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== If a person says they are a Nazi, or hate x ethnic/religious group, do we have to just let that pass? ==

Is there really no line that if crossed allows editors to dismiss etc their views? ] ] 18:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

:Methinks you want to read ]; while only an essay, it has noticeable support among editors.--] (]) 18:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
::@] I came here from there as NPA is being quoted on the talk page with someone saying “ This essay is a violation of ], which explicitly states that comparing editors to Nazis or criticizing them on the basis of their political affiliations is unacceptable. Existing conduct policy is sufficient to keep most ideologically motivated editors off the project.” ] ] 18:43, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
::: That last sentence is certainly true, thank goodness. 99%+ of editors are not Nazis. However there are thousands of us editors, which means, by simple math, that every so often we find a few that are. Its a useful and widely supported essay and if someone disagrees they may nominate it for deletion and see if that is true. --] (]) 18:49, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
::::@] Um, I’m not being clear I guess. I’m questioning the wording of NPA. ] ] 09:17, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
::::: Eh. No Nazis says "If you're a Nazi, you're probably going to get blocked". It doesn't say "everyone is allowed to call people they're in arguments with Nazis", which is what NPA forbids, so they aren't really contradictory. Note that NPA does not say "being a Nazi and/or expressing Nazi views is OK".
::::: As to your original question, I would not recommend looking for a reason to dismiss people's views. If X is participating in a discussion with you, either address their views, or go to an administrator and have them blocked, but the middle ground of "We think X's views are despicable, but we can't convince an administrator or the community that they are blockworthy, so we will let them edit but dismiss anything they say forever" is not good for anyone. We don't want to have shunned non-persons that everyone is supposed to ignore editing the Misplaced Pages. If they are really so despicable that all their views should be dismissed, we should ban them, if not, we should treat them like real people. --] (]) 14:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
::::::I'm not trying to do that at all. ] ] 07:58, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
::::::: Good to hear. Especially since I think you actually have a mop, right? So, um. I feel like I'm trying to explain fractions to my Math professor - you probably understand all this stuff better than I do, right? So ... um? What's the problem? Because some less than clueful person is making a fuss on the No Nazis talk page? Er - that's not really a reason to change any phrasing on NPA, right? We just nicely explain to them that just because NPA says you shouldn't ''call'' people Nazis, doesn't mean that if they are ''actually'' behaving like Nazis that's a good thing. We similarly shouldn't randomly ''call'' people murderers, but if we see an actual person being murdered, we should darn well do something about it. --] (]) 15:28, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Agreed. ] ] 18:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
::@] ] (]) 00:52, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
:I agree, as written, it's talking about offensively and without basis comparing someone to Nazis - not about people who themselves show up and say Nazi things. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 02:15, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

:Doug, I presume you are referring to this comment . I can see their point. I'm not sure if I agree or if I think context matters but they aren't all together wrong. The essay, right or wrong, says that you are acting like a Nazi if you do XYZ. If someone says "based on your behavior of XYorZ, NONAZI may apply to you". Well that is in a round about way, comparing the person to a Nazi. But I can also see how saying, "you have traits similar to" is not the same thing as saying "you are". Someone who is Norwegian and presumably Arian has ethnic traits similar to Nazis (at least their ideals) but that comparison alone is far from making them any kind of Nazi. Given the title of the essay I do see how saying the essay applies to an editor would imply they are a Nazi so I see the point. I think this would be especially problematic if say the editor were from part of the world that suffered under Nazi occupation even if the editor themselves had nationalistic attitudes. Consider if we had an editor with Polish nationalist views but who lost family to the Nazi occupation. Yeah, it's a constructed example but in the correct circumstances I can see the concern. That said, I can also see how people might feel that an editor is already over the line if people are suggesting NONAZIs applies to them... assuming it reasonably does. ] (]) 15:55, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
::Sorry, I really don't have time for this and no interest at the moment. ] ] 16:19, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

== Needs a section on calling/assuming somebody to be "a bot" ==

Today I accidentally assumed a user to be a bot, judging by their swift answer (~100 words + a revert just under 2 minutes). I think the guideline could use a section on that as well. In fact, users with Twinkie or other tools to watch over fresh edits in Misplaced Pages can give a scare to a keyboard-only editor like myself. Not that I am proud of asking ] if the swift revert was a "some kind of prank?" - I just hope there will be a guideline specially for non-savvy editors surprised by the speed of such reverts. ] (]) 10:33, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


=== Apparently, I did that assumption more than once ===
* In fact, I did a similar thing last year:
] Hello, I'm ].
I wanted to let you know that one or more of ]&#32;to ] have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the ].
If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the ] or the ]. Thanks.<!-- Template:uw-vandalism1 --> ] (]) 09:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

My reply was:

:That was a chat-like quick reply. Suspicious... ] (]) 09:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Back then, I was not aware there are tools that allow to both revert and leave template-based messages simultaneously. Hope this will help in the future. ] (]) 10:38, 17 July 2023 (UTC)



== A comparison list of personal attacks ==
== NPA question ==
quote: "Comparing editors to Nazis, communists, terrorists, dictators, or other infamous persons. (See also Godwin's law.)
Would, ''" I don't mean this in an insulting way, but do you happen to have a ]?"'' be seen as acceptable, in a user_talk: page reply, during a dispute between two editors.


I propose to remove the word communists for the following reasons:
I would see this as absolutely unacceptable here, but I'm aware that we have no clear rules on such and that our practice for "acceptable language" has certainly slipped of late. ] (]) 17:04, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
# Communism in an economic concept where means of production are commonly owned, it is an opposing side of capitalism in contrast to capitalism where means of production are owned by certain invididuals; since communism is an economic concept, to be non-biased, the whole sentence should look like "Comparing editors to Nazis, communists, capitalists, terrorists, "
:I wish people would just include the link for the . ] (]) 19:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
# Godwin's law does not mention communists. Nazism as a whole was condemned by the international community, including both communist and capitalist countries, The Nuremberg Trials, involved an international military tribunal composed of representatives from the Allied powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France; whereas communism is not condemned, or, if condemned, by capitalists or their sympathesizers and vice versa. Due to the controversy of the issue, I propose to remove it. Alternatively, we may add "capitalists" to the list to have it balanced.
:Nonetheless I agree its a personal attack, and its carefully crafted to give it a shallow appearance of harmlessness. See also ] ] (]) 19:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
--] (]) 15:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::Interesting that this discussion here (rather than on my talk page) and that Andy Dingley did not bother to notify me. I'm sure there are better ways I could have phrased it, but I thought that my preface made it clear that the question was serious and not meant to be an insult or insinuation. In my interactions with Geo Swan, he has seemed to have difficulty interpreting things that I and others have written. I assumed he just had poor reading comprehension. It occurred to me today that perhaps this may be due to other factors. There are many editors here who have spectrum disorders. I do not think any less of them (or any more of them) because of that, but it does make me be more careful of how I write. I will remove that part of my comment to Geo Swan. 22:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
:::And the horror behind the disguised personal attack is ] at AfD ]. That article illustrates the worst aspects of Misplaced Pages where "but it was in the media!" is substituted for common sense. The subject was photographed naked when six years old and wrote an article at at age sixteen (article does not appear to be currently available), with a follow-up on TV. That's it! ] (]) 22:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
::::It was not a "disguised" personal attack. On the contrary, after days of dealing with Geo Swan it finally occurred to me that maybe he genuinely was not able to understand what I was saying because of how I was saying it and not because he was being deliberately difficult. ] (]) 22:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
:::::OK, you did not intend it as any kind of attack, and for you it was a genuine question. However please understand that such a line of questioning intrudes too far into personal attributes. Suppose that users X and Y are in a dispute and Y comes to believe that X cannot understand what Y is saying. That's where the inquiry should stop. Assuming X cannot understand (this really is hypothetical as I have not looked at the discussion in question other than to see its location), the reason for the problem is irrelevant. Perhaps X ''can'' understand and is just trolling. Perhaps X lacks intellect. Perhaps X's grasp of English is very limited. All of that conjecture is not Misplaced Pages's problem as the only thing that matters is whether X can or cannot understand a discussion involving them. Even that does not matter if the problem is only at one location or only one time. ] (]) 00:23, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
:::::See ].... genuine concerns of this sort can be discussed with other eds but it never really helps to bring it up with someone in a conflict ] (]) 02:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
::::::I agree that this kind of question should be considered as personal attack and should not be used in Misplaced Pages discussions. -- ] (]) 08:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
* FWIW, {{U|World's Lamest Critic}}, the contributor who claimed that they were trying to ''"help"'' me by suggesting that the only reason I disagreed with them was that I was mentally ill, has been indefinitely blocked. That block was triggered by attempts to out the real life identities of other wikipedia contributors, against their will. ] (]) 20:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)


==Recurring attacks==
== NPA question over mental disorders ==
:Is there a reason, possibly some archived discussion, concerning including or excluding {{see also|Misplaced Pages:Harassment}} --- under the section title?
:The Misplaced Pages community definition of "recurring (repeated) attacks" is {{tq|a pattern of repeated ] that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons}}, so it would seem uncontroversial. -- ] (]) 17:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)


== Do we differentiate between direct and indirect personal attacks? ==
To add up to the previus section, I would like to ask if comments such as "you suffer from ] " or "it turns you are ]" or similar, should be considered as personal attacks or not. -- ] (]) 07:54, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
:It all depends. Of course we would prefer that everyone was beautifully behaved and there was no need to refer to obsessions or other disruption, so the simplistic answer is that these examples would be attacks. You knew that. However, life follows a rocky road from time to time and there is always the possibility that calling a spade a spade would be best. ] (]) 08:14, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
::] I believe that experssions that have to do with mental disorders are somehow undrestimated and not wel described in the policy. For instance, other expressions like calling a fat person "fat" seem not ot be used as often on Misplaced Pages talk pages. In contrary, mentioning the gender of a female person in a discussion seems to be overused based on researches. For example "Listen, woman" may be considered as personal attack even thought the person in question may actually be a woman or even defne themselves as female. -- ] (]) 08:50, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
:::There is no reason to think that the size of a person affects their editing so mentioning fatness never arises. Some editors think there are different male/female approaches particularly with regard to some topics. However, I have never observed anyone say "Listen, woman" on Misplaced Pages (or in real life, for that matter). What I have seen is obsessed editors who cannot leave a topic alone despite pushback. Several such people can currently be seen at ], and other cases arise periodically. Sometimes the issue reaches Arbitration. Obsessive editors can be a problem, although it is rarely desirable to mention that term. Instead, standard procedure is to refer to the editing and describe what are perceived to be problems with that. If you have a proposal to change the policy, please state it. ] (]) 09:39, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
::::] I don't have a concrete answer to this. I noticed the discussion above and I mainly added my comments on it. I think the first line of the policy ''"Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases based on race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religious or political beliefs, disabilities, ethnicity, nationality, etc."'' describes the problem under the term "disability". My question is: Should we add: "physical or medical" in parentheses? -- ] (]) 09:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
:::::The more of these little qualifiers are added to a statement, the less clear the message becomes and the less likely people are to read it. They also tend to encourage a "]" argumentative attitude, where fine points of the words overshadow the main idea. The main idea here is that editors should discuss editing the page rather than try to humiliate each other. All disabilities are physical or mental, so listing those doesn't help. It obscures the main idea a little bit and makes us look silly. Maybe it even makes us appear obsessed with disabilities. If you'd like to persuade people to discuss constructively rather than try to humiliate, there are probably many more-effective ways than tweaking the wording of a policy. —] (]) 14:37, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


On the ] page, an IP user :
My edit was just reverted. -- ] (]) 12:31, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
{{tq|My God, California could fall into the sea tomorrow and you people would oppose adding "submerged" to the opening sentence because "recency" and "undue weight" and "California's more notable for other things than being underwater" and "Misplaced Pages isn't a newspaper". It's obnoxious. Stop it. You're embarrassing yourselves.}}
In my mind, this is simply a thinly-veiled personal attack, disguised as an indictment on a larger group. But I'm not sure.
#Would the same exact phrase, referring to one person instead of a wider group, be considered a personal attack, or even a borderline personal attack?
#In general, does referring to a group as a method to personally attack an individual constitute a personal attack?
#Is this codified in policy somewhere that I am unaware of?
Thanks. ] </nowiki></span>''']] 01:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
:Who cares if it's documented somewhere? When it comes down it, we have to rely on some commonsense and the comment above is not a personal attack. If commentary like that was frequent without compensating positive contributions, the author might be sanctioned. But a couple of statements like that are just part of a robust exchange. Either ignore or briefly explain whatever the issue is. ] (]) 02:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
::My question was just a general question about policy, more than an actual want to sanction the IP. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the user makes comments like these frequently.
::Why don't you consider this a personal attack? Also, I don't get what positive contributions have to do with it; can you explain? ] </nowiki></span>''']] 02:19, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


== Adding "language" to the list of protected characteristics ==
Searching of the word "obsession" in user talk I found more than 4,000 uses of the word including expressions such as " please, keep your fanaticism or obsession with your idol(s) to an acceptable level.", "Your obsession with it has crossed the line from annoyance", "Your obsession with Westervelt won't correct your business failure", "why did you have to hit Misplaced Pages with your obsession" and many others. This shows that easily medical terms can be used to insult or perform attacks to editors. -- ] (]) 12:36, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|Magioladitis}} As ] pointed out to you in the ], "obsession" is not inherently a medical term. ] (]) 14:09, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
::As ] also pointed out in ], the fact that you had to manually pipe <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code> both there and here demonstrates that you ''know'' that "obsession" and "obsessive–compulsive disorder" are two different things and are intentionally fabricating evidence of a non-existent personal attack to try to deflect attention from your own disruption. (If you genuinely don't know what "obsession" means, the OED definition is {{tq|An idea, image, or influence which continually fills or troubles the mind; a compulsive interest or preoccupation; the fact or state of being troubled or preoccupied in this way}}; I don't think anyone who's ever had any dealings with you would dispute that "a compulsive interest or preoccupation" is an accurate and neutral description of your fixation with running scripts and bots.)&nbsp;&#8209;&nbsp;] 14:53, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
*], ] Hey. I am not relating my question here with the other discusion. I said that the use of this word may be interupted as personal attack. I believe that the use of these words sometimes is unintentional but they still may pose a problem the same way a gynecologist's question to a female person "do you and your boyfriend use protection?" is sexiest but no many people realise it. -- ] (]) 16:24, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


@] I have attempted to add "language" to the list of protected characteristics, which you have reverted. Could you please elaborate on your reasoning? ] (]) 07:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
*As for my revert: Policies too ground in specifics result in wikilawyering. There is no need to clarify what types of diabilities, it prohibits against all of them. If you start breaking down and listing types of disability, you will at some point have an editor go 'That isnt one of the disabilities listed'. So no, it needs no clarification. ] (]) 15:06, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
:{{u|NicolausPrime}}, if I say to another editor: "Your English language skills are too weak to edit the English Misplaced Pages, and I recommend that you edit the Misplaced Pages in the language you speak best", is that a personal attack? ] (]) 07:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
*This discussion is a non-starter. We shouldn't unnecessarily medicalize ordinary English words such as "obsession". And Magioladitis - you'd be well advised to stop doing stuff like this and your attempt on AN to have all instances of "cunt" and "pussy" rev-del'd from Misplaced Pages, and '''''concentrate on helpful editing of articles.''''' ] (]) 22:17, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
::If there was evidence that this has been resulting in unintentional disruptive editing, then my understanding would be that your example would be governed by ] and not by this policy. And I don't think this example would constitute {{tq|Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases}} by the cultural standards present on Misplaced Pages.
**Just a remark: In the Greek Misplaced Pages version ] (Obsession) redirects to ] (OCD). It's interesting in English the word seems to be used in a sligtly different way. -- ] (]) 22:26, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
::Now, one may claim that neither of these arguments is very strong. But I don't think this policy is interpreted with this level of literalness either. For example, if someone was detected inserting content whitewashing Holocaust or increasing visibility of neo-Nazi activists, then citing the ] essay to call for a rightful ban could run afoul of a literal and scrupulous reading of the following prohibitions: {{tq|Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing}} and {{tq|Comparing editors to Nazis}}. ] (]) 08:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Both the English Misplaced Pages and the Greek Misplaced Pages are not dictionaries. You could not reasonable assess ''how'' the word is used based upon a redirect on an encyclopedia. We have very few articles on Misplaced Pages that merely define a word because of ]. I am not fluent in Greek, but based upon the translation, there obviously appears to be a comparable word to obsession in Greek that does not mean Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: ]. Regardless, I fail to see the relevance to this discussion. ''']''' ] 23:09, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
:No, I can't beyond that it seems unnecessary. Your justification was "completeness", which is not sufficient in my mind. To me, you would need to articulate an actual concrete reason for the addition. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 07:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::]. True. Thre is no relevance.My examples were bad and the point was missed. I just wondered if we should add explicitelly the words "physical and mental" next to disabulities because sometimes we tend to forget the last one. Anyway. I am covered by BenKovitz's reply. -- ] (]) 23:39, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
::To be clear, the list is explicitly non-exhaustive ({{xt|etc.}}), so there really has to be a positive argument for explicit mention of any given item. To be blunt, this seems potentially like a preoccupation that is wholly hypothetical on your part. Does this happen? Moreover, if there is a linguistic discrimination problem in the discourse on here, surely it should be profiled and discussed first? <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 07:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The bottom line is that you initiated this discussion because someone said at ARCA that you have an "obsession" and you chose to take the worst possible interpretation of that remark and believe they were saying that you have OCD. No reasonable person would make that assumption, just as they would not interpret my saying to my daughter "You're crazy to wear that sweater" to mean that I thought she had a mental disorder. '''''Drop the damn stick, please,''''' and walk away, this is going nowhere and will not result in a change in ]. ] (]) 00:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 04:57, 29 December 2024

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.
To report other users making personal attacks, please go to Misplaced Pages:AN/I.


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If a person says they are a Nazi, or hate x ethnic/religious group, do we have to just let that pass?

Is there really no line that if crossed allows editors to dismiss etc their views? Doug Weller talk 18:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Methinks you want to read Misplaced Pages:No Nazis; while only an essay, it has noticeable support among editors.--GRuban (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
@GRuban I came here from there as NPA is being quoted on the talk page with someone saying “ This essay is a violation of Misplaced Pages:No_personal_attacks, which explicitly states that comparing editors to Nazis or criticizing them on the basis of their political affiliations is unacceptable. Existing conduct policy is sufficient to keep most ideologically motivated editors off the project.” Doug Weller talk 18:43, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
That last sentence is certainly true, thank goodness. 99%+ of editors are not Nazis. However there are thousands of us editors, which means, by simple math, that every so often we find a few that are. Its a useful and widely supported essay and if someone disagrees they may nominate it for deletion and see if that is true. --GRuban (talk) 18:49, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
@GRuban Um, I’m not being clear I guess. I’m questioning the wording of NPA. Doug Weller talk 09:17, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Eh. No Nazis says "If you're a Nazi, you're probably going to get blocked". It doesn't say "everyone is allowed to call people they're in arguments with Nazis", which is what NPA forbids, so they aren't really contradictory. Note that NPA does not say "being a Nazi and/or expressing Nazi views is OK".
As to your original question, I would not recommend looking for a reason to dismiss people's views. If X is participating in a discussion with you, either address their views, or go to an administrator and have them blocked, but the middle ground of "We think X's views are despicable, but we can't convince an administrator or the community that they are blockworthy, so we will let them edit but dismiss anything they say forever" is not good for anyone. We don't want to have shunned non-persons that everyone is supposed to ignore editing the Misplaced Pages. If they are really so despicable that all their views should be dismissed, we should ban them, if not, we should treat them like real people. --GRuban (talk) 14:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm not trying to do that at all. Doug Weller talk 07:58, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Good to hear. Especially since I think you actually have a mop, right? So, um. I feel like I'm trying to explain fractions to my Math professor - you probably understand all this stuff better than I do, right? So ... um? What's the problem? Because some less than clueful person is making a fuss on the No Nazis talk page? Er - that's not really a reason to change any phrasing on NPA, right? We just nicely explain to them that just because NPA says you shouldn't call people Nazis, doesn't mean that if they are actually behaving like Nazis that's a good thing. We similarly shouldn't randomly call people murderers, but if we see an actual person being murdered, we should darn well do something about it. --GRuban (talk) 15:28, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Doug Weller talk 18:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
@Doug Weller 2409:408A:2D32:B323:0:0:9E4A:1806 (talk) 00:52, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
I agree, as written, it's talking about offensively and without basis comparing someone to Nazis - not about people who themselves show up and say Nazi things. Andre🚐 02:15, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Doug, I presume you are referring to this comment . I can see their point. I'm not sure if I agree or if I think context matters but they aren't all together wrong. The essay, right or wrong, says that you are acting like a Nazi if you do XYZ. If someone says "based on your behavior of XYorZ, NONAZI may apply to you". Well that is in a round about way, comparing the person to a Nazi. But I can also see how saying, "you have traits similar to" is not the same thing as saying "you are". Someone who is Norwegian and presumably Arian has ethnic traits similar to Nazis (at least their ideals) but that comparison alone is far from making them any kind of Nazi. Given the title of the essay I do see how saying the essay applies to an editor would imply they are a Nazi so I see the point. I think this would be especially problematic if say the editor were from part of the world that suffered under Nazi occupation even if the editor themselves had nationalistic attitudes. Consider if we had an editor with Polish nationalist views but who lost family to the Nazi occupation. Yeah, it's a constructed example but in the correct circumstances I can see the concern. That said, I can also see how people might feel that an editor is already over the line if people are suggesting NONAZIs applies to them... assuming it reasonably does. Springee (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, I really don't have time for this and no interest at the moment. Doug Weller talk 16:19, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Needs a section on calling/assuming somebody to be "a bot"

Today I accidentally assumed a user to be a bot, judging by their swift answer (~100 words + a revert just under 2 minutes). I think the guideline could use a section on that as well. In fact, users with Twinkie or other tools to watch over fresh edits in Misplaced Pages can give a scare to a keyboard-only editor like myself. Not that I am proud of asking Adakiko if the swift revert was a "some kind of prank?" - I just hope there will be a guideline specially for non-savvy editors surprised by the speed of such reverts. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 10:33, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


Apparently, I did that assumption more than once

  • In fact, I did a similar thing last year:
Information icon Hello, I'm Loafiewa. 
I wanted to let you know that one or more of  your recent contributions to Talk:Mosin-Nagant have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. 
If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Teahouse or the Help desk. Thanks. Loafiewa (talk) 09:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

My reply was: 

:That was a chat-like quick reply. Suspicious... 81.89.66.133 (talk) 09:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Back then, I was not aware there are tools that allow to both revert and leave template-based messages simultaneously. Hope this will help in the future. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 10:38, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


A comparison list of personal attacks

quote: "Comparing editors to Nazis, communists, terrorists, dictators, or other infamous persons. (See also Godwin's law.)

I propose to remove the word communists for the following reasons:

  1. Communism in an economic concept where means of production are commonly owned, it is an opposing side of capitalism in contrast to capitalism where means of production are owned by certain invididuals; since communism is an economic concept, to be non-biased, the whole sentence should look like "Comparing editors to Nazis, communists, capitalists, terrorists, "
  2. Godwin's law does not mention communists. Nazism as a whole was condemned by the international community, including both communist and capitalist countries, The Nuremberg Trials, involved an international military tribunal composed of representatives from the Allied powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France; whereas communism is not condemned, or, if condemned, by capitalists or their sympathesizers and vice versa. Due to the controversy of the issue, I propose to remove it. Alternatively, we may add "capitalists" to the list to have it balanced.

--Maxim Masiutin (talk) 15:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Recurring attacks

Is there a reason, possibly some archived discussion, concerning including or excluding See also: Misplaced Pages:Harassment --- under the section title?
The Misplaced Pages community definition of "recurring (repeated) attacks" is a pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons, so it would seem uncontroversial. -- Otr500 (talk) 17:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Do we differentiate between direct and indirect personal attacks?

On the Talk:Donald Trump page, an IP user said this: My God, California could fall into the sea tomorrow and you people would oppose adding "submerged" to the opening sentence because "recency" and "undue weight" and "California's more notable for other things than being underwater" and "Misplaced Pages isn't a newspaper". It's obnoxious. Stop it. You're embarrassing yourselves. In my mind, this is simply a thinly-veiled personal attack, disguised as an indictment on a larger group. But I'm not sure.

  1. Would the same exact phrase, referring to one person instead of a wider group, be considered a personal attack, or even a borderline personal attack?
  2. In general, does referring to a group as a method to personally attack an individual constitute a personal attack?
  3. Is this codified in policy somewhere that I am unaware of?

Thanks. Cessaune 01:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Who cares if it's documented somewhere? When it comes down it, we have to rely on some commonsense and the comment above is not a personal attack. If commentary like that was frequent without compensating positive contributions, the author might be sanctioned. But a couple of statements like that are just part of a robust exchange. Either ignore or briefly explain whatever the issue is. Johnuniq (talk) 02:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
My question was just a general question about policy, more than an actual want to sanction the IP. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the user makes comments like these frequently.
Why don't you consider this a personal attack? Also, I don't get what positive contributions have to do with it; can you explain? Cessaune 02:19, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Adding "language" to the list of protected characteristics

@Remsense I have attempted to add "language" to the list of protected characteristics, which you have reverted. Could you please elaborate on your reasoning? NicolausPrime (talk) 07:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

NicolausPrime, if I say to another editor: "Your English language skills are too weak to edit the English Misplaced Pages, and I recommend that you edit the Misplaced Pages in the language you speak best", is that a personal attack? Cullen328 (talk) 07:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
If there was evidence that this has been resulting in unintentional disruptive editing, then my understanding would be that your example would be governed by WP:DISRUPTIVE and not by this policy. And I don't think this example would constitute Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases by the cultural standards present on Misplaced Pages.
Now, one may claim that neither of these arguments is very strong. But I don't think this policy is interpreted with this level of literalness either. For example, if someone was detected inserting content whitewashing Holocaust or increasing visibility of neo-Nazi activists, then citing the WP:NONAZIS essay to call for a rightful ban could run afoul of a literal and scrupulous reading of the following prohibitions: Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing and Comparing editors to Nazis. NicolausPrime (talk) 08:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
No, I can't beyond that it seems unnecessary. Your justification was "completeness", which is not sufficient in my mind. To me, you would need to articulate an actual concrete reason for the addition. Remsense ‥ 论 07:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
To be clear, the list is explicitly non-exhaustive (etc.), so there really has to be a positive argument for explicit mention of any given item. To be blunt, this seems potentially like a preoccupation that is wholly hypothetical on your part. Does this happen? Moreover, if there is a linguistic discrimination problem in the discourse on here, surely it should be profiled and discussed first? Remsense ‥ 论 07:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)