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Wikipedia:No personal attacks

One of Wikipedia's rules to consider:

No personal attacks on the Wikipedia, period. No calling people trolls, no calling people Stupid White Men, no accusations of any kind relating to the character of another person, nor their race, creed, sex, national origin, etc. The only thing that matters is the articles, not the people who write them.

Unlike the other rules, which are community conventions enforced only by our mutual agreement, this one may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for banning that go beyond our traditional "sheer vandalism" threshold. If you support this rule, then you support the idea that Jimbo should, in extreme cases after considerable consultation with the community and the offender, actually cut someone off from participation.

Likewise, when a debate threatens to become personal, confer about the problem in e-mail. If parties to a dispute start exchanging insults or other unpleasant words, it's preferable to confer privately in e-mail rather than continuing to expose Wikipedia to the unpleasantness. This is not to say that the debate should be moved to e-mail, because the debate is in most cases of genuine public interest. So the substantive debate should remain where it is; the unpleasant personal problems should be discussed, as necessary, privately.

See Wikiquette, debate.



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