Are you conscious of your tone of voice when you post?

I am very self-conscious of my tone, I try to be neutral , I try to be precise , I try to be grammatically correct to the best of my ability . If I think that using a smiley or a wink will help set my tone more precisely, I will use them.

But sometimes, a smiley or a wink can mean F-U, too!

Sometimes it's even necessary to put "sarcasm" in tags [/sarcasm] in order to more perfectly set the tone.

What happens when we abuse the emoticons while using them [/sarcastically] and what's the point of that? Nobody will ever get your point because you haven't got one.

I don't really have a point to make about it. So why should this thread even exist?? I've been here on ATS for 3 years now and I still don't get it (sometimes) when people are being plainly sarcastic!

We can never truly know if someone with a star and a flag in their pocket is being truly ironic, truly sarcastic or sarcastically ironic, or, well... maybe you get the picture or maybe you don't

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter

Guilty ... of doing it wrong!

I shouldn't rest my hopes on people figuring out I'm one of the good guys and mean no disrespect or harm. Hopefully my reply will stand the test of time.

Snarl
reply to post by SayonaraJupiter

 

Guilty ... of doing it wrong!

I shouldn't rest my hopes on people figuring out I'm one of the good guys and mean no disrespect or harm. Hopefully my reply will stand the test of time.

Oh please, your sarcasm is killing me GUILTY AS CHARGED!

i try to not be a schmuck, but inevitably I fail.

Most of it is that i am becoming a grumpy old man. Im not old yet (41) but well on my way.

so i just leave it up to the reader to deal with it to the best of their abilities. For the most part, ATS has been kind enough to tolerate me.

I'm afraid to use the emoticons because I don't have a clue what they mean and that's aside from my allergy to their shade of color! It's a favor to us in the long run as we must hone our skills as workers of language to be understood. That's why I'll never be understood...I don't have time for that ratsh*t. I feel stuck between a rock and a hardplace!

Your OP makes sense to me... It's hard to convey sarcasm well and that multiplies to recall there is a never ending and steady flow of new people onto ATS who don't know background or history to any of us for context

I tend to overdo the sarcasm a bit in the balance to err away from it possibly being taken seriously, tho I personally avoid that much at all. Overdoing it tends to be snarky over a real fine line I guess.

When I first started here, I was real bad about USING CAPS for every form of emphasis, in any post. Then then two things happened.

I took a course in typography and Intrepid sent me a note on a thread as a reminder that things like italics, bold and resizing or color really do exist on the toolbar, if used sparingly. lol...

I'm not sure which had more impact, but it seems to work well for using a variety that come to convey different things.

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter


Hey man,

Yes I try to be. Deep inside my thick cro-magnon skull there is the dim realization that electronic message posts of all sorts have about the same power of emotional conveyance as a brick.

So I try. I probably also fail most of the time.

Good question. I think it starts to go in to some of the same philosophical territory covered by Ren'e Descartes concerning never really being able to see one's self.

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter


I find people tend to read malice into anything you say on ATS when you're disagreeing with them, and it's hard to find the time to 'nice up' a post. I've seen some posters go to huge efforts to nice everything up and sometimes it's welcome, and sometimes it's not.

I avoid smilies simply because they are often interpreted as mean or sarcastic.

Mostly I just try to take the value out of people's posts, and remove the harshness when I can. Though I firmly believe some persons come to ATS to smash people into philosophical dust, and that's just how it is. They like making their put downs and sarcasm as harsh as they possible can within ATS rules.

Example: I know you can be a lil funny or sharp and are very passionate about your beliefs, Sayonara, but we get on pretty good these I think.

reply to post by Bybyots

Good question. I think it starts to go in to the some of the same philosophical territory covered by Ren'e Descartes concerning never really being able to see one's self.

And perhaps that is the best answer after all, just to BE one's self instead of playing roles.

Howard Hughes produced a film in 1927 called "Everybody's Acting" maybe that applies to the behaviour of online identities, and Hughes was one of those people who liked to manage his own identity, his public persona, going so far as to place law suits against unauthorized biographies, most of which were published anyways... and apparently there are no pictures taken of Hughes after 1957, the year he dumped his long time partner Noah Dietrich, the year he pickup CIA/FBI/mafia conduit Robert Maheu as his #2 in command and coincidentally the same year Hughes married the lovely Jean Peters.


Although Hughes's medium was the movies it is often hard to tell whether he was being truly serious about Communism in Hollywood. He produced a film called "I Married A Communist". LIke it is often hard to tell apart the posters playing a persona from the ones who are being serious. Oh well, I guess it's the same way in real life, isn't it?

There are a lot actors in real life, too...

No.
I shoot from the hip.
I speak my mind.
I make no appologies for being blunt.

-Peace-

I know that a wink, in real life, can be a very powerful signal and it should be carefully delivered, to use the term sparingly, and wisely. Are winks any more meaningful in real life than they are on-line? I use the wink on line all the time although I can never really know if the meaning was perfectly imbued by that container - the wink.

What's in the container of these two famous winks? You don't really have to answer that, it's a rhetorical question really. No, you really don't have to answer that. Really. Really.

It's a strange way to communicate by winking It's basically what a modem does when it talks to another modem, by a series of specific signals, which are interpreted specifically according to programmed rules.

But a human "wink" is nothing like that! A human "wink" can mean almost anything.

being dyslexic i think i come across as some what crass sometimes but that is not my intent and i do tend to over use the smiley's sometimes as you do tend to think everyone has the same meaning as you think .

i have been picked up a few times as being rude but that was not my intention but haters are going to hate some people take the internet way too serious .

if you are one of life's people that argue with the television then conspiracy sites are not for you

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter


One of the fallacies of printed text is that doesn't convey emotions like a conversation would, I guess that's how we ended up with emoticons.

Personally I try hard to get my point across as clearly as possible, I'm not the greatest wordsmith so I have to take extra time to make sure my posts make sense and are in the right tone, hell I've been at this for ten minutes now and I'll probably proof read it for another ten.

I also have trouble with detecting sarcasm in posts, the Sheldon Cooper syndrome as I call it. Is there an emoticon for sarcasm?

reply to post by Thecakeisalie



Emotion for sarcasm would probably be a pair of raised eye brows?


I have to say that I did use the 'old' emotions a fair bit, as I felt it did convey the

way I would be speaking if I were 'face to face'


I don't use these "little green ones" much as I can't make out what they are! I do so

miss the 'old' Thumbs up and down, the puzzle, the smile, the surprise and

the belly laugh.....


I feel that I am now typing my posts in a flat mono tone rather than in an animate

manner!

Simply just used to use a thumbs up or down, now they have been removed I have no emotions. (Thumbs down)

n00bUK
Simply just used to use a thumbs up or down, now they have been removed I have no emotions. (Thumbs down)

Due to the lack of suitably expressive emotions >>>>


I can FEEEEEL your pain! ...

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter


Written words do not have a tone.

Tone in written words is interpreted by the person reading them.

Things that are missing from communication in writing are tone (intonation), body language, facial expressions and emotions.

ALL CAPS means you are yelling.

EmotionCons add some.

But most of the time many just misinterpret the tone based on their own emotional state at the time of posting.

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter

I try to be grammatically correct to the best of my ability

Same here with every post made, I try to express myself so the readers will interpret what I post the way I want to be interpreted and not get what I'm saying or trying to say the wrong way.

However,

With tone I assume you mean posting without allowing the initial feelings from reading a post sink in and post a reply in a tone that when looking back at your own post you say to yourself, "that is going to be taken wrong, why did I even post that in such a fashion and not some other way".

I am guilty if anyone wishes place these charges on me,

Many times I use sarcasm or frustration to guide my post which when I re read later on I feel as though I reacted to quick and was manipulated to react in such a way by the words on the screen, I give the poster and their words that much power to influence my being for that moment without simply just talking a deep breath and either letting go (which I have numerous times, written angry or sarcastic posts that I deleted before posting because I took that breath to clear my mind of the influence the words I just read had had on me)

When will I learn, sometimes I have the wisdom other times I come of as a troll.

Its is complex and confusing at times to really interpret what is posted, I just hope I haven't upset any posters with what I post that it might stay with their thoughts in a negative way to their being.

If I have said stuff that has upset but in a way that expands thinking in a positive direction for others then I am pleased to keep going in the direction I am headed.

I love ATS for all its ups and downs, all it understanding and misunderstandings the members have.

But a human "wink" is nothing like that! A human "wink" can mean almost anything.

The pic below this,

Is that Johnson winking to another winking back during his swearing in just after JFK was killed?

geobro
being dyslexic i think i come across as some what crass sometimes but that is not my intent and i do tend to over use the smiley's sometimes as you do tend to think everyone has the same meaning as you think .

i have been picked up a few times as being rude but that was not my intention but haters are going to hate some people take the internet way too serious .

if you are one of life's people that argue with the television then conspiracy sites are not for you

Good advice. I think that I'll start a new party, the People's Front for Free Texting, or, P.F.F.T.. No smiley's allowed! Aha!

reply to post by InhaleExhale

The pic below this,

Is that Johnson winking to another winking back during his swearing in just after JFK was killed?

LBJ (color picture) on the left is from from the Fort Worth Breakfast on the morning of November 22, 1963. I don't know who he is giving his "popeye" signal to. It's like a wink, but instead of closing the eyelid, he opens his eyelid and does the "popeye" trick.

LBJ on the right, with Albert Thomas doing the winking, onboard Air Force One after the murder.