[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[FT2]

I'm openly in support of a strong civility ethos - but it can't be a gamed
one where some can and others can't. A community like this can't have some
who can do stuff with impunity and others who'll get blocked for the same
stuff. A good ethos matters; a policy is just words in comparison.

The aim of a civility ethos/policy (if it can be said to have an aim) is
roughly this:

   - When people speak rudely, others tend to get defensive, feel attacked,
   and often over-react. Others get dragged in to the incipient drama to
   "defend" rather than to "resolve". It encourages "heat" and not "light" to
   do so.
   - Most users wish to contribute content. They see disputes as undesirable
   and an obstruction to that. When a dispute arises, it can poison the
   atmosphere or discourage or de-motivate others as a result.
   - People are realistic, they know there will be disagreement, often
   strongly. But seeing people behave like children and speaking in a rude
   offensive manner, may be demotivating. Especially, being spoken to that way
   can be.
   - Politeness - as an affirmative choice - tends to hold the emotional
   temperature down. It helps disputes to be resolved calmer if people are not
   uptight and heated. It may not stop users misbehaving (eg civil edit
   warring) but a general policy of disallowing disrespectful speech will
   almost always have some positive effect.


The thing about a policy is, it needs wide and level enforcement. How many
of the current concerns, I wonder, would be addressed, if admins were
actively expected to enact a high level of good conduct? If there were norms
like "do not intervene in a dispute between others except to help settle it
according to communal norms and support good quality resolution"?

While some poor conduct is unavoidable, a lot would be improved if more
users considered themselves responsible for avoiding "heating" speech in
favor of "lighting" speech. Especially, a double standard for admins (or
arbs, or established content writers) is not okay - users have the right to
expect more, not less, from such trusted users.

FT2





On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 12:54 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/8/12 George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:
> > The poll can tell us that a lot of people, enough that it's probably
> > statistically significant as a sample (albeit self selected), are
> > concerned about the component issues.
>
> Lots of people are concerned about the health effects of telephone
> masts, the connection between MMR vaccines and autism, the dangers of
> leaving electric fans on overnight, etc., etc.. That doesn't mean any
> of them are actually serious problems.
>
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