My point is that it's a) unavoidable b) often the glue which binds us together and makes this a rewarding experience.

Unavoidable? I sincerely believe that a little patience, benefit-of-the-doubt-giving, and asking for clarity can make this completely avoidable. As for your second point - it can also be the flame that makes it a hellish experience.

When I search the set of ThingsRobinMeant by any unclear statement, it's a much smaller job than searching through the set of context free intimations possible.

Perhaps it would behove oldbies to judge newbies exclusively by the content of the words they write, rather than attempting to infer tone from people they don't know from Job?

And none of this addresses the fact that I was today blasted for my "tone" when I specifically outlined exactly what my tone was intended to be from the beginning, in anticipation of the potential for misunderstanding.

Rejecting my overt statement regarding my tone was a pretty darn good example of what I was arguing in the first place - that a few posters are becoming very aggressive, and effectively bullying other posters - newbies, soft-spoken posters, and oldbies alike.

I can't possibly understand you or your present emotional level

I am very glad this doesn't hold true for everyone, because I might still be in Michigan.

Okay -- overstatement. But understanding my tone got people to help me leave MI, and understanding theirs helped me accept the help. And most of them (Allyson included) I'd never met before.

So, like any human interaction, first impressions, last impressions, assumptions -- can turn out for the best or for the worst, whether or not you're in person or not.

oh, what the hell ...

Having just gone over 300+ posts, I found Rafmun's tone to be rigidly formal, well-educated, and choosing words very carefully so that they said what he/she/it meant.

From the beginning? Relentlessly smug self-righteousness. That's your tone

Allyson, is this how you define smugly self-righteous?

I can't possibly understand you or your present emotional level. That requires physical contact.

Ooooh, disagree.

But with that, I need to go read something I promised I would read.

Clearly, you're wrong.

Pfft. You got lucky once. The next axe murderer might not prefer hurting other people.

Seriously, I think tone is a consideration on the net with people who haven't known each other for a long time. I don't think that's the entire gist of the past 500 post, but I guess it does bear remembering. I tend to be too glib and snarky in my posts (as in life) and I will try to remember that I usually do use verbal shorthand (in both arenas) and that I'm probably pissing people off. I almost never mean to do so.

Perhaps it would behove oldbies to judge newbies exclusively by the content of the words they write, rather than attempting to infer tone from people they don't know from Job?

I don't see how you can make a clear separation between content and tone. The tone can't come from anywhere but the words. Some people are better at communicating it than others, and some people are better at interpreting in than others, but whatever is there, is there. I don't think there is any way to possibly read something and not relate the word choice or sentence structure to word choice and sentence structure in other contexts, and make conclusions based on that.

, I just feel tone in writing, first, before the words hit...I'm not explaining this well. I can feel the posts, IN A VERY JEDI WAY. Or something.

But what if you're wrong?

You summed it up, Jon. Tone is a consideration. But, I'd have to say that it is given by the reader.

Elena:

Unavoidable? I sincerely believe that a little patience, benefit-of-the-doubt-giving, and asking for clarity can make this completely avoidable.

Rafmun:

Perhaps it would behove oldbies to judge newbies exclusively by the content of the words they write, rather than attempting to infer tone from people they don't know from Job?

I don't believe there's any way to strip all tone from any given post. Or, that if I de-tone, and MM de-tones, we're still not going to have the same impressions. This isn't and can't be science. It's people and language. At the very least, we still bring ourselves to all the reading.

At which point does a newbie get tone assigned, then? When do I get to switch back on my humanity when reading posts? It's not like I have a sandbox where I can experiment with newbie tones until I work out what fits, but somehow not have that flood into "real" board life.

Simple things like "she seems nice" and "that's a bit cold" just happen.

And even if I could magically take tone out, what about the tone the writer put in? I don't think most of us can write that dispassionately, even when we try.