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As a contradicting opinion, by my conversational standards, the comment reads as just an observation that this is curious, and an implication that the poster wo
by tene 10y ago
As a contradicting opinion, by my conversational standards, the comment reads as just an observation that this is curious, and an implication that the poster would be interested in more information. It does not read at all like an attack to me.
- astrobe_ 10y agoSome/Many posters here are not native speakers. There's no English conversational standard on the Internet.
- tene 10y agoYes, that's why I was explicit that I was discussing my personal conversational standards that reflect my personal history, which is different from yours. As you point out, there are people from a wide variety of backgrounds on the internet, and part of participating in the internet is understanding this and expecting it. When you see something that you might think is hostile, it's often more productive to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume that they intended good faith but have different conversational norms from you. In the best case, they meant well, and everything proceeds nicely. In the slightly worse case, they didn't mean well, but you've helped de-escalate, and things are back on track for a nice discussion. In the worst case, they get more blatant in their attacks, and at least you'll find out that productive discussion wasn't possible anyway. Not much downside, and lots of upside, in my experience.