Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks/Temp

Purpose

Personal attacks are not allowed on Wikipedia. Repeat offenders can be reported to the administration and temporarily or even permanently banned.

Disciplinary proceedings, however, do not repair all the damage caused by the personal attack. Many discussion threads continue for a long period and/or are archived for future reference. The personal attacks may continue to contribute to a deteriorating discussion climate, to edit wars and even to intimidation of other users from participating in the debate. Personal attacks obscure the fact-based discussion and have a demonstrated tendency to reduce the discussion to a morass of accusations and counter-accusations. The damage can continue long after the attack was made and in some cases even after the attacker gets banned.

In certain limited circumstances, it can be beneficial to remove the personal attack from the discussion thread.

Limitations and qualifiers

1. Before removing a personal attack, make sure that you start with your own. Removing the personal attacks of others while continuing to make inflammatory comments may result in a perception that you are attempting to bias the discussion.
2. Remove only the personal attack. Do not remove any facts presented or any opinions which are relevant to the discussion (even if they are hostile opinions). See the examples below.
3. Do not destroy the context of the discussion. All statements in the discussion should still make sense after the edit. For example, if you refactor a personal insult but do not refactor an insulting response, you will have destroyed the context in which the response was made. Likewise, if you remove a comparatively mild comment, you may leave future readers with the impression that the offense was much more serious than it was.
4. Do not attempt to hide the fact that a personal attack was made or that it was removed. See the suggested techniques below.
5. If the personal attack was directed against you, consider letting some third party make the edit. Again, this reduces the perception of possible bias.
6. If an edit was made citing this rule but it was not a personal attack, revert the edit. Both interested parties (alleged attacker and alleged victim) should defer to the judgment of a third party in the case of disputed interpretations.
7. Many users consider it a good idea to refactor later - wait until the passions have cooled a bit and then clean-up the discussion. A premature or hasty removal of a comment can actually inflame the discussion rather than cool it. The decision about when to remove a personal attack should be made carefully and in the context of the current state of the discussion. Be prepared to have the edit reverted if others consider it controversial.
8. This policy only concerns comments on talk and discussion pages. Personal attacks on article pages should simply be edited in accordance with the NPOV guidelines.

Examples of personal attacks

Personal attacks are the parts of a comment which can be considered personally offensive and which have no relevant factual content. Examples:

• "You moron!"
• "Your prose is horrible, it could have been written by a third grader."
• "Once again, you have shown that you have no interest in being neutral."
• "You clearly don't know what you are talking about."
• "This is just typical of you and your ilk."

Counter examples

The following are not personal attacks -- they are not nice, but they are not covered by this guideline no matter how much you personally want to remove the comment:

"This article is complete crap."	Though this comment is not terribly constructive, it is unlikely to refer to a specific author. (It could, however, be considered personally offensive if there is only one author.)
"Wrong! Kaiser Wilhelm was never in Malaysia, and if he had been, he would not have worn a woman's dress!"	This comment is factual and not personal. The exclamation marks are, however, bad style: Kaiser Wilhelm's clothing habits aren't that exciting.
"User:Padberson is a sock puppet of banned User:Badperson"	This is not a personal attack but an allegation of policy violation. Unless the allegation is patently baseless and made in spite, we should assume good faith that the person making the allegation believed it to be true.
"GOOGLE IT BEFORE YOU ..."	This is a specific statement of opinion about the fact-checking of another editor combined with an allegation that a "google search" will reveal counter-evidence. However, shouting (use of ALLCAPS) tends to inflame discussions and is considered bad form.
"You Wikipedians can't get anything right."	This is ambiguous. It is a collective insult and might not be considered a personal attack. On the other hand, it's entirely pointless - criticism of wikipedia as a whole should be taken to wikipedia:replies.

How to remove the personal attack

For short comments, replace the personal attack with the piped link (personal attack removed) ([[Wikipedia:No personal attacks|(personal attack removed)]]) and a good edit summary. This technique preserves a clear record that an edit was made to the comment of another. Any future reader/editors can easily review the edit to confirm that the edit was made in good faith and was appropriate in the circumstance.

In some cases, you may have to refactor the entire discussion. This can be useful when sanitizing an entire flame war. Put a disclaimer on the top and link to the pre-refactored text in the page history, then follow the general guidelines for refactoring.

When a comment is part personal attack and part factual, the factual content must not be removed or changed. For example, "The claims about the dynasty are more of your usual nonsense." might be edited to "The claims about the dynasty are [incorrect] (personal attack removed)."

In some cases, it may be sufficient to strikeout the personal attack. (Bracket the attack with <s> and </s> which results in "You moron".) The comment remains visible and a part of the record but the strikeout can serve as a formal recognition that the comment was inappropriate. This is also an accepted way to retract a comment that you made without destroying the context of responses to the comment.

Note: If you use strikeout on the comments of another person, you must clearly note that you did so in order to distinguish your edit from a retraction by the original editor.

Answers to concerns

Can't we just ignore personal attacks?

Good editors certainly try but it is very difficult. Some users are comfortable with the rough-and-tumble interchange of, for example, Usenet but many Wikipedians are intimidated and offended by open hostility.

Furthermore, recent research has shown that social rejection elicits similar brain activity to physical attacks [1]. To oversimplify things, trying to ignore constant personal attacks can be like trying to ignore constantly being hit in the stomach. In case of non-physical attacks on Wikipedia, the intensity with which they are felt varies greatly by individual. What may seem simple to you may be very difficult to someone else.

Ignoring personal attacks also leaves them in the public record. They leave unfavorable impressions on future readers, harming the reputation of the participants and of Wikipedia generally.

Isn't editing another person's comment a kind of attack?

Only when that action is perceived as unilateral and without basis in policy. Politely refer the user to the No personal attacks page.

Remember that personal attacks are not allowed and users have been banned for making them repeatedly. Removing the personal attack is a significantly less drastic step than requesting a ban.

This is a wiki and all contributions are subject to being "edited mercilessly" within the boundaries that we have set for ourselves. Politely removing the personal attack can be a relatively non-confrontational way of showing the user that his/her behavior went over the line.

What if a user constantly breaks the rules?

Pointing out that a user is violating a rule is not a personal attack and should not be removed. (Example: "Your edit was in violation of our policy on names, see .."). Do avoid using terms like "violation" and be as kind as possible when dealing with first time offenders.

There is an established policy for dealing with repeat offenders. You can begin by following the dispute resolution process.

But I really mean it! That user is a jerk.

See Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot and try to talk calmly and reasonably to the user. When nothing else helps to remedy the behaviour you consider problematic, try using one of the established banning or mediation procedures.

How do we make sure that facts and context are not lost?

Most such edits are carefully reviewed by several people including those involved in the attack. Edits that change the facts or destroy the context, whether accidentally or intentionally, are quickly reverted or fixed by other reader/editors.

Aren't we rewriting history? Won't this make banning attackers harder?

No. Anyone who wants to see the full record can view all the prior revisions. The attack is still in the page history and can be linked directly to the old version of the page if necessary.