«You are requesting help from (among others) some of the best mathematicians on earth, at least four Fields medalists, and from mature people many of whom are middle-aged or more» is surely going to cause the effect of seeing Michelangelo's David for the first time :)

We should compile a list of variations of nicely-phrased texts to use in comments, for us to copy and paste. Writing them each time is... annoying.

This is what we have on TeX-SX: text building blocks. It works well, I think.

I agree that quid's response to the 2nd iteration is very nicely worded, in the original sense of that adverb. Would that we all had such lucidity whenever we commented.

I do not agree with Thierry, though, in that Yemon's comment linked to in his answer is at all dismissive. Refering to a standard explanation is not dismissive.

As for your hypothetical example, it's paralyzing to try to anticipate the background of everybody you interact with. People sometimes generate first impressions from the most insignificant things (e.g. many people might immediately dislike you if you use the string "these data"). It's hard for me to imagine a concrete specific answer to your question. The comment could be anything. The only thing I can think of to neutralize negative effects is, "be polite, professional, and attentive (whatever these mean for you), and hope that others will jump in to help clear things up if you've been blind to something."

Of course, there are concrete tricks for tapping into your social intuitions: cues like "would I say this (in a seminar)/(to my mother)?"

I made a couple of comments in reaction to this post: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/3973/what-should-be-offered-in-undergraduate-mathematics-thats-currently-not-or-isn/73708#73708 .

The fact that I used the word reaction above should suggest that I could have chosen a better response. If so, how should such a provocative answer be handled?

The second is a hypothetical, but I can imagine it happening soon, if not already. A person unfortunately is a victim of some form of social abuse (you pick whatever kind you can relate to), and is using MathOverflow to express an interest for the first time. For whatever reason, the first comment comes and says something that could sour that person, in particular it hits a nerve that resonates with that person. What kind of comment could that be, and how can such comments be made neutral or more potent in a positive way?

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2011.08.26

Be aware of what you write. Read what you wrote when necessary, especially if you did some editing.

I don't think MO users have bad intentions, nearly all incidents are due to accidental miscommunication -- the above rule of thumb is a good way to avoid many of these incidents. Remember that written media are very unforgiving, especially those that can't be edited, like MO comments.

The exchange between gilkalai and quid above is a nice example on how difficult how being aware of what you write can be. I think the daily meta readers were aware that quid's 'this' actually refers to http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1119/2/why-is-this-definition-the-way-it-is/#Item_12, but the occasional meta readers might still be lost. Even quid's correction only refers to 'something', 'existing discussion', 'other thread', 'particular incident', 'comments of one particular user', and 'that thread' -- all equally unhelpful. I know quid probably thought that there was a good descriptive reference somewhere in there, but there wasn't and that could have been avoided by careful rereading.

A reason for this is that if it continues in the other thread, I think it will always be tied to one particular incident (which IMO is unfortunate for various reasons, among them that many people do not and cannot even know the question/comment around which the discussion develops, and it IMO focuses the discussion on a pair of comments of one particular user who IMO mainly had bad luck as the situation itself was somehing happening on MO frequently). Leaving aside the fact that the original purpose of that thread was still something else.