RE: Press coverage favors big companies, earlier speakers

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

>I've been on the Net for ten years, and generally despise "emoticons."
>
>If you can't recognize sarcasm, ain't my fault.
>
>-Declan

This unfortunately sidesteps the problem that there are many people in the
world who have opinions that greatly differ from yours, and who might truly
believe in a comment that you intend to be sarcastic.  Sarcasm relies on
the reader and writer having some minimum of common background.  On the
internet, with an international audience, it's much harder to make any
assumptions that your readers have this minimum of common background.

It never fails when I post sarcasm to usenet that if I don't include a
smiley, somebody takes me seriously.  I guess these people just assume that
there are plenty of wackos in the world and that I must be one of them.

If somebody can't recognize your sarcasm, it may not be your fault per se,
but it isn't necessarily the other person's fault either.

OTOH, I would think that your position on the issue in question should be
sufficiently obvious to long-time list readers that the sarcasm should have
been evident.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/), Cornell Biochemistry Department

[If you are Bill Gates and you] want to control video? Just add it to
Windows. Want to control Java? Just add it to Windows. Want to control the
Internet? Just add it to Windows. Everyone has to buy Windows.
-Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO