Arrogance is the best way to ensure your point doesn't get across to those that would benefit from it. The consequences of bad actions are an order of magnitude worse.
I've met several people who tend to shy away from Ruby due to its community. Not the language, not its capabilties, its community. Same for one person I know with Python because her project would have definitely benefited from Django. But after an underserved pigeonholing on a QandA forum (that shall go unnamed) for making a few assumptions due to her PHP background she went with PHP after all.
There's nothing "arrogant" about pointing out that PHP and JavaScript are extremely flawed programming languages. It's just an objective truth. It's no more "arrogant" than saying that 1 + 1 = 2, or that Berlin is a city in Germany.
I'd be interested in seeing the "QandA forum" discussion that you mentioned. Please provide a link to it, so we can judge for ourselves what actually happened in that case.
Civility does not work when ignorance is at play, and when the consequences of inaction can be severe.
Civility is always how people get ideas to stick as belittlement and ridicule just doesn't work.
It's not what you say; it's how you say it. That's the first rule of effective communication since humans were around to communicate and your inability or unwillingness to accept some deocurm in your speech isn't helping the situation.
If civility worked for the Civil Rights Movement, it will work to educate programmers. Empathy carries greater weight than chest-thumping about being right if you're trying to convince someone. The OP was an entry about empathy. Try to have some.
As for the QandA forum, I'm not giving those jerks free traffic. You don't need to accept what I say at face value. Use your objectivity (if it hasn't been ground down to a pulp by your own ego).
I've met several people who tend to shy away from Ruby due to its community. Not the language, not its capabilties, its community. Same for one person I know with Python because her project would have definitely benefited from Django. But after an underserved pigeonholing on a QandA forum (that shall go unnamed) for making a few assumptions due to her PHP background she went with PHP after all.
And that's a damn shame.
(Full disclosure, I work mostly with C#)