"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
gonline.com...
Matt Whiting wrote:

I've been using usenet for 10+ years and have found that people tend to
come across as more hostile in writing than they really are in person.
This happens in email as well. You don't have the inflection and other
nonverbal cues that you get in mano-y-mano conversation and it is easy
for things to escalate well beyond what anyone intended.

I've been USENETing since at least 84 (according to DejaGoogle), and I
agree. For a while, I resisted using those "emotocon" glyphs reasoning
that words should be sufficient in a written medium.

Eventually, I gave that up. Too many read perhaps every other, or every
third, word. Any possible subtlety is lost when reading is so sparse.
Spoonfeeding is required.

- Andrew

Your choice of the word "spoonfeeding" here is indicative of the problems
found in email and posting communication. Taken in context, the word
"spoonfeeding" as you have used it can indicate a deficiency on the part of
the receiver of the communication. To focus in any way on the receiver of a
communication is to mask the responsibility of the writer of the
communication to make EVERY effort to convey the "mood" and "tone" of the
communication.
This is why we use emoticons for electronic visual communication.
The problem is that many people are intimidated by the use of an emoticon;
feeling that their use implies a lesser level of intelligence.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There are few people in this world with the natural writing skill to
completely convey with a zero error margin, the tone and mood of a written
thought.
Your use of the word "spoonfeeding" is a perfect example of what I'm talking
about. Your thought was correct. Your statement was correct. The writer does
indeed have to be extremely careful when trying to convey the mood and tone
of a letter.
But the use of the word "spoonfeeding" would not be my first choice to
describe what is required.
:-))))) This is much less "threatening" than the word "spoonfeeding". Do
YOU like the thought that someone thinks in order for you to understand what
has been written to you, that you have to be "spoon-fed" the information?
Think about it! :-)
Dudley Henriques