“People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write,” Epley explains.
At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.
The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren’t that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s perspective.
from
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars,Stephen Leahy,Wired.com
I was going to post a link to an unpleasantness in the wp-shoppingcart plugin forum but the thread was cleaned up.Which is good even if it erased my awesome answer to the flame up I got for no reason other than the guy is half a crazy pill short of punching old ladies “for looking at me funny”.
But this is the problem with forums isn’t it?
Your Basic Forum Spoilers
The Misanthrope.
This guy has no friends and is an ugly little bastard without a girlfriend.His attitude and responses are such that he could only be single and living in his Grannie’s basement.No workplace,woman or social group would put up with him in real life so he gets his kicks blasting people in an internet forum.
Republican.
The Guy Who Knows The Answer But Will Not Tell You
He just doesn’t feel like it.But he will post about why he doesn’t feel like it.And he will nitpick your spelling and or grammar.
Might also be a Republican.
The Look At Me Guy
This person, desperate for attention,9 times out of 10 will bait and flame or scold innocent parties.
If he ever does try to answer a question it’s usually just parroted information that is garbled and misspelled.He is a person of low intellect and should be avoided.The problem is he is so ubiquitous that he is hard to avoid.
He is too busy in the forums to vote.
The Parasite
The parasite also knows very little but he has buddied up to someone who seems to know everything.
Similar to the Look At Me Guy he will parrot garbled information or he will chirp “ask the Know It All Guy”. In fact,he wants to be the Know It All Guy but he is too stupid.
Too stupid to vote.
The OmG,Know It All Guy, YOu ArE A GoD Girl
This person means well but they do harm in that that puff up an already swollen head.
Might be a liberal,it’s hard to tell.
The Know It All Guy
A big fish in a small pond or rather the one person who has it all figured out and generously shares his knowledge with others,at first but soon becomes overwhelmed and may de volve into The Guy Who Knows The Answer But Will Not Tell You.Usually there can be only one Know It All Guy per forum but in larger more populated forums there are several and sometimes they fight with each other to the amusement of of silly people.
Libertarian.