User:RTG/General attacks

The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

This page in a nutshell: Derogatisation of a grouping should be treated as derogatisation of an individual for the purposes of Wikipedia as the effect is the same. The delivery is generalised, but the reception is still personal. The problem with attacks is not the attack, but the injury, and generalised attacks aimed at religions or political beliefs or similar should be treated in the same way as if the attack had a specific username attached to it. Anybody who leaves Wikipedia because they aren't allowed to toss an amount of abuse around is not making sense. There are rules that may cover this but nothing specific.

General attacks are a recurrent theme in content disputes. The comment usually goes along the lines of "The (blank or blanks) have taken over the whole encyclopaedia and are shaping it to their will!" or "The (blank or blanks) have formed a secret society and they are using it to shape Wikipedia to their will!"

These sort of comments illicit the exact same type of response as a personal attack, and that response is generally considered to be as well founded as a direct personal attack. Therefore, in the practical sense, it is the same thing and should be anticipated and treated in the exact same manner as personal attacks.

In the interests of reducing and resolving a dispute successfully, no editor may give a general attack, and therefore, as with personal attacks (WP:NPA) such a comment may be deleted immediately in its entirety by any editor, and all of the other applicable responses in line with NPA should be applied. It does not matter what the grouping is. If it is not content and context specific, it does not belong, and it should be policy to respond in the exact same way as if the same comment had been voiced to a specific individual.

In fact, this type of remark is more damaging because it gives the effect of a personal attack except spread equally over a crowd.

Which comments qualify as general attacks?

"And all the rest who believe in (blank or blanks)!" "Those descendants!" "That diaspora!" "Them people!"

Why not voice general antipathy?

If we do not know who we are accusing, why should it make any difference? Accusing persons without knowing for real who they are is similar to accusing persons of something but not knowing what we are accusing them of. The principle becomes the act of accusation rather than the basis of the accusation. You can accuse a person of something if you can say, "Here in this edit, this person did this." You cannot accuse people like this, "Knowing that I don't like (blank or blanks type people) makes it difficult for me to edit Wikipedia!"

How should this policy be implemented?

Nothing more than an explanation on WP:NPA of what attack it refers to, and the instruction to deal with it in the exact same way as a specifically personal attack. If you cannot found an accusation, does it matter how specific you are to any individual person regarding your right to make that attack? No. Would this mean that an identifiable group, doing identifiable negative things, cannot be mentioned in a negative way? Of course they could be mentioned in that way, if the problem could be identified, and is relevant to Wikipedia.

Admitting discomfort with a group may have advantages. However, commenting on an identity group should be enshrined in the guides as part of WP:NPA, a form of personally received attack.

What sort of contention will this provoke?

Some folk will want to say whatever they like on their own talk pages and maintain the position that if no specific individual is targeted, no specific individual has the right to complain. This is like a bully telling you when and where you will know that they are bullying you.