> I will try to tackle the rest of your large post later

Thanks, I'm looking forward to it, hoping it's not just a hollow promise.

> Many, if not most people write forum postings in the same
> style and wording as they would speak to another person,
> but in writing you do not have the advantage of hearing the
> inflections of tone in the words, nor seeing the appearance
> of a persons actions and facial expressions

Exactly. That's why forum postings are always written language, not spoken language. The mental processes involved in speaking vs. writing are not the same. Even when some people write in a style that seems to resemble spoken language it is not spoken language and it does not work like spoken language.

> so I do not agree with you that because all communication
> on this forum is written, that mistakes cannot occur
> between two persons understanding of what is being communicated.

You misunderstood what I said. I said that misunderstandings "between spoken and written English" (as you put it) can not be the cause of misunderstandings in a pure notational medium like MZ because there just *is no way* to actually have an oral dialogue here on MZ (let alone a visual one). I did *not* say what you now say you disagree with, i.e. that "mistakes cannot occur between two persons understanding of what is being communicated" in a notational medium. In fact, I've been saying the exact opposite all along.

> I have never experienced anyone other than yourself that expresses
> themselves so exactly and carefully in forum postings

Thanks, much appreciated. I try hard to put emphasis on communicating in a clear and unambigous way, which helps very much reducing the occurrences of misunderstandings most of the time.

> This, as you no doubt have noticed in the past, is a great
> source of annoyance to some, including myself

This, as you no doubt have noticed in the past, I don't mind.

> In my experience, most forum posters [...] do not wish to
> be criticized

Yes, that's my experience as well. Lack of critical faculty seems to be widespread, unfortunately.

> and so are not so careful in the way that they type

Yes, again an experience I share with you.

> I would guess that some members [...] to this forum might
> even be reluctant to post any messages here

I'm very confident that this is the case. There are even members who claim they don't use MZ because they don't like me interlinking threads here. As you see, there's obviously no motivation foolish enough to not get presented as a rationale ;-)

> to avoid such constant and annoying criticism of their postings.

It's really the way you look at it. Criticism can be depreciated as an annoyance or even attack, but it can also be used as a means to improve. There's even a third approach how to deal with criticism -- simply ignoring it. Everybody makes his own choice how to handle criticism.
And before you say that I don't appreciate criticism myself (just in case) have a look at how this very discussion started in posting #157 et sequentes where I posted links to some articles and Velcro_SP criticized me for calling those articles "reviews". You can clearly see that I took heed of his criticism in a genuine way.

> please think about the possible results of your actions
> before you begin such critical investigations (or attacks)
> on other people's postings.

First off, let me clarify that I've never *attacked* here on MZ, never ever. There are people here on MZ who like to call me names and spit foul language towards me, as you surely know. And even then I don't reply using their low level. That should tell you something, really. As for the rest, I'll definitely continue being critical of other people's postings as being critical is kind of a life motto for me and I believe that world would be a much better place if people were more critical in general. That sounds solemn now, doesn't it? ;-)