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{{notice|1=The initial ] essay was largely authored by ] and others at ] (, Jan-Feb. 2004). It was copied here and put into substantive form ("Civility") by ] (Feb. 2004), who earlier raised the issue on wikien-l. & (Oct. 4, 2003). In codified form, it was thereafter referenced as a statement of principle and soon after considered "]." <br>
{{WikiProject Policy and Guidelines}}
Long before the creation of the formal policy, ] raised the issue of "making more civil," , & (Nov. 2002) after reading ]'s essay ] (Mar. 2002). ] picked up on Larry's point (the last time they said anything nice to each other), and thereafter ] and others kept it alive, until the need for a formal policy came about in late 2003.}}<!--
{{notice|1=The initial ] essay was largely authored by ] and others at ] (], Jan-Feb. 2004). It was copied here and put into substantive form ("Civility") by ] (Feb. 2004), who earlier raised the issue on wikien-l. & (Oct. 4, 2003). In codified form, it was thereafter referenced as a statement of principle and soon after considered "]." <br>

Long before the creation of the formal policy, ] wrote his ], wherein certain points echo the idea of civility. ] raised the issue of "making more civil," , & (Nov. 2002) after reading ]'s essay ] (Mar. 2002). Jimbo Wales picked up on Sanger's point , and thereafter ] and others kept it alive, until the need for a formal policy came about in late 2003. Also, note a ] at the time in 2009.}}
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== Off-Wiki behaviour ==
== Back to the proposal for recodifying incivility ==

Dear colleagues

In June I proposed that it was high time the current list (in the yellow box below) be better organised (blue box below); people were generally supportive, although a few issues were raised. The proposal was overtaken by the Civility RfC and was ] without resolution. I have included the archived discussion in a click-and-show banner below, and under it I respond to the salient issues raised in that discussion. ] ] 01:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

{{Quote box2|halign=left|bgcolor=BlanchedAlmond|fontsize=100%|quote=The following behaviors can all contribute to an uncivil environment:
* Rudeness
* Insults and name-calling
* Judgmental tone in edit summaries (e.g. "snipped rambling crap") or talk-page posts ("that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen")
* Gross ] or indecent suggestions directed at another contributor
* Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
* ] or ]; deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves
* Ill-considered accusations of impropriety; for instance, calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel
* Lies, including deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page to mislead one or more editors
* Quoting another editor ] to give the impression that he or she holds views they do not hold, or to malign them
* Making ], including but not limited to racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
* Using derogatory language towards other contributors or, in general, referring to groups such as social classes, nationalities, ethnic groups, religious groups, or others in a derogatory manner
* ]
* Feigned incomprehension, "playing dumb"
* Attempts to publicly volunteer other people's time and effort for work they have not agreed to perform.}}

The proposal below (A) moves from the worst to the mildest (or at least does this a ''little'' better than it currently does); (B) conflates similar points; and (C) groups the points into their two logical categories—direct rudeness, and strategies—numbering the points for easier reference by admins and other editors. The wordings currently at issue are underlined.

{{Quote box2|halign=left|bgcolor=LightBlue|fontsize=100%|quote=It is sometimes difficult to make a hard-and-fast judgement of what is uncivil and what is not. Such a judgement may need to take into account such matters as (i) the intensity of the language/behavior; (ii) whether the behavior is one-off, occasional, or regular; (iii) whether a request has already been made to stop the behavior, and whether that request is recent; (iv) whether the behavior has been provoked; and (v) <s>where the behavior is repeatedly directed at the same editor(s),</s> the extent to which the behavior of others<s>, and issues of content,</s> need to be treated at the same time.

The following behaviors can all contribute to an uncivil environment:

'''1. Direct rudeness'''
*(a) Rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross ] or indecent suggestions, directed at another contributor;
*(b) ], including racial, ethnic, sexual and religious slurs, and references to groups such as social classes or nationalities in a derogatory manner;
*(c) Ill-considered accusations of impropriety<s>; for instance, calling someone a liar, or accusing them of slander or libel</s>;
*(d) Judgmental tone in edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "snipped rambling crap", "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen");
*(e) Belittling a contributor <s>because of their language skills or word choice</s>.

'''2. Other uncivil behaviors'''
*(a) ] or ]: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves
*(b) ];
*(c) Lying to mislead one or more editors, including deliberately asserting false information;
*(d) Quoting another editor ] to give the impression they hold views they do not hold, or to malign them;
*<s>(e) Publicly volunteering another person's time and effort for work they have not agreed to perform;</s>
*<s>(f) Feigned incomprehension ("playing dumb").</s>}}


Responses by Tony1 to the previous discussion, stored below:
*(1c) Carcharoth wondered whether, on occasion, calling someone a liar is better than ignoring what looks like a lie. In my view, calling someone a liar is a regrettable personalising that is likely to alienate; far better to question the ''statement'' rather than the ''person''. But removing "calling someone a liar" (and for that matter "accusing them of slander or libel" from 1c would be no big deal, since "ill-considered accusations of impropriety" covers this, and retains the "ill-considered" more strongly.
*(1e) "Belittling a contributor because of their language skills or word choice."—People are not happy with this, seeing it as inhibiting free discussion about language. IMO, the critical bit is "belittling", so why not retain that alone? "Belittling a contributor." (i.e., for any reason).
*(2e) Dabomb queried how publicly volunteering other people's time and effort for work they have not agreed to perform is "uncivil": I have no problem in removing this, since there's benefit in shortening the list, and surely it's covered by 2c. Carcharoth was concerned that "technically, using {{tl|sofixit}} might breach this, as would grumpily saying "well, do it yourself then!""—I think there's concern in this regard, since those examples are of directly ''asking'' or ''telling'' someone to perform a task rather than volunteering their time (including behind their back). As irritating as this might be to some rviewers at FAC, there's nothing one can do about it except to say "no thanks, I review".
*(2f) Carcharoth called into question what it means, and the difficulty of distinguishing genuine puzzlement / lack of understanding, from fakery. Vesal had concerns about this too. I must say that I agree with these concerns, and would be happy to see 2f go. Casliber linked to the relevant part of the ]; the issue, I think, is whether this bit needs to be expressed at policy level, or is good enough in that guideline alone.

{{hidden|contentstyle=border:1px solid #C0C0C0; |headerstyle=color:black; background: #C0C0C0; |header= Archived discussion of the blue proposal|content=</br>
:The second arrangement certainly seems to be clearer than the first. ] 05:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
::I too like the revision, more structure and easier to read. ] (] '''·''' ]) 20:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
:::an extremely good step. We should take care though not to suggest that the listing covers all the possibilities, and to emphasize that gross pursuit of lower level incivility can be as damaging as occasional outrages. ''']''' (]) 01:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
::::DGG, I believe your first concern (not all the possibilities) is covered in the lead ("can all contribute to"), which is non-exclusive. I would support your point about the undesirability of pursuing lower-level incivility (it partly depends on context, yes?), but I feel that should be treated in a separate discussion and a different section in the policy. Olive (section above), I take your point about the potential generality and specificity of terms such as "rudeness", but I think it is probably best that it appear on two levels (heading ''and'' first point). I think no editor will cite the whole of Section 1. "Direct rudeness" in support of a request that another editor "cool it" (more likely to nail it with a specific 1a, 1b, etc), but it's a useful structural distinction, contrasting with less direct linguistic behaviours. I'll leave it another few days before implementing this, to see if anyone else comments. ] ] 14:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::I like the reorganization of the list a lot. However, I have a question about one example: "Publicly volunteering other people's time and effort for work they have not agreed to perform;". How can this be considered "incivility", even if indirect? It's unethical, no doubt, but to say uncivil... ] (]) 14:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Playing devil's advocate here for a moment (though I like the above list), I'm wondering how genuine criticism can be made under the constraints given above. It is possible that genuine criticism can be twisted into being depicted as incivil, and thus criticism would be restricted to those who can dress it up in carefully chosen words (which would disenfranchise those who are more blunt, sometimes by choice, sometimes by not being as wordy in their language skills). Some examples:
*''"Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice"'' - belittling is not good, but sometimes issues like this ''can'' impede discussions, and there needs to be a way to point such things out without being accused of being incivil. Ironically, saying that someone is incivil becase they were blunt and used a particular word, instead of a flowery sentence to say the same thing, is itself incivil under this definition.
*''"calling someone a liar"'' - not nice, but sometimes the alternative (of ignoring what looks like a lie) is worse. The way this should be presented is "If you think someone is lying, what are the right and wrong ways to deal with it?".
*''"Publicly volunteering other people's time and effort for work they have not agreed to perform"'' - technically, using {{tl|sofixit}} might breach this, as would grumpily saying "well, do it yourself then!". Or is this referring to humorous comments like "Great idea! Glad to see you are volunteering to do this! :-)". But maybe I'm missing the point and this refers to something else entirely, such as actually listing someone as doing something, but listing them without their knowledge.
*''"Feigned incomprehension"'' - at the risk of being ironic, I don't have a clue what point is being made here. Sometimes people are genuinely puzzled, and a little explanation, while taking time, can help move things forward. Quite where you get from that to "feigned incomprehension", I'm not sure. This "obstructionist strategy" is certainly something I haven't encountered often, but then I generally just explain things when asked.
Apologies if the above points have been covered before. ] (]) 10:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

:Here is one - ], as far as the last one goes - a link'd be good too. ] (] '''·''' ]) 06:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:: I've never seen anyone feigning stupidity. A more common way of not getting the point is by ignoring stronger points of an argument and only responding and refuting less important parts of a posting. It is disrespectful to not pay sufficient attention to what other people post, and I find it equally frustrating when no effort is put into expressing oneself clearly and succinctly. I had the latter point to the policy page, but I believe it should be merged with this "refusal to get it", because the common theme is to respect the time that other people volunteer to this project. ] (]) 20:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
}}

====Renewed discussion====
Please contribute: ] ] 01:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

:I would tweak "Feigned incomprehension ("playing dumb")." to something more along the lines of "Feigned incomprehension ("playing dumb") or selectively ignoring key points in others' comments", and link to ], as they are similar phenomena.

:I do not have a problem with "Belittling" as the verb carries a connotation of snidness, ridicule or patronising tone within it. Trying to comment constructively on someone's habits and offering a solution is inherently different.

:Ultimately I '''support''' substituting the newer and easier to read version. ] (] '''·''' ]) 02:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

:I agree with the earlier comments about 2e and 2f. 2e is minor impoliteness at worst (e.g. SOFIXIT as a response--but perhaps you have something more serious in mind? and 2f is very hard to tell from a genuine incomprehension--it's sort of a variant of IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I think this is getting overspecific. I'm not comfortable with 2d--using someone's quotes out of context is sometimes a very borderline sort of thing and I think it too should not go on the policy page. But I'm still concerning with the "it's not on the list " sort of response. It would be necessary to say over and over again that the list is not exhaustive. ''']''' (]) 02:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
::WRT 2e, I agree with DGG; it's not proper ], but hardly blatantly disruptive or uncivil. Other than that, I like the revised list. ] (]) 02:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

:I too '''support''' the new list format, based on its improved organization and economy of words. I think item 2e can be safely omitted, as noted above, it's a subset of 2c and perhaps overly specific. Item 2f though should be kept and perhaps generalized to advise against any form of ] that could be misunderstood or contain partially-hidden insults. Regarding the note above that there may be a problem with 2f due to ''"difficulty of distinguishing genuine puzzlement / lack of understanding, from fakery. "'', I think that is why 2f is needed. If someone expresses puzzlement, the reader should not be expected to figure out if the person is faking or not. Expression of genuine puzzlement is of course not uncivil.--] (]) 06:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

:Two comments. First, the current policy appears to be written in American-English (behavior), but the new version mixes both American and British English; is there a reason why this was done? Second, can we find a better name for the second category, "Other X" feels like too vague a formulation. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 06:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
::Oops, can't turn off that automatised spelling in my brain: I hope "behaviour" was the only glitch. I've made it "Other uncivil behaviours". Any way of improving on that? ] ] 08:08, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

:I'm not crazy about ''(d) Judgmental tone in edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "snipped rambling crap", "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen");'', even though I agree with the main thrust. I frequently will delete material with an edit summary of "gibberish", which I suspect many people would think meets this criteria. The most recent example would be from an article. That certainly passed judgment on the text, and described it accurately: I couldn't repair the text because there was no way to even figure out what the editor was attempting to convey. I don't think it qualifies as being uncivil, though. We need language that distinguishes being judgmental towards an editor as opposed to having passed judgment on a piece of text. The first is off-limits, the second may or may not be reasonable.
:On a more minor issue: despite having been raised in America, "behavior" still looks silly to me. I note that Tony still couldn't make himself type it in his comment above.&mdash;](]) 12:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
*I would remove 2e and 2f as not really uncivil (and also somewhat redundant). However, I would include a warning that the list is ]. ] (]) 14:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
*I have one further comment, which I hope will show how difficult it is to interpret guidelines and policies about behaviour and conduct. Has anyone here (including Tony1, who wrote the original list) been accused of being incivil, and have you ever written anything that could, according to this list, be interpreted as incivil? If you have, do you agree that you were incivil or not? If you were, then what would you consider an appropriate response to what you said, both for a one-off incident and for repeated incidents showing a pattern? Rather than point at others (which might lead to incivilities), it would be best if people pointed at examples from their own editing history. I have been ''intemperate'' at times, but I hope I haven't been truly incivil. It does show, though, how things are in the eye of the beholder. I can guarantee that nearly everyone who has been accused of incivility has had a less rigid view of their own conduct than others have had of that same conduct. And vice-versa. In other words, it is very very difficult to be objective enough to say someone else is being incivil, and to then without bias apply the same standard to yourself. My view is that there should be a ''scale'' of incivil behaviours (maybe even one of those compass/square distributions to allow an orthogonal scale for how brief or chronic the problem is), rather than a single word "incivil" which is overused and overloaded with different meanings. ] (]) 09:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
::I assume that your point is that the interpretation of any guideline on civility—current or new—requires a number of factors to be weighed up; you mention one-off versus a continuing pattern; the intensity of the language. I wonder whether you are suggesting that this very point might appear in the lead to this codification. If so, I believe it's an additional, or at least a separable issue, that may well be decided on now. But a scale of uncivil behaviours seems to be getting into very complex territory for a written policy; do you have any suggestions? ] ] 11:11, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
:::A scale might well be unworkable, but the alternatives are a set of bright-line rules and grey areas where admins and others have to use their judgment on how to handle things. Stuff on a scale could include (in no particular order): gross profanity, intemperate remarks, chronic behaviour over weeks, months and years, one-off incidents rarely repeated (on a scale of years), low-frequency repetition (outbursts every few months), repeated incivility after earlier (not recent) requests to stop being incivil, outbursts on a user's own talk pages after being blocked or provoked, repeated incivility towards the same person. And those alleging such behaviour should clearly distinguish such types and provide diffs and context (though this is usually left out because it would implicate them as well). ] (]) 14:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Some of the things people should consider when looking at incivility: (1) What caused it? Ask the person what caused them to say that and find out what the context was. That should always be the first step. Don't assume you know everything. Trouble with this approach is that in fast-moving or widespread and escalating disputes, sometimes action is needed to stop things spreading further. (2) If there are problems other than civility, don't ignore those or concentrate on civility to the exclusion of everything else. In particular underlying content disputes need to be resolved. (3) If there is personal animosity between two users, they need to be called out on it and told to calm down or avoid each other, use dispute resolution or mediation, or talk things over (off-wiki if needed) and sort out any bad blood between them. (4) If there has been provocation or baiting or gaming of the civility policy, that should be dealt with as well. There's probably more, but I would hope that those dealing with civility complaints are aware of all the above. ] (]) 14:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
:So, if I understand you correctly, you think a substantial lead to this recodification is in order, setting out these matters that might weight on the interpretaiton of incivility in relation to it? If so, I suppose I could have a go at drafting it for the blue box above. I think it would serve a good purpose as guidance for admins in particular. Often, the administration of WP policies comes down to the balancing of several issues, and perhaps this should be given more official recognition. ] ] 14:44, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

In response to Carcharoth's concerns, I have bravely drafted a lead (blue box above) that attempts to outline the main judgemental parameters without getting into details that might be problematic in this overarching section. I think this makes the proposal more of a substantial change than the precision re-write it has been until now—please provide opinions. ] ] 13:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

:yeah, net positive I guess. If it serves a purpose in making someone stop and think a bit about some context before branding a behaviour as incivil or otherwise then it has done its job. ] (] '''·''' ]) 14:11, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

:I think the wording of point (v) could be improved, as the point about considering content issues applies everywhere, not just for point (v). I'm also (pedant mode here) wondering what the difference is between incivil, uncivil and non-civil? I also thought incivil was a word and uncivil wasn't, but maybe it has caught on? ] (]) 17:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
::I think you have it backwards. Incivility is a word; incivil is not a word. One can commit incivility by being uncivil, or by behaving uncivilly, but there's no such thing as "uncivility" or being "incivil." ] (]) 17:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
:::Oh. you are right. Of course, a better source would be good as well, but I've learnt something there, or I'm unlearning a bad habit I got from cries of "X is being incivil" on Misplaced Pages... See also ], ], and ]. ] (]) 21:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
::::I believe both "uncivil" and "invcivil" are acceptable, whereas the "in" must beused for "incivility". If we're down to spelling, the proposal must be nearly ready!
::::Point (v): it would be nice to simplify it, and the run-on from the lead clause is a little clunky. The first phrase and the bit about content could simply be excised. How is this?
:::::"and (v) <s>where the behavior is repeatedly directed at the same editor(s),</s> the extent to which the behavior of others<s>, and issues of content,</s> need to be treated at the same time."
::::The extent to which other people's behaviour needs to considered appears to accound for the direcdting of incivility to the same editor, and as Casliber says, by default involves a look at content. ] ] 01:49, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

*To me, the blue box is looking good now. I've attempted to integrate the comments of participants in this discussion, and I note that these editors are very experienced in dealing with civility issues at a high level. I hope no one minds if I implement the blue proposal late today; if there are problems, perhaps they can be sorted out subsequently; it's likely, I think, that there won't be problems. ] ] 02:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
:I recommend proceeding with the new version. There may be room for further improvement, but it's superior to the current version so there's no reason to wait longer. --] (]) 03:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

::I'm concerned about " Ill considered accusations of impropriety" which seems vague and maybe old fashioned, but I think this is a big improvement and would say go ahead. Is one-off meant to be one-of. Thanks Tony. Nice work leading this change.(] (]) 03:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC))
:::Thanks, Olive. "One-off" is standard and formal English, I hope. If not, it could be changed to "a single occurrence". "Ill-considered accusations of impropriety" ''could'' be reworded as "Accusations of impropriety without proper foundation." What u think? ] ] 05:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

::::I've never seen "one -off" used anywhere ... my problem... so I will certainly take your word for it. Also maybe "accusations of improper behaviour without proper foundation". I'm not attached to any version but probably like the "proper foundation" better than ill-considered as more accessible to understanding for more readers. Personally I like ill-considered better but it may be a little stilted. Anyway, your choice, and thanks for considering my comments.(] (]) 15:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC))

::::Probably too many "propers" in my example so why not ignore my comments and continue with "ill-considered".(] (]) 15:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC))

:Looking at the page for the first time (attention directed here from AN), my first reaction is that accusations of impropriety don't belong here, unless they are deliberately false. Most accusations of impropriety are made in good faith even when erroneous, and responding to one with a counter-accusation of incivility will just lead to a death spiral. For example, the current wording makes a complaint about deletion of warnings from a user's talk page into incivility -- it is only uncivil if the complainer knows that such deletions are permitted by policy. ] (]) 17:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

::And concerning "one-off", I'll second Olive's point: this is a wording that Americans never use and won't understand except by deduction. For Americans, "one-time" would work better. ] (]) 18:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
:::It's not something I've heard often, but I know very well what it means (I'm American, since it seems relevant here). Granted that I might be an exception. – <small>] (])</small> 08:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
::::I'm surprised at this debate: "one-off" is a normal part of my vocabulary, and I was raised in the states (and the preceding five or six generations were born there). Perhaps it's a regionalism? I also wish that someone would take my complaint about 1(d) seriously: making judgments about text is part of an editor's job, and it's unreasonable to say that it shouldn't show up in an edit summary. Only acting judgmental towards another editor should be considered a problem.&mdash;](]) 13:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Well, "one-off" has been replaced, since people did raise concerns about it. The policy needs to be an easy read. Kww, making judgments about text is sometimes hard to tease apart from the personal. If someone called my text "rambling crap", I'd find it a little painful personally, and I take ''encourage'' of my text. I don't think this interferes with normal criticism of text. It just needs to avoid extreme language and to take a "kinder" tone where possible. ] ] 13:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

===Pruning and tweaking needed===
*I think a good pruning is needed. I trimmed extraneous wording by striking through (except in a couple cases where i messed up. Not sure how to make this proposal in any other way I also added some comments on areas that are in need of expansion or clarification:
:(a) Rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross profanity or indecent suggestions<s>, directed at another contributor</s>
:(b) personal attacks, including racial, ethnic, sexual and religious slurs, and (insert: "derogatory") references to groups such as social classes or nationalities <s>in a derogatory manner</s>;
:(c) <s>Ill-considered</s> accusations of impropriety
:(d) Judgmental tone in edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "snipped rambling crap", "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen");
:(e) Belittling a contributor (combine with d)
*2. Other uncivil behaviors

:(a) Taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility <s>even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves </s>
:(b) Harassment; (needs clarification. I think this is a key point actually as, for example, the incessant posting of unwelcome comments and notices on an editor's talk page and in other discussions where they are involved is a common strategy to game the system, taunt, bait, and harass. The filing of numerous frivolous reports to hound an editor and to constantly keep them on the defensive and to smear them is also a common strategy deployed by abusive editors)
:(c) (trimmed a bit in front. I meant to strike it) Misleading one or more editors, including deliberately asserting false information;
:(d) Quoting another editor out-of-context to give the impression they hold views they do not hold, or to malign them; (I would add to misrepresent what they've said here. this is another common approach to go after editors. You take something they said out of context, perhaps a joke to a friend, and pretend it has insidious meaning and significance) ] (]) 21:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
*Perhaps suggestions on how to avoid doing these things would also be helpful. For instance suggesting saying a statement doesn't comply with a guideline or contradicts something istead of saying it's a lie or a misrepresentation. ] (]) 21:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

::Thanks, CoM—I've removed the struck-through bits you suggest, except for 2a "even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves" (seems to add important context), and 1c "ill-considered" (open to suggestions on that one, of course). Thank you. ] ] 01:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I remain concerned that a civility policy will always be open to interpretation, selective enforcement and gaming. But if we're going to have one it should at least be tight.
:::What does it mean that ill-considered accusations are uncivil? As long as editors are careful about thinking them through they're allowed? :) Maybe that one should just be dropped all together?
:::I think the mainfocus should be on making sure we focus on content rather than contributors, and that we encourage and demonstrate courteous, collegial, and respectful treatment of one another. There are just too many ways to say and do mean things to people without using any inappropriate language. ] (]) 02:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

:Not sure exactly where to put this, so I'll drop it clumsily at the bottom, here. :) When I first read the "New codification of incivility" heading at ], I'm sorry to say that my gut feeling was a little less than hopeful, but looking at the two page versions, I'd like very much to applaud the effort -- the new version seems more accessible by far, to me. On the subject of 1c, it felt to me like "for instance, calling some a liar " was missing from that, but it's probably not required. Distinguishing "ill-considered" accusations strikes me as helpful; where accusations can be justified with evidence, I'd rather people didn't hold back legitimate claims of abuse. – <small>] (])</small> 08:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

== Why was this removed? ==

"(f) Feigned incomprehension ("playing dumb")." There's a byzantine section above discussing various changes, so I get that this was changed very, very recently, but why was this part specifically removed? I see barely any discussion, still less consensus to remove part of a major guideline.<font face="palatino linotype" color="#000000">- Simon Dodd</font> <small>{ ]·]·]·] }</small> 12:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
:Simon, I did the rewording of what was a poorly organised codification. I made subsequent changes on the basis of advice here from other participants. A number of people wondered whether this point (f) was worth retaining, particularly as it's very hard to nail on someone (easy to wriggle out of). User:Vesal's post (see the grey banner) partly concerns the larger issue of deceptive engagement in debates: "I've never seen anyone feigning stupidity. A more common way of not getting the point is by ignoring stronger points of an argument and only responding and refuting less important parts of a posting." I myself feel that it's probably covered by ]. In the end, there's little one can do when users game the system; especially by going right up to the limit of civility / reasonable behaviour without distinctly crossing it. Some users are masters at it. User:Stifle wondered whether it amounts to incivility in the first place, and might not be better handled in another category.
:I wonder whether you might point to examples of this behaviour, where (f) would make it easier to pin a claim of incivility on the user. Would it make a substantive difference? (I don't mind if it goes back in, but there's advantage in brevity, so I guess we'd need to see that it is worth the extra text.) ] ] 13:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
::Feigning incomprehension can be uncivil not because the feigner is playing dumb, but because the feigner pretends that the material is too poorly written to be understandable. The difficult, of course, is to distinguish between feigned incomprehension and real incomprehension. ] (]) 17:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I hadn't thought of it that way, but that rationale for status as incivility makes sense. The problem is, then, that it's subtle and complex, hard to distinguish from other types of deception (which abound, let's face it), and hard to nail. Unsure. ] ] 01:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
::::In theory, almost every behavioral violation that occurs during interaction with another editor could be considered uncivil because it would be a deliberate act that the editor knows or should know will potentially upset the other editor's equanimity. Edit warring, for example, is uncivil because it undoes another editor's efforts. I think we're better off concentrating on behaviors where incivility is the main element of the edit. Playing dumb and ] are for the most part varieties disruptive / tendentious editing. ] (]) 17:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

== can i use phrases from this.. ==

to quote about incivility, towards the general editing community?] (]) 12:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

== Consistent ==

Why is this policy not used consisently? I was told that someone calling me a troll and someone saying that I was attracted to feces wasn't uncivil. I was told that calling someone lazy was uncivil when the user was obviously lazy to not look at the sources. I was told that calling someone a liar was uncivil even though their edits showed that they were lying. I was told that people being uncivil is allowed in long debates. Many editors including admins said all of this to me and the user that said that I was attracted to feces is an admin. ] (]) 03:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
:Also, "Taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves" gave many editors a chance to assume bad faith on me whenever they felt like it. ] (]) 03:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
::It's an inherently difficult policy to apply utterly consistently and objectively; but it is absolutely necessary. We rely on the experience and skill of admins (and indeed of all editors) to use the policy to minimise incivility and maximise harmony and cooperation. ] ] 06:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

== ] ==

Nice to see all the work being done on this page. I've done the diffs for September up through today; hope that helps. It seems to me that you guys are mid-way through the process of getting everyone on board, so it's not up to me to say whether you've got consensus or not, and I'll probably just use the last version of the month for the finished Update. - Dank (]) 15:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

== Add civil reversion of text as an issue ==
{{rfctag|policy}}
:''Proposed addition'': Use of a one-line Edit Summary to justify reversion of documented material may be construed as an act of incivility. A Talk-page justification of such reversion is mandatory, and must directly address the specific reasons behind any guidelines invoked as justification of reversion, such as ], ], ], ] or ]. ] (]) 18:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

;Reasons for Proposal:
:A one-line Edit summary justifying reversion of ''documented'' material as "Irrelevant and off-topic section, does not belong on this article" or "POV, non-mainstream section" is obviously inflammatory for the reverted editor whose lengthy attempt at composition and tracking down of sources and (possibly) drafting of figures is summarily dismissed by an apparently off-hand few-word description. It is pretty clear that the contributing editor doesn't think the contribution was "off-topic" or "POV", and will conclude that the reverting editor has got it wrong. Simple civility and assumptions of good faith editing require more explanation than flag-waving: in the absence of more specific guidelines, such unjustified reversion is a violation of WP:Civil. If discussion of a reversion really evolves with further exchange on the Talk page into ], that kind of thing can be dealt with using Talk page guidelines, and has no bearing upon the initial reversion justification itself.

:IMO, abuse of the one-line Edit Summary is rampant, and is employed often as a knee-jerk reaction without real appraisal of the reverted material. The above addition will have the beneficial effect of forcing reverting editors to actually think about what they are doing. ] (]) 18:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

;Comments

:'''Comment''' That's incredibly gameable, and slows down what may be non-controversial editing, such as removal of blatant POV-pushing. Definitely not an appropriate addition. ] <sup>'''''Over ]''' FCs served''</sup> 16:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

::'''Reply''' to ]: Please notice that the proposal is for ''sourced'' material; that is, documented contributions. I'd argue that one-line reversion of sourced contributions is ''always'' controversial. I'd argue further that inappropriate use of the one-line Edit Summary is a major cause of escalating Talk page incivility. You are not going to avoid a Talk page discussion this way, but you are going to start the discussion in a polarized atmosphere. Needless to say, once a contributing editor has been poked in the eye, he is less likely to engage in reasonable discussion.

::Blatant POV pushing is readily explained on the Talk page using a few words to point out why the sources do not support the contribution, or are not authoritative. (The reverting editor ''should'' have engaged in this exercise anyway, before making the reversion.) The major objection is not that this requirement is "gameable", but that some editors are addicted to hit-and-run usage of the one-line Edit Summary, despite its limitations. They simply do not wish to engage the contributing author, but prefer to attempt decisions from Olympus. That approach does not work. ] (]) 16:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

:'''Comment''' I'm not sure I agree with this inclusion or not. My initial reaction is that this can refer to a more complex situation than this one line edit of the policy indicates . For starters, if this were to be included. I think "sources" would have to say "reliably sourced", and an "act of incivility" would need to say "may be construed as an act of incivility".

:If an article is contentious, though, everything would/could be seen in a different light.

:That said I have seen this kind of reverting used in a way that "games " the system in the opposite way from what Shoemaker is describing. If this kind of editing is an act of incivility it might be a subtle, subversive one since it can antagonize an editor but worse it can help to erode a civil editing environment.


I am sure this issue has been raised several times and I'd like someone to point me to the relevant guideline, discussion or ArbCom decision.
:Re Shoemaker's point: POV is a debatable and subjective issue, so an edit summary and revert for assumed POV may not be the best approach in maintaining or creating a civil environment. Discussion is usually better for the feelings of all involved.


Short of harassment (]), does WP:CIVIL apply also to off-wiki behaviour? Apparently it doesn't, if I'm not mistaken: {{tq|Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions <u>on Misplaced Pages</u>}} and so they apply {{tq|in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians}} only when they take place on Misplaced Pages.
:An important issue perhaps that deserves more discussion.(] (]) 17:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC))


A couple of hypothetical examples to clarify the issue:
::'''Reply''' to ]: Modified accordingly. ] (]) 18:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


A) Twitting or posting on a social media something like "Those morons at Misplaced Pages deleted my article! I'm sure someone is paying them" (without naming editors) - violates WP:AGF - is this sanctionable?
'''Comment''' I'd say the change is problematic in its present form... I've seen the problem such reversions can cause, but this language is far too restrictive, especially the second sentence (and the "mandatory" language). If the text is added at all, I'd be more comfortable with something along the lines of ''"Use of a one-line edit summary to justify reversion of documented material may be construed as an act of incivility. Explaining such reversions on the talk page can help to avoid disputes."'' (That is to say, guidance rather than a "law".) Thoughts? --''']'''''<small><sup>]</sup><sub>]</sub></small>'' 19:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


B) "User:Whatever is most blatant rightwing/leftwing POV-pusher I have ever encountered" on a blog or social media (without doxxing) - can this ] be sanctioned as such, or can it only be considered an "aggravating factor" in the case of an on-Wiki dispute?
:'''Reply''' to ]: A mandatory requirement may seem extreme, but inasmuch as we are dealing here with reversion of a contribution that took possibly hours to assemble and document, it seems to me not excessive to ask that a reversion should be accompanied by the reverting editor's thought process (if only to show there was one). My expectation is that "reasonable" editors already will see the need for a Talk-page discussion, and only the "cavalier" editor will try to get away with the one-liner, and thereby become embroiled in a heated Talk-page debate. Only a mandatory requirement will affect this editor's behavior. ] (]) 19:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


If anyone could link a discussion where this issue came up, I'd be grateful. ] (]) (]) 09:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
'''Comment'''. I share the concerns expressed above, that the proposal is too strict and too gameable. However, I would see a lot of good for saying something similar, as applied to marking the reversion as a minor edit, without an edit summary. I've definitely seen some editors abuse that. --] (]) 19:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:I would be against this, as (for a start) how do you prove who they are here? ] (]) 09:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
::Let's assume this is not controversial, so as to focus on the principle rather than on the practicalities of its enforcement. We know for a fact that User:Somene posted on twitter that User:Gitz6666 is an idiot (this never happened: it's purely hypothetical). I understand that in principle this is none of the admins' business, right? The sentence {{tq|Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages, including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians}} can be interpreted in two ways, if I'm not wrong:
::1) "Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages (including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians)" > ''a contrario'', they don't apply to interactions outside WP.
::2) "Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages (including discussions at user and article talk pages), in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" > they apply to "discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" taking place outside WP.
::I believe that 2 is wrong. ] (]) (]) 09:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


== Anti-religious bigotry ==
:'''Reply''' to ]: I'm not clear what you are suggesting. Is this a good paraphrase?
::Marking a reverting edit as minor '''''m''''' in the editing check-off box with no further comment may be construed as an act of incivility. At a minimum, a one-line Edit Summary justification is mandatory.
:] (]) 19:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:::Well, I'm suggesting this instead of, rather than in addition to, what you proposed. And, like you, I'm ''only'' talking about a "reverting edit" that reverts reliably-sourced material, not reversion of vandalism and such. In the case of reverting reliably-sourced material, the '''''m''''' should not be checked, and there should be a meaningful edit summary. Cf: ]. My point is that misuse of the minor edit check-off can be uncivil. --] (]) 22:36, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


There's ] about how editors handle certain types of religious content. <small>(No, please, don't add to it. Really. But pinging the most active participants: @], ], ], ], ], ], ], ])</small>
'''Comment''' ] begins: ''The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material.'' This proposal seems to want to shift the burden in the other direction. - Dank (]) 21:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


I've run across a talk page comment in which an editor declared "Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking", and when I pushed back against this inappropriate comment, he doubled down, saying that his belief is "a very good one. The moral very high ground in fact. Also it's not bigotry".
:'''Reply''' to ]: The presumption of this proposal is that the reverted material has been ''documented''. Thus, in the view of the contributing editor ] has been met. The reverting editor, however, possibly disagrees, or has some other objection. This disagreement should be aired on the Talk page, rather than using a one-line edit like "Failed to meet ]", which clearly the contributing editor will object to, and which will end up in an unnecessarily heated debate on the Talk page. ] (]) 21:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


I'm wondering if it might help, in a long-term kind of way, to mention anti-religious comments in this policy as something the community does not need more of. There's a list of "direct rudeness" that begins this way:
'''Comment'''. This proposal is uncommonly silly, and seems designed to gain the upper hand in an ongoing content dispute. I echo Dank's concerns about shifting the burden. ] (]) 23:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:'''Reply''' to ]: I'd appreciate some reasons why this proposal is "uncommonly silly", as a pejorative description does little to advance understanding. I also point out, as I did before in replying to Dank, that there is ''no'' shifting of the burden for documentation implied by this proposal; to the contrary, it assumes a ''documented'' contribution has been reverted that apparently already has met ], at least in the eyes of the contributing editor. The proposal simply requests that the reverting editor explain any objections to the sources already in evidence, which explanation must already exist in the reverting editor's mind if the reversion has valid grounds. ] (]) 00:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


# ], insults, name-calling, gross ] or indecent suggestions
'''Comment''' This proposal seems eerily similar to ]. --] ] 23:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
# ], including racial, ethnic, sexual, disability-related, gender-related and religious slurs, and derogatory references to groups such as social classes or nationalities
:'''Reply''' to ]: There is no similarity with ], as that proposal suggests abandoning ], and this proposal does not. ] (]) 00:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


and while I believe this falls into the "insults" category (but not necessarily into "personal attacks", as that is generally interpreted as requiring a comment to be directed at an individual, or "religious slurs", because they're individually polite words), I doubt whether someone who believes himself to be expressing "righteous disapproval" of "evil" would be able to see his actions in that mirror. Consequently, I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy. However, I don't want to see genuine content discussions derailed ("My religion says it's turtles all the way down, and it's a violation of WP:CIVIL to say that the Earth moves through space due to inertia and gravitational attraction"). What do you think? ] (]) 22:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
'''Comment''' It seems to me this may be more appropriate for ] but I can see where situations might arise where deleting material without sufficient explanation goes beyond simple rudeness or carelessness to disruptive behavior. But if the situation did arise, I would would think it would end up in dispute resolution whether suggested addition to the policy was there or not and it would still be a matter for the people trying to resolve it whether the additions or the deletions were unreasonable. I don't think we have to enumerate all the ways people can engage in disruptive editing if we just say do not engage in disruptive editing (see ]).--] (]) 23:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:'''Reply''' to ]: The reason dispute replaces discussion and ends up in dispute resolution is because civility is lost and hostility takes its place. The idea of this proposal is to keep the temperature down by getting off on the right foot, which is to say, to avoid poking the contributing editor in the eye before discussion even begins in the Talk page. ] (]) 00:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


:Hard needle to thread. I'm not sure I would describe the comment you saw as inappropriate, but I understand why someone might. Part of the problem I have with our civility policy is that it doesn't really account for differences of opinions as to what is civil and what is not. A better outcome when someone says something like this would be to have a difficult discussion where there was a meeting of minds so that each person could actually come to an ''understanding'' of the other's position. Even if opinions did not change about whether and how one's comments might be civil or uncivil; right or wrong, there should at least be an acknowledgement than in a pluralistic environment like Misplaced Pages you have to work with others who do not share your perspective.
'''Comment''' It is a slippery slope at this point until editors are required to give detailed explanations before making any edit at all, as anything less would be perceived as uncivil. On the other hand, reversions to obviously good faith edits should in some cases be explained politely, this hardly seems to warrant a change to existing behavioral guidelines. ] (]) 00:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:As such, I would not really be thrilled with an expansion of this policy in that direction. But, then again, I never liked this policy in the first place so I'm probably not the right community member to consult on this matter.
:] (]) 00:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::I'm not sure that coming to a mutual understanding is the goal. (It'd be a fine goal for social media, which seems to be catastrophically bad at it.) I think a more relevant goal would be: if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject.
::I remember seeing a case at ANI a long time ago. A (presumably white) editor posted something like "Boy, you sure screwed up there" or "You've been a busy little boy today". A (self-identified) Black man told him not to address him as a "boy", because ] is a thing. The first editor acted like the feelings of the person he was speaking to, not to mention the uninvolved people reading the comments, didn't matter. Except, you know, they do. He could have just said "Sorry, didn't know" and stopped repeating the offensive content. Or just stopped repeating it. It's not ''that'' hard to stop poking people's sore spots when they've told you to stop it. ] (]) 01:36, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tq|if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject.}} I actually think ''mandating'' an apology whenever someone tells you that you are being bigoted would be an improvement over the current civility policy of just "be civil, but we're not going to be clear what that means -- you just have to navigate the community yourself." This is somewhat different than your original suggestion, of course. ] (]) 02:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::That sounds ambitious.
::::It reminds me of ], which is IMO excellent and which you might be interested in reading, if you haven't seen it before. ] (]) 06:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:I think that would be stretching ''civility'' to mean "don't say anything that might offend anyone" which is not possible and not desirable. This is not yet Wokepedia. ] (]) 00:24, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::I'll be honest, if saying bigotry is bad makes this "Wokepedia" then I will happily be part of it. Who even uses woke unironically anymore? ] (]) 15:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:Ambivalent about the central question, but wouldn't ] cover the comment at the top? And if someone too frequently posts citation-free rants about religion on a talk page, I presume they can be dealt with via ], et al. Putting that aside, wouldn't "religion is the domain of confused, old an illogical thinking", which is very clearly directed at a religion rather than any specific editors, be the same as strongly criticizing absolutely any subject that someone has made part of their core identity, whether religion, politics, or fandom? I know people who take it very personally when Taylor Swift or Donald Trump or Lord of the Rings are insulted, for example. As long as we're talking about the thing itself and not a specific believer/supporter/fan, it seems like we're in the realm of ] and ] rather than ]... although I'm sure there are some obvious gray areas. &mdash; <samp>] <sup style="font-size:80%;">]</sup></samp> \\ 01:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::I also think NOTAFORUM would apply, since it's really off topic.
::I don't think this is equivalent to the Swifties. I think this could well be equivalent to saying that Trump supporters are stupid. ] (]) 01:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:{{tq| I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy.}}: Perhaps we could use language inspired by the Inclusivity principle of the ], which I think addresses why the type of language mentioned in OP is inappropriate for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community: {{tq|The Wikimedia projects are developed in many languages, reflecting many regions and cultures. All activities are based on mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement. This respect is enforced through measures to support safety and inclusion.}} The quoted editor's insistence that saying {{tq|Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking}} is {{tq|The moral very high ground in fact}} is rather plainly contrary to the principle of {{tq|mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement}}. Wikimedia and Misplaced Pages are international projects, and our movement charter sets an expectation of respect for the plurality of cultural backgrounds that exist throughout the world. We should no sooner tolerate behavior like the quote in the OP than we should tolerate it if the same had been said of other manifestations of experience and/or culture. That's to say that lots of other formulations along these lines would be just as wrong and we should have just as little tolerance for them (which is to say, we shouldn't tolerate such intolerance); for examples:
:* <s>Religion</s> The Middle East is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ])
:* <s>Religion is</s> Women are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ])
:* <s>Religion is</s> The elderly are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ])
:* <s>Religion</s> The working class is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ])
:I don't think expressing sentiments like these—whether about religion generally, specific religions, or forms of identity or culture other than religion—in vague terms makes it okay. It still ]. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 01:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::Your comparison to other subjects highlights the difference that struck me, too. When he says this about religion, we accept it. If he said the same thing about (e.g.,) "Jews" or "gay people" or "Black people", we'd be in insta-block territory. ] (]) 01:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes... but what if he had said "My grandfather on his death bed was in the domain of the confused, old and illogical thinking". There is a legitimate question as to whether the claim at issue is actually true or not. The problem with the other examples is that they are demonstrably false generalizations. Is the identification of ''religion writ large'' as the domain of confused, old, and illogical thinking an incorrect generalization? It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be. For certain definitions, it is absolutely incorrect. But for others (for example, those definitions which ''define'' a religion to be those ideas which are a part of confused, old, and illogical thinking), then it is not really so much bigoted as it is a truism? ] (]) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::An individual grandfather is not 'the elderly', which is an entire category of people. And if {{tq|It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be}}, I'm not sure how that'd be anything more than word games. I'd hardly think it all that justified if someone were say on Misplaced Pages ']' and then defend themselves by explaining that when they say 'Jews' they personally define that to only mean people who supposedly really are penny-pinching. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 02:27, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::Because there are legitimate definitions of religion which deal with the hard-to-demonstrate aspects of the idea. After all, "religion" as a category is a difficult-to-define construct when we get right down to it, and it is even vaguely Eurocentric. A comparison to the category of Jews just doesn't work as far as I'm concerned because there is no argument about whether and how antisemitic stereotypes are definitional for Jews except in utterly bigoted contexts. I suppose you might argue that studies of comparative religion or philosophy of religion are utterly bigoted contexts, but I don't think that is a normal tack. ] (]) 02:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::There are many legitimate definitions of religion, and it is hard to define and rooted in Eurocentrism. But I'm hard pressed to consider the example ('confused' and 'old') as being like any of the academically legitimate definitions. ] says that religion is the ; ] says religion is ; ] says religion is in people; ] says religion is ; one could go on. These are legitimate definitions. By comparison, 'the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking', meanwhile, is an expression of bigotry. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 03:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{tq|I'm hard pressed to consider the example ('confused' and 'old') as being like any of the academically legitimate definitions}} "Old" is a somewhat common way for certain academics to offer a clear demarcation between the popular distinctions between "]" and "legitimate religions" with a nod to the irony that the truth-value of the claims are similar. Similarly, "confused" is just a synonym for descriptions provided by those who argue, in some academic contexts as the majority position, that religious belief is fundamentally irrational. You found four excellent scholars who provide functional definitinons of "religion" in terms of its social construction, but there is a strong academic tradition that goes back as far as the philosophes of the Enlightenment which defines religions in terms of the implausible and persistent claims people who follow them make. ] (]) 11:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::True but not really relevant. Using age as a distinction between traditional vs newer religious groups doesn't involve calling the traditional beliefs "old thinking". "Confused thinking" is not a synonym for saying that religious belief is fundamentally irrational; it is disparaging language that scholars avoid. ] (]) 15:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I disagree. The idea that religious thinking is a kind of "old thinking" is not even particularly controversial given that most religions are based on ideas of fairly old provenance. The only issue is that it is not a ''universal''. For my part, describing thinking as "irrational" and describing thinking as "confused" are basically synonymous. I see no strong taboos in the literature in identifying religious thinking in similar sorts of disparaging ways:
:::::::::*
:::::::::*
:::::::::Etc.
:::::::::] (]) 18:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::In past discussions, you have often emphasized ]. While the two articles you've linked aren't on their face irrelevant, being academically published in ''Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences'', close consideration makes me prioritize them less compared to the definitions offered by the religious studies scholars I quoted.{{pb}}Elsevier shows a total of 25 citations between the two articles you linked, and Google Scholar shows and respectively. This isn't nothing, and for some topics could be meaningful and sufficient. But for a topic as big and as studied as religion, those citation counts, comparatively, don't suggest that the descriptions of religion offered there are as influential or legitimate as definitions of religion as the aforementioned non-disparaging examples quoted above. To use two examples:
::::::::::* I quoted Talal Asad's ''Formations of the Secular'', which has
::::::::::* I quoted Clifford Geertz's ''The Interpretation of Cultures'', which has .
::::::::::The publications with less casual and less disparaging definitions seem to carry more influence in academic scholarship. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 00:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Congratulations! You have successfully demonstrated the fallacy of the excluded middle. ] (]) 00:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::When the difference in influence is on the level of orders of magnitude, it looks more like the ] fallacy on your part. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 01:09, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Do you know what different contexts are? ] (]) 01:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::I think you are on some level right about differences in targets, though I have also seen similarly dismissive and derisive sentiments expressed without much community pushback and no administrative censure about transgender people and topics, or, in the words of others*, "nutty academics with all their postmodernist queer theory" and "ideologues" with whom supposedly "o dissent is brooked". From some points of view it's an unintuitive Venn diagram, though ].
:::<small>*I can provide the links to these quotations on request but did not do so in the original post since this thread is not about specific individual editors' behavior but rather about whether the civility policy can be expanded to clarify a community consensus against expressing bigotry.</small>
:::] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::<small>Deciding whether to bring someone into a conversation as a "bad example" is such a tricky thing. You need concrete examples, or some editors won't believe that the comments actually happened. (I once had a wiki-friend – a woman I really like and whose editing was superb – say that she couldn't quite believe that oversight-worthy sexual harassment ever happened, because whenever someone mentioned an example, the oversight volunteers had always cleaned it up before she got there.) But when someone's comment is accidental, or being used as merely one example, then I think it's kind of mean to rub their faces in it, especially if they're less experienced than you.</small> ] (]) 06:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::"Religion" isn't analogous to "The Middle East" or "Jews". If we're going in that direction, it's analogous to "earth" or "people". If we got more specific and said e.g. "Christianity is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking" I'd be more sympathetic to the comparison. &mdash; <samp>] <sup style="font-size:80%;">]</sup></samp> \\ 02:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::I am sure some people interpret "religion" with ], though, as in "'''religious people''' are...." ] (]) 02:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::I'm sure you're right. If you hear a statement about a stereotype, like "Mental illness is the domain of delusions and violence", one tends to read this as a claim about how people with mental health conditions interact with others, and not about what happens to them. ] (]) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::But it's a key skill in intellectual endeavours of all sorts to be able to dissociate statements about concepts, ideas and things from statements about people (especially about oneself). Ultimately Misplaced Pages editing is an activity based in the propagation of knowledge whereas in some aspects religion lies in the realm of antiknowledge (rather, there is 'faith'). Thus there is always going to be a tension between (say) an encyclopedia that insists on asserting the Earth is not 6,000 years old and a fundamentalist Christian who might feel attacked by that knowledge. It in no way means Misplaced Pages should extend special treatment to any concept merely because of some religious association. But this doesn't mean either that Misplaced Pages or Wikipedians should be banging on about these tensions in a tedious Dawkinsesque manner. ] (]) 06:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::Phrenology is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Human sacrifice is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Geocentrism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Viatlism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Lamarckism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. It's shocking how when you change key terms in a statement it can become reasonable or unreasonable. Unless religions are possessed of personhood I don't see why they must be treated with civility. The real problem is that going on non sequitur rants about one's feelings on things aren't important to Misplaced Pages, but that's already covered by NOTFORUM and the like. ] (]) 02:22, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:I'm sort of of two minds here, because two things are simultaneously true:
:1. A lot of articles on obscure religious topics make ] claims that are not supported by secular sources, this is bad, and we should be much more vigorous in trying to fix it.
:2. Many editors that deal with ] topics have a sort of hyperskeptical attitude that tends to lead to ] problems when writing about religion or religious belief. (Would I call this "anti-religious bigotry"? Absolutely not, I don't think that exists. But it definitely can lead to tone issues when writing about religion.) ] (]) 03:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:I think that in accusing {{Ping|Lycurgus}} of anti-religious bigotry you've crossed over the civility line yourself. Looking at the context on ] its hard to see your side here. ] (]) 03:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::Probably this revolves around the distinction between ideas and people. In general it's ok to be dismissive of certain religion-associated ideas (miracles, supernatural beings, fake history, etc.) there is no need to extend that to being dismissive about ''people'' who might have faith in those ideas. It's fallacious to argue that "religion" should have some kind of protected characteristic in the same way as a certain group of people (women, Jews ...) because "religion" is a big umbrella term not a group of people. ] (]) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::I think theres more to it than that... People who are genuinely religious are largely incapable of NPOV when it comes to religious topics, we've seen that demonstrated time and time again... The problems largely seem to arise from people not making it clear that they're addressing a NPOV issue and not the reasons behind it. ] (]) 17:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::Hard to have religion without people, to the extent that we take scholars to be right that by people. (Likewise, one's hard pressed to have atheism or humanism without people, those being socially constructed as well, so I'd just as soon say it's inappropriate to say something like 'atheism is a philosophy of unhappiness', a claim that happened at the ] talk page not so long ago. I don't think 'vagueposting bigotry is bad' is going to be special and specific to religion, though it's the example highlighted in the OP and in this thread). ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 23:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::And it would be fine to argue, or rather profess a belief, that atheism or humanism or anything is illogical or irrational or whatever. Bigotry in this sense clearly refers to ideas towards people, not ideas about ideas that other people have ideas about. ] (]) 02:27, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq|Looking at the context on Talk:Celibacy its hard to see your side here}}: What I see looking at that thread is WhatamIdoing offering respectful clarification, and looking at this thread I notice WhatamIdoing deciding to make the discussion about a general idea rather than a specific editor, unlike your approach of personalizing the matter and unnecessarily turning up the temperature. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 06:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::They provided direct quotes from a specific editor alongside an attack on that editor, I didn't personalize anything beyond what was already there. The only one making this more personal is you, who has decided to attack me personally instead of addressing the point raised. ] (]) 17:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:NO, as we should be able to talk about ideas freely, it is only people we should not be able to insult. ] (]) 11:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::That is a super fine line and pretty subjective. ] (]) 15:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::Not really, if you think about it. A person is not an idea. That some people identify with ideas is unfortunate, but not something Misplaced Pages can fix. ] (]) 15:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::I'm with Pack on this. Editors should neither be writing "Gays are evil" ''nor'' writing "Homosexuality is evil". I want to see nothing even remotely like that, because it is homophobic bigotry. ] (]) 15:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::Indeed not, there are some very bad ideas it is unacceptable to espouse. I really cannot see why anybody should be espousing any (non-Misplaced Pages-related) ideas anyway - this is ]. (Ironically it's a view in several religions that gays/homosexuality is evil, which brings us full circle.) ] (]) 15:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::So what you're saying is that you believe it's acceptable to espouse anti-religious sentiment, but you believe it's not acceptable to espouse anti-gay sentiment.
::::::I don't think it is acceptable to espouse either of these viewpoints on wiki. ] (]) 15:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I think that's exactly true and a big reason why analogies do not work here.
:::::::Take the following three statements:
:::::::* Homosexuality is evil.
:::::::* Nazism is evil.
:::::::* Christianity is evil.
:::::::One of those three statements is definitely bigotry. One of those three statements is definitely not bigotry. The form of the sentence is not helpful for identifying bigotry; only the content of the sentence is useful, and that involves subjective decisions about, frankly, how plausible you think "Christianity is evil" is. ] (]) 16:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Insofar as the category of Christianity is capacious and includes ] practitioners resisting colonialism, ], anti-racist activists like ] and the ], etc., I'm pretty comfortable considering the phrase 'Christianity is evil' to be the kind of bigotry I expect to encounter in, say, particularly virulent takes by Ayn Rand, not a neutral expression appropriate to see on Misplaced Pages.{{pb}}Things that ] include racism, misogyny, queerphobia, antisemitism, Nazism, Islamophobia, colonialism, etc., and these are all both narrower (because they aren't universal to) and wider (because they also exist elsewhere) than categories like 'religion', or 'Islam', or 'Christianity', etc. Calling out specific patterns of injustices or specific cases of injustice with certain persons or institutions is different from expressing intolerance about entire people categories. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 23:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::One is an intrinsic characteristic a person cannot control, one isn't. ] (]) 02:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::The idea that your religion is voluntary and changeable is very Christian. Some other religions and cultures believe that religion is also an intrinsic characteristic that a person cannot control. ] (]) 02:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Some believe that but I think Akbar the Great made it clear those beliefs were mistaken. Some people believe sexuality is a choice too, luckily there's a word for those people: "wrong". ] (]) 20:48, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::A young man bragged to me once that, on a trip to southeast Asia, his traveling companion had been recognized as the reincarnation of some famous Buddhist priest. If that were true, how was his friend supposed to choose any of that? Can he say "Nope, I don't choose to have already been reincarnated"? Or "You aren't allowed to believe that about me"?
::::::::::Some people believe they are very smart ]. Some people believe they are not smart ]. Their beliefs do not change their intrinsic characteristics. You might ''believe'' you aren't smart, but you still are, and your belief does not change that fact.
::::::::::Someone who believes in reincarnation would say the same about people who don't: you might not ''believe'' you are reincarnated, but you still are, and your belief does not change that. (Or, naturally, the other way around: if reincarnation is not real, then you aren't reincarnated, even if you believe it, and your belief does not change that fact.) ] (]) 18:51, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::The whole tourists as reincarnated priests thing is a common scam. Examining it as a sincere religious belief seems to be missing the point entirely. ] (]) 18:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::<small>Well, that was my first thought, but I kept my mouth shut, because it seemed to be a deeply significant experience to him.</small> ] (]) 22:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Ethnic religions like Judaism make this dichotomy not so clear-cut. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 02:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I don't see how; secular and atheist Jews are still Jewish while not believing in the Jewish religion, to varying degrees, it's not some kind of ethnic obligation. ] (]) 20:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::But in accordance with above it would be perfectly fine to say Jews, gays, trans, or whatever are okay to attack and that is simply not true. As a community we decide what is acceptable. Remember, attacking ideas or groups like that also stifles the free exchange of ideas. ] (]) 15:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Jews are a race, not just an idea, and none of the others are just ideas they are actually biological, not one has Christian DNA, and no one is biologically Muslim. ] (]) 15:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Being a Jew is not a race. But if we want to go that route, we show Nazis the door all the time and rightly so. ] (]) 16:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Oh boy... So this is going back to basics but ] are in large part an ethnoreligious group and the vast majority of modern Jews beleive that they are part of an ethnoreligious group... The vast majority of modern Jews are not Nazis. You've jumped the shark so hard its not even funny. ] (]) 17:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Yes jews are not Nazis, I'm not sure what you are arguing. I think you missed the point if that is your takeaway. ] (]) 17:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::The point is that the majority of modern Jews would agree with the idea that "Jews are an ethnic as well as religious community" ] (]) 18:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::<small>For what it's worth, I wouldn't say that there is Jewish DNA either, since ]. What is true is that Judaism is ethnoreligious to an extent beyond that of many other ']'-esque categories. 'Secular Jew' has more legs and history than 'secular Christian', and even to the extent that the latter isn't nonexistent, it's not as readily conceived of in ethnic terms as the former. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 23:53, 24 October 2024 (UTC)</small>
:::::::Jews, gays, and trans people are not okay to attack, but fascists are (arguably it's obligatory to attack them, in fact). Sorry, but there is no content-neutral rule to be found here: you cannot just say "it would be bigoted to say this about gay people" because the important part of that phrase is "about gay people". ] (]) 16:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Agreed, its a fine line and subjective for what is acceptable and appropriate to attack or not. Which the community at large defines over time. We cannot use a simple open ended rule anymore. ] (]) 16:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)


The conversational rulebook with regards to this varies with location, politics and time. Of course everybody considers their current version of it to be the "correct" one. IMO it's a bad and impossible idea to try to write the "correct" rulebook regarding this for Misplaced Pages. For neutral venues, the unwritten rule is that if ~95% agree, it's OK to treat it as fact, and so saying "Nazism is evil" is OK. But lots of people try to pretend that their 50% view is a 95% view.
:Addition: Sorry if the above comment seems to be ambivalent. I don't really understand what the proposed addition would be. Something like the following might be acceptable: "Repeated reversion of material with only perfunctory reasons given may sometimes be viewed as uncivil." However, it is clearly not going to be actionable ("sometimes viewed"), and in extraordinary cases where it does factor into an evaluation, it is already going to be superceded by brightline policies like 3rr. In short, I would only add such language to the guideline that could be adequately hedged in terms of existing policies. ] (]) 00:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


Regarding the OP and civility, IMO wp:civility is about how to treat editors that one is conversing with. If the comment was somehow referring to someone in the conversation, I would consider any choosing of value-laden disparaging terms to be contrary to wp:civility. If not, not. Sincerely, <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 18:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:::'''Reply''' to 141.158.68.228: The only edits that are subject to explanation in this proposal are reversions of ''documented'' contributions. There are many reversions that require little explanation, or a one-line summary explanation, but reversion of documented contributions are singled out in this proposal as evidencing some thought and some care in tracking down sources, and therefore worthy of greater attention. As you say, reversions of good faith edits should be dealt with politely, and IMO "politely" means their reversion requires a real explanation on the Talk page. At present that often doesn't happen, leading to unnecessary strife, so a change to existing guidelines is in order.
:::There is no vague boundary like "sometimes may be viewed" in this proposal: it is black and white - if you revert sourced material, explain your evaluation process on the Talk page. That is the civil thing to do. ] (]) 00:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::::'''Oppose'''. In that case, I unequivocally oppose such a proposal. What, exactly, does "document" mean? Who assesses whether a proposed edit has, in fact, been documented? (etc.) This proposal is poisonous to the project, and should be ]. ] (]) 00:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::::'''Reply''' to 141.158.68.228: I don't think that there is anything unusual in the term "documented" - it means that published sources have been cited that support the material. To establish reversion of sourced material, one must have a reason, and if you don't have a clue whether the sources support the material or not, then the place to find out is on the Talk page: ask about it. It is irresponsible to revert material without justification because ''you don't know'' whether it should be reverted or not, eh? ] (]) 01:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


:I would expand upon your idea to say: Civility is about more than just how you treat the editors you are conversing with. It is also about the effects you have on people who might 'overhear' that conversation. We don't let two straight men talk about how glad they are not to be gay, even if they think it's a fine way to treat each other, because we know that a gay editor might see the conversation and feel marginalized by the community's tolerance of this display of intolerance. The same is true for comments about race, sex, gender, and many other things. I think it should be equally true for religion (or lack thereof; I believe that comments against atheism or agnosticism hurt our community in an exactly equal fashion). ] (]) 02:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
'''Comment''' - no, this is phrased in far too harsh a way. It will be widely ignored (or not known), but then permit sanction: i.e., enable drama. The general point that not explaining edits can be construed as rude is fair enough, but see ]'s first paragraph for the sort of way that can be expressed as guidance. It could be easily adapted here to note the point that not sufficiently explaining edits can be perceived as uncivil, whether that's the editor's intention or not. ] <sup>]</sup> 11:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::There are people who are uncivil in very subtle ways, but Misplaced Pages is ill-equipped to handle it because there is no venue for helping to moderate personal disputes between two different users. The assumption of this policy seems to be that everyone should just learn to get along by themselves until the PvP is so intolerable that you go off to complain to the authorities at the dramaboards. ] (]) 13:13, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:'''Reply''' to ]: I was not aware of ]. I believe the present proposal falls under . From what I see so far, I'd say most editors do not want to ''describe'' their evaluation process for reversion, even though responsible behavior requires that they have formulated one. So your view seems likely that only a "recommendation" to be sensible will fly.
:I'm uncertain how well that will work, as it appears that a goodly number of editors actually ''do not understand'' the material they revert. It would be ''so'' nice if they were required to engage the contributor in a civil discussion instead of starting out with swords drawn. ] (]) 13:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC) ::The one making what appear to be specious assertions of religious bigotry is not in a position to tell anyone else how to be civil... Making accusations of intolerance which aren't supported by the context and evidence is a civility issue, ] etc. ] (]) 17:24, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
::Whatamidoing But this is a ''policy'' and going by your standard, it would be a violation of Misplaced Pages policy to write anything that offends any (not-in-the-conversation) person based on whatever set of behavior rules that they wish to apply. <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 18:48, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:::I think what Whatamidoing is saying is that there is sometimes editors who say things to impose superiority of views or jab at another editors views, when we should be focusing on what sources actually say. Usually sources are more nuanced and not as insulting as editors here sometimes are. I have seen people say things like "sky daddy" or "stupid believers" and other internationally provoking terms, which of course shows their rotten mindset since even nonreligious editors defend religious content because it is encyclopedic and vice versa.] (]) 20:51, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
::::You really can't be on Misplaced Pages talk:Civility saying " which of course shows their rotten mindset" ] (]) 20:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
:::North, I don't think so. First, I think we should differentiate between "upset" and "offend". Being told that (e.g.) "Scaryitis is uniformly fatal in babies" is upsetting (if you happen to know a family whose baby has this), but it's not offensive.
:::Second, we need to distinguish between a comment that repeats a group stereotype ("blondes are dumb") and a comment about an individual behaviors ("that televangelist is a scammer"). Editors who post something like "religious believers are so stupid they believe a sky daddy exists" are posting offensive stereotypes about groups. This should not be permitted. Editors should, however, be able to post a comment about an individual, based on their personal behavior. Commenting on personal behavior would include statements such as:
:::* "User:EveEditor, please stop post insulting remarks about groups of people based on religious stereotypes per WP:CIVIL."
:::* "User:PaulPushy, Misplaced Pages is not the place to post your proofs that your religion is correct."
:::In short, I think Ramos is correct: It is wrong and a violation of this policy to post insults about large groups of people (e.g., "stupid believers"), and it is still okay and acceptable under this policy to say that specific individual editors have problems (e.g., describing an individual editor's stereotyping as showing a "rotten mindset" ). ] (]) 23:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
::::You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot. It is your opinion that this is a civil way to talk to you, right? Or did I misunderstand what you are saying? If I misunderstood you, regard those remarks as struck.
::::To avoid misunderstandings: I would never say this ({{tq|You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot}}) to any other editor here, since I regard it as really uncivil. I am not seriously accusing WhatamIdoing of those things. I am using it here only to make a point. --] (]) 07:34, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::Glad you've been crystal clear that's just hypothetical there Hob. They don't come anymore non-bigoted than WAID. That said, above analyse from Loki et al on why it's challenging to draw clear bright line general rules, and to make useful analogies, seems bang on point. Looking at the specifics may be helpful. The actual sentence that triggered concern here seems to be {{tq|Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking but this is a practical term which has uses outside that. I'm sure in a medical context it's made clear.}} from ]. In context, that's clearly not an attempt to insult large groups of people - rather, it's talking about religion in the sense that it can be understood as a set of social institutions , and especially as believe systems aiming to influence how folk think. Such a -ve view on religion is less common these days than 20 years ago, but it's still a respectable minority view, not a fringe one.


:::::So my view is no change needed to the policy - the existing wording against "religious slurs" is sufficient. We can trust admins to distinguish between such slurs & valid POVs that are clearly relvent to article improvement, on a case by case bases. ] (]) 14:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
'''Comment''' I agree with the other editors that this is way too harsh. Besides the "mandatory" wording (which is just completely unlike WP, see ]), the subjective term "documented" could cause lots of issues. There is a such thing as properly documented info; however, many editors fail to understand this. Some people add info, and link a source that barely mentions the topic (]), or use an unreliable source, but claim "It is documented!" (]).
::::::Thank you for the kind words, Feyd, and for the clear example, Hob. I wonder whether we have mistaken civility for friendliness. Hob's example would be an unfriendly thing to say, but if, in the particular context, it builds up the community, I don't think it would necessarily be uncivil. ] (]) 22:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
#Example, someone could claim from a primary source of baseball statitistics, and claim, "Barry Bonds has the most home runs in major league baseball," or using that same source, say, "Barry Bonds was the greatest baseball player of all time." Do we really need to explain ] and ] every time someone is offended that their "documented" info like this has been deleted?
:::::::That is an extremely weird idea of civility. I cannot see how being unfriendly "builds community", except by bullying away those one wants to exclude from it for arbitrary reasons. The reasoning also smacks a bit of "the ends justify the means": be friendly unless you want to achieve a specific goal. I will unwatch this page now. This is not a community I want to be part of. --] (]) 10:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
If someone takes offense to their edit being removed, then they can simply start the discussion on the talk page regarding the removed information. Forcing editors to explain every deletion of so-called "documented" information would stall improvement of the project. ] (]) 13:44, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:::::::: @ Hob, it will be a shame if you don't return as at bottom we're probably all of like mind on this one. If someone literally said {{tq|You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot}} to an obviously non bigoted editor then even the more lenient among us would probably agree it warrants an insta block. I think WAID's point was more that even your hypothetical example could come across as a little unfriendly - though not at all uncivil, and also providing valuable clarity that had seemed helpful in guiding us towards a resolution of this thread.
:::::::: @ WAID - yes I think you're exactly right on the distinction between friendliness & civility. IMO more friendliness is desirable in that it would encourage more collaboration & might be especially good for diversity. Unlike with civility though, no attempt should ever be made to enforce friendliness. For many, it doesnt feel natural or authentic to be especially friendly online, esp. with those who have ideological differences. Going back to the exchange on Talk:Celibacy that triggered all this, the editor's doubling down when you raised the bigotry concern was arguably unfriendly but not uncivil. For folk with certain life experiences or have been exposed to too much one sided analyses, it can indeed seem the moral high ground to criticise religion. Huh, even celebrated encyclopaedist ] was anti-religious, so much so that he's often cited (incorrectly I think) as having said {{tq|Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest}}. All this isn't to say anti-theists have a blank cheque to be critical of religion, as in many contexts doing so is divisive & gratuitous. But on the TP of an article where it's clearly relevant, like Celibacy, it's ok. Just my opinion. If nothing else this thread has shown how fiendishly difficult it can be to draw bright lines, as theres so many valid conflicting perspectives in play. Which I guess is why trusting to admin discretion on a case by case bases may be the best we can hope for? ] (]) 11:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I think Hob's example is good because it could be civil or uncivil, depending on the context. Demanding sanctions against someone at ANI because they have a rotten mindset is probably just an instance of name-calling. Approaching someone to say "Hey, I think you need to take a break from that noticeboard. You're always ranting about it, and, to be blunt, it looks like you have developed a rotten mindset about the editors discussed there. Maybe get back to the kind of editing you actually enjoy for a while? If you're worried nobody will step up if you don't handle things, I'm willing to put some hours into it for the next month" might be startling to the recipient, but it's probably civil. A joke with a friend, along the lines of getting his mind out of the gutter, is harmless friendly banter. Same words, three contexts, three responses.
:::::::::This maybe a bit of an ], but civil comes from ]: the united citizens. On wiki, we call that 'the community'. It isn't just about individual, one-on-one behavior. Civility is about the collective effects, too. At some level, anything that helps the community is civil, and everything that hurts the community is uncivil. ] (]) 16:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::While I agree context matters—if, say, posts at ANI to say ' posted antisemitic slurs in a discussion, and here are the diffs so they clearly have a rotten mindset, and we should indeff', I think we should prioritize sanction against rather than against —I don't think it's usually necessary to use 'unfriendly language' like that, and to the extent it isn't necessary we might as well avoid it. We don't need to try to assess someone's mindset or personality and then describe such in a crass way if describing their behavior and/or a pattern of behavior is sufficient, so we might as well avoid the former and prioritize the latter.{{pb}}That said, to Hob's concern about omething samounting to {{Tq|exclud}} {{tq|for arbitrary reasons}}—there are various ideas and behaviors we want to exclude from Misplaced Pages, but I don't think our reasons our arbitrary. In editor interactions, we want to exclude any bigotry that would violate the ] on {{tq|using slurs or stereotypes}} or would abridge our ] to take {{tq|active responsibility for ensuring that the Wikimedia projects are productive, pleasant and safe spaces}}. ] (] &#124; ] &#124; ]) 19:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Even if the UCOC didn't exist, we'd still have a legitimate interest in encouraging a "productive, pleasant, and safe space", because that's what results in editors producing good content instead of (e.g.,) spending all their time at the drama boards or deciding that contributing is no longer worth the hassle.
:::::::::::Hydrangeans, what you said about {{xt|to the extent it isn't necessary we might as well avoid it}} is a good summary of the first half of ] of communication. ] (]) 19:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
::::To put my last post in another shorter way, this is a ''policy'' (which editors can be sanctioned for for violating) covering treatment of editors which one is conversing with. As a policy with teeth (and which is often weaponized) , I don't think it would be a good idea to broaden it to include references to all other groups and people in the world. This is a policy about treatment of editors who you are conversing with. Sincerely, <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 15:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)


{{Collapse top|Slightly off topic analysis and discussion thereof}}
:'''Reply''' to ]: Hey, thanks for your contribution here, which comes closest to an actual appraisal of the proposal that I've seen so far. The term "documented" apparently needs elaboration, although you seem uncertain that, however it is described, it will be understood. I like your example, which seems very to the point. Here is my scenario as to what happens in your example: the statement "''Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player ever , ''" is reverted with the one-line summary "''Violates ] and ]''" My guess is that the Barry Bonds enthusiast will find this to be a rather abstract justification, and being an enthusiast will go to the Talk page and ask "Why the #%$%^& was my sourced contribution reverted? Everybody knows Barry Bonds is the greatest ever." Which will force a heated exchange on the Talk page. Wouldn't it be better if the reversion said "''Supplied sources inadequate; please see Talk page''", and on Talk a subsection titled "Barry Bonds" said "''Refs & indicate specific achievements of Barry Bonds, but it is conjectural that these accomplishments make him the ''greatest'' baseball player ever.''" One might even make a positive suggestion: "''Why not source his accomplishments, and let the reader draw their own conclusions?''" In this second case the contributor sees immediately what the issue is and will either rephrase the contribution or abandon the insertion. Probably the WP article would benefit from a more accurate statement and the identification of the sources. One might even hope that this editor will develop a more sophisticated notion of contributing from this exchange, instead of leaving a drawn-out argument about how great Barry Bonds is with a bad taste in the mouth, regardless of how it all turned out.
Seems to be a great deal of chat on VP & elsewhere on the Skeptic| religion intersection. If I'm reading correctly, those concerned about sceptics are coming mainly from non-believing perspectives- i.e. the ] type mainstream faction where members typically show no discernible faith themselves, yet are strong believers in being respectful towards what they see as the more +ve sorts of "Woo".
But maybe some saw the slew of news from around the world earlier this month showing apparent religious decline in several countries, e.g. claims that in UK, Maybe there's some kind of chivalrous feeling that believers are some kind of endangered minority, in need of protection?


Ironically, it's those on the skeptic side of the mainstream who better understand what's going on. The recent reports are lagging indicators, long term the world is becoming unstoppably more religious & believing. Social media has seen an explosion of supernatural content recently, even sites like Reddit have many believers subs when any trying to argue from a skeptic perspective are instantly perma'd as trolls. I guess theoretically this could change, but tech titans are likely to be quite resistant to tweaking algo's against supernatural content. It's understood to be part of the reason why the decade+ trend of worsening mental health metrics for young people has finally turned for the good (Compare this with the . A turn around that came just in time to potentially stall global efforts to massively regulate their platforms.
:I have in mind reversions of rather more complex contributions than this, however, and maybe a more detailed description of the text to which the proposal applies is in order. What do you think? ] (]) 14:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


But the key long term trend is one that not even the most influential militant atheist can begin to contend with. Our ] article is outdated & understates plumeting birth rates . And also wrong in that the global average births per women needed to sustain a population is 2.2 (2.1 is true in global north only). Birth rates are now below replacement rates in every single part of the world except sub Saharan Africa. In several countries, birth rates per woman are now well under 0.9. The situation becomes far more pleasing when you look at more granulated data sets. They show that for secular women and moderate believers, the birth rate is sometimes lower than 0.5, whereas for deeply religious women, birth rate per woman tends to be well above 4! The consensus among social scientists who study these matters is that by far the biggest predictor on whether a child will grow up to be religious in the religiosity of their parents. Trends for religious families to have far more children have been underway for two decades now, have only accelerated in the last 5 years, and have already substantially changed the culture in some parts of the world.
::Your last statement that you have in mind more complex revisions than the one I mentioned is precisely the reason I mentioned it; while I do agree that removal of '''properly''' documented ''should'' be explained, your proposal would have more far-reaching effects than complex edit conflicts with truly proper sourcing. Your proposal is too Draconian and is not in the spirit of ] and ]. While it would be nice to have a longer explanation of certain reverts, I don't think the talk page should be a place to explain the pillars of WP to every inexperienced editor. Real discussions could be lost in the sea of, "None of the sources make that statement, see ]" (which would fit in the edit summary for the Barry Bonds example). Most editors will go to a user's talk page to remind the user to read the five pillars.
::I think some editors (including me) will get lazy in the edit summary. No offense to your proposal, but seems to be getting little support. Maybe you should focus on clarifying what should be added to an edit summary. ] has a nice list of arguments to avoid in deletion debates, like, "Topic fails WP:N," which should be, "No reliable secondary sources mention topic." I don't know if edit summaries have a similar type of page.
::I see your intentions are good; trying to head off arguments/edit wars ahead of time. But you can't have something be mandatory when you can Ignore All Rules. ] (]) 14:44, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


In the anglophone world, it may take 2-3 generations before the shift towards religiosity will be sufficient for all our articles to be re-written in a way that's pleasing to believers. But that it's going to happen is all but inevitable. (Sketpics are free to think otherwise, there are certain moonshot tech projects that could break the trend. But from a believer perspective, much as we accept that God allows mainstream science to accomplish amazing things to humanity’s benefit, the types of knowledge being sort by those moonshots (e.g. unlocking the knowledge to allow secularists to become ] ) are exactly the sort of knowledge that God forbids. (Genesis 3:24).
:::'''Reply''' to ]: Thanks for your remarks. You clearly have a greater familiarity with guidelines than do I, and I'll look into your suggestions. In the meanwhile, could you propose an alternative wording that might be acceptable and might impact the "lazy" one-line reversion? ] (]) 14:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:::I like the suggestion of something like ]. That might have a broader scope than ]. ] <sup>]</sup> 14:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


What's not inevitable is whether the forthcoming re-invigorated religious culture will be benign. And it's here that skeptics can be of great value. Like Blake said over 200 years back, when the voice of sceptics was near its peak of intellectual power, "the greatest enemy of religion is religion itself." Or as per Seraphim Rose , it is Christ Who works on atheist's souls. "The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips." (Cf. Revelation 3:15-16).
::::'''Reply''' to ]: That seems like a good idea to me too. Can you tell me (perhaps on my ) what steps to follow to introduce such an article for consideration? ] (]) 15:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:::::I think RD232 has the best solution. WP:CIVIL doesn't seem to be the place for comments about edit summaries. If you two can get it started, let me know, I'd like to put my two cents into it. ] (]) 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
'''Comment''' The proposer of this RfC is currently a party at ], where his view of what constitutes "documented material" (and indeed "civility") are under examination by ArbCom. I think that this proposal ould simply pander to the agressive spinners of pseudoscience which we occasionally encounter on Misplaced Pages. Note that there is no requirement that the source actually says (in the eyes of a normal reader) what the inserting editor pretends it to say. ] ] 13:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
* This is a silly idea. The proposer has not demonstrated a good understanding of how to work well with others. I recommend closing this discussion now per ]. ] <sup>]</sup> 15:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
'''Oppose''', it's a clear case of ]. And it's not even a good rule, in that it empowers fringe POV pushers even more than they currently are. --] (]) 15:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


All this recent concern about skeptics is understandable, I used to see them as a problematic faction too for my first 12 or so years on Misplaced Pages (albeit to a much lesser extent as certain other factions.) But they are the only ones with the energy to protect us from harmful fringe on needed scale, such as article manipulation that could aid scammers and other types of folk looking to exploit the vulnerable. So even from an immediate PoV, skeptics should be seen as net +ve. Trying to limit skeptics on Misplaced Pages is at best fighting yesterday's battle today. I see WAID made a comment on one of the VP threads lamenting what the community did to the once mighty ARS. Considering both their anti fringe work & the long term considerations, Skeptics could now be seen as a more valuable faction than even the squad in its hey day, so it may be time for all these skeptic concern threads to stop. ] (]) 14:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::Perhaps we could deal with the proposal in language that is appropriate especially on a civility talk page...Leave out the editor and just deal with the proposal, workable or not, and whatever the outcome. The fact that the editor here has asked for and wants comments and has asked for them publicly is a sign of efforts to work with community input. Lets assume ]. I find the tone here surprising and unexpected. (] (]) 16:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC))
:These arguments read more as conspiracy theories than anything else, do you have a source which supports your argument that "long term the world is becoming unstoppably more religious & believing" because that contradicts the best available science as I understand it. ] (]) 15:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Yeah, I wondered if it was supposed to be ironic.... ] <sup>]</sup> 16:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::Re-collapsing, this discussion is best set to one of your two's user talk pages. This is ] and off topic to the discussion at hand. ] (]) 16:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::Considered bad form don't you know... It appears to be on topic and if true is something that we should take into consideration in the discussion at hand (I just don't think it is true)... It rambles, but its all on topic. ] (]) 16:28, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
::::It's not though. Leave other peoples talk page contributions alone please. ] (]) 17:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::What part is off topic? Collapsing is not one of those talk page contributions unless the collapsed text is also yours... Which is not the case here. ] (]) 17:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::The collapsed part? Also yes, collapsing is part of ones talk page contributions, clearly. ] (]) 18:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::] "Involved parties must not use these templates to end a discussion over the objections of other editors." if your involved collapse is objected to walk away, you don't edit war it back in especially when the direction given is "Your idea of what is off topic may differ from what others think is off topic, so be sure to err on the side of caution." ] (]) 18:27, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::: Would prefer the box stays collasped. The bit about the world becoming unstoppably more religious is from a Christian perspective - anyone who doesn't believe God set an angel to guard the Tree of Life (i.e., as per mentioned Genesis 3:24) is entitled to dismiss it as conspiracy theory. Naturally I have mainstream sources on the demographics in play, which I'd be happy to share if you visit my talk or ping me to yours. Per PackMecEng that seems too tangential to discuss here, where the focus seems to be on whether or not we should modify policy to further discourage anti-religious bigotry. ] (]) 18:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::So be it then. ] (]) 19:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
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Breeches of civility

Off-Wiki behaviour

I am sure this issue has been raised several times and I'd like someone to point me to the relevant guideline, discussion or ArbCom decision.

Short of harassment (WP:OWH), does WP:CIVIL apply also to off-wiki behaviour? Apparently it doesn't, if I'm not mistaken: Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages and so they apply in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians only when they take place on Misplaced Pages.

A couple of hypothetical examples to clarify the issue:

A) Twitting or posting on a social media something like "Those morons at Misplaced Pages deleted my article! I'm sure someone is paying them" (without naming editors) - violates WP:AGF - is this sanctionable?

B) "User:Whatever is most blatant rightwing/leftwing POV-pusher I have ever encountered" on a blog or social media (without doxxing) - can this off-wiki personal attacks be sanctioned as such, or can it only be considered an "aggravating factor" in the case of an on-Wiki dispute?

If anyone could link a discussion where this issue came up, I'd be grateful. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would be against this, as (for a start) how do you prove who they are here? Slatersteven (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
Let's assume this is not controversial, so as to focus on the principle rather than on the practicalities of its enforcement. We know for a fact that User:Somene posted on twitter that User:Gitz6666 is an idiot (this never happened: it's purely hypothetical). I understand that in principle this is none of the admins' business, right? The sentence Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages, including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians can be interpreted in two ways, if I'm not wrong:
1) "Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages (including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians)" > a contrario, they don't apply to interactions outside WP.
2) "Misplaced Pages's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Misplaced Pages (including discussions at user and article talk pages), in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" > they apply to "discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians" taking place outside WP.
I believe that 2 is wrong. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Anti-religious bigotry

There's a huge long discussion at WP:VPP about how editors handle certain types of religious content. (No, please, don't add to it. Really. But pinging the most active participants: @Bon courage, Warrenmck, Horse Eye's Back, SamuelRiv, jps, Hydrangeans, Firefangledfeathers, Loki)

I've run across a talk page comment in which an editor declared "Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking", and when I pushed back against this inappropriate comment, he doubled down, saying that his belief is "a very good one. The moral very high ground in fact. Also it's not bigotry".

I'm wondering if it might help, in a long-term kind of way, to mention anti-religious comments in this policy as something the community does not need more of. There's a list of "direct rudeness" that begins this way:

  1. rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross profanity or indecent suggestions
  2. personal attacks, including racial, ethnic, sexual, disability-related, gender-related and religious slurs, and derogatory references to groups such as social classes or nationalities

and while I believe this falls into the "insults" category (but not necessarily into "personal attacks", as that is generally interpreted as requiring a comment to be directed at an individual, or "religious slurs", because they're individually polite words), I doubt whether someone who believes himself to be expressing "righteous disapproval" of "evil" would be able to see his actions in that mirror. Consequently, I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy. However, I don't want to see genuine content discussions derailed ("My religion says it's turtles all the way down, and it's a violation of WP:CIVIL to say that the Earth moves through space due to inertia and gravitational attraction"). What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hard needle to thread. I'm not sure I would describe the comment you saw as inappropriate, but I understand why someone might. Part of the problem I have with our civility policy is that it doesn't really account for differences of opinions as to what is civil and what is not. A better outcome when someone says something like this would be to have a difficult discussion where there was a meeting of minds so that each person could actually come to an understanding of the other's position. Even if opinions did not change about whether and how one's comments might be civil or uncivil; right or wrong, there should at least be an acknowledgement than in a pluralistic environment like Misplaced Pages you have to work with others who do not share your perspective.
As such, I would not really be thrilled with an expansion of this policy in that direction. But, then again, I never liked this policy in the first place so I'm probably not the right community member to consult on this matter.
jps (talk) 00:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure that coming to a mutual understanding is the goal. (It'd be a fine goal for social media, which seems to be catastrophically bad at it.) I think a more relevant goal would be: if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject.
I remember seeing a case at ANI a long time ago. A (presumably white) editor posted something like "Boy, you sure screwed up there" or "You've been a busy little boy today". A (self-identified) Black man told him not to address him as a "boy", because Boy#Race is a thing. The first editor acted like the feelings of the person he was speaking to, not to mention the uninvolved people reading the comments, didn't matter. Except, you know, they do. He could have just said "Sorry, didn't know" and stopped repeating the offensive content. Or just stopped repeating it. It's not that hard to stop poking people's sore spots when they've told you to stop it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
if someone tells you you're saying bigoted things, you should probably post some words that could be interpreted as an apology, even if they're something as ambivalent as "didn't mean to offend anyone", or at least change the subject. I actually think mandating an apology whenever someone tells you that you are being bigoted would be an improvement over the current civility policy of just "be civil, but we're not going to be clear what that means -- you just have to navigate the community yourself." This is somewhat different than your original suggestion, of course. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
That sounds ambitious.
It reminds me of m:So you've made a mistake and it's public..., which is IMO excellent and which you might be interested in reading, if you haven't seen it before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I think that would be stretching civility to mean "don't say anything that might offend anyone" which is not possible and not desirable. This is not yet Wokepedia. Johnuniq (talk) 00:24, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'll be honest, if saying bigotry is bad makes this "Wokepedia" then I will happily be part of it. Who even uses woke unironically anymore? PackMecEng (talk) 15:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Ambivalent about the central question, but wouldn't WP:NOTAFORUM cover the comment at the top? And if someone too frequently posts citation-free rants about religion on a talk page, I presume they can be dealt with via WP:DE, et al. Putting that aside, wouldn't "religion is the domain of confused, old an illogical thinking", which is very clearly directed at a religion rather than any specific editors, be the same as strongly criticizing absolutely any subject that someone has made part of their core identity, whether religion, politics, or fandom? I know people who take it very personally when Taylor Swift or Donald Trump or Lord of the Rings are insulted, for example. As long as we're talking about the thing itself and not a specific believer/supporter/fan, it seems like we're in the realm of WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:DE rather than WP:CIVILITY... although I'm sure there are some obvious gray areas. — Rhododendrites \\ 01:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I also think NOTAFORUM would apply, since it's really off topic.
I don't think this is equivalent to the Swifties. I think this could well be equivalent to saying that Trump supporters are stupid. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this policy.: Perhaps we could use language inspired by the Inclusivity principle of the Wikimedia Movement Charter, which I think addresses why the type of language mentioned in OP is inappropriate for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community: The Wikimedia projects are developed in many languages, reflecting many regions and cultures. All activities are based on mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement. This respect is enforced through measures to support safety and inclusion. The quoted editor's insistence that saying Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking is The moral very high ground in fact is rather plainly contrary to the principle of mutual respect for the diversity of the participants of the Wikimedia Movement. Wikimedia and Misplaced Pages are international projects, and our movement charter sets an expectation of respect for the plurality of cultural backgrounds that exist throughout the world. We should no sooner tolerate behavior like the quote in the OP than we should tolerate it if the same had been said of other manifestations of experience and/or culture. That's to say that lots of other formulations along these lines would be just as wrong and we should have just as little tolerance for them (which is to say, we shouldn't tolerate such intolerance); for examples:
  • Religion The Middle East is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's orientalism)
  • Religion is Women are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's misogyny)
  • Religion is The elderly are the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's ageism)
  • Religion The working class is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking (that's class discrimination)
I don't think expressing sentiments like these—whether about religion generally, specific religions, or forms of identity or culture other than religion—in vague terms makes it okay. It still inhibits the creation of a respectful, collegial editing environment. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Your comparison to other subjects highlights the difference that struck me, too. When he says this about religion, we accept it. If he said the same thing about (e.g.,) "Jews" or "gay people" or "Black people", we'd be in insta-block territory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes... but what if he had said "My grandfather on his death bed was in the domain of the confused, old and illogical thinking". There is a legitimate question as to whether the claim at issue is actually true or not. The problem with the other examples is that they are demonstrably false generalizations. Is the identification of religion writ large as the domain of confused, old, and illogical thinking an incorrect generalization? It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be. For certain definitions, it is absolutely incorrect. But for others (for example, those definitions which define a religion to be those ideas which are a part of confused, old, and illogical thinking), then it is not really so much bigoted as it is a truism? jps (talk) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
An individual grandfather is not 'the elderly', which is an entire category of people. And if It depends entirely on what you define a religion to be, I'm not sure how that'd be anything more than word games. I'd hardly think it all that justified if someone were say on Misplaced Pages 'Jews are stingy' and then defend themselves by explaining that when they say 'Jews' they personally define that to only mean people who supposedly really are penny-pinching. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:27, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Because there are legitimate definitions of religion which deal with the hard-to-demonstrate aspects of the idea. After all, "religion" as a category is a difficult-to-define construct when we get right down to it, and it is even vaguely Eurocentric. A comparison to the category of Jews just doesn't work as far as I'm concerned because there is no argument about whether and how antisemitic stereotypes are definitional for Jews except in utterly bigoted contexts. I suppose you might argue that studies of comparative religion or philosophy of religion are utterly bigoted contexts, but I don't think that is a normal tack. jps (talk) 02:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
There are many legitimate definitions of religion, and it is hard to define and rooted in Eurocentrism. But I'm hard pressed to consider the example ('confused' and 'old') as being like any of the academically legitimate definitions. Bruce Lincoln says that religion is the desire to speak of things eternal and transcendent; Robert Orsi says religion is what human beings do, for, and against the gods; Clifford Geertz says religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in people; Talal Asad says religion is everything the modern state can afford to let go; one could go on. These are legitimate definitions. By comparison, 'the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking', meanwhile, is an expression of bigotry. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm hard pressed to consider the example ('confused' and 'old') as being like any of the academically legitimate definitions "Old" is a somewhat common way for certain academics to offer a clear demarcation between the popular distinctions between "cults" and "legitimate religions" with a nod to the irony that the truth-value of the claims are similar. Similarly, "confused" is just a synonym for descriptions provided by those who argue, in some academic contexts as the majority position, that religious belief is fundamentally irrational. You found four excellent scholars who provide functional definitinons of "religion" in terms of its social construction, but there is a strong academic tradition that goes back as far as the philosophes of the Enlightenment which defines religions in terms of the implausible and persistent claims people who follow them make. jps (talk) 11:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
True but not really relevant. Using age as a distinction between traditional vs newer religious groups doesn't involve calling the traditional beliefs "old thinking". "Confused thinking" is not a synonym for saying that religious belief is fundamentally irrational; it is disparaging language that scholars avoid. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I disagree. The idea that religious thinking is a kind of "old thinking" is not even particularly controversial given that most religions are based on ideas of fairly old provenance. The only issue is that it is not a universal. For my part, describing thinking as "irrational" and describing thinking as "confused" are basically synonymous. I see no strong taboos in the literature in identifying religious thinking in similar sorts of disparaging ways:
Etc.
jps (talk) 18:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
In past discussions, you have often emphasized how much a source or author has been cited as one potential measure of approximating the pertinence or influence. While the two articles you've linked aren't on their face irrelevant, being academically published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, close consideration makes me prioritize them less compared to the definitions offered by the religious studies scholars I quoted.Elsevier shows a total of 25 citations between the two articles you linked, and Google Scholar shows 35 citations and 25 citations respectively. This isn't nothing, and for some topics could be meaningful and sufficient. But for a topic as big and as studied as religion, those citation counts, comparatively, don't suggest that the descriptions of religion offered there are as influential or legitimate as definitions of religion as the aforementioned non-disparaging examples quoted above. To use two examples:
The publications with less casual and less disparaging definitions seem to carry more influence in academic scholarship. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Congratulations! You have successfully demonstrated the fallacy of the excluded middle. jps (talk) 00:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
When the difference in influence is on the level of orders of magnitude, it looks more like the cherry picking fallacy on your part. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:09, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Do you know what different contexts are? jps (talk) 01:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I think you are on some level right about differences in targets, though I have also seen similarly dismissive and derisive sentiments expressed without much community pushback and no administrative censure about transgender people and topics, or, in the words of others*, "nutty academics with all their postmodernist queer theory" and "ideologues" with whom supposedly "o dissent is brooked". From some points of view it's an unintuitive Venn diagram, though not an unprecedented one.
*I can provide the links to these quotations on request but did not do so in the original post since this thread is not about specific individual editors' behavior but rather about whether the civility policy can be expanded to clarify a community consensus against expressing bigotry.
Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Deciding whether to bring someone into a conversation as a "bad example" is such a tricky thing. You need concrete examples, or some editors won't believe that the comments actually happened. (I once had a wiki-friend – a woman I really like and whose editing was superb – say that she couldn't quite believe that oversight-worthy sexual harassment ever happened, because whenever someone mentioned an example, the oversight volunteers had always cleaned it up before she got there.) But when someone's comment is accidental, or being used as merely one example, then I think it's kind of mean to rub their faces in it, especially if they're less experienced than you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
"Religion" isn't analogous to "The Middle East" or "Jews". If we're going in that direction, it's analogous to "earth" or "people". If we got more specific and said e.g. "Christianity is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking" I'd be more sympathetic to the comparison. — Rhododendrites \\ 02:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I am sure some people interpret "religion" with metonymy, though, as in "religious people are...." jps (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm sure you're right. If you hear a statement about a stereotype, like "Mental illness is the domain of delusions and violence", one tends to read this as a claim about how people with mental health conditions interact with others, and not about what happens to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
But it's a key skill in intellectual endeavours of all sorts to be able to dissociate statements about concepts, ideas and things from statements about people (especially about oneself). Ultimately Misplaced Pages editing is an activity based in the propagation of knowledge whereas in some aspects religion lies in the realm of antiknowledge (rather, there is 'faith'). Thus there is always going to be a tension between (say) an encyclopedia that insists on asserting the Earth is not 6,000 years old and a fundamentalist Christian who might feel attacked by that knowledge. It in no way means Misplaced Pages should extend special treatment to any concept merely because of some religious association. But this doesn't mean either that Misplaced Pages or Wikipedians should be banging on about these tensions in a tedious Dawkinsesque manner. Bon courage (talk) 06:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Phrenology is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Human sacrifice is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Geocentrism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Viatlism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. Lamarckism is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking. It's shocking how when you change key terms in a statement it can become reasonable or unreasonable. Unless religions are possessed of personhood I don't see why they must be treated with civility. The real problem is that going on non sequitur rants about one's feelings on things aren't important to Misplaced Pages, but that's already covered by NOTFORUM and the like. XeCyranium (talk) 02:22, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm sort of of two minds here, because two things are simultaneously true:
1. A lot of articles on obscure religious topics make WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims that are not supported by secular sources, this is bad, and we should be much more vigorous in trying to fix it.
2. Many editors that deal with WP:FRINGE topics have a sort of hyperskeptical attitude that tends to lead to WP:NPOV problems when writing about religion or religious belief. (Would I call this "anti-religious bigotry"? Absolutely not, I don't think that exists. But it definitely can lead to tone issues when writing about religion.) Loki (talk) 03:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I think that in accusing @Lycurgus: of anti-religious bigotry you've crossed over the civility line yourself. Looking at the context on Talk:Celibacy its hard to see your side here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Probably this revolves around the distinction between ideas and people. In general it's ok to be dismissive of certain religion-associated ideas (miracles, supernatural beings, fake history, etc.) there is no need to extend that to being dismissive about people who might have faith in those ideas. It's fallacious to argue that "religion" should have some kind of protected characteristic in the same way as a certain group of people (women, Jews ...) because "religion" is a big umbrella term not a group of people. Bon courage (talk) 05:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I think theres more to it than that... People who are genuinely religious are largely incapable of NPOV when it comes to religious topics, we've seen that demonstrated time and time again... The problems largely seem to arise from people not making it clear that they're addressing a NPOV issue and not the reasons behind it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Hard to have religion without people, to the extent that we take scholars to be right that religions are socially constructed by people. (Likewise, one's hard pressed to have atheism or humanism without people, those being socially constructed as well, so I'd just as soon say it's inappropriate to say something like 'atheism is a philosophy of unhappiness', a claim that happened at the atheism talk page not so long ago. I don't think 'vagueposting bigotry is bad' is going to be special and specific to religion, though it's the example highlighted in the OP and in this thread). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 23:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
And it would be fine to argue, or rather profess a belief, that atheism or humanism or anything is illogical or irrational or whatever. Bigotry in this sense clearly refers to ideas towards people, not ideas about ideas that other people have ideas about. XeCyranium (talk) 02:27, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the context on Talk:Celibacy its hard to see your side here: What I see looking at that thread is WhatamIdoing offering respectful clarification, and looking at this thread I notice WhatamIdoing deciding to make the discussion about a general idea rather than a specific editor, unlike your approach of personalizing the matter and unnecessarily turning up the temperature. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
They provided direct quotes from a specific editor alongside an attack on that editor, I didn't personalize anything beyond what was already there. The only one making this more personal is you, who has decided to attack me personally instead of addressing the point raised. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
NO, as we should be able to talk about ideas freely, it is only people we should not be able to insult. Slatersteven (talk) 11:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
That is a super fine line and pretty subjective. PackMecEng (talk) 15:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Not really, if you think about it. A person is not an idea. That some people identify with ideas is unfortunate, but not something Misplaced Pages can fix. Bon courage (talk) 15:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm with Pack on this. Editors should neither be writing "Gays are evil" nor writing "Homosexuality is evil". I want to see nothing even remotely like that, because it is homophobic bigotry. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Indeed not, there are some very bad ideas it is unacceptable to espouse. I really cannot see why anybody should be espousing any (non-Misplaced Pages-related) ideas anyway - this is WP:NOTAFORUM. (Ironically it's a view in several religions that gays/homosexuality is evil, which brings us full circle.) Bon courage (talk) 15:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that you believe it's acceptable to espouse anti-religious sentiment, but you believe it's not acceptable to espouse anti-gay sentiment.
I don't think it is acceptable to espouse either of these viewpoints on wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
I think that's exactly true and a big reason why analogies do not work here.
Take the following three statements:
  • Homosexuality is evil.
  • Nazism is evil.
  • Christianity is evil.
One of those three statements is definitely bigotry. One of those three statements is definitely not bigotry. The form of the sentence is not helpful for identifying bigotry; only the content of the sentence is useful, and that involves subjective decisions about, frankly, how plausible you think "Christianity is evil" is. Loki (talk) 16:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Insofar as the category of Christianity is capacious and includes Latin American liberation theology practitioners resisting colonialism, denominations that affirm LGBTQ+ rights, anti-racist activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, etc., I'm pretty comfortable considering the phrase 'Christianity is evil' to be the kind of bigotry I expect to encounter in, say, particularly virulent takes by Ayn Rand, not a neutral expression appropriate to see on Misplaced Pages.Things that are unjust and evil include racism, misogyny, queerphobia, antisemitism, Nazism, Islamophobia, colonialism, etc., and these are all both narrower (because they aren't universal to) and wider (because they also exist elsewhere) than categories like 'religion', or 'Islam', or 'Christianity', etc. Calling out specific patterns of injustices or specific cases of injustice with certain persons or institutions is different from expressing intolerance about entire people categories. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 23:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
One is an intrinsic characteristic a person cannot control, one isn't. XeCyranium (talk) 02:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The idea that your religion is voluntary and changeable is very Christian. Some other religions and cultures believe that religion is also an intrinsic characteristic that a person cannot control. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Some believe that but I think Akbar the Great made it clear those beliefs were mistaken. Some people believe sexuality is a choice too, luckily there's a word for those people: "wrong". XeCyranium (talk) 20:48, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
A young man bragged to me once that, on a trip to southeast Asia, his traveling companion had been recognized as the reincarnation of some famous Buddhist priest. If that were true, how was his friend supposed to choose any of that? Can he say "Nope, I don't choose to have already been reincarnated"? Or "You aren't allowed to believe that about me"?
Some people believe they are very smart when they are not. Some people believe they are not smart when they are. Their beliefs do not change their intrinsic characteristics. You might believe you aren't smart, but you still are, and your belief does not change that fact.
Someone who believes in reincarnation would say the same about people who don't: you might not believe you are reincarnated, but you still are, and your belief does not change that. (Or, naturally, the other way around: if reincarnation is not real, then you aren't reincarnated, even if you believe it, and your belief does not change that fact.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
The whole tourists as reincarnated priests thing is a common scam. Examining it as a sincere religious belief seems to be missing the point entirely. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Well, that was my first thought, but I kept my mouth shut, because it seemed to be a deeply significant experience to him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Ethnic religions like Judaism make this dichotomy not so clear-cut. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't see how; secular and atheist Jews are still Jewish while not believing in the Jewish religion, to varying degrees, it's not some kind of ethnic obligation. XeCyranium (talk) 20:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
But in accordance with above it would be perfectly fine to say Jews, gays, trans, or whatever are okay to attack and that is simply not true. As a community we decide what is acceptable. Remember, attacking ideas or groups like that also stifles the free exchange of ideas. PackMecEng (talk) 15:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Jews are a race, not just an idea, and none of the others are just ideas they are actually biological, not one has Christian DNA, and no one is biologically Muslim. Slatersteven (talk) 15:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Being a Jew is not a race. But if we want to go that route, we show Nazis the door all the time and rightly so. PackMecEng (talk) 16:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Oh boy... So this is going back to basics but Jews are in large part an ethnoreligious group and the vast majority of modern Jews beleive that they are part of an ethnoreligious group... The vast majority of modern Jews are not Nazis. You've jumped the shark so hard its not even funny. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes jews are not Nazis, I'm not sure what you are arguing. I think you missed the point if that is your takeaway. PackMecEng (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
The point is that the majority of modern Jews would agree with the idea that "Jews are an ethnic as well as religious community" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I wouldn't say that there is Jewish DNA either, since the notion that race or ethnicity are genetically determined is pseudoscience. What is true is that Judaism is ethnoreligious to an extent beyond that of many other 'world religion'-esque categories. 'Secular Jew' has more legs and history than 'secular Christian', and even to the extent that the latter isn't nonexistent, it's not as readily conceived of in ethnic terms as the former. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 23:53, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Jews, gays, and trans people are not okay to attack, but fascists are (arguably it's obligatory to attack them, in fact). Sorry, but there is no content-neutral rule to be found here: you cannot just say "it would be bigoted to say this about gay people" because the important part of that phrase is "about gay people". Loki (talk) 16:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, its a fine line and subjective for what is acceptable and appropriate to attack or not. Which the community at large defines over time. We cannot use a simple open ended rule anymore. PackMecEng (talk) 16:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The conversational rulebook with regards to this varies with location, politics and time. Of course everybody considers their current version of it to be the "correct" one. IMO it's a bad and impossible idea to try to write the "correct" rulebook regarding this for Misplaced Pages. For neutral venues, the unwritten rule is that if ~95% agree, it's OK to treat it as fact, and so saying "Nazism is evil" is OK. But lots of people try to pretend that their 50% view is a 95% view.

Regarding the OP and civility, IMO wp:civility is about how to treat editors that one is conversing with. If the comment was somehow referring to someone in the conversation, I would consider any choosing of value-laden disparaging terms to be contrary to wp:civility. If not, not. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I would expand upon your idea to say: Civility is about more than just how you treat the editors you are conversing with. It is also about the effects you have on people who might 'overhear' that conversation. We don't let two straight men talk about how glad they are not to be gay, even if they think it's a fine way to treat each other, because we know that a gay editor might see the conversation and feel marginalized by the community's tolerance of this display of intolerance. The same is true for comments about race, sex, gender, and many other things. I think it should be equally true for religion (or lack thereof; I believe that comments against atheism or agnosticism hurt our community in an exactly equal fashion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
There are people who are uncivil in very subtle ways, but Misplaced Pages is ill-equipped to handle it because there is no venue for helping to moderate personal disputes between two different users. The assumption of this policy seems to be that everyone should just learn to get along by themselves until the PvP is so intolerable that you go off to complain to the authorities at the dramaboards. jps (talk) 13:13, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The one making what appear to be specious assertions of religious bigotry is not in a position to tell anyone else how to be civil... Making accusations of intolerance which aren't supported by the context and evidence is a civility issue, WP:ASPERSIONS etc. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Whatamidoing But this is a policy and going by your standard, it would be a violation of Misplaced Pages policy to write anything that offends any (not-in-the-conversation) person based on whatever set of behavior rules that they wish to apply. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I think what Whatamidoing is saying is that there is sometimes editors who say things to impose superiority of views or jab at another editors views, when we should be focusing on what sources actually say. Usually sources are more nuanced and not as insulting as editors here sometimes are. I have seen people say things like "sky daddy" or "stupid believers" and other internationally provoking terms, which of course shows their rotten mindset since even nonreligious editors defend religious content because it is encyclopedic and vice versa. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:51, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
You really can't be on Misplaced Pages talk:Civility saying " which of course shows their rotten mindset" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
North, I don't think so. First, I think we should differentiate between "upset" and "offend". Being told that (e.g.) "Scaryitis is uniformly fatal in babies" is upsetting (if you happen to know a family whose baby has this), but it's not offensive.
Second, we need to distinguish between a comment that repeats a group stereotype ("blondes are dumb") and a comment about an individual behaviors ("that televangelist is a scammer"). Editors who post something like "religious believers are so stupid they believe a sky daddy exists" are posting offensive stereotypes about groups. This should not be permitted. Editors should, however, be able to post a comment about an individual, based on their personal behavior. Commenting on personal behavior would include statements such as:
  • "User:EveEditor, please stop post insulting remarks about groups of people based on religious stereotypes per WP:CIVIL."
  • "User:PaulPushy, Misplaced Pages is not the place to post your proofs that your religion is correct."
In short, I think Ramos is correct: It is wrong and a violation of this policy to post insults about large groups of people (e.g., "stupid believers"), and it is still okay and acceptable under this policy to say that specific individual editors have problems (e.g., describing an individual editor's stereotyping as showing a "rotten mindset" ). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot. It is your opinion that this is a civil way to talk to you, right? Or did I misunderstand what you are saying? If I misunderstood you, regard those remarks as struck.
To avoid misunderstandings: I would never say this (You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot) to any other editor here, since I regard it as really uncivil. I am not seriously accusing WhatamIdoing of those things. I am using it here only to make a point. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:34, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Glad you've been crystal clear that's just hypothetical there Hob. They don't come anymore non-bigoted than WAID. That said, above analyse from Loki et al on why it's challenging to draw clear bright line general rules, and to make useful analogies, seems bang on point. Looking at the specifics may be helpful. The actual sentence that triggered concern here seems to be Religion is the domain of confused, old and illogical thinking but this is a practical term which has uses outside that. I'm sure in a medical context it's made clear. from Talk:Celibacy. In context, that's clearly not an attempt to insult large groups of people - rather, it's talking about religion in the sense that it can be understood as a set of social institutions , and especially as believe systems aiming to influence how folk think. Such a -ve view on religion is less common these days than 20 years ago, but it's still a respectable minority view, not a fringe one.
So my view is no change needed to the policy - the existing wording against "religious slurs" is sufficient. We can trust admins to distinguish between such slurs & valid POVs that are clearly relvent to article improvement, on a case by case bases. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the kind words, Feyd, and for the clear example, Hob. I wonder whether we have mistaken civility for friendliness. Hob's example would be an unfriendly thing to say, but if, in the particular context, it builds up the community, I don't think it would necessarily be uncivil. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
That is an extremely weird idea of civility. I cannot see how being unfriendly "builds community", except by bullying away those one wants to exclude from it for arbitrary reasons. The reasoning also smacks a bit of "the ends justify the means": be friendly unless you want to achieve a specific goal. I will unwatch this page now. This is not a community I want to be part of. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
@ Hob, it will be a shame if you don't return as at bottom we're probably all of like mind on this one. If someone literally said You have a rotten mindset, and you are a bigot to an obviously non bigoted editor then even the more lenient among us would probably agree it warrants an insta block. I think WAID's point was more that even your hypothetical example could come across as a little unfriendly - though not at all uncivil, and also providing valuable clarity that had seemed helpful in guiding us towards a resolution of this thread.
@ WAID - yes I think you're exactly right on the distinction between friendliness & civility. IMO more friendliness is desirable in that it would encourage more collaboration & might be especially good for diversity. Unlike with civility though, no attempt should ever be made to enforce friendliness. For many, it doesnt feel natural or authentic to be especially friendly online, esp. with those who have ideological differences. Going back to the exchange on Talk:Celibacy that triggered all this, the editor's doubling down when you raised the bigotry concern was arguably unfriendly but not uncivil. For folk with certain life experiences or have been exposed to too much one sided analyses, it can indeed seem the moral high ground to criticise religion. Huh, even celebrated encyclopaedist Diderot was anti-religious, so much so that he's often cited (incorrectly I think) as having said Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest. All this isn't to say anti-theists have a blank cheque to be critical of religion, as in many contexts doing so is divisive & gratuitous. But on the TP of an article where it's clearly relevant, like Celibacy, it's ok. Just my opinion. If nothing else this thread has shown how fiendishly difficult it can be to draw bright lines, as theres so many valid conflicting perspectives in play. Which I guess is why trusting to admin discretion on a case by case bases may be the best we can hope for? FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
I think Hob's example is good because it could be civil or uncivil, depending on the context. Demanding sanctions against someone at ANI because they have a rotten mindset is probably just an instance of name-calling. Approaching someone to say "Hey, I think you need to take a break from that noticeboard. You're always ranting about it, and, to be blunt, it looks like you have developed a rotten mindset about the editors discussed there. Maybe get back to the kind of editing you actually enjoy for a while? If you're worried nobody will step up if you don't handle things, I'm willing to put some hours into it for the next month" might be startling to the recipient, but it's probably civil. A joke with a friend, along the lines of getting his mind out of the gutter, is harmless friendly banter. Same words, three contexts, three responses.
This maybe a bit of an etymological fallacy, but civil comes from Civitas: the united citizens. On wiki, we call that 'the community'. It isn't just about individual, one-on-one behavior. Civility is about the collective effects, too. At some level, anything that helps the community is civil, and everything that hurts the community is uncivil. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
While I agree context matters—if, say, posts at ANI to say ' posted antisemitic slurs in a discussion, and here are the diffs so they clearly have a rotten mindset, and we should indeff', I think we should prioritize sanction against rather than against —I don't think it's usually necessary to use 'unfriendly language' like that, and to the extent it isn't necessary we might as well avoid it. We don't need to try to assess someone's mindset or personality and then describe such in a crass way if describing their behavior and/or a pattern of behavior is sufficient, so we might as well avoid the former and prioritize the latter.That said, to Hob's concern about omething samounting to exclud for arbitrary reasons—there are various ideas and behaviors we want to exclude from Misplaced Pages, but I don't think our reasons our arbitrary. In editor interactions, we want to exclude any bigotry that would violate the Univeral Code of Conduct's ban on using slurs or stereotypes or would abridge our obligation under the Code to take active responsibility for ensuring that the Wikimedia projects are productive, pleasant and safe spaces. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
Even if the UCOC didn't exist, we'd still have a legitimate interest in encouraging a "productive, pleasant, and safe space", because that's what results in editors producing good content instead of (e.g.,) spending all their time at the drama boards or deciding that contributing is no longer worth the hassle.
Hydrangeans, what you said about to the extent it isn't necessary we might as well avoid it is a good summary of the first half of Postel's law of communication. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
To put my last post in another shorter way, this is a policy (which editors can be sanctioned for for violating) covering treatment of editors which one is conversing with. As a policy with teeth (and which is often weaponized) , I don't think it would be a good idea to broaden it to include references to all other groups and people in the world. This is a policy about treatment of editors who you are conversing with. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
Slightly off topic analysis and discussion thereof

Seems to be a great deal of chat on VP & elsewhere on the Skeptic| religion intersection. If I'm reading correctly, those concerned about sceptics are coming mainly from non-believing perspectives- i.e. the Lawrence M. Principe type mainstream faction where members typically show no discernible faith themselves, yet are strong believers in being respectful towards what they see as the more +ve sorts of "Woo". But maybe some saw the slew of news from around the world earlier this month showing apparent religious decline in several countries, e.g. claims that in UK, atheists now outnumber believers for the first time. Maybe there's some kind of chivalrous feeling that believers are some kind of endangered minority, in need of protection?

Ironically, it's those on the skeptic side of the mainstream who better understand what's going on. The recent reports are lagging indicators, long term the world is becoming unstoppably more religious & believing. Social media has seen an explosion of supernatural content recently, even sites like Reddit have many believers subs when any trying to argue from a skeptic perspective are instantly perma'd as trolls. I guess theoretically this could change, but tech titans are likely to be quite resistant to tweaking algo's against supernatural content. It's understood to be part of the reason why the decade+ trend of worsening mental health metrics for young people has finally turned for the good (Compare this 2024 CDC report with the 2023 version. A turn around that came just in time to potentially stall global efforts to massively regulate their platforms.

But the key long term trend is one that not even the most influential militant atheist can begin to contend with. Our Population decline article is outdated & understates plumeting birth rates . And also wrong in that the global average births per women needed to sustain a population is 2.2 (2.1 is true in global north only). Birth rates are now below replacement rates in every single part of the world except sub Saharan Africa. In several countries, birth rates per woman are now well under 0.9. The situation becomes far more pleasing when you look at more granulated data sets. They show that for secular women and moderate believers, the birth rate is sometimes lower than 0.5, whereas for deeply religious women, birth rate per woman tends to be well above 4! The consensus among social scientists who study these matters is that by far the biggest predictor on whether a child will grow up to be religious in the religiosity of their parents. Trends for religious families to have far more children have been underway for two decades now, have only accelerated in the last 5 years, and have already substantially changed the culture in some parts of the world.

In the anglophone world, it may take 2-3 generations before the shift towards religiosity will be sufficient for all our articles to be re-written in a way that's pleasing to believers. But that it's going to happen is all but inevitable. (Sketpics are free to think otherwise, there are certain moonshot tech projects that could break the trend. But from a believer perspective, much as we accept that God allows mainstream science to accomplish amazing things to humanity’s benefit, the types of knowledge being sort by those moonshots (e.g. unlocking the knowledge to allow secularists to become meths ) are exactly the sort of knowledge that God forbids. (Genesis 3:24).

What's not inevitable is whether the forthcoming re-invigorated religious culture will be benign. And it's here that skeptics can be of great value. Like Blake said over 200 years back, when the voice of sceptics was near its peak of intellectual power, "the greatest enemy of religion is religion itself." Or as per Seraphim Rose , it is Christ Who works on atheist's souls. "The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips." (Cf. Revelation 3:15-16).

All this recent concern about skeptics is understandable, I used to see them as a problematic faction too for my first 12 or so years on Misplaced Pages (albeit to a much lesser extent as certain other factions.) But they are the only ones with the energy to protect us from harmful fringe on needed scale, such as article manipulation that could aid scammers and other types of folk looking to exploit the vulnerable. So even from an immediate PoV, skeptics should be seen as net +ve. Trying to limit skeptics on Misplaced Pages is at best fighting yesterday's battle today. I see WAID made a comment on one of the VP threads lamenting what the community did to the once mighty ARS. Considering both their anti fringe work & the long term considerations, Skeptics could now be seen as a more valuable faction than even the squad in its hey day, so it may be time for all these skeptic concern threads to stop. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

These arguments read more as conspiracy theories than anything else, do you have a source which supports your argument that "long term the world is becoming unstoppably more religious & believing" because that contradicts the best available science as I understand it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Re-collapsing, this discussion is best set to one of your two's user talk pages. This is WP:NOTAFORUM and off topic to the discussion at hand. PackMecEng (talk) 16:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Considered bad form don't you know... It appears to be on topic and if true is something that we should take into consideration in the discussion at hand (I just don't think it is true)... It rambles, but its all on topic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
It's not though. Leave other peoples talk page contributions alone please. PackMecEng (talk) 17:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
What part is off topic? Collapsing is not one of those talk page contributions unless the collapsed text is also yours... Which is not the case here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
The collapsed part? Also yes, collapsing is part of ones talk page contributions, clearly. PackMecEng (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
WP:COLLAPSENO "Involved parties must not use these templates to end a discussion over the objections of other editors." if your involved collapse is objected to walk away, you don't edit war it back in especially when the direction given is "Your idea of what is off topic may differ from what others think is off topic, so be sure to err on the side of caution." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:27, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Would prefer the box stays collasped. The bit about the world becoming unstoppably more religious is from a Christian perspective - anyone who doesn't believe God set an angel to guard the Tree of Life (i.e., as per mentioned Genesis 3:24) is entitled to dismiss it as conspiracy theory. Naturally I have mainstream sources on the demographics in play, which I'd be happy to share if you visit my talk or ping me to yours. Per PackMecEng that seems too tangential to discuss here, where the focus seems to be on whether or not we should modify policy to further discourage anti-religious bigotry. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
So be it then. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)