Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks

This is an essay on the Wikipedia:Civility 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.

Shortcut WP:APR

This page in a nutshell: Focus on editing, stay civil, don't make it personal.

The purpose of talk pages is to discuss how to improve articles. If you have opinions about the contributions others have made, feel free to discuss those contributions on any relevant talk page. But if you have opinions about other contributors as people, they don't belong there – or frankly, anywhere on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia prospers on people working together toward improving articles. Anything else – especially attacks directed specifically at users – detracts from the wonderful thing that we are creating here.

The policy or consensus on removing personal attacks is undetermined. Many Wikipedians archive their own talk pages as a matter of course. De-escalation of disrespectfulness is counselled in the Civility policy. Don't inflame disputes, so that they become disruptive to Wikipedia's function and thus require administrative intervention.

Some of the editors you encounter on Wikipedia might feel they must retaliate against – or at least suppress – annoying personal remarks directed against them. But some great writers differ; (and recall that we all remember the great writers far better than their critics).