Wikinews:A nice cup of tea and a sit down

My mother always said that if you can't say something nice about a person, you shouldn't say it at all. That rather idealistic concept is the fundamental rule, and purpose, of this page. A nice cup of tea and a sit down is a place to publically declare what it is that you like about other members of the community, or their contributions. The goal is to create goodwill, and perhaps assist the dispute resolution processes that occurs on other pages, or if we're lucky avoid disputes at all.

Of course, this page should not replace complimenting a person directly on their talk page or article talk pages. A nice cup of tea and a sit down is for when things have gone beyond that, and there is a need for some more formal and serious niceness.

If you get the urge to say something like "I think that such-and-such has worked really hard on Wikinews, but..." you should stop there. The rule of thumb when making a compliment is to "stop at the but/however/although". Just the complimentary part, please.

What A nice cup of tea and a sit down is for
Need help making tea correctly? watch this helpful instructional flash video &rarr; http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/oldblobs/996668.swf
 * saying nice things about other contributors, especially those with whom you are currently having problems
 * publically declaring what you like about a person or their contributions
 * directing people to when disagreements on other pages get heated

What A nice cup of tea and a sit down is not for
 "Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things." ~ Chaim Potok
 * Dispute resolution
 * Mediation
 * Arguing
 * Anything that is not 100% positive
 * Qualified positive statements, e.g.
 * "JimBob really frustrates me sometimes, but I think that he has written some excellent articles" - everything before "I think" has no place here
 * "JimBob is a great copyeditor, but he should try harder to enforce NPOV" - everything after "copyeditor" has no place here

Using A nice cup of tea and a sit down on talk pages
"If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you." ~ William Gladstone When things get heated, you can interject and say "I think that you two need to have a nice cup of tea and a sit down," at which point all parties should come to this page and say something nice about each other. You are also welcome to come here spontaneously if someone is really starting to annoy you, however note that this is not the place to speak about your frustrations - you should do that directly to the person, or on the talk page in question. This is a place for 100% unrestrained unqualified niceness and positivity. It's amazing how thinking hard for something nice to say about a person may change the way you perceive a dispute.

Okay, the pot is brewing. Milk? Sugar?
"Computer... Tea, Earl Grey, hot." ~ Jean-Luc Picard Insert niceness here. feel free to use on a user talk page if its about a specific person.

Please create all pages, as a subpage of this page. eg

Then [ Edit this page] and add the following text at the bottom of the page (replacing USERNAME with the name of the subpage you just created):

Pour some TEA: