Civility http://www.hhbon.com/balenciaga-c-1/ policy
Before we launch and do massive "google recruitment", I want to ask how do we handle the civility issues. From my modest Wikipedia experience it follows that it may be a major problem when it comes to the wikicollaboration.
Well, you may know that there exist a strict policy on wikipedia, [[WP:CIVIL]] just for that. The problem is that it does not work at all. Nobody cares and in fact several admins notice boards were shut down on basis that there were too many civility complaints. On the other hand, one may argue (and it was actually the argument to shut down the boards) that editors complain to get rid of the opponent in a content dispute. In fact, it may be not always crystal clear. But on wikipedia as if by definition nobody knows and nobody can tell whether something is a content dispute or a civility issue and separate one from another. So everybody says "go on, stay cool, do wikilove" which actually encourages the rude selfconfident characters who, consequently, seem to form a dominating minority nowadays.
Yes, I know, on CZ we expect everyone to be civil and we take it seriously (and we have constables). On the other hand, it seems that we had not too many real challenges/tests before the launch. My specific questions would be
Do we have a policy on civility? do we _need_ a special policy or some indications are enough? or we consider it covered by general rules?
if general rules apply, where we explicitly say at least _something_ specific about civility/collegiality? Wouldn it be good to have a point of reference?
Obviously, civility in one of our principles. Is it written in stone, somewhere?
Maybe some answers are there, already. Then please point it out to me.
Well, you may know that there exist a strict policy on wikipedia, [[WP:CIVIL]] just for that. The problem is that it does not work at all. Nobody cares and in fact several admins notice boards were shut down on basis that there were too many civility complaints. On the other hand, one may argue (and it was actually the argument to shut down the boards) that editors complain to get rid of the opponent in a content dispute. In fact, it may be not always crystal clear. But on wikipedia as if by definition nobody knows and nobody can tell whether something is a content dispute or a civility issue and separate one from another. So everybody says "go on, stay cool, do wikilove" which actually encourages the rude selfconfident characters who, consequently, seem to form a dominating minority nowadays.
Yes, I know, on CZ we expect everyone to be civil and we take it seriously (and we have constables). On the other hand, it seems that we had not too many real challenges/tests before the launch. My specific questions would be
Do we have a policy on civility? do we _need_ a special policy or some indications are enough? or we consider it covered by general rules?
if general rules apply, where we explicitly say at least _something_ specific about civility/collegiality? Wouldn it be good to have a point of reference?
Obviously, civility in one of our principles. Is it written in stone, somewhere?
Maybe some answers are there, already. Then please point it out to me.
Alek, you raise an important question and you raise it well. I agree with you about the Wikipedia situation. It does not matter whether these attacks are made using Citizendium resources or other resources." Further down, among the "Offenses which will result in an immediate ban" is this: "Extremely offensive insults or personal attacks; direct and harsh attacks on the moral character, or personal or professional credibility, of a project member in good standing; or any application of particularly crude and vulgar epithets ("four letter words") to project members in good standing. It does not matter whether these attacks are made using Citizendium resources or other resources." Note, these policies are still under development and refinement, and no doubt will be changed as necessary.
In fact, we have had to apply these rules a few different times already, and I believe we have done so in a fair, "regular" fashion. I think the constables are learning from experience how best to deal with problematic behavior.
While we might have a page of guidelines (in fact, a constable committed, a few days ago, to drafting such a thing), I do not want to have too much in the way of a long, complex code of conduct that people can ultimately be banned for violating. Long, complex, and vague rules are too open to abuse by rules enforcers. It is better if we identify a few relatively simple rulesnot necessarily general (or vague) rulesthat we can apply, so that we can eject clear troublemakers quickly but in a fair process. A number of such rules are in the "Constabulary Blocking Procedures" in the "Rapid Response Rules and Procedures" section.
So far, I cautiously optimistic about the workability of our policies. I am worried about the scalability of the process, which you rightly imply is a concern. One significant difference between Wikipedia and CZ, however, is that when someone is banned, probably, he going to be banned until he applies for reinstatement; and it is (and will remain) difficult to create a sockpuppet and resume one dirty tricks. Moreover, one of the fundamental problems with the Wikipedia system is that they think it effective to ban people for, say, 24 hours. It just isn If someone behavior warrants a ban at all, the person isn going to change his behavior after 24 hours; if anything, you just make the person more contemptuous of the people who do the banning.