As I see, another problem you have, is you take everything literally, and as if it was to be aplied to you. It was an example, not what you have to do.
I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you what I use to do (and in this case, a singular example), so you might get ideas (or not), and avoid this kind of things. If you don't want to avoid it, you are free of course, but you should not say you don't know the reason why people insult you. It was not meant to be aplied out of the box.
This (the discusion you and I are having) is not a discusion about who is right or wrong. In fact, is not even a discusion. I'm just telling you what I see, from an neutral point of view. You can take my advises, or not... just that.
Quote:Nice recursive explanation of what you understand to be "niceness"
The "Nice" word is a problem in the english language. "Nice is a nice word", so it is hard to define. It has so many meanings, it is very hard to define without using it. I hope you know what I mean with it. If you don't, I can try to explain it better, but it won't be easy. Anyway, a english laguage dictionary might give you a better definition than me.
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But I'm neither rude nor mocking, I'm posting links to answers
That is what you think (and me too). And that is what my posts are all about. The fact you don't think something is offensive, doesn't mean it isn't (at least for everyone).
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I think that posting links is a rather neutral and factual way to answer questions. I still don't know how that can be perceived in a negative (rude or mocking) way
I don't know too, but as things are, it seems like it might be. Anyway, almost everything can be perceived as bad in a forum, at least in my experience.
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Yes, not important to people who aren't interested in a factual, non-emotional discourse.
What I meant, is that what is important, is how it is perceived...
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Interesting. I think it's quite the opposite. An "RTFM"-like answer would be to say "Use the forum search!", not linking to an answer like I do.
The oposite to RTFM, would be answering with an explanation. You could even say something like "This happens because blabla [brief explanation]. You can read more in this thread". In my point of view, that is a nice answer. Only a link, seems to be nearer to a RTFM than to be nice (not to me, but feels so to some people as we see).