User:Slakr/Let someone else deal with it
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If you're:
- Emotionally-involved with a topic in which there are many other emotionally-involved individuals involved,
- Feel like you're unable to completely detach from that topic, and
- Are placed in a situation where you are encouraged to take action,
Don't take action— let someone else deal with it. Except in cases of severe procedural misconduct, someone much more objective than you will see it and take appropriate action— even if you believe that action to be the "wrong one" (see also: "The Wrong Version").
Rationale
[edit]You are reading this essay. The vast majority of others will not. As a result, you won't end up doing something stupid— someone else will. And, believe it or not, the Right Version™ (or, at least, the one most in-line with our policies, guidelines, and the spirit of wikipedia) will prevail, and, again, you won't end up doing something stupid.
Exception
[edit]If you truly do believe yourself to be able enough to put aside your relevant biases, act objectively, have rationally considered the implications of all possible actions, and are able to equally understand and assess the validity of all arguments involved, then you should be the one to take action in order to prevent the bystander effect from paralyzing action. Good ways to tell if you fit this exception:
- You haven't taken part in the discussion nor followed it with any interest, and you realize that if you were to take part in the discussion, you'd mainly be trying to keep the peace, as you're mainly worried about productive discussion being able to take place over the validity of the arguments.
- You don't want to take action, because you know that both arguments have nearly equal validity, and while one has ever so slightly more validity over the other, you realize that taking action in an emotionally-charged realm invariably results in the aftermath of politely dealing with the resultant flood of the "losing" side rehashing their disagreements, alleging bias, and almost certainly removing you from their friends list; so, you consider writing an essay about letting someone else deal with it in hopes that someone else actually will come along and deal with it, all the while knowing you should probably just deal with it but that writing the essay would be far more entertaining and mentally challenging— especially if you could put some irony at the end of it to get people to giggle a little inside, because you realize that humor is strangely both more productive and enjoyable than discourse with emotionally-charged individuals; yet, you're worried that people will think it's too self-inflating to put an exception for yourself in it (but think that it's okay, because it adds a little to the humor of it all), so you go through with making the essay anyway, making sure to put a huge, self-aware, Dickson-esque paragraph toward the end in hopes that the people who tend to focus on syntax over meaning (and are thus unlikely to take the message to heart anyway) will be quickly driven away for their own sanity, while your fellow comrades in commissary—a group that consists of your cat and the pile of junk on your desk—will appreciate it in its fullest.