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Semi-protected edit request on 27 June 2022

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The "Responding to personal attacks" section has incorrect information about what to do if the personal attack involves a threat of physical harm. Currently, this section states "Attacks that are particularly offensive or disruptive (such as physical threats, legal threats, or blatantly bigoted insults) should not be ignored. Extraordinary situations that require immediate intervention are rare, but may be reported at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents."

However, this information is incorrect as step 3 of the the Misplaced Pages guideline regarding threats of physical harm explicitly states that high-traffic noticeboards should not be used in situations involving threats of physical harm.

Therefore, the section on this article should be changed to something like this. "Attacks that are particularly offensive or disruptive (such as physical threats, legal threats, or blatantly bigoted insults) should not be ignored. Extraordinary situations that require immediate intervention are rare, but may be reported at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents unless they involve a threat of physical harm. Do not use high-traffic noticeboards in any situation involving threats of physical harm. Instead, immediately follow the instructions on this page." 158.121.180.33 (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: The Misplaced Pages:Emergency page is a behavioral guideline, whereas this is a policy. I don't believe I should be changing a policy to meet a guideline. There is further clarification needed here as which is the proper procedure.Fbifriday (talk) 10:13, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Reference to Godwin's Law

In the context of calling people names, a reference to Godwin's Law reads as though it is trivialising such name-calling. That is: “look, inevitably all arguments end up comparing someone to Hitler.” But this is exactly the sort of thing we are not excusing. I would like to just take out the parenthetical myself, but I'm not in the habit of editing policy without checking in first.

As currently written:

some types of comments are never acceptable:

— HTGS (talk) 02:01, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

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)
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)

Adding "lack of patriotism" at section "What is considered to be a personal attack?"

Adding: "*Accusing others of lack of patriotism (which usually is a good thing but context matters)". What do you think? Sometimes someone gets accused of lack of patriotism if he is adding material based or RS that is not flattering to its own country of origin. Cinadon36 08:01, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a need to list all possible insults. Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
It might not be an "attack" so much as an issue of NPOV. Altanner1991 (talk) 09:06, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
Thanks both for the replies. @Altanner1991:, not a matter of NPOV, cos it is a comment on user's character, not on the content of the article. @Johnuniq:, no we do not need to do it. But it wont hurt adding one more. Cinadon36 10:26, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
No I meant it is not something one should even consider a character issue: it should only be handled on content bases. Altanner1991 (talk) 11:51, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Softening "may be removed by any editor"

Any interest in changing Derogatory comments about other editors may be removed by any editor. to Derogatory comments about other editors are sometimes removed. in the two spots where this is stated? I feel that the action requires some nuance (as described in the WP:NPA#Removal of personal attacks section), and that giving such an absolute "this is allowed" type statement may encourage newer editors to be a bit reckless with their NPA removals. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: I don't know if you were still planning on making this change, but I agree with it. We rarely see derogatory comments removed except for those which are absolutely egregious. For the most part, I've combed through many article talk pages where insults and ad hominem attacks took place, and they generally are allowed to stand since removing them would be considered unnecessary clerking. It's clear that "no personal attacks" is a policy that should be unequivocally enforced, but any statements regarding how it may be enforced generally are descriptive and not prescriptive. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't feel there is a problem with criticisms being improperly removed as personal attacks. Thus I don't think the sentence in question is resulting in reckless removals. Accordingly, I prefer stating that personal attacks may be removed, to straightforwardly communicate that it is an available choice. isaacl (talk) 16:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

humorous topic

npa sounds like the name of a rat 88.110.61.147 (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2023 (UTC)