[tahoemph999]

You have this backwards. Being mean doesn't scale. A small number of mean people can poison a large part of the community. That drives off future contributors at a high rate. Being reasonable does scale. When somebody isn't following reasonable guidelines it takes one person to point them at the FAQ, help them understand what they did wrong and why it could be done better next time, etc. One response[1] to point back in the right direction. Low investment for a good outcome. If more people decide to add like reasoning for why the question/comment/answer was off then more energy was spent to convince the original person that this is a hostile forum to use. Now you end up with more energy being spent to achieve a lesser effect. That is a lower ROI.

There is a difference between being concise (cut to the chase) and being rude. And yea, language differences can blur that line. But it is a spectrum. Just 'cuz not everybody will think you are being NICE doesn't mean it is fine to be a jerk.

[1] Due to the distributed nature of these platforms you can end up with a small multiple of simultaneous responses. Fine, most people get this is a possibility. One good way some people deal with this is to not knee jerk response to everything. Sadly that has a the effect of having the jerks do more of the responding.

[arkh]

> When somebody isn't following reasonable guidelines it takes one person to point them at the FAQ, help them understand what they did wrong and why it could be done better next time, etc.

If you haven't I encourage you doing that for some "low skill" tags on SO 1 or 2 hours per day. Php, js, css, java should be good examples.