Incivility: Difference between revisions

{{TNT|Conflict}}

The Wikipedia community has an informal hierarchy of core principles — the first being to strive for NPOV. The second simply demands a reasonable degree of civility towards others. Even if "civility" is just an informal rule, it’s the only term that can apply, and it’s the only reasonable way to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable. We can’t ask people to love, honor, obey, or even respect another, but we have every right to demand civility.

One essential definition of civility is to treat others as you like would havelike them to treat you. However, in reality, it is not always enough just to treat people in the same way that you would have them treat you, because people may have different preferences for how they like to be treated. For this reason being civil relies on the use of empathy to realize that others may have different preferences of treatment than you do, and that a '''form of behavior that you might not personally find unpleasant could be experienced as unpleasant by others'''. Importantly, empathy includes the ability to realize that others may also have difficulties being sufficiently empathicempathetic, and that perceived lack of civility in others does not necessarily stem from bad faith, but could come from users having different norms of behavior or personality.

WikipediaWikimedia projects as a whole is not especially respectful of other contributors. This directly affects the quality of the community experience at Wikipedia. By hurting the community, the quality of articlescontent is affected as well. This creates a cycle of incivility that reinforces itself, and in some cases conflicts between contributors over onea single content (article, media, etc.) can expand to involve additional people and additional articlespages.

[[mediation|Mediation]] regularly involves disputes in which one party feels injured by the other. The apology is an act that is neither about problem-solving and negotiation, nor is it about arbitration. Rather, it is a form of ritual exchange between both parties, where words are said that allow reconciliation. In {{w|transformative mediation}}, the apology represents an opportunity for acknowledgement that may transform relations.

If an editor feels the need to be uncivil, he/shethey should do that elsewhere,<ref>[http://www.incivility.net incivility.net]</ref> not on Wikimedia projects.