No I'm just a user of GNOME who doesn't appreciate seeing the near-constant flames and misinformation from non-users of the software whenever I try to discuss i

No I'm just a user of GNOME who doesn't appreciate seeing the near-constant flames and misinformation from non-users of the software whenever I try to discuss it online in certain places. It's low-quality commenting and it poisons the discussion. You're misinterpreting an aversion to bad discussion as "defensiveness." If you were doing this same thing for KDE I'd be asking you to stop too.