Kelly Martin wrote:
Wikipedia is not therapy. Wikipedia does note exist for the purpose of validating the feelings of our myriad contributors. It is not our responsibility to make everyone feel loved.
But when we do make everyone feel loved, our work is much more pleasant and effective... for them and for us.
This is why it is always better to try to find the best in what someone has done, even when we disagree, and to try to disagree in a way which rewards and supports the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the other person.
This is a two way street, of course. It takes two to tango. If someone says something harsh, which appears to assume bad faith or whatever, a good response is to appreciate and support the elements of good faith in _that_, and respond positively to that, without endorsing the assumption of bad faith.
Like this:
Person A nominates something for deletion. For the sake of argument, let us assume this is completely brain dead.
Person B says "This nomination is wrongheaded, meritless, misguided, and stupid." Let assume that we, privately, think this is true.
What should A do? What should C, D, and E do?
They can say "You are assuming bad faith! AGF! AGF!" but this does not seem helpful.
Better might be to try to find some kernel of usefulness in what the nominator was attempting to do. "While I agree with B that this nomination ought not to succeed, I commend A for trying to deal with the underlying issue of articles of this type. While I do not think this is the sort of example of things we should be deleting, I do agree that there are problems with this article. A, I wonder if you might consider working with me on an alternative approach..."
Or whatever suits that moment.
The idea here is that Assume Good Faith is really important, and WikiLove is really important. Being harsh and feeling sanctimonious about battling idiots is a temptation that all good people can fall into, especially when tired. But it dehumanizes others and causes them to behave worse, not better.
--Jimbo