Thoughts that being missed in this great literary drama are:

A turn of phrase or usage of words on paper are NOT always the same as 
when saying them in person. 

Sometimes the impact of the written word can be mitigated if the 
receiver has met and spoken to the sender - people can often hear the 
senders voice when reading a phrase or sentence . That can often make 
a big difference to someone if they've never heard someones speaking 
style or put different weight to words or phrases used.

It is a fact (sad though it maybe) that the world in general tends to 
write differently in emails and forum posts etc than they do when 
writing an actual letter.

I still write important letters using a fountain pen (smearing nicely 
being left handed), my writing style and spelling are often different 
to that in internet posts.

One only has to look at responses to articles in august newspapers 
from a supposedly highly educated readership to see that there is a 
significant disconnection between how questions and responses are 
framed to that which hopefully they use in their work environment.

People often tend to write on forums, lists etc as though the other 
people are in the room with them, know their thought process, know 
exactly what they've done previously, how they've done it and why they 
are now stuck and they know you and you know them.

Whilst this is deplorable, it is now a fact.

If you think this list is bad, then toddle off to the Acronis forum 
(where self plugging (is that illegal :)  where I'm an MVP) and see 
how many shouts of help start with - 'I got it and it don't work' or 
variants of that. Some people here would be requiring surgery for a 
burst poofer valve within 5 seconds or reading a post.

Therefore, on an open list where most of us have never met each other, 
a degree of circumspection is required before losing patience.

I never knew the OT list could be so lively. Bring pack Wireless World 
and the continual invective fed spat between Mr Doug Self (Hi-end 
Audio Amplifiers) and his EE contemporaries - it did liven the letter 
pages, though was extremely offensive and non professional.

Colin

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cdb, colin@btech-online.co.uk on 3/6/2010
 
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