ah, well i dont think ive EVER seen anyone banned here. course most people dont bother to respond with vulgarities even when they disagree or are angry. Its just pointless if i thought you were that big of a tit, i wouldnt have even posted in the first place. what would be the point?
Which brings us back to internet "tone of voice." It's a very real thing.
not really. Yeah people can USUALLY tell if something is sarcastic(tm) or whatever but for the most part tone is assumed. ]
Actually, I recently read an article about online communication and tone. It concluded that tone inferred on the Internet was generally more a result of the reader's feelings and attitudes than the one who originated the post. IE: if you think Conor is an ass, that posts would make him sound like more of an ass, who just wants to mock you. Whereas if you think Conor is a nice guy, you can clearly see he wasn't being an ass, but he was expressing dry wit.
So, online communication sucks and there is no real "tone." Studies of body language and infliction say that non-verbal cues makes up a major part of our daily communication and are more important, in many cases, than the actual words (I forget the percentage of meaning and I can't find it and I won't make up a number). It's something we learn before we learn how to talk. It's something even animals can pick up on. It's our most primal form of communication.
When we're online and don't have that, we infer our own emotions and inflections onto the words. We even do that a little off-line and we HAVE body language and inflection. How easy is it for someone to get on your nerves when you're already upset? If they said the same thing when you were happy would you see them as the same condescending pig you see them as now? Probably not. If we can't infer meaning to conversation without pushing our own emotional states onto it in real life with those non-verbal cues, how the heck can you say you can do it online?