Wikipedia:DGG's Two-Comment Rule

In a casual conversation at a Wiknic sometime before the COVID pandemic, the late David Goodman (User:DGG) imparted a pearl of wisdom to the creator of this essay, who has taken the liberty of naming it DGG's Two-Comment Rule.

At the Wiknic, David was talking about his early involvement with Wikipedia and the intentional way he tries to interact with people on the site. He said that in his professional career he developed a reputation among some colleagues for being "difficult". He didn't like being thought of that way, so he set out to figure out why people had that perception. When he found himself involved with Wikipedia, he saw it as an opportunity to start over, in a way, with his collegial interpersonal relationships. He outlined some of the rules he set out for himself to do so, including his two-comment rule: ''For any discussion where there was some disagreement, he would try as hard as he could to limit himself to just two comments. This required putting a lot of thought into those two comments and helped him to avoid getting sucked into an extended back-and-forth (which adds less and less substance while cluttering or complicating the discussion and increasing negative feelings).'' I would add that it also likely contributed to the gravity of his words and opinions, and was a small part of what made him such an influential personality in our project.

Learning about DGG's Two-Comment Rule was one of those moments where someone you regard as having a specific superpower reveals it as a hard-earned skill that had to be developed. He seemed to have a bottomless well of patience, good faith, and determination to keep discussions on task, and for that he was one of the Wikipedians I respected and admired most.

Exactly two comments might not work for everyone or for every instance, but I find the spirit of the rule helpful: choose your words carefully, and think hard about not hitting "publish" after typing every subsequent response. Most of us will not succeed as much as DGG in that regard, but it's something we should encourage.