[Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki

[Risker]

Ryan, you are a kind and good person. So forgive me for having to be
truthful here.

Not once in the history of Wikipedia has a 24-hour block for civility
problems ever resulted in the blocked editor becoming more civil.  Instead,
it is almost guaranteed to result in their being *less* civil. I don't even
need to know the name of the editor you blocked to know that with each
subsequent civility block, he's become more uncivil.    The reason is, I'm
afraid, terribly obvious.  You've treated him like a five-year-old and made
him sit on the naughty step - and let's be honest, that barely works with
five-year-olds.  Treating an adult in that way can be counted on to have an
even more dramatically perverse effect than it does on a child.

A six-month civility block may be appropriate, with a clear directive that
the block could be extended promptly with return to treating people poorly.
But a six month block for this kind of behaviour is much easier to defend
than a 24 hour one, given the fact that short blocks for civility problems
create more incivility than they've ever solved.

Now, I won't be very popular for saying this.  Yes, I think that civility is
important. But attempting to discipline adults in the same way as small
children is pretty uncivil too.  If the behavior is that bad, then the
person needs to be shown the door, not the naughty step.


Risker/Anne

On 26 October 2011 01:06, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 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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