[Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki

[ChaoticFluffy]

There are, in my opinion, a certain number of toxic users on wikipedia, more
than there is a toxic environment as a whole. The person Kaldari blocked is
one of those people, but certainly not the only one. These people are
untouchable, as he quickly discovered, because any attempt to force them to
behave in a collegial manner is treated as an attack, and these people
cheerfully drive off other contributors - in this particular case, for
example, I deliberately avoid, and have for quite a while, touching articles
edited by the person Kaldari blocked, because I find aggression extremely
alarming, and it's not something I voluntarily put myself in for. Certainly
the encyclopedia isn't going to collapse without me editing that subset of
articles, but it's still a loss that shouldn't have to be taken.

The result of all this is that these vested contributors - and yes, they are
exactly that - are able to operate in a bubble that insulates them from
sanctions that would stick to nearly any other user. It's ugly, but it's
extremely common, and I could name four or five such people off the top of
my head, almost all people who fall back on "but I generate awesome
content!" as a reason they should be allowed to be jerks.

Risker is, however, very much correct that a 24 hour block was probably one
of the poorer choices Kaldari could have made. Not because a block wasn't
necessarily called for, but because 24 hours wasn't going to fix this
person, and was almost certain to leave them coming back even angrier, even
if all 24 hours were served. What's the solution? I don't know, because had
he had dropped a six-month or indef block, he'd be in the exact same
situation, only with the person's defenders calling him even *nastier*
names. The issue of vested, uncivil contributors is a long-term problem, and
one that the community has repeatedly failed to deal with, due to the split
of "enablers" vs "civility police" vs "people sick of seeing this guy
mentioned on ANI again and why won't everyone just shut up". The only way to
remove these people that has worked in the past has been via arbcom, with
enablers screaming bloody murder the whole way.

Pete Forsyth's strategy looks good on paper, but my feeling is that for this
particular *type* of uncivil editor (as opposed to your garden-variety
editor who happens to have lost his temper), an approach of something like
"you know, you're talking to real people, and your words can come across
somewhat hurtful to those people" is usually met with "I'm polite to people
I respect, and I don't respect those people", which is simply no solution at
all. Editors who see the right to not be yelled at or name-called as a
privilege someone has to earn, rather than as a default right, are, in my
opinion, not well-suited to wikipedia.

-Fluffernutter

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 1:06 AM, 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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