Wikipedia:Civility
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wikipedia:Civility".

This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

Shortcuts: WP:CIV WP:CIVIL WP:CIVILITY

This page in a nutshell: Participate in a respectful and civil way. Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of others. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and avoid upsetting people wherever possible.

Civility is a code of conduct for editing on all Wikipedias. Wikipedians define incivility roughly as, personally-targeted, belligerent behavior and persistent rudeness that results in an atmosphere of conflict and stress. Our code of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another.

Our Wikipedia community has a number of core principles, developed through experience. The most important states that articles should be written from a neutral point of view. After that, we request a reasonable degree of civility towards others. "Civility" is a principle that we can apply to online conduct, and is a reasonable way to distinguish acceptable conduct from unacceptable conduct.

It is accepted that editors are human, and a few, minor, isolated incidents are not in themselves a problem. A pattern of gross incivility, however, is highly disruptive, and may result in warnings or blocks. Of course, one single act of incivility can also cross the line if bad enough; for instance, an egregious personal attack, a threat against another person, or severe profanity directed against another contributor are all excessive enough that they may result in a block without any need to consider the pattern.

However, this policy is not meant to be used as a weapon against other contributors. Insisting that an editor be sanctioned for an isolated, minor offense, or treating constructive criticism as an attack is also disruptive, and may result in you being warned or blocked.

Co-operation and civility

See also: Wikipedia:Consensus

Wikipedia invites editors to improve its text, but often there are differences of opinion on whether a change in text is an "improvement". Editors, in trying to be clear, can be unnecessarily harsh. Conversely, editors can also be oversensitive when they see their contribution replaced by something that claims to be "better", despite a possible difference of opinion as to whether the replacement was truly an improvement.

Silent and faceless words on talk pages and in edit summaries do not transmit fully the nuances of verbal conversation, sometimes leading to misinterpretation of an editor's comments. An uncivil remark can easily escalate into a heated discussion, not focusing objectively on the problem at hand. These exchanges waste our efforts, because community members may become interested in "triumphing" over the "enemy", rather than improving the article, and other articles. Try to solve possible disagreements through a civil discussion.

Editors are expected to remain civil, refrain from making personal attacks, operate within the scope of policies, and are urged to be responsive to good-faith questions.

Engaging in incivility

See also: Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts; Wikipedia:No personal attacks

These behaviours can all contribute to an uncivil environment:

• Rudeness.
• Insults and name calling. Comment on the actions and not the editor.
• Referring to other editors' good-faith changes as vandalism.^[1] (See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what constitutes vandalism on Wikipedia)
• Judgmental tone in edit summaries ("snipped rambling crap") or talk page posts ("that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen").
• Gross profanity directed at another contributor.
• Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice.
• Taunting; deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves.
• Ill-considered accusations of impropriety when calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel.
• Lies; deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page so as to mislead one or more editors.
• Quoting another editor out-of-context in order to give the impression that they hold views they do not hold, or in order to malign them.
• Indecent suggestions.
• Making personal attacks, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs.
• Using derogatory language towards other contributors or in general referring to groups such as social classes, nationalities, ethnic groups, religious groups, or others in a derogatory manner.

Why is incivility inappropriate?

See also Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Incivility creates a hot, unfriendly space and a sense of threat; with civility, there's respect and a sense of safety and collegiality between all concerned, producing ample room for negotiation. Incivility puts people on the defensive, closing their minds to other ideas and preventing a consensus from forming.

More seriously, it makes people unhappy, and their discouragement could lead to departure from Wikipedia. Because Wikipedia is at heart an online community, to maintain the effectiveness of the community, all members must be civil to one another and remember why they have joined the community in the first place. Create an environment that supports other editors, and that does not encourage or support breaches of incivility. Editors can apply peer pressure by voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility happens. All contributors are expected to assume good faith towards each other (within reason), in order to try and uphold a reasonably civil atmosphere.

When and why does incivility happen?

See also: Wikipedia:Wikiquette

Incivility happens, for example, when you are creating a new page, and another user tells you, "If you're going to write a pointless page, could you spell-check it?" And escalation occurs when you reply, "Get lost!" This style of interaction between Wikipedians drives away contributors, distracts others from more important matters, and weakens the entire community.

Incivility can occur during an edit war, when editors have different opinions, or when there is a conflict based on power.

As the community grows larger, editors may not know all other editors, and may not perceive the importance of each individual to the project.

In a larger community editors may be more able to hide less than positive reputations than is possible in a smaller community.

Sometimes, a particularly impolite user joins the project. This can also aggravate other editors, and impair the collaborative environment. Editors may find themselves becoming upset in such an environment, and may themselves engage in less than civil behaviour.

Editors may use insults in the heat of the moment during a longer conflict. The person who made the insult may regret having used such words afterwards.

In other cases, insults may be deliberate and could be used to either distract other editors from the issue, or to simply drive them away from working on the article or even from the Wikipedia project itself.

It is also reasonable to assume that certain editors may lack civility under pressure of external variables in their personal life, or lack of sleep, which generally lowers one's capacity for judgement, and can lead to speaking your mind in socially unacceptable ways. Take a break from the issue if your judgment may be lowered by any of these factors.

Harassment and disclosing personal information (outing)

See also: Wikipedia:Harassment and Wikipedia:Outing

Harassment occurs when a particular user is "targeted" by another editor, and may include any untoward attention such as seeking to communicate inappropriately with that user, or contacting other persons (either on- or off-wiki) in order to cause harm to that user. Repeated instances of incivility, if unchecked, can also constitute harassment.

Because of privacy concerns, which apply to the Internet in general, editors (users) are encouraged not to supply superfluous identifying information about themselves, such as home address or telephone number. This minimizes the likelihood of spamming or harassment by outside parties. If personal information becomes available in such a way as to constitute a risk of harm to a user, the information can be deleted or Oversighted if necessary.

Outing occurs when a particular editor's personal information is revealed by another editor without their explicit permission.

Editors who harass other users, publicly disclose personal information on another user, or enable the harassment of a user, may be blocked for doing so.

Dispute resolution

See also: Dispute resolution

In a case of ongoing incivility, consider discussing it on that user's talk page, not to escalate the situation, but to explain your objection. You may also wish to include a diff of the specific uncivil statement. If the incivility is unresolved, a user conduct Request for Comment is for discussing specific users who have violated Wikipedia policies and guidelines. An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors.

For death threats, racist attacks, legal threats, threats of violence, and other cases where immediate action is required, use the Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents page to contact the site's admins.

The Arbitration committee has given this advice to editors: pursue disputes in a civil manner designed to contribute to resolution and to cause minimal disruption.

No legal threats

See: Wikipedia:No legal threats

You should always first attempt to resolve disputes using Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures.

If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so. However, we require that you do not edit Wikipedia until the legal matter has been resolved to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels.

Removal of uncivil comments

See also: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines

Only in the most serious of circumstances should an editor replace or edit a comment made by another editor. Only in the event of something that can cause actual damage in the real world should this be the first step (i.e., disclosing the name, address or phone number of an opponent). In the event of rudeness or incivility on the part of an editor, it is appropriate to discuss the wording with that editor, and to request that editor to change them, but it is not appropriate to make another editor appear to be more courteous than he truly is.

Should removing a comment be necessary, or you wish to remove your own uncivil comments, the following suggestions set out the ways in which this may be done:

• Simply remove the offensive comments from talk pages (since they remain in the page history, anyone can find them again or refer to them later on). This is appropriate if the words appear to be vandalism.^[2]
• Delete (entirely and permanently) an edit made by the offender (requires technical help).
• Permanently delete an offensive comment made on the mailing lists (requires technical help).
• Replace a comment made in an edit summary by another less offensive comment (requires technical help).

Considerations concerning civility

See also:Wikipedia:Etiquette

These sections set out suggestions for improving civility further.

Preventing incivility within Wikipedia

• Prevent edit wars and conflict between individuals (the project sets editing constraints — essentially a community answer)
• Force delays between answers to give time to editors to calm down, and to avoid further escalation of a conflict (protecting pages)
• Use positive feedback (praising those who do not respond to incivility with incivility)
• Apply peer pressure (voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility happens)
• Solve the root of the conflict between the offender and the other editor(s) or the community — or find a compromise.
• Use negative feedback (suggesting that an editor involved in conflict should leave a conflict or even temporarily avoid all controversial areas in Wikipedia). It may be worthwhile making such suggestions to both sides of the conflict.
• Have certain users refrain from editing specific pages that often trigger incivility.

Reducing the impact

• Balance criticisms by providing a constructive comment as well.
• Do not reply to offensive comments. Forget about them. Forgive the editor. Do not escalate the conflict (an individual approach which allows a user to remain uninvolved).
• Alternatively, respond to perceived incivility with greater civility and respect. Many editors will then moderate their tone to match yours.
• Please. Thank you. I'm sorry. You're welcome. You're a good person and I know we'll work this out. Treat your fellow editor as a respected and admired colleague, who is working in collaboration with you on an important project.
• Walk away. Wikipedia is a very big place. Just go edit somewhere else for a while and return when tempers have cooled.
• You do not have to like an editor as a person, to appreciate that they are also working for the good of the project. If you do not like a fellow editor, try not to hold that fact against them.

Suggest apologizing

See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette; Wikipedia:Be nice

Mediation regularly involves disputes in which one party feels injured by the other. The apology is a form of ritual exchange between both parties, where words are said that allow reconciliation.

For some people, it may be crucial to receive an apology from those who have offended them. For this reason, a sincere apology is often the key to the resolution of a conflict: an apology is a symbol of forgiveness. An apology is very much recommended when one person's perceived incivility has offended another.

Footnotes

1. ^ Use your best judgment when sending warnings of vandalism and using templates. Poor judgement might lead to templates being posted without due investigation and in error which can leave another User unfairly branded and unhappy. (The removal of a warning template from a user talk page is considered as an indication that the warning will be heeded, and acted upon appropriately, by the appropriate User.)
2. ^ Revert an edit with &bot=1, so that the edit made by the offender appears invisible in Recent Changes (do-able on ip contributions, requires technical help for logged-in user).

See also

• Ethic of reciprocity
• Wikipedia:Honesty
• Wikipedia:An uncivil environment is a poor environment