On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 2:52 PM, May Tee-Galloway <mgalloway@wikimedia.org> wrote:

The smiling registered user icon might seem like a random idea but it isn't. Reason we decided to go with a more uplifting face is to help make WP a friendlier environment (yes small, but still a step towards somewhere). We want people to assume good faith on other users' actions but that is alot of times harder than it sounds. When someone makes an edit that you might disagree with and when you make an effort to find out who this user is, you are greeted first with a smiley and then a name, reminding you this is a person of emotion, be nice!

I am fully in agreement with your goal, but I think this is just a wrong way to go about it. It is just too obvious and weak a method for engendering a nicer community. 

People are nice to each other when they have empathy. People have empathy for each other when A) they know who someone is B) are able to put themselves in their shoes. I am not able to empathize with a generic smiley face. I'm able to empathize with a unique individual. So I think the smiley face icon both defies the normal design pattern here and doesn't accomplish the intended goal. 

This is similar the exhortation to "Be nice!" in the Flow input area. Wikipedia editors (new and old) are very smart people. They are just as likely to feel talked down to and insulted by cutesy instructions like this, and may in fact be meaner in reaction to it ("You can't tell _me_ how to talk to people."). We can collectively think of more effective ways of creating more friendly discussion spaces and creating empathy in general. 

--

Steven Walling,

Product Manager

https://wikimediafoundation.org/

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