As most everyone here knows, we try to keep things light on this board. As a general rule, we try not to get harsh or personal with each other unless we're just joking around.

However, anytime you're dealing with a medium that is text-based, it is very easy to read a post and get "emotional vibes" that were not at all intended by the person who made the post. As a result, you might take unnecessary offense and respond in a manner that was totally unexpected from the original poster's perspective. And from here, of course, things can get heated up very quickly.

I'm certainly not pointing any fingers at anyone (except maybe myself) since I'm certainly as guilty of this as anyone else is. However, I think most of us would do well to try and give the benefit of the doubt to someone whose post you think is a bit on the grumpy side. Let's not be too quick to assume that the intent was unfairly negative or hostile. More often than not, it probably wasn't intended that way!

Happy Posting!

Excellent post, GarfCadetSD! I'd also like to add that considering this medium we'd all do well to make our posts as clear and as intelligible as possible so there's no real grey area for assumptions to be made. State exactly what's on your mind and heart and everyone should be able to derive the author's intent of the post.
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its true.
in my business communication class, there was a part in the book about tone, and it said try saying "how are you doing to day" in different tones and emphasis. you can make something so simple seem pissed off, kind, and every emotion in the spectrum, so keep this in mind. if you read something that kinda 'rubs you the wrong way', read it over again. If you still cant find an intended tone, just post a nice reply like "i'm not too sure what you mean" or something like that and you can clear things up that way. After you do it a few times, you'll understand the general personality of each of the posters here.
I say general, cuz some people can be a bit random. (guilty.)
anyways, i suppose this mostly pertains to newbies, but it also pertains to the way veteran posters act or respond to the newbies as well.

As I think we all know there are many different varieties of people on Drumlines.org. So its a given that people are going to write at different levels, and people will also write in different styles. So it's a given people will mean different things from what you might think they mean sometimes. Like Kevin said about the tones thing, I totally feel you on that one man. I can't wait until I have to take classes like that!

Indeed. As some people have seen, I tend to post in a rather dramatic, in your face, kind of way. My posts seem to piss off a lot of people, without my wanting to. But, you have to look at it on this point: You can't tell someones personality over the internet. It's impossible. You talk to someone online and then meet them in person, they usually end up being totally different.

Do you think we could get this thread at the top of all forums, like the READ ME FIRST stuff at the top of all the music forums? I mean, I thought that all of the forums, well a lot of them, anyway, were supposed to be "kept light" as GarfCadet put it. I know I've had problems with misunderstanding people's meanings in other forums, Off-Topic especially.