Board Thread:Policies/@comment-10473115-20170415164119

I open a new thread to prevent more off-topic discussion about the problems mentioned on this post and continuing discussion originated from forum thread Suits and uniforms.

To summarize it, AnnabellRice questioned the use of delete tags by Monolith616, his behaviour in the debate and my view of it. She also implied that it might have been part of the reason why our discussion envinronment has gotten worse lately. I'm not sure is it a case but my intention for opening this thread is to help us to get better understanding about our feelings and opinions and solve possibly misunderstandings.

First to the use of delete tags which seems to be main issue. Monolith had used wrong tags because if I interpreted his intent right, content was supposed to be merged to other articles. But I consider all the tags like delete, merge, and move similarly as a starting of a discussion and not as a act which is not agreed upon. In this case discussion seemed to have simmered down without any policy changes. There also wasn't any strong opposition to that before the tags were added. So in my view, tags were not added during an active discussion or against any policy and therefore were just normal wiki editing. I have previously defended Shabook when he was accused by Monolith for the same thing. It would be really wrong to change my opinion about that between different cases and I'd like to hear is there something wrong with my assessment of the use of tags. If proceeding to add tags was seen as premature, how we should do it better in the future?

I didn't called Monolith's behaviour "spirited" or "bold". I consider Monolith's edits being in line with Be bold -rule which is completely different thing. I didn't praise those edits but actually wrote: "Of course a better way would have been to try to propose a policy change to back those deletions". I also thought that Monolith's tone in posts when debating with The Many-Angled One was little hostile but that tone started to infect also other users's posts. There were also arguments on all the posts and the discussion was still on the point instead of personal bashing. I actually found other posts like Annabell's:"Surely there's better use of some people's time than putting delete tags on stuff they can't be bothered to contribute to." most disturbing because it's clearly a ad hominem fallacy to question other user's motives. I decided to call it just a spirited debate and tried to move on. I guess that I was wrong because it feels that more discussion is needed.

I would also like to hear how our discussions are becoming more hostile because maintaining a friendly environment is one of our most important issues. Nothing drives contributors away better than sour and hostile discussions. Please share your opinions but always remember to assume good faith on fellow editors. 