First off, I'd love to say, thank you for that post. If I don't necessarily agree with every point w/r/t board culture (though I think I understand the feeling), it's wonderful post that should be archived somewhere. One of the reasons I love this place and made it pretty much my only online...anything really.

Second in terms of the tone conversation, I'd say that while Rafmun has brought up some valuable points of discussion, he lost me, at least when it comes to his posts on the subject, with his "what have we learned today" post, the gist of which probably sent a lot of people's backs up.

If he's been lurking the general board as long as he says, and I know he's been here in specific threads for a while, he should have known that lecturing uses of the royal "we" were going to fly around here about as well as a dead penguin. Just my two cents - none of which is a dismissal of the subject at hand.

What Shawn said.

and move on to trying to address the situation which makes those posters feel less than welcome.

Dude, read the last 400 posts. We've been talking about the points you brought up all day. Is there something specific you're waiting to hear? Maybe you should better just post it yourself, since obviously we're not getting it.

[edit: Nutty's post is just about the most sensible and well-phrased thing I've read yet.]

And from just words that's fine (though the example of my poor sentance structure shows that this can be in error too) - it's the adding of 'tone' or 'intent' that's most often a problem.

I'm still not seeing how there's an "adding" of tone. Tone in conveyed in the words. There is nowhere else for it to come from. Some writers may convey it badly, some readers may misinterpret it, but it's not like someone's say, "OK, I'm going to read the next post as insincere, the one after it as somewhat sarcastic, and the one after that as snarky."

I read frustration in your tone, Jess.

He's been officially out as a Buffista for a couple of months and he's married to a Buffista.

Was also a member of TT for a bit. Not too active, but did post. Names are familiar to me, and I've lived, if by proxy, through much of the ups and downs. That being said, it is fine to treat me as a noob, and to value my opinions thusly. I'm kewl with that, and happy to live (not die though - got lots of things left to do, like learn macrame) by my words. My tone - well, that's part of me. Cold- like a cat ready to pounce...an old, sick, partially blind and slightly high-on-catnip cat, but a cat nonetheless.

As a side-note, in describing ita to Bob, he compared her to Wild Bill Hickok on Deadwood. I don't watch the show, so I don't know if the comparison is apt.

Hmm. I think what Bob might be trying to say there is that Hickok on Deadwood is someone that creates a lot of their own space and is very decisive in their actions. I think the comparisons end there, because the rest of the Hickok character wasn't very flattering, as far as I could tell, and here's the fun part:

I got all that from not knowing Bob or ita in meatpuppetland and only saying what I "know" about ita from here.

The coolest part of this whole conversation with me is that I got away clean with calling ita an axe murderer upthread, if you can call not suffering any structural integrity at least until the Mayberry get-together, "clean". Oops.

I think I should have sent this post to Allyson's LJ.

Tone in conveyed in the words. There is nowhere else for it to come from. Some writers may convey it badly, some readers may misinterpret it, but it's not like someone's say, "OK, I'm going to read the next post as insincere, the one after it as somewhat sarcastic, and the one after that as snarky."

Okay, fortget adding tone. How about misinterpreting tone? (and, actually, I often feel that the 'tone' comes more from the headspace of the person reading than from anything the writer intended)

I read frustration in your tone, Jess.

You fucking asshole, how dare you!

[eta: Really going to bed now, as it's incredibly late on this coast.]

You fucking asshole, how dare you!

Can you clarify that?

What Nutty Said. With perhaps an exception from all the grooming. Gross.

I think I was explaining ita's social capital...is his comparison still offensive? Sounded right the way he put it. Man, talk about blind leading the blind here.