I was just thinking, in the spirit of "I luvves youush guyshes" of how much I wished this conversation could have happened in my living room, instead of nearly happening there, and how grateful I am to have found such an intelligent, quibbling, funny group of people to virtually relate to. It struck me that the conversation would have been markedly different if it happened in meatspace. Some people might have been too shy, some might have gotten upset, some might have wandered off and some might have had their underpants on their heads. Meatspace isn't necessarily better or worse for these sorts of things, just different.

I think though that there is a valid point here that has beene exaggerated. It would be incorrect to say there is no tone, or not significant tone in on-line communications. It would be quite correct to say that on-line tone is both harder to convey and to read accurately. So it is a good idea, when offended by tone on-line, to ask "did you mean that to sound patronizing" rather than say "you are patronizing me". And , given the lowered degree of accuracy, there is more call to do this on-line than in person. Not that it is not a good idea in person as well.

This is not a command, or an "you are an awful person if you don't do it" thing. But we all (and this definitely includes me) will save tsuris if we can manage to do it more.

Posters here almost always say what they mean in a way meant to be understood.

See: Matt, who may well have just stumbled backwards from the mental tackle-hug I just gave him.

The emotional motivator at the time of writing.

I still don't understand. I'm saying you can't actually strip tone from reading, or from writing.

Of course people will infer tone, and sometimes they'll act on it, and sometimes they'll ignore it, and sometimes they'll give the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes they'll completely misread it, and sometimes they'll hit it dead on.

If I post 'I'm sorry'. Is it sincere? Is it sarcastic? Is it I'm-sorry-you're-upset-but-I-still-think-I'm-right?. Is it a well-meaning but essentially empty social pro forma?

You can't really know. Unless you ask, I tell you, and I'm not lieing.

I'm not saying that you have to some how dehumanise yourself, ita (and, frankly, I'm very confused how you got that from my posts), I'm just saying that (and FWIW I've never seen you do this) it might be best to take a deep breath before we rip someone a new asshole for what they may have intended to be a perfectly benign post.

And I swear to God if someone, in reading Matt's post, makes ANY implication that this board is like a government, Ima go mad. That means: No rights, no censorship. The point is not that you are allowed here. The point is to become valued posters, and this is how you do it. No one here has a "right" to anything, including being interpreted correctly; freedom from flaming, disagreement, pressure, other people's desire and being in the minority. We have set up mechanisms to make this board BETTER FOR BUFFISTAS, not to preserve "rights."

You know what? You can't convey tone by an overt statement indicating that is the tone in which your words should be understood.

Heh heh - I actually like this!

You can't explain what you mean by explaining what you meant!

And of course, the content of the words have already been dismissed, as have the specific points raised.

SO what remains is an ambiguous, off-topic discussion regarding the debated notion of 'Tone', and how it can be used as justification for dismissing the points raised by a newbie, whence at the same time others argue that it is much harder, if not impossible, for oldbies to infer tone from a newbie so therefore it must be incombent upon a newbie to accurately convey their tone - but they can't do so by actually prefacing a post with an explanation of the tone intended, but rather must immediately be up to the level of the professional writers (and lawyers) on this board who have extensive practice and experience doing just such a thing!

Now that that's simplified, I am sure I can be more clear in the future.../snark

I'm just saying that (and FWIW I've never seen you do this) it might be best to take a deep breath before we rip someone a new asshole for what they may have intended to be a perfectly benign post.

I'm assuming the brackets go before the "ripping the new asshole" part, and not that you've never seen me take a deep breath first.

I'm assuming this because I have some knowledge of you through extended interaction.

If I stripped that subtext out, I'd be left with a sentence that'd make me angry.

Which makes me think it's not a detoning-is-good thing, is it? It's an "benefit of the doubt" thing.

If I post 'I'm sorry'. Is it sincere? Is it sarcastic? Is it I'm-sorry-you're-upset-but-I-still-think-I'm-right?. Is it a well-meaning but essentially empty social pro forma?

But most people won't just post "I'm sorry" when they mean one of those other things. I think that most people, when they do mean "I'm sorry you're upset but I still think I'm right" and want to convey that, will follow up "I'm sorry" with "but here's some more reasons why I'm right." A sarcastic "I'm sorry" will generally have some sort of indication of sarcasm, if it isn't implied in the context of the conversation, because who would want their sarcastic "I'm sorry" to have a chance of being read as sincere? I think that most people don't simply post the exact words they would say in a spoken conversation, they compose their thoughts as is appropriate to the medium. Sometimes there are misunderstandings, sure, but I can think of very few instances when it's seemed that someone was totally off in either the tone they conveyed or the tone they read in someone else's post.

The tone you claimed you were using, was not even remotely the tone you conveyed.

Be fair, David. It's the tone you inferred from his posts. I, who have met Rafmun, and connie, who has not, did not infer this.

(edited to remove 'not' which completely changes my meaning.)