Charity police

Jugulum makes an interesting observation. I have noticed this but I wonder if it is predominantly confined to Christian blogs. Blogmasters vary in what they expect of commenters; some blogs are freer in the range of tone, though curt language tends to be less tolerated from newbies and will likely result in a response in kind. Others expect more courtesy and will remove offence or ban offenders. What is amusing are commenters whose sensitivity buttons are grossly oversized. They expect kind language but are harsh in enforcing it. Jugulum notes,

If you read many blogs on the internet, you will find people who speak very uncharitably–they’re constantly unnecessarily harsh in tone and unreasonable in how they interpret others. You will also find people who are obsessed with accusing others of being uncharitable. You can call them charity police. And those guys can be some of the least charitable people around–accusing others of uncharity at the drop of a hat or the slightest hint of language that isn’t excessively polite. Majorly unreasonable & oversensitive.

This often true. Most of the problem with charity police resides in their own personalities.

I will add that exacerbating the problem is that text communication is intrinsically blunt. Thus one finds his comments less blunt due to the fact he is writing what he is thinking and others' comments more blunt because he is reading what they are writing. One should reread what he has written to get an idea of tone. Always assume the tone is slightly harsher than it reads. If you think someone will find your comment a little blunt and you don't know how to tone in down, consider using (as much as I am not particular fan of them) emoticons.