Yes, this can be a problem. But I fail to see how this is my problem. While information density of language can vary (I am always astounded how marketing people in my company can talk for 20 minutes to say something I would've said in 30 seconds), there is a limit. If the information I want to convey requires 300 characters, I'll use 300 characters.

I don't view twitter or facebook as specific markets. I view them as a way to reach a general audience (specific markets would be things like the advertisement I placed in a medical journal). And by basically giving up on twitter as I did, I did 'write off that market' (if you view it as such), so I don't see how your decision to insult me with a snarky "get over yourself" was particularly productive.

I think it's a matter of weighing the statement they made vs the action they took. Perhaps it's a cultural difference between us, but as a New Zealander myself, I believe that most other New Zealanders would pay more attention to the fact that they said, "we don't think it's harmful" than the fact that they removed it.

It is fairly clear that they removed it in order to appease the complainers and not out of any perceived harm.

If I thought the risk of false belief was higher (i.e. people paying more attention to the action than the words) then I'd complete agree with you that the action would be too much as it would spread the false belief further, causing additional problems in the future.

This, I agree with. But only because of the limitations and requirements of the society we're in. I think it's sad that people are unable to effectively get their point across because it means that a potential for sharing information (and therefore increasing overall human knowledge) is lost.

I'm taking a more abstract view here and imagining a world that we don't have. If no-one took offence at the style of how something is said and instead concentrated only on what was said, I believe that it would be a better world than the one we do have. More information would be shared, people would be happier, and misunderstandings would be fewer.

I fully agree though that we don't live in such a world, and therefore politeness is definitely important.

I agree. I didn't mean to say the school was doing something 'bad' by taking away the WiFi. The parents are wrong, but they're also heartbroken and it's probably not going to cause any harm to remove the WiFi from these junior classes. I think the school did exactly the right thing - deny that WiFi is harmful (the truth), but take it away anyway in order to appease these people.

While tempting to do so in this kind of situation, I believe his approach was probably more effective. If you go around insulting people, they're less likely to take you seriously or listen to your opinion in the future.

Just think of the flamebait posts here on Slashdot. Occasionally they actually make a reasonable point, but they do it in such a way that most people aren't going to actually take the time to consider the point. It's a sorry state of affairs that 'how' we say something is important rather than only 'what' we say, but it is the case for the vast majority of people and if you intend to interact with other people throughout your life, it's an important skill to learn in order to actually get what you want in life.

You'd think for a press statement designed to appease worried parents, he doesn't need to talk science that is way about most of their heads - just tell them that it's okay.

Thankfully, New Zealand isn't as 'backwater' and 'stupid' as the summary makes out.

From TFA:

And also:

So it really is just a couple of dumb people putting pressure on the school and not indicative of the school's or Ministry of Education's thoughts at all.

This really bugs me. I use facebook fairly regularly, as it's my primary method for keeping in contact with friends and family in all the different parts of the world that I've lived in or spent significant time in and suits this job very well. However over the last few years an annoying trend has popped up. People will post something interesting (in amongst the stuff I don't care so much about) and I'll write a long and thoughtful comment as a reply. The response is then "Ugh, you're so wordy", "TL;DR", "geez, I didn't need an essay", or similar.

Meaningful thoughtful statements have somehow been declared 'out of fashion' or otherwise no longer acceptable.

I also run a facebook page for the book(s) I wrote/write as well as a twitter feed. Interaction thought the facebook page is excellent; however I've basically given up on twitter as I can't really say anything useful in that small number of characters. I could in theory start my own blog, post information there and then link to it from the twitter feed, but that just seems like significant extra work compared to what I'm doing on facebook (honestly, I'd rather be spending my time writing books than promoting them).

I believe that says more about you than it does about other people...

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but have you considered it might be because of how you phrase the view or evidence?

I've also from time to time posted minority views or evidence, but have never been modded down because of it. In fact, I'm generally always either unmodded or modded up for all my posts.

On the occasions I've been modded down, it's usually mixed with up-mods. For example, I'll often post something only slightly interesting, watch it go up to "+5 Interesting" and than down to around +3 from a couple of "Overrated" mods. This seems fair to me.

Wording is usually the culprit when people complain about unfair downmods. You should read your post back to yourself and consider if someone may be able to misinterpret it, or assign a 'mood' or 'feeling' to it that you didn't intend.

Of course, there is always also 'reputation' to take in to account. There are probably people who see "cold fjord" and immediately want to mod down. It sucks, but it happens. Perhaps try creating a second account, post a few replies with the same viewpoint that you'd normally use but be painstakingly careful about the wording. Then, if those get modded down, you may be right; but I suspect they won't be.

While I don't disagree with you in principle - I too would be uncomfortable with someone having Google Glass on in my vicinity when I'm out enjoying myself - this is something I see a lot, and almost exclusively from residents of the USA: employers shouldn't care what you do in your off time. I find it disgusting how many people simply accept that their employer is their 'owner'.

When I released my book (see sig), my boss even showed significant interest. Several people in the company have now bought it. They know I take illegal substances from time to time. They know I have had illegal substances on me at work (last year's Christmas party was straight after work with no easy opportunity for me to go home between work and party, so I simply took my substances with me to work). They also don't care: I do my job extremely well and am praised for my work. If I did my job poorly, I'd expect to be spoken to about it. If it were because I was turning up to work high and having difficulty concentrating on work, I'd expect them to tell me to stop doing that or face disciplinary action. But as long as I do my job well, it's none of their business what I do outside of that time.

For reference, I live in Germany and work for the European head office of Konica Minolta (business equipment) as a software developer ("Software Development Supervisor" is my actual title, which means I actually spend too much time doing management stuff and not enough coding; but I'm a developer at heart and still get a decent amount of code written myself).

What's really annoying is that you CAN do that as a "page" but not from your private account.

Example here.

I agree completely that most eBooks are horribly overpriced.

I'm an independent author (see sig). I've priced my eBook version and paperback version at a level where I receive the roughly the same profit from both. Since paperbacks cost money to print, the paperback costs more than eBook (as you'd expect).

Nevertheless, when I look at offerings from other independent authors (using the same publishing platform as I did), the eBook is generally priced almost exactly the same as the paperback! I can tell you now - if you see an eBook priced the same as the paperback and it was published by "CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform", the author is making a much larger profit on the eBook than they are on the paperback.

Also, despite my eBook being significantly cheaper, it also gets significantly less sales. The ratio at the moment in my sales is around 8:1 in favour of the paperback.

I'm not doubting your story - especially since you're someone I generally trust well on slashdot (you're my "friend" here); however:

A little while ago (back in 2008 looking at the article history), I found this article about MFPs to be horribly weak and focused only on home devices with no mention of office or production devices at all.

Working in the MFP industry, I was able to add a lot of information and give good citations for it; so I did so. Other than the occasional spammer trying to advertise their products, none of my changes were reverted. In the cases where people were spammy, it was always almost immediately reverted back to my version.

I'm definitely not a regular wikipedia editor and haven't really done much of anything other than on that one page. So, my experience as a 'fly-by editor' was overwhelmingly positive.

I have a battery operated scale that goes down to 100th of a gram measurements. I do indeed use it for measuring quantities of illegal substances (generally MDMA and amphetamine; as my most preferred substance - LSD - can't accurately be measured with that kind of scale). I have never however intended to distribute the drugs at all (in the eyes of the law, probably, since 'take one and give one to my friend' technically counts as distribution; but it's not in the spirit of the law from my point of view).

The entire point of having the scales is to know how much of a substance I'm taking. Especially with the likes of MDMA, I know the exact amount required for me to have specific effects. Too much and I feel "overwhelmed"; too little and I feel myself frustrated that I'm "not quite there". Through experimentation, I know the amounts that are suitable for me in different kinds of environments. The scales help me measure out those quantities and ensure I always have a good - and safe - time.

(note that I also ensure quality/purity of substance; measuring accurate quantities of an unknown white powder would be kind of pointless)