Wikipedia has a policy on civility. One would be forgiven for believing that policy would or should be enforced here. I've always defined civility quite simply: If you're doing something in good faith, you're being civil. Sure, sometimes tempers flare, and sometimes criticism cuts too deep, or is less constructive than it should be. But civilization (the thing from which civility is derived, and by which it is defined) is founded on trust, and where there's trust, there's civility. Flare-ups burn out, apologies are made and accepted, insults are forgiven, criticism is rescinded or accepted in the spirit in which it was intended. That, to me, is the mark of civility. Two people might argue, and even vent their frustrations to each other, but at the end of the day, they both believe that they want to accomplish the same goals, and they'll get back to that the moment things calm down.
However, it has been my continuous experience that this definition of civility is rarely, if ever, enforced by the actions of the admins here on this project. Instead, a variety of systems of etiquette are enforced; each such system being defined by the admin enforcing it, and in most cases, these systems bear only a superficial resemblance to what a reasonable person might recognize as actual civility.
According to one, any use of curse words is a violation. According to another, anything short of "you are a jackass" is not, and even that's forgivable. According to a third, any display of frustration or blunt honesty is a violation. According to a fourth, anything that wouldn't be said by a bishop at a dinner party with the Pope is verboten. And according to almost all of them; the actual meaning of what is said is immaterial. It's how it's said that matters, regardless of whether what is being said is "I like puppies," or "I agree with people who support rounding up entire groups and systemically murdering them."
And beneath that lies a deep, rhythmic heartbeat of intensely personal motives. It may not be obvious to a newcomer, but to any editor with significant experience, the cliques and friendships and feuds and allegiances of a large swathe of editors are as plain as the nose on their face. This latter fact isn't really a problem in and of itself. But it exacerbates the former issue, which most certainly is a problem.
Dishonesty runs rampant among a large percentage of editors, yet lying and misrepresentation are rarely responded to. Conniving, conspiratorial behavior is frequent and common, yet it, too is almost always permitted. False accusations of wrongdoing are expressly prohibited, yet they fly fast and free across this project. A reasonable person might expect that an individual attempting to hijack this project to push their political, pseudoscientific or conspiratorial beliefs, who lies about what sources say, invents wildly improbable narratives to contradict widely-accepted or just blatantly obvious facts, accuses other editors of bias at the barest hint of disagreement, games the system in order to win arguments with their enemies, and just generally approaches editing with a combative view, unwilling to concede any victory to those they disagree with until there is no other option would be the very definition of an uncivil editor. But no, there will be significant disagreement on that front, whereas the editor who engaged unfailingly in good faith, who dares utter the phrase "crappy edit" while reverting a crappy edit is guilty of a crime that demands punishment.
Worse yet, when that same behavior is engaged in by someone an editor is friends with, or who belongs to the same clique or has a history of holding similar views, that editor will rarely hesitate to jump in to support them. And when it's engaged in by those with whom they disagree, well, then it's time to dig through that person's edits looking for the violations of etiquette that they might get them blocked for. Because, as any retired hacker can tell you, it's those who exploit systems who best understand how to use those systems to their advantage. They know not to falsely accuse their opponents of engaging in bad faith, because they know that even if they're right, nothing will be done. No, they're smart enough to clutch pearls over every mildly intemperate or bluntly honest remark that editor's ever made. Because they know that that's what will get them sanctioned.
And as if that cultural zeitgeist weren't enough; we've enshrined it in the temple of tradition that admins do not invoke their authority on content disputes. Regardless of how egregiously bad-faith one or both editors might be behaving with regards to that content, if it's about content, the admins won't touch it, except, perhaps to set their mops aside and offer an opinion no more valuable than any other editors.
Cursing, emphatic speech, directness and bluntness are the only behaviors condemned as uncivil. Pile-ons of motivated bad-faith editors aren't just permitted, they're actively encouraged. This is a project where an editor can engage without the slightest hint of good faith, for the self-admitted purpose of pushing their own preferred narrative onto it with no regard for the truth, and so long as they do so while adhering to a system of etiquette that resembles those enforced closely enough, will never face consequences for their behavior.
In February of 2019, I got frustrated with the inconsistency between the policies and the methods used to enforce them. I was in the midst of an argument over my own behavior. While I can certainly admit to being more confrontational than necessary in the lead-up to that, it was taken as an opportunity for a number of editors with personal grudges and political disagreements to engage in yet more actually-uncivil dishonesty by pretending to care about the collegiate nature of this project. The unrelenting childishness and bad-faith on display there led me to decide that, as it seemed inevitable that my own behavior was the only behavior under scrutiny (despite yet another oft-cited yet seldom practiced "norm" in this place), a "nuclear option" of sorts, of which I'd been aware of for some time, had become a feasible tactic.
So I took it. I outed an editor who has been an unrepentant apologist for both neo-Nazis and pedophiles, who had been working to conform Wikipedia's articles on subjects related to his wildly racist beliefs to those beliefs. In doing so, I knowingly violated one of the WMF's writ-in-stone rules, and the edits in which I did so were struck from the public record and I was blocked indefinitely per long-standing norms pertaining to such. And I was okay with that, because in doing so, I'd also removed one of the worst offenders. It might not have made much of a dent in the amount of fringe, partisan POV pushing going on here, but it fucked up one Nazi's day, and that, at least, makes me smile.
I was disgusted with the approach to civility widely taken here. A large number of editors had expressed regret over my decision to do something that got myself blocked. A few editors maintained email correspondences with me, some for a few weeks or months, some for much longer, and some just sporadically. You all know who you are. I mostly avoided WP project, user and talk space during that time, though I continued to use the encyclopedia as a reference and a starting point for research. However, I was still hearing about the goings-on here, and once in a blue moon, I'd take a look to see what was happening.
For almost two years, I continued to watch things continue the way they'd been going. Around the last US Presidential election, however, I thought I saw some changes. A few long-term editors who'd been abusing the processes here ended up blocked. A few admins expressed sentiments very similar to those I described in the first couple of paragraphs here. I thought things were changing. I became less pessimistic about the the project, and began remembering some of the enjoyment I'd had. When a coworker decided to create his own WP account, I encouraged him, and helped him get around the autoblock I'd accidentally gotten applied to our workplace internet connection.
One day, I saw a couple of admins I had maintained a lot of respect for commiserating my departure from the project. I'm not ashamed to admit that hit me right in the feels. I gave it less thought than I should have, and concluded that the recent admin actions I'd seen taken represented a shift in how the community was operating. That this project was starting to care more about its core values, as outlined in WP:5P, and less about drama-mongering over things like whether "This is a shitty edit" constitutes a personal attack.
When I came back, a few editors were delighted to see my signature appearing again. I was delighted to see them again, and went looking for an article to improve, hopefully with their help. I determined to approach editing with an eye towards comporting myself in line with our myriad etiquettes, to stave off any lingering concerns. I recreated the edit notice that had previously triggered a number of editors with it's blunt statement about what I will and won't tolerate on my talk page, and made sure the new version was comprehensive, polite, friendly and shot through with my sense of humor. I apologized to other editors whom I suspected might not recognize my foul-mouthed, occasionally-ball-busting humor in my responses to them. I ignored insults thrown my way. I politely explained problems with bad edits I reverted, and I spent more time than previously telling (mostly bad) jokes and engaging in banter, especially with editors with whom I disagreed.
I expected a quick, if gradual return to the camaraderie and helpful environment which I remembered from the good moments. I expected old rivalries to have been forgotten by others, the way I'd forgotten them in my time away from the project. And most of all, I expected better handling of conflict.
I was wrong to expect any of that.
I was thoroughly and completely wrong. I was blinded by my own nostalgia for the fun I'd had overhauling poor articles, writing new articles on obscure topics and working towards consensus on the wording and nature of controversial claims and simple facts about controversial subjects. I let my own emotionally-fueled desire to get back to that place blind me to the very thing that had ruined it for me in the first place.
Instead, I found that the cache of good faith I'd previously established among many editors who cared more about the goals of the project than its conformity to their views had been thoroughly eroded (Wait, I thought we were supposed to assume good faith? Not with anyone who's fallen afoul of the etiquette enforcement corps, apparently). I found myself accused of racism, communism (which is worse than Nazism to some editors who posses a more tenuous grasp of reality than your typical schizophrenic person), fascism, and a variety of other -isms that make absolutely no sense, whatsoever. I found my efforts to improve articles reverted by editors who objected on the grounds that they didn't agree with what the sources say. I found a literal conspiracy to get me and other good-faith editors sanctioned for being heavily involved in reinforcing an overwhelming community consensus. A consensus which, I might add, reflected a scientific consensus which can be proven to date back to the 1970s or 80s, but which those same conspirators believed without question was a mere local consensus stemming from wishful thinking and a supposed hoax perpetrated in 2018, based entirely on the word of an anonymous editor. I was repeatedly and falsely accused of violations of our etiquettes. I was lied to by multiple editors, insulted, belittled and subjected to some of the most logically ill-advised argumentation I've ever encountered in my life.
And yeah, I responded to some of that in ways that violated our etiquette. I told an editor to stop lying in all caps. I told an editor who insisted upon pinging me multiple times in an argument I'd already explicitly denied being interested in to fuck off. In fact, that latter thing happened multiple times, and my response was the subject of complaints each time. I had an editor accuse me of being racist, claim I'd done something they damn well knew I hadn't, strongly imply I should reverse that action, and then throw what can only be described as a temper tantrum in response to me following their implied advice. That same editor then proceeded to write multiple comments explaining how they wanted nothing to do with me, on my talk page. As if that weren't enough, they decided to hurl more personal attacks my way a week or two later, on a public noticeboard. An admin witnessed the first part of that tantrum, and not only did nothing, but falsely and without evidence threw more accusations at me. And that temper-tantrumming editor is widely considered one of the pillars of this project.
I've been blunt (but not uncivil) in describing an edit I reverted, apologized for that bluntness, and then spent the next several days being repeatedly accused of hurling insults as a result. I've made harmless jokes and had them called personal attacks. I've offered friendly advice, and had it called personal attacks. I experienced multiple temper tantrums, shot through with a complete lack of good faith, coming from multiple users, including at least one admin. I've explained our policies to a new editor and had it called a personal attack, and then watched that same editor embark on a months-long campaign against me and anyone who defended me, all while every admin just shrugged it off and ignored my requests for them to even so much as warn the fucker to stop doing it, even though that same editor has explicitly endorsed fascism and admitted to only being here for the purpose of POV pushing, for fuck's sake.
And every time I asked any admin to do anything about about the bad faith I kept encountering, I had it strongly implied to me that it's not a problem they want to deal with. Eventually, I reached a point where I just wasn't willing to do it anymore, and I explained myself to one of the vanishingly small number of editors I consider a friend and dropped off.
Since then, some of you have been emailing me. Most of those emails, I'm happy to get, even if I don't respond to them. (I've never been good about returning calls or emails, unless I have the chance to do so right when I get it.) One admin decided to email me multiple times about all the problems of their personal life, with the apparent intention of convincing me not to hold such critical views about the failure of the admins and editors here.
A phrase that I've heard from several detractors has been "unrelenting hostility". I've been accused of it a few times, by idiots too stupid to recognize that there's a record of me maintaining their precious etiquette far more often than not right in front of their faces as they write that crap. But that's not to say there hasn't been any unrelenting hostility, because I've certainly been on the receiving end of some of that shit. Not just violations of civil cooperation as I defined it above, but blatant and egregious violations of the etiquette I'm consistently being told I violate.
Some of the editors here are good people, engaged in a worthwhile activity, and doing it as best as can be expected. But not all. Not even most. Most of the editors here, good intentions or not, don't give a shit about the core principles of this project. They care about fulfilling their own needs to participate in an orderly and structured system, to win arguments and feel smart, and they don't give a shit what happens beyond their own experience. And those among them with the bit are self-absorbed and un-self-aware enough to have to audacity to say they'd be willing to clamp down on bad-faith actors actively trying to undermine the goals of this project if I'd just be nicer to those same folk.
Fuck that noise. I can expect and get more maturity from my 7yo son than I can get from most of the editors we've chosen to enforce maturity on this project. And I actually enjoy my 7yo's company. I don't have to pretend not to be friends with him, lest someone point to that and cry bias when I have his back. I don't have to worry about him ignoring me because he heard me say a bad word. He and his brother are mature in ways that far too many editors here can't grasp, and childish in ways that would benefit even more editors here if they'd just pull their own heads out of their asses long enough to catch a breath.
I was going to link to all the examples of childishness I mentioned, all the times I was unfailingly polite with someone who might have benefitted from being taken down a peg, all the times some admin has admitted I was right and in the very same breath refused to do a damn thing about it. But I realized that I really don't owe this place anything. You can damn well look it up yourselves, if you've got the capacity to even give a shit enough to do so. Some of you are cool with me, and to those, this doesn't apply to you. You generally know who you are, and if not, well, you've probably got my email address already. Use it, and I'll let you know.
And to the one who's been defending the complete lack of support from the admins here: This shit absolutely applies to you, and don't think for one second that I feel obligated to keep all the personal shit you said to me to myself. I meant what I said in my message to you at my talk page yesterday. You're one of the worst of the whole lot, and the only reason I haven't outed you here is because I said I wouldn't, yesterday. But go on and beg my email address off someone else, and see how quick I make a new account just to post your little secrets where everyone can see them.
I'm scrambling my password right after I hit save on this edit. Feel free to gossip and tut tut about how crass and wrong my long-winded exit note is, like the barely-potty-trained schoolchildren most of you are. I'm long past giving a shit what most of you incompetent jackasses think. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:04, 9 September 2021 (UTC)