[Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki

Ryan Kaldari rkaldari at wikimedia.org
Wed Oct 26 05:06:54 UTC 2011


Earlier today, a long-standing editor was reported to AN/I for making 
personal attacks. The specific attacks were the following two posts:
"You simply display your ignorance."
"Please carry on, so everyone can see what an ignorant arse you are."

As I had recently warned this same user for making personal attacks, and 
they have a long history of attacking other editors (blocked 4 times 
previously for personal attacks), I put a 24 hour block on their account 
for violating WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.

Even though this seems like a pretty minor slap on the wrist, my block 
was quickly undone by another admin and a slew of editors then 
vociferously attacked me for blocking (calling me a "petty tyrant", a 
"wannabe big-dick admin", etc.).

I looked more carefully at the editor's block log and noticed that every 
one of their blocks for personal attacks had been undone by another 
admin (usually without much delay).

This seems to say a lot about the current culture of en.wiki. Namely, 
that WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA are not taken seriously by our community (or at 
least a large percentage). As civility seems to be a recurring issue in 
gendergap discussions (and Sarah's recent survey), I was wondering what 
people's thoughts on this issue are. Has en.wiki become a toxic 
environment or am I just overreacting to normal behavior?

Ryan Kaldari



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