User:ThatPeskyCommoner/Thoughts on civility

Clarifying civility stuff.

Here are a few meta-pointers I'd personally like to see included in a reworded civility policy.

First do no harm
The editor(s) you're communicating with have feelings, which can be hurt even if you didn't intend to do so. And if you did intend to do so, then slap your own wrists! Intending to cause someone hurt or harm is about as uncivil as it gets.

Plain misunderstandings are common
These are often at the root of squabbles that turn into heated arguments. Saying the same thing in the same way repeatedly doesn't work. Pointing someone to the same policy page over and over again doesn't work. If they didn't get all the nuances of what you said (or what the policy said) the first time around, shouting it at them won;t work either. Re-word it as necessary, draw real-life-experience parallels if they help to illustrate and clarify your point. And double check whether what you've understood someone to be saying was what they actually meant, before making any assumptions about them. a they may be using a slightly different version of English than the one you're used to, in which some words have slightly different inferences and meanings than the way you've always used them.

Appreciate both similarities and differences
Being "different" isn't the same as being "evil"!
 * The WikiCommunity has a lot of shared aspects with the global community. All editors have feelings; all editors are human; all editors are fallible, and the vast majority of editors, the vast majority of the time, did what they genuinely felt was the best thing at the time they did it.
 * BUT ... there are lots of differences between the WikiCommunity and the Real-Life community, too. Consider, for example, how many of the people you meet at work, in the pub, in the café, at school, or in any other Real-Life situation, would be the sort of person who will happily decide to spend hours of their time, unpaid, writing an encyclopedia, as opposed to going out for a meal, or a party, or some sporting activity, or anything else that most people in "Real Life" would prefer to do.  We're a bit different in here.  We have more than our fair share of people who are very bright but whose interpersonal and social skills are not quite so good. (Which may very well explain why they'd rather stay home and edit than go out and party.)
 * Long-term Wikipedia editors are passionate people, and frequently with a more-than-average level of obsessiveness. They have to be, to stick with it. That's why they're here.