We all know that reading someone's tone on-line can be tricky. In person, you can hear my tone and see my expression, so you know if I'm being sarcastic, if I'm laughing, or if I'm being outright mean. On the Internet, you don't have vocal and facial and physical cues, so you're just left with the words on the screen.
Even though I'm a writer, so you'd imagine that I can convey my mood through words, I've been misunderstood more than once. Most notably by someone who took me seriously and was very offended by a joke I made on one of my update lists. I'd never dreamed that anyone would ever take that comment seriously, but, again, this is the Internet, and tone can be difficult to read.
Some of us are just on the board to hang out and have a fun conversation about fiction we all enjoy. (Hi! Thanks for hanging out!) Some of us want to get into more serious discussions, questioning the angles and bringing up new points and picking apart the textual evidence. (Welcome! Great to have you here!) And some of us get pretty vehement in pressing our points. (Diamond will crusade against Hitari until the end of time.)
If we argue opposing viewpoints, if we butt heads, if we disagree on everything from Anosanim to Xio Voe, that's okay. That's just us disagreeing about the fiction. And sometimes we'll get wrapped up in the argument, and sometimes we'll feel disagreed with at every turn.
Different people have different tolerances for conflict, and different people have different boundaries. I'll admit that, over the years, people have said things that have upset me. I've been offended and I've been insulted and my feelings have been hurt.
If that happens to you, if you're involved in a discussion on the board and you think that someone's gone too far, please just let that person know. 9.9 out of 10 times, it was unintentional, and no harm was meant, and she'll apologize. And 9.9 out of 10 times, no personal attack was intended. (I'd recommend that private messages be sent in these cases, but that's at your discretion.)
In the cases where a personal attack was intended, if the conversation has progressed beyond academic discussion and into personal insults, please let me or one of the moderators know.
I want to emphasize again that while our discussions
of the fiction may get heated, that's just because some people get wrapped up in the conversation, and some people just like to argue, and some people just post fast and don't realize how they come across. Sometimes you'll have an interpretation of the story (Rini should marry T'rin!) that someone else doesn't agree with, and she'll write ten pages of posts detailing exactly why Rini and T'rin are doomed, and, yes, it's natural to be taken aback at that. But please read it in good faith, and understand that she's arguing about the story and talking about the story, not about you.
When we talk about you, we do it in glowing terms, with lots of smileys, because we love you.
-Matthew
