3 ms·

You think tone matters more then being correct?

• kayodelycaon 4y ago
  If you're talking about purely conveying information, tone is largely immaterial. If you're talking about convincing people, proper tone is a prerequisite to conveying information. For most communication, tone starts out being infinitely more important that anything you're saying. Once you reach an inflection point, tone is sufficient and correctness can take priority. The inflection point varies based on your audience.
  • lazyeye 4y ago
    I take your point. And I guess tone becomes particularly important when you're trying to communicate an unpalatable truth.
• marginalia_nu 4y ago
  If you want to convince someone of something, absolutely it does.
• TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Most people do, which is why this site will ban a user for being an asshole, but not for being incorrect.
• dllthomas 4y ago
  If my tone is such that no one engages constructively, then it's not going to be useful whether or not I'm correct. If my tone is such that many people engage constructively, then it may well be useful whether or not I'm correct, as either people learn from my contribution or people (including me) learn from corrections to my contribution. It's more than a little context dependent and YMMV, of course.