> Interesting angle, but I really don't believe nastiness has much to do with it. My experience is that this is a limitation of communication without subtext,

> Interesting angle, but I really don't believe nastiness has much to do with it. My experience is that this is a limitation of communication without subtext, inflection, etc. I don't have a whole lot of time right now for details, but I have noticed a few tendencies that exacerbate emotions in online discussions: - Deprecating humor seems especially biting without the wink and smile, and the inevitable response from others then appears like an attack - Posters lump all critics together, and tend to forget who made which argument (but are especially sensitive to having their points glossed over, misinterpreted) - Often those within technical circles don't realize that different people weigh evidence differently (i.e., two parties may reach separate conclusions simply because they have differing views of which facts are important). Unlike in the math world, discussions and conclusions cannot be reduced to a few simple axioms--there's always the experience of the observer necessary to interpret data. - There's a tendency to skim critics posts and respond to individual sentences/words (rather than the sum of what was actually written).