Wikipedia:Don't call a spade a spade

This is an essay on the conduct policy.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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This page in a nutshell: When "calling a spade a spade" means applying labels to an editor, doing so is just going to cause the dispute to escalate, and can be really embarrassing if you turn out to be wrong. Sometimes, it's best to not be blunt.

On Wikipedia, we inevitably deal with a few difficult people. Some editors are only here to cause trouble, either by making destructive edits, by pushing an agenda, or by stirring up controversy. Others may believe so strongly that they are right that they are unable to edit collaboratively. We sometimes block or ban such users as part of the work of building and maintaining the encyclopedia. It can be tempting when dealing with such individuals to "call a spade a spade". However, doing so is not a necessary part of dealing effectively with them, and it can be a very bad idea.

We come from a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life, and communication on the internet is not always easy. Adding to this barrier is the fact that we are each willing to assume good faith up to a certain point – beyond that point the other editor is clearly pushing a point of view, or vandalizing, or trolling, or somehow not contributing in good faith. Whatever they're doing, it's surely against a rule, and they need to be blocked for it, or at least warned!

At this point, many of us will be tempted to declare that our opponent clearly "is a POV pusher", "is a vandal", "is a drama queen", "has a conflict of interest", "is a troll", "is uncivil" or "is a personal attacker". This public accusation is sometimes referred to as "calling a spade a spade", but such name-calling or labeling can be uncivil and can even cross the line into a personal attack.

There are some very good reasons not to do this. In short, editors are unlikely to listen to anything further that you say once the dispute escalates that far, and if you later turn out to be wrong, it'll be embarrassing.

As a general rule of thumb, label the edits, not the editor. Saying that a user has made unconstructive edits is simply stating the obvious truth, while saying that these edits make the user an unconstructive user is applying labels. One should consider another way of identifying the problematic editing, as saying that the user is an unconstructive editor assumes that the user intentionally made unconstructive edits, when they could have just been unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and defines an editor by only a small group of edits that they made. Remember: Editors define but are not defined by their edits!