> 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." "Gentler" seems like a euphemism to me. I read it instead as passive aggression w

> 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." "Gentler" seems like a euphemism to me. I read it instead as passive aggression which is generally considered rude and not a productive way of communicating with people. Normal communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y counters X's unreasonable demand with simple-to-follow reasoning: "I understand where you are coming from, but there are important technical reasons why we cannot do Z. Unless you have the time to dive into the code to understand those technical details (and perhaps even become a developer yourself in the process), you're just going to have to trust us on this point." Benefits: clarity, positive example, trollproof. Costs: several sentences, restraint. Passive Aggressive Communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y tries to "teach" X not to make unreasonable demands by making a similarly unreasonable demand. If devs should always do Z, and if current devs are too busy to do Z, then it should be so obvious that X must become a dev that Y will imply it in the response: "Thanks for volunteering!" Benefit: brevity Cost: confusion, consequent anger/humiliation in X that makes it harder for them to learn the ostensible lesson, troll food, negative example for future devs to follow, scary to potential devs, etc. Edit: typo