[robocat]

I assumed repox prefers bluntness, due to their writing style. I was careful with the words and tone that I chose. Checking comment history, repox wrote that they are a Dane (which I didn't know). My experience of friends from other nearby countries is that their style of interaction can be seen as rude by many people. In particular my stereotype is that Americans often prefer a more gentle approach.

I think you are assuming I am not being respectful. However I believe that a blunt reply is definitely showing respect to them in this situation. I do need to be careful not to make comments that are personal attacks (or that could be mistaken for), which I certainly was not trying to do.

(To quote you: "you’re making the claim, you defend it. Otherwise the assumption is just, like, your opinion man." ;)

Hopefully repox can reply, although they don't often comment, so I would guess they are unlikely to check replies. Anyways, definitely off topic!

[eyelidlessness]

Hey, I mistake appropriateness of being blunt too. I’m autistic, so. I’m kind of impressed you dug through my recent comment history, even if the quote feels misplaced. Anyway feel free to be blunt with me, if you recognize me around.

But I’ll also be blunt when I notice a critique is probably misplaced.

[robocat]

All good.

To explain: I quickly scanned some of their recent comments to see if my assumptions could be wrong. When I noticed they were Danish, I then wondered if you were American, so I used hn.algolia.com to scan your comments for “American” as a keyword. You said you were, but at that point I luckily noticed the comment of yours that I quoted, which I just couldn’t resist cheekily passing back to you, because it fitted the discussion on comment quality at a meta level</smirk>.

I often write personal notes like this after the topic has dropped from the front page. If there are a lot of people still reading the comment threads, I try harder to not be a distraction to others and I try to keep on topic.

I really do appreciate your effort to keep my comment quality high - if we all do that for many comments (especially through voting) then the whole community benefits. I don’t realise when I get tone wrong. In this case I have been very slightly downvoted on both comments which is not usual for me - so your comment was an extra help.

[eyelidlessness]

FWIW I think “comment quality” is a weird self-policing cargo cult thing here that reflects moderation attitudes more than it reflects basic decency, and I appreciate your candor and openness to critique more than anything else in this discussion. I’m sure you’ll find if you look further through my comments that I think basic decency extends beyond the politeness expected here when they conflict. Regardless thank you for a fruitful conversation!