On being rude ...

[Taylor]

In my experience, the Robotics Team tends to attract a ... special kind of human. Both students and mentors tend to be outliers on the social spectrum, in many ways, myself certainly included.

In some posts I have seen over the years, the authors seem to be individuals who, shall we say, lack social grace.

Whether this is by nature or nurture, I am not qualified to comment.

But it seems to me these are the ones who are most often 'attacked'.

If you as a reader feel somebody is being unnecessarily rude, it may be for different reasons. It may be because
1)the individual is, in fact, a jerk;
2)the individual is full of anonymous Internet bravado;
3)the individual is operating off faulty premise or bias;
4)the individual is very passionate about the subject;
5)the individual doesn't realize s/he is being rude and does not know any better;
6)the individual doesn't realize s/he is being rude and can't help it.

While any of these six may be true, they all should be treated differently. And as it is difficult to tell through black text on a white background, I would counsel my colleagues to not jump directly to conclusion 1).