Wikipedia:Uncivil Edit Summaries

Uncivil Edit Summaries

Civility between editors is the fourth pillar of Wikipedia and is necessary everywhere in Wikipedia, including in edit summaries. Occasionally editors leave hostile comments, insults, obscenity, or personal attacks in edit summaries. Uncivil edit summaries should be considered even worse than uncivil comments on talk pages, because they are more difficult to deal with. Uncivil comments on talk pages can be removed by blanking the incivility. They can still be seen by an editor who views the history, but usually blanking the incivility is an adequate response to incivility on talk page. Uncivil comments in edit summaries cannot be removed either by the originator or by another editor except an administrator. The only way that an uncivil edit summary can be removed is by redaction by an administrator. Administrators are the janitors of Wikipedia with mops in an electronic workplace. Workers in a physical workplace should minimize making messes that janitors clean up, and editors in an electronic workplace should avoid leaving messes that require administrative cleanup. Editors should not give unnecessary work to administrators by spilling incivility into edit summaries that can only be cleaned up with the mop. Administrators will not always be patient, and do not need to be patient, with editors who make unnecessary messes, such as insults in edit summaries.

Before expressing anger in an edit summary, an editor should think twice and then a third time as to whether they really want to make it necessary for an administrator to redact the edit summary, because it is likely that the administrator will decide that a block is necessary to prevent further incivility.