Tim Romano wrote: > > We have different expectations from conversation, Carrol. I expect people > to look closely at the thing they're talking about before they opine. Not > before they ask a question. Before they opine. > Tim Romano > This really won't wash. Conversation (even the conversation of the 18th c. Paris salons) would be killed by such "expectations." To fulfill those expectations _once in a while_ the basic expectations must acknowledge that conversation, whether in a room or on a maillist, is primarily phatic. Perhaps the standards for maillists must be looser yet, for maillists (a) eliminate background knowledge of the participants (the kind of background that allows recognition that the stupidity of a statement does not reflect stupdity of the speaker) and (b) kill tone. Note that this thread has degenerated into Did Too -- Did Not in reference to the tone of a post. One way to learn through conversation is to make statements without thinking them out too fully, and letting the conversation winnow out the wheat from the chaff -- but that is only possible if participants don't throw a fit about the chaff in the air. Carrol