On Mon, 14 Jun 2010, Paul Louden wrote:

> I'll stop asking people to read more carefully the instant people stop
> accusing me of saying things I explicitly did not. Am I allowed to reply
> "Please refrain from inflammatory statements" because I find your statement
> here quite inflammatory?

> Do we have a guideline for what qualifies as one?

I would start with:

1 - assume YOU are to blame for everything that is wrong or needs
clarification, and use statements such as "I don't understand what you are
saying" or "I must be expressing myself unclear but" instead of stating what
errors the other party (seems to) have made. This is in fact a way that works
very well in practically all cultural areas.

2 - wait before you reply. Yes, just give each reply an extra hour or five to
mature before you fire it away. That way others get time to respond as well
and you get more time to polish the response and read up on details posted.
The very fast pingpong email discussions are the ones most likely to turn out
nasty.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se