Forum:No Personal Attacks (NPA) official policy proposal

I am aware that mentioned in the rules on the Policy page and in bold is "no personal attacks." However, the definition of a "personal attack" is rather subjective. One person's personal attack could be another's off-color comment. And seeing as how there have been some recent demotions and incidents concerning personal attacks, I suggest that the community adopt an official policy regarding what exactly "no personal attacks" means, and a protocol on how to deal with such matters.  Trak Nar  Ramble on 07:01, July 4, 2012 (UTC)

Proposal
The policy could be drafted as such:

Do not make personal attacks anywhere on the Sonic News Network. Comment on the content, not the contributor. Personal attacks will not help you make a point; they hurt the community and deter users from making the Sonic News Network the ultimate source of Sonic series information.

Avoid making personal attacks in edit summaries, on another user's page, on your own user page and directed toward other users, on your blog, or in the chat. Commenting about other users on an outside site, such as YouTube, and posting the link to those comments on your user page are still personal attacks, as you are making your opinions about those users known to the community. If you do not have anything nice to say about another user, keep it to yourself.

Examples of personal attacks
Examples of personal attacks include, but are not limited to:
 * Accusatory comments, such as "So-and-so is a troll," or "Such-and-such is a bad editor."
 * Negative personal comments such as "I am better than you," or attacks such as "you have no life."
 * Any racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic, religious, ethnic comments directed toward another user.
 * Using someone's affiliation as a means of discrediting their views.
 * Profanity directed at another user.
 * Threats of legal action.
 * Threats of violence against another user or another user's family.
 * Threats of vandalism to user pages and talk pages.
 * Posting links to outside sources that display personal attacks against another user. Examples of this would be recording a video of oneself disparaging another user or group of users, and putting a link to that video on one's user page.  Suggesting that the link applies to another editor, or an editor needs to visit that link counts as a personal attack.

Examples that are not personal attacks
Users will often engage in debates, either on talk pages, on blogs, or even within edit summaries. Always assume good faith. Be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette. Disagreements with other editors can be resolved without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to make your comments become personal remarks against another user, but it is equally as important to not take another's comments personally. Examples of comments that are not personal attacks include, but are not limited to:
 * Disagreements about content, such as "Your comment about Sonic is wrong," or "your comment is your point of view, not fact."
 * Comments that describe another person's actions using civil language, such as "You are acting like a troll," or "Your comments come across as rather trollish." Remember, there is a distinct difference between "You are a troll" and "You are acting like a troll."  If the matter can be described in a more civil manner, the better.
 * A comment in the edit summary, such as "reverting vandalism" is not a personal attack. However, one should assume good faith; if the edit is not obvious vandalism, then do not label it as such.

Alternatives

 * Discuss the facts and how to express them, not the other party. Even if you disagree with another user, remember to comment on the content, not the user.
 * Never suggest that the other person's view is invalid, simply because of who they are.
 * Explore issues in a less-public forum, such as e-mail or IM, if the debate has the potential to become personal.
 * Ask a neutral third party to step in.

Protocol
If you feel that you have been a subject of a personal attack, you should tell that person to stop immediately and cite this policy. Remain civil. If the attack continues, ask for an administrator to step in and mediate.

If the attack continues after an administrative warning or attempt to mediate the situation, the user may be blocked for "disruption." This should only be used in extreme cases where mediation will not resolve the issue. If at all possible, attempt to settle the dispute in a calm and civil manner.

Please note that there are also some users who, due to poor behavior in the past, may be viewed as "unpopular" and may have even been the subject of administrative action. Please attempt to assume good faith with these users as well, as people are capable of learning from their mistakes. Assuming that they are fair game for personal attacks and essentially "kicking them while they're down" is in violation of the NPA policy.

Remember that disputes on talk pages and blogs are easily accessible to anyone on the Internet. The way you conduct yourself on these pages reflects not only on yourself, but on the SNN community as a whole. Users have been blocked for repeated personal attacks, status users have been demoted for personal attacks, and abusive edit summaries are ill-advised. In short, when it comes to personal attacks, don't do it.

Overall
The above proposal was adapted from Wookieepedia's NPA policy. It is just an example and can be altered to however you see fit. I leave the drafting of the official policy up to you guys. :)  Trak Nar  Ramble on 07:01, July 4, 2012 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) As the proposer.  Trak Nar  Ramble on 07:01, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) -- 07:03, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Simply put: I see absolutely no reason to oppose this policy being implimented. Lloyd the Cat  "I hog that hedgehate!"  07:51, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Per Gen. Willaca (talk)  08:29, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Per everything 08:39, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Very well. While I personally haven't seen any of these new rules violated often, this will be extremely useful towards our policy, and in terms of handling situations that have been mentioned above in the aspect of an example. 09:07, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 11:05, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) And while we're at it, let's have Trak desing a new forum format! In all seriousness though, I support having this rule implemented.
 * 2) Suport. [[File:Stephen coop-1-.gif]] ★Cant stop me   from rockin out★ [[File:Scott coop-1-.gif]] 14:58, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I support. Per everything and all. --[[File:AnimatedBlaze.gif]] Blaze the Cat is awesome!!!   Fear the power of the flames!! [[File:AnimatedBlaze.gif]] 15:06, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Not only is this the most orginized forum I have ever seen, I think this should be implemented. Though one question, would saying "Why the hell did you do that?" or things along those line count as personal attacks? I tend to say things like that when I get mad.  We all  have our own   styles we   won't change  01:09, July 5, 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) *I don't think so, that's more of a case of expressing anger at the user's action, as opposed to insulting the user, it wouldn't be in violation of the NPA policy, but it would be frowned upon.  Myself  123  01:21, July 5, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
I see you also need a blocking policy, but that I'll leave up to you. :P  Trak Nar  Ramble on 07:05, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * How would you propose such a policy? Lloyd the Cat  "I hog that hedgehate!"  07:55, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * It would depend on whether or not admins here have administrative autonomy, in which they are free to determine block lengths. On Star Wars Fanon, we have blocking policy, as we do not have administrative autonomy, and blocks and lengths are determined by the type of offense and how many times that user had made that offense.  Basically, both wikis start with a warning.  If the unwarranted act continues (such as adding fanon, spamming, or vandalism), then the offending user is blocked.  On Wookieepedia, an average block is three days.  If the vandalism was caused by a user who is a clear representative of trollish behavior, then the first block could be a week.  Personal attacks and userpage vandalism on Wookieepedia can incur a month-long block to start with.  But, again, that is because we have administrative autonomy there and the admins are left to determine to correct block length for the situation.  Thus here, a policy would be based on whether or not you operate on administrative autonomy.  In which case, the policy would state so. Wookieepedia's policy details what offenses are grounds for a block, with guidelines on specific actions (such as vandalism).  Trak Nar  Ramble on 08:06, July 4, 2012 (UTC)