It is not that surprising that this kind of misunderstanding happens more often on the internet. In real life we communicate with more than just our words. We s

It is not that surprising that this kind of misunderstanding happens more often on the internet. In real life we communicate with more than just our words. We see how our communication partners say what they say, where they are looking, what cadence and tone they use. We also see what faces they make while the other person was talking, how alert they were. When all of that is missing it is harder to glean the tenor or direction of the message. And then on top of that there is a thing I would call "expectation bias". We expect to see something, and when what we see does not match our expectations we sometimes become blind to that. Conversations on this site very often go "argument - counter argument - counter counter argument - counter counter counter argument". Because of that people (me included!) often read comments with the expectation that it will at least in some way disagree with what was said before. And once someone has that expectation it is easy to misread a supporting comment as a weird and under-argued disagreement. > Makes me sad. I do understand. And you are not wrong. Misunderstandings are sad. It seems we sometimes forget that there is an other human being on the other side of the screen too. So sadness is not unwarranted sometimes. But on a constructive level we can recognise where the confusion slips in and we can add extra words to help lubricate the discussion. I often start my comments with stating my level of agreement. (From "Yes, you are 100% right..." via "You are mostly right, but I disagree with X" to "No, I'm afraid that is not true at all") Basically typing more characters because others can't see my gestures, and can't hear the tenor of my voice. For example in this case you could have wrote: "I agree that an orca probably doesn't see a human diver as a significant threat, and wouldn't need to use a bait to attack it. After all they are known to attack moose too! ..." (As an example. Of course I don't know if that is what you were actually thinking.) Could your comment been understood in an ideal world even without that? I think so. Could it have been fortified with a few choice words to better signal that what you are providing are related examples to support the already stated argument? I would think so too.