm not wrong:

1) "Wikipedia's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Wikipedia (including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians)" > a contrario, they don't apply to interactions outside WP.

2) "Wikipedia's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Wikipedia (including discussions at user and article talk pages), in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" > they apply to "discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" taking place outside WP.

I believe that 2 is wrong. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Anti-religious bigotry

There's a huge long discussion at WP:VPP about how editors handle certain types of religious content. (No, please, don't add to it. Really. But pinging the most active participants: @Bon courage, Warrenmck, Horse Eye's Back, SamuelRiv, jps, Hydrangeans, Firefangledfeathers, Loki)

I've run across a talk page comment in which an editor declared "Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking", and when I pushed back against this inappropriate comment, he doubled down, saying that his belief is "a very good one. The moral very high ground in fact. Also it's not bigotry".

I'm wondering if it might help, in a long-term kind of way, to mention anti-religious comments in this policy as something the community does not need more of. There's a list of "direct rudeness" that begins this way:

1. rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross profanity or indecent suggestions
2. personal attacks, including racial, ethnic, sexual, disability-related, gender-related and religious slurs, and derogatory references to groups such as social classes or nationalities

and while I believe this falls into the "insults" category (but not necessarily into "personal attacks", as that is generally interpreted as requiring a comment to be directed at an individual, or "religious slurs", because they're individually polite words), I doubt whether someone who believes himself to be expressing "righteous disapproval" of "evil" would be able to see his actions in that mirror. Consequently, I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy. However, I don't want to see genuine content discussions derailed ("My religion says it's turtles all the way down, and it's a violation of WP:CIVIL to say that the Earth moves through space due to inertia and gravitational attraction"). What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hard needle to thread. I'm not sure I would describe the comment you saw as inappropriate, but I understand why someone might. Part of the problem I have with our civility policy is that it doesn't really account for differences of opinions as to what is civil and what is not. A better outcome when someone says something like this would be to have a difficult discussion where there was a meeting of minds so that each person could actually come to an understanding of the other's position. Even if opinions did not change about whether and how one's comments might be civil or uncivil; right or wrong, there should at least be an acknowledgement than in a pluralistic environment like Wikipedia you have to work with others who do not share your perspective.

As such, I would not really be thrilled with an expansion of this policy in that direction. But, then again, I never liked this policy in the first place so I'm probably not the right community member to consult on this matter.

jps (talk) 00:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that coming to a mutual understanding is the goal. (It'd be a fine goal for social media, which seems to be catastrophically bad at it.) I think a more relevant goal would be: if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject.

I remember seeing a case at ANI a long time ago. A (presumably white) editor posted something like "Boy, you sure screwed up there" or "You've been a busy little boy today". A (self-identified) Black man told him not to address him as a "boy", because Boy#Race is a thing. The first editor acted like the feelings of the person he was speaking to, not to mention the uninvolved people reading the comments, didn't matter. Except, you know, they do. He could have just said "Sorry, didn't know" and stopped repeating the offensive content. Or just stopped repeating it. It's not that hard to stop poking people's sore spots when they've told you to stop it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject. I actually think mandating an apology whenever someone tells you that you are being bigoted would be an improvement over the current civility policy of just "be civil, but we're not going to be clear what that means -- you just have to navigate the community yourself." This is somewhat different than your original suggestion, of course. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

That sounds ambitious.

It reminds me of m:So you've made a mistake and it's public..., which is IMO excellent and which you might be interested in reading, if you haven't seen it before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that would be stretching civility to mean "don't say anything that might offend anyone" which is not possible and not desirable. This is not yet Wokepedia. Johnuniq (talk) 00:24, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Ambivalent about the central question, but wouldn't WP:NOTAFORUM cover the comment at the top? And if someone too frequently posts citation-free rants about religion on a talk page, I presume they can be dealt with via WP:DE, et al. Putting that aside, wouldn't "religion is the domain of confused, old an illogical thinking", which is very clearly directed at a religion rather than any specific editors, be the same as strongly criticizing absolutely any subject that someone has made part of their core identity, whether religion, politics, or fandom? I know people who take it very personally when Taylor Swift or Donald Trump or Lord of the Rings are insulted, for example. As long as we're talking about the thing itself and not a specific believer/supporter/fan, it seems like we're in the realm of WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:DE rather than WP:CIVILITY... although I'm sure there are some obvious gray areas. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I also think NOTAFORUM would apply, since it's really off topic.

I don't think this is equivalent to the Swifties. I think this could well be equivalent to saying that Trump supporters are stupid. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy.: Perhaps we could use language inspired by the Inclusivity principle of the Wikimedia Movement Charter, which I think addresses why the type of language mentioned in OP is inappropriate for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community: The Wikimedia projects are developed in many languages, reflecting many regions and cultures. All activities are based on mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement. This respect is enforced through measures to support safety and inclusion. The quoted editor's insistence that saying Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking is The moral very high ground in fact is rather plainly contrary to the principle of mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement. Wikimedia and Wikipedia are international projects, and our movement charter sets an expectation of respect for the plurality of cultural backgrounds that exist throughout the world. We should no sooner tolerate behavior like the quote in the OP than we should tolerate it if the same had been said of other manifestations of experience and/or culture. That's to say that lots of other formulations along these lines would be just as wrong and we should have just as little tolerance for them (which is to say, we shouldn't tolerate such intolerance); for examples:

• Religion The Middle East is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's orientalism)
• Religion is Women are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's misogyny)
• Religion is The elderly are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ageism)
• Religion The working class is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's class discrimination)

I don't think expressing sentiments like these—whether about religion generally, specific religions, or forms of identity or culture other than religion—in vague terms makes it okay. It still inhibits the creation of a respectful, collegial editing environment. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Your comparison to other subjects highlights the difference that struck me, too. When he says this about religion, we accept it. If he said the same thing about (e.g.,) "Jews" or "gay people" or "Black people", we'd be in insta-block territory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes... but what if he had said "My grandfather on his death bed was in the domain of the confused, old and illogical thinking". There is a legitimate question as to whether the claim at issue is actually true or not. The problem with the other examples is that they are demonstrably false generalizations. Is the identification of religion writ large as the domain of confused, old, and illogical thinking an incorrect generalization? It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be. For certain definitions, it is absolutely incorrect. But for others (for example, those definitions which define a religion to be those ideas which are a part of confused, old, and illogical thinking), then it is not really so much bigoted as it is a truism? jps (talk) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

An individual grandfather is not 'the elderly', which is an entire category of people. And if It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be, I'm not sure how that'd be anything more than word games. I'd hardly think it all that justified if someone were say on Wikipedia 'Jews are stingy' and then defend themselves by explaining that when they say 'Jews' they personally define that to only mean people who supposedly really are penny-pinching. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:27, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Because there are legitimate definitions of religion which deal with the hard-to-demonstrate aspects of the idea. After all, "religion" as a category is a difficult-to-define construct when we get right down to it, and it is even vaguely Eurocentric. A comparison to the category of Jews just doesn't work as far as I'm concerned because there is no argument about whether and how antisemitic stereotypes are definitional for Jews except in utterly bigoted contexts. I suppose you might argue that studies of comparative religion or philosophy of religion are utterly bigoted contexts, but I don't think that is a normal tack. jps (talk) 02:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

There are many legitimate definitions of religion, and it is hard to define and rooted in Eurocentrism. But I'm hard pressed to consider the example ('confused' and 'old') as being like any of the academically legitimate definitions. Bruce Lincoln says that religion is the desire to speak of things eternal and transcendent; Robert Orsi says religion is what human beings do, for, and against the gods; Clifford Geertz says religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in people; Talal Asad says religion is everything the modern state can afford to let go; one could go on. These are legitimate definitions. By comparison, 'the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking', meanwhile, is an expression of bigotry. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you are on some level right about differences in targets, though I have also seen similarly dismissive and derisive sentiments expressed without much community pushback and no administrative censure about transgender people and topics, or, in the words of others*, "nutty academics [...] with all their postmodernist queer theory" and "ideologues" with whom supposedly "[n]o dissent is brooked". From some points of view it's an unintuitive Venn diagram, though not an unprecedented one.

*I can provide the links to these quotations on request but did not do so in the original post since this thread is not about specific individual editors' behavior but rather about whether the civility policy can be expanded to clarify a community consensus against expressing bigotry.

Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Deciding whether to bring someone into a conversation as a "bad example" is such a tricky thing. You need concrete examples, or some editors won't believe that the comments actually happened. (I once had a wiki-friend – a woman I really like and whose editing was superb – say that she couldn't quite believe that oversight-worthy sexual harassment ever happened, because whenever someone mentioned an example, the oversight volunteers had always cleaned it up before she got there.) But when someone's comment is accidental, or being used as merely one example, then I think it's kind of mean to rub their faces in it, especially if they're less experienced than you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

"Religion" isn't analogous to "The Middle East" or "Jews". If we're going in that direction, it's analogous to "earth" or "people". If we got more specific and said e.g. "Christianity is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking" I'd be more sympathetic to the comparison. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I am sure some people interpret "religion" with metonymy, though, as in "religious people are...." jps (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. If you hear a statement about a stereotype, like "Mental illness is the domain of delusions and violence", one tends to read this as a claim about how people with mental health conditions interact with others, and not about what happens to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

But it's a key skill in intellectual endeavours of all sorts to be able to dissociate statements about concepts, ideas and things from statements about people (especially about oneself). Ultimately Wikipedia editing is an activity based in the propagation of knowledge whereas in some aspects religion lies in the realm of antiknowledge (rather, there is 'faith'). Thus there is always going to be a tension between (say) an encyclopedia that insists on asserting the Earth is not 6,000 years old and a fundamentalist Christian who might feel attacked by that knowledge. It in no way means Wikipedia should extend special treatment to any concept merely because of some religious association. But this doesn't mean either that Wikipedia or Wikipedians should be banging on about these tensions in a tedious Dawkinsesque manner. Bon courage (talk) 06:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sort of of two minds here, because two things are simultaneously true:

1. A lot of articles on obscure religious topics make WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims that are not supported by secular sources, this is bad, and we should be much more vigorous in trying to fix it.

2. Many editors that deal with WP:FRINGE topics have a sort of hyperskeptical attitude that tends to lead to WP:NPOV problems when writing about religion or religious belief. (Would I call this "anti-religious bigotry"? Absolutely not, I don't think that exists. But it definitely can lead to tone issues when writing about religion.) Loki (talk) 03:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that in accusing @Lycurgus: of anti-religious bigotry you've crossed over the civility line yourself. Looking at the context on Talk:Celibacy its hard to see your side here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Probably this revolves around the distinction between ideas and people. In general it's ok to be dismissive of certain religion-associated ideas (miracles, supernatural beings, fake history, etc.) there is no need to extend that to being dismissive about people who might have faith in those ideas. It's fallacious to argue that "religion" should have some kind of protected characteristic in the same way as a certain group of people (women, Jews ...) because "religion" is a big umbrella term not a group of people. Bon courage (talk) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the context on Talk:Celibacy its hard to see your side here: What I see looking at that thread is WhatamIdoing offering respectful clarification, and looking at this thread I notice WhatamIdoing deciding to make the discussion about a general idea rather than a specific editor, unlike your approach of personalizing the matter and unnecessarily turning up the temperature. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)