I agree in the sense that's the way I prefer communication. Direct and to the point. But when I'm dealing with non-techies, I see a use to preface any opinion

I agree in the sense that's the way I prefer communication. Direct and to the point. But when I'm dealing with non-techies, I see a use to preface any opinion or question with some sort of disclaimer of that sort. I do this in order to lessen the probability that they take offence to what I say and then become uncommunicative. On more than one occasion, I thought we were having a productive conversation about their problems with the software and I find out (when they inexplicably become angry) that they thought I was insinuating their incompetence or lack of intelligence or something. I think the terse, abrupt style that I and many other techies prefer, comes across as needlessly insensitive to non-techies and we need to be mindful of that if we want to allow them to contribute to this community. (We do like teachers, accountants and shopkeepers commenting on startups in education, finance and retail, right?) Not to the extent of prefacing everything with patronizing verbiage, but to be mindful not to be too abrupt. Because many people take that as being disrespectful (in my understanding).