Very much agreed. The principle of charity is an important virtue when reading things online, and only the audience is capable of bringing that to the table. I

Very much agreed. The principle of charity is an important virtue when reading things online, and only the audience is capable of bringing that to the table. I have on a number of occasions misread a statement as its opposite (skimming over a 'not' or forgetting important context, perhaps). That might offend me to the point of making an argument, and I think it would be crazy for me to expect an apology rather than a "I didn't say that, you argumentative prick". That's the extreme case, where the error is unquestionably my own, but there's a vast gray area where I might default to a less than charitable interpretation of someone's words and they haven't done anything wrong. For example, if someone were to describe my word choice as gross[1], I might take that as a personal insult. Putting the responsibility on the writer to account for every possible interpretation from every possible audience member is a great way to abolish good writing altogether. [1] Using this example not to go after the author here in particular, but to avoid using a more divisive example that's not already part of the conversation