Incivility

Uncivility : use of personal attacks, name calling, never-ending insinuations, lies, defacement of personal pages, accusation of vandalism, call for banning toward another wikipedian.

This style of interaction between a wikipedian and another wikipedian tend to transform participation on Wikipedia, an unpleasant experience for the wikipedian victim of the incivil behavior, as well as for the whole community.

When and why does that happen ?

• In case of an edit war, when people support different opinions, or for power sharing
• When the community grows big. An editor do not know all the others, he may not perceive their individual importance in the project, so do not feel like preserving bonds that do not exist. Reputation do not count so much.
• Sometimes, a specifically impolite outsider unfortunately gets in the projet

Why is it bad ?

• because it makes people unhappy (resulting in discouragement and departure)
• because it makes people angry (resulting in non constructive or even uncivil behavior themselves, further escalating the uncivility level)
• because people loose good faith (resulting in even less ability to resolve the current or the next conflict)