User:Incnis Mrsi/Etiquette is not only a gentleness

Every long-standing community has its social norm, but it depends on its habits, values and selection rules (if any). There is not so much things in the human etiquette which are human universals. For example, the etiquette of modern hackers would be abhorrent from the point of view of medieval chivalry. Wikipedia is not a salon because of two differences.

First, the information in Wikipedia is used on the time scale from days to years – Wikipedia’s content is not a kind of real-time entertainment. Wikipedia should not optimize for short-term consequences of all information circulating here (not only articles, but also discussions). A message which will cause irritation of several users in few minutes, but which would remain useful for years is better than a message full of positive emotions, but without any medium-to-long-term value.

Second, the structure of Wikipedia relies on the “one text” principle. This makes some type of conflict between users inevitable. Wikipedians permanently throw away content made by other Wikipedians – it is necessary to accumulate a quality content. Deleting one’s edits often causes his/her hostile reaction, and it is normal because most Wikipedians are human.

This essay does not try to represent an unbiased overview of all Wikipedian etiquette. Indeed, it focuses on issues which proponents of a salon-styled etiquette persistently downplay or ignore. It is an attempt to consider some problems in user interaction without situational wisdom like “stay cool”, but with reflexions about goals which a good, correct Wikipedian should pursue.

General principles

Purposes of communication

Communication between users, as all activity outside content pages (where “content” pages include not only pages of the Namespace 0, but also templates, categories, and pages from “MediaWiki:”), should ultimately help users to improve Wikipedia. This includes discussions on:

• how to improve a specific article;
• how to rearrange content across articles;
• which content is inappropriate;
• general content guidelines;
• how to improve a quality of future edits;
• how to improve design and accessibility.

If a discussion goes to advance something of the above, then it is useful for Wikipedia. Also, inter-user conversations may help Wikipedia if these conversations increase understanding and ensure trust. Note that a reusable (i.e. readable by a third party) discussion has an additional benefit.

Contrary, any activity which fuels vanity and personal ambition of “featured users”, which promulgates a vanity-friendly understanding of “etiquette” and “civility”, damages Wikipedia. This includes (but is not limited to) the barnstar subculture, which actually forms a kind of social network and promulgates a false elitism by means of mutual vaunts.

Participate in useful, pro-Wikipedian conversations, and support it by other means. Avoid and discourage un-Wikipedian conversations.

Criticism is an important part of the process

Rude and incompetent postings to discussion pages are anyway better for Wikipedia than incompetent edits to articles, edit wars, and off-wiki defamation. Though, see the next subsection about the criticism towards contributors.

Shunning the content criticism leads to decreasing quality of the content. Shunning the community criticism leads to further disruption of the community. Avoid both.

"They made" or "they said"?

The WP: No personal attacks policy nearly starts with words

“ Comment on content, not on the contributor. ”

As any commandment carved in stone it is not applicable to all possible situations. It is certain that “commenting on a contributor” is generally harmful, but there exist situations where a contributor has to be discussed, and must be discussed. For example, when a WP:community ban is under consideration, the people may give arguments “no, his/her contributions are valuable, so do not ban”. In another hand, WP:RfA consists of nothing more than commenting on the candidate. This show that "do not comment on a contributor" is not an absolute prohibition.

Actually, discussions on “this user made such-and-such edits” can be very useful. But discussions on “this user said such-and-such things” can be very disruptive because easily escalate to a meaningless flamewar.

If needed, discuss who made something. Do not fuel discussion on who and how said something.

Proportional response

See also: WP: Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

This thing is really a human universal. Who responds to … with a missile strike? Even if such states or other entities do exist, they have little resources. And nobody fights against, say, heroin plantations with nuclear weapons. Use only a proportionally strong response in Wikipedia. Proponents of a salon-styled etiquette say that it is due to “you have to stay cool” or “maintain a collaborative environment”.

But there is a really important substantiation: any serious conflict has a strong chance to involve a third party. Anticipating this, you should unambiguously identify yourself as a good, correct Wikipedian. If your opponent does not do the same – poor opponent, it is so unfortunate for his/her point. English Wikipedia is a large community and a single PoV-pusher or troll cannot push it by a single inch.

Follow the protocol, always. It does not matter whether your opponent is actually a wrecker.

Articles

Articles are the primary aim of Wikipedia. The etiquette cannot resolve major conflicts on articles and other content pages. But it greatly help to reduce and resolve minor conflicts arising from a miscommunication.

Edit summaries

Main page: Help: Edit summary

Actually, edit summaries are not a part of content pages (see ), but they serve as a link firmly connecting the work with content with discussions.

Make edit summaries. Do not miss that wikilink syntax does work there.

An edit you do not agree with

An edit you do not like is not necessarily a vandalism.

Either prepare to explain why the edit is bad, or do not engage in fighting against it.

Discussion pages

A discussion page is any page where a user signature is expected. This include all pages of talk (odd) namespaces, as well as many pages in “Wikipedia:” space. These numerous pages should help to improve Wikipedia, but incorrect use can lead to flamewars and drama if are used improperly.

Use discussion pages only keeping in the mind the goal of improving Wikipedia.

And also,

Do not neglect edit summaries even commenting a posting.

Links and diffs

When you want to describe a concrete problem, it is a bad idea to start from something like

“ Regarding your comment on the RfC page about being careful with dealing with external links, I have to inform you that rules of Wikipedia provide exhaustive guidelines on this problem. ”

This awful sample may raise questions:

• Which RfC? (there are many, and sometimes active simultaneously)
• Which comment? (of, possibly, several)
• What exactly does s/he mean as “external links”? (there are links to sister projects, there is the external link syntax “[link title]”, and there are external links in articles)
• Which problem? (there are several problems associated with external links)

Things become even worse when a third-party user read something alike. S/he unlikely will try to find the cause of such posting.

You can follow this scheme in making postings and comments:

1. What happened – use links or diffs (may be omitted if the problem is already under discussion in the thread);
2. Is it bad/good/contested – use words;
3. Substantiation – link to policies and guidelines (but never say anything like "per WP:MOS");
4. Your proposal (may be omitted in evident situations such as “to implement aforementioned guideline”).

This last point is of not least significance, because discussions should seek to improve Wikipedia.

The link syntax, including anchored(#) links, is the best to pointing to policies and guidelines (except rare situations where unauthorized changes in these pages are discussed). It may be appropriate for pointing to discussions (except in the user_talk of a problematical user – see below).

For specific revisions of pages use diffs or oldids. For an oldid, a handy alternative to an external link is Special:PermanentLink feature in the form of [[Special:PermanentLink/oldid]], where oldid is a decimal number.

Conserve your words – they are necessary to express your thoughts. Point to Wikipedian events via links and diffs. Avoid using link syntax for pointing to page which are subject to significant changes – use diffs or oldids instead.

New topics

Main page: WP:+

It ought to be a common knowledge that headers like ==Your edit==, ==Question==, ==Problem== and so on are abhorrent. But these creations are not especially rare, even those made by rather experienced users.

First of all, you should think whether a new topic is really useful (see previous subsection).

Make new topics only where it is appropriate, when it is appropriate, and with a meaningful heading.

Personal talk pages

Is really a proper place?

They deleted my posting!

On your user_talk page, avoid blanking postings of another users, no matter how "rude" they are. Blanking of a posting which constitutes the first ever attempt of a user to contact you may be especially detrimental (this does not consider issues of WP:Sockpuppetry and WP:Canvassing). If your talk page became flooded with somebody’s eloquences to such extent that disrupts a legitimate communication, use {{hidden}} template, wait several weeks after the dispute dies out, and archive it.

Postings which constitute a spam or a defamation of a third person are exempted from this rule. Such things may and should be blanked on sight.

But from the opposite side, if a talk page "owner" deleted your posting, do not bother much about it. He did a bad thing and appeared as an untrustworthy person, but you can do many good things instead of arguing with him/her.

An attempt to maintain an “ethical” personal talk by selectively purging questions indicates either recipient’s psychological problems or a gross misunderstanding of Wikipedia’s culture. A user, who deletes a posting because s/he is unhappy with it, does not deserve a trust.

Administration

What is an administrative action?

An administrative action is usually understood as an action which can be performed only with special privileges. This essay will use a slightly stronger definition:

An administrative action is an action which can be performed only with special privileges and cannot be reverted without special privileges.

See also

• fr:Wikipédia:Code de bonne conduite, a nice guideline which systematize many common problems