As an exercise, set aside temporarily your judgement of whether the flagging was abuse or otherwise. What are some reasons members may have flagged the comment?

As an exercise, set aside temporarily your judgement of whether the flagging was abuse or otherwise. What are some reasons members may have flagged the comment? Take an additional step: assume they’re reasonable people. Are any of the reasons you came up with consistent with that view? What are some reasons that are consistent with them being reasonable? Are there potential readings of your comment that may lead to their action, even if it wasn’t what you intended? This isn’t meant as a defense of their actions. It’s only to aid in more effective communication. Clearly people acted in a manner you believe is unfair or unjustified. Communication involves both the commenter and the reader. As you can only control one of those ends, what can you do to improve the probability of successful communication? I don’t expect answers to these questions. I just find them useful when communication that I’m a part of breaks down, and offer them here in the hope that you may find them useful, too.