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Hi! I'm Manishearth, a moderator on the Physics Stack Exchange. Recently, we had a bit of a bruhaha on our site, and it came to our notice that quite a few prominent members of our community feel that we ought to remove the rules regarding civility, as they are "detrimental to physics discussions". I have repeatedly heard stuff along the lines of "conflict is necessary for a physics community to thrive" — I don't argue with that, my main contention is against non-constructive conflict (personal attacks, etc). I personally have no issue with comments saying that a post is wrong (as long as they give a reason why) — these are constructive. Most of this is coming from the theoretical physics subcommunity.
So why am I rambling about this here? Well, MO is the largest research level community that I know of on the Net, and seems to be a pretty great place. I don't see any rudeness, nor any propensity for it. So, my questions are:
These questions are mainly directed to the community, though input/advice from MO mods would be great!
Also, I'm not sure if this question is on topic for your meta--after all, it doesn't help your site in any way. Please let me know (and close the thread) if it isn't :)
What Angelo said. Why would anyone be in favor of rudeness and personal attacks?
Anything beyond constructive criticisms is detrimental by definition, no? There's no room for rudeness or ad hominem attacks in discussion; it's no longer discussion if you resort to a nasty verbal onslaught, methinks.
Respect goes a long way toward making progress in an intellectual pursuit, especially on the internet, where emotions are so easily miscommunicated. It's hard to imagine anybody arguing otherwise at this level of abstraction, since non-constructive conflict is by definition not constructive. Presumably the offending parties in your case would argue that their comments are in fact constructive. In that case, it's reasonable to ask questions like "What was this comment supposed to accomplish?", "What did it accomplish?", "Was there not an obviously better way to do it?" It's an energy-drain to do a lot of it, but drilling down to generate consensus on a few controversial examples goes a long way to having a self-moderating culture.
If you require civility everywhere, how did you (as a community) manage to uphold that without alienating good community members who disagree? Or was this a non-issue for you?
We have had some issues with civility, and there have been temporary account suspensions around the issue. When the issue involves one specific person, my experience is that it's best to contact them directly by email since public venting is not likely to produce a level-headed actionable solution. But if it's possible to keep people from becoming so defensive that they're disruptive, public discussion is much better since lots of people reap the benefits and everybody can contribute their ideas.
An example of something I wish we were better at: comments associated with votes to close. Nobody likes it when their question is closed (or almost closed) without any explanation, but it takes a lot of mental energy to leave a polite comment explaining a vote to close. I think TeX.SE produced a list of canned comments which covered common reasons for closing, with FAQ links and everything. It'd be nice if we adopted a list like that.
One approach the moderators have used here is to tell users who are being uncivil "you are only allowed to say mathematical things, anything non-mathematical will result in a suspension whether it is civil or not."
it came to our notice that quite a few prominent members of our community feel that we ought to remove the rules regarding civility, as they are "detrimental to physics discussions". I have repeatedly heard stuff along the lines of "conflict is necessary for a physics community to thrive"
The words chosen/reported here strongly remind me of someone who has posted on MO and MMO and who was active on physics.SE ... I can't help feeling that the abstract discussion underway here, while valuable, may not after all be so relevant to the particular causes of conflict over on physics.SE.
@TeoB Discussions all over This post, and some instances in chat (This discussion, for example). I could look for more if you want.
The context is that a user who has a history of being incivil (while contributing good posts) was suspended. Not just due to the incivility, but that was a part of it.
@Chris
To respond to the third bullet, I find it hard to see how someone who is frequently incivil could be viewed as a "good community member".
I ought to rephrase myself, I am talking about community members who contribute good posts/etc, and are held in good standing by a large chunk of the active community, despite their issues with civility
Aside from that, I do have a few great community members (whom I respect as well) who say that "conflict should be unbridled"/etc, though they are very nice in comments themselves.
@Yemon Are you alluding to this post on your meta? Yes, that is fallout from the bruhaha I mentioned (sorry about that). But the civility issue is a more general one, quite a few prominent community members feel that one should not put restrictions on the type of arguments allowed as it "hinders the flow of technical discussions". Some of these community members are themselves very nice and helpful everywhere, but they feel that one should not have a compulsion to do so on a physics site.
@grp Rather interesting comment, that helps a bit :) Though your case is more of a "provoked incivility" thing.
@Anton Thanks for your comments!
In that case, it's reasonable to ask questions like "What was this comment supposed to accomplish?", "What did it accomplish?", "Was there not an obviously better way to do it?" It's an energy-drain to do a lot of it, but drilling down to generate consensus on a few controversial examples goes a long way to having a self-moderating culture.
I do this to some extent already, though I haven't tried the last part.
We have had some issues with civility, and there have been temporary account suspensions around the issue. When the issue involves one specific person, my experience is that it's best to contact them directly by email since public venting is not likely to produce a level-headed actionable solution.
On SE, the exact reasons behind a suspension are private.. So, while we may warn a user publicly, any suspension-related correspondence is sent through a private moderator messaging system (dunno if MO has that)
But if it's possible to keep people from becoming so defensive that they're disruptive, public discussion is much better since lots of people reap the benefits and everybody can contribute their ideas.
Unfortunately, the meta post I linked to above (4up), seems to be an example that our community probably can't handle public discussion of suspensions as well as they should :/ It led to a lot of incivility on the meta post itself, including some very hostile comments directed at other SE site moderators who had dropped in to post their 2ยข. It also led to some active users leaving the site permanently.
An example of something I wish we were better at: comments associated with votes to close. Nobody likes it when their question is closed (or almost closed) without any explanation, but it takes a lot of mental energy to leave a polite comment explaining a vote to close. I think TeX.SE produced a list of canned comments which covered common reasons for closing, with FAQ links and everything. It'd be nice if we adopted a list like that.
I have tried to encourage that here and here. I also use this userscript myself, which lets me use some comment templates. But a public list on meta is a great idea, and the TeX one seems like a good place to get started from :)
Thanks for your input, it is quite helpful and greatly appreciated!
I'm all in favor of civility. But where are the complaints coming from? Maybe from some physicists who were once in certain former Communist countries, where a university department head and his cronies would get rid of any opposition in the department using claims that those scientists were not being civil, not being collegial, etc.
I find the idea that rudeness and personal attacks somehow help a scientific environment quite extraordinary...
Hey everyone... I'm also a moderator on Physics Stack Exchange. First, thank you all for your feedback. We may just do what Anton suggested, i.e. "drilling down to generate consensus on a few controversial examples," so I wanted to ask (if you're all not tired of this topic) whether you have any input on what makes for some controversial examples. If you've had discussions along those lines here on meta.MO, I'd be very grateful if someone could point them out or at least give me a start to search for them.
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