an excellent topic, and one that cannot resurface often enough
Wired News: The Secret Cause of Flame Wars
On a couple of forums that I run I am often in the position of having to tell people that what they think they *hear* as the way something is said is entirely in their heads... one can observe conflict arising out of nowhere other than people's own auditory hallucination. That, combined with the attitude that I am communicating with a stream of elctrons (how often have you seen the debate "Well, we don't know who you are, you may be a stream of electrons for all I know" or somesuch equivalent?) can result in seriously dehumanised communication. I also find that personally I write as if I am having a conversation, whcih fails to take into account the time lag and consequent delay in being able to correct any missapprehension.
Personally, I like pseudo tags</high horse> and old fashioned emoticons (not the graphic ones) :-p, but ultimately, a little consideration for the real feelings of others works a whole lot better, combined with the understanding that we are communicating in an emotionally impoverishing medium.
Love and light
Adam