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RichardKennaway comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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You know the thing that horrified me? When I realized that my "wizened" snark was my most upvoted contribution to this site. All I did was point out the intersection of a typo and an amusing mental image!
You're totally right, though, that I should have found a politer way to do it- focus on the mental image instead of status-seeking sarcasm. Indeed, that's probably the heart of politeness- wording things in ways that they don't threaten the other person's status.
FWIW, I thought your "wizened" remark was a witty way of making the correction, and doing the "great article but I just wanted to say just a teeny tiny correction that I happened to notice and I'm sure it was just a typo but" dance would have been merely tedious, and no more polite.
See, that's the thing- the dance isn't the important part. I already did the dance with "I don't think that's the word you want to use." lionhearted's absolutely correct point is doing the correction in public is the "look at me" option and correcting him in private would have been the polite option, regardless of how much dancing went on in either. Unless people are thick-skinned by intention or ignorance, they notice when you take the impolite option.