On Wed, 9 Jun 2010, Michael Smith wrote:
> It's not even quite like pre-electronic letter-writing, which usually
> took place between people who knew each other in the 3D world. Even when
> that wasn't the case, there was usually a certain rather formal decorum
> that governed the interchange. Maybe even more to the point, there
> weren't a couple hundred other people reading the back-and-forth, as
> there are on email lists. Surely that changes something.
I used to think this, but now I don't. I've begun to think that letter writers of the classic era had essentially the same problems we have. In fact, I think many otherwise inexplicable fallings out between artists and intellectual in the 17-19th centuries can be best interpreted as flamewars between people who communicated entirely by letter. I also suspect (without yet knowing how to test) that their ornate rhetorical forms of politeness ultimately had the same source as the modern modern IIRC and AFAICT: proactively avoiding the horror of flamewars with BFFs.
As for the other aspects, mail delivery by servants was often relatively instantaneous; mail delivery in large cities like London or Paris happened 5 times a day. It was probably even more the norm for people back then to communicate with people they didn't see in 3D space because travel was so much slower and more expensive. And it was perfectly normal for letters to be circulated and commented on in highly public, instant and embarassing ways. This is a practice that goes way back. (Speaking of novels, George Eliot's _Romola_ starts with a description how it worked in Renaissance Florence; see Chapter 7, "A Learned Squabble.") And much of communication in that era was via notes sent by servants that were extremely email like.
I also think modern email and posting style has visibly evolved and improved, both in response to misunderstandings (trying to make sure that doesn't happen next time) and in response to admiring other people's moves and incorporating them. I know my style has.
I think you are right that many people are ruder or less clear than they mean to be because they don't understand how different emailing is from speech. But I think ultimately that's simply the difference between writing and speech. And the solution is the same as it's ever been: better writing. Reading over what you write before you send it out. And looking at things from other people's points of view. And specially asking "How could this possibly be taken wrong?" It's funny how many things that fixes.
Michael