Your "seems" and "might" were modifiers on him "having a horse in this race." Unless your comments were meant to be taken entirely separately, the implication is "you are using the past tense because you have some vested interest in one of the projects." That's a fairly heavy accusation.

> The way I see it, it seems probable that OP was deceptive ... Your suggestion of how I should have handled it is exactly the option I considered inadequate.

See, I think this is one of those instances where your state of mind regarding this is coloring your interpretation of events. If you think that original comment using past tense was meant to imply the project was dead, I don't see that. To me that seems far less likely than the person used past tense because their experience was in the past, because I have done that myself, I see it on a regular basis, and I don't see people using it to imply a status of projects that doesn't match reality. Have you encountered this before?

> This is one of the longest threads I've been a party to on here, and no offense to you, but I'm not sure it was worth it.

Sure, I understand that. I'm responding because you're being civil in a discussion that's centered around a supposed mistake of yours, and I find understanding people's reasoning and state of mind when communicating to be somewhat interesting. Don't feel obligated to continue for my sake though.

You've already shared your opinion on the past tense and I've disagreed. I'll add to that the use of third person instead of the first. Hopefully this will be my last referral to the OC.

I'm simply claiming that it is probable that it was an attempt at manipulation and that my reaction had reason and purpose outweighing it's "harshness".

I don't want to continue this if you aren't getting anything out of it. My intent isn't to agitate.

> You can't just remove my modifiers and then claim "heavy accusations".

I'm not sure where I removed the modifiers? Even when tempered by modifiers, and accusation of being wrong required a different level of evidence than of wrongdoing, in my opinion. E.g. "I think you might be incorrect" compared to "I think you might be trying to deceive us". Even mentioning that you think someone is not acting in good faith should be reserved unless you are fairly certain (as outlined by the guidelines). Of course, as you've stated, you felt this situation was at that level. I think most people looking in did not, which is where the friction came from.

> Note also the irony of supposing someone's state of mind while advocating proof.

I don't think it's ironic to suppose a state of mind when the purpose is to give a benefit of a doubt. It's rude, and not conducive to discussion to assume negatively (and then act on it), I don't think the same can be said for asking for keeping an open mind and asking for clarification (without an accusation, or with one but making it very clear you are looking for an alternative explanation).

> You've already shared your opinion on the past tense and I've disagreed. I'll add to that the use of third person instead of the first. Hopefully this will be my last referral to the OC.

> I'm simply claiming that it is probable that it was an attempt at manipulation and that my reaction had reason and purpose outweighing it's "harshness".

Fair enough. I was just trying to understand how you weighted the probabilities of what you thought the commenter was trying to convey to make you think that was the probable intent, because we obviously interpreted it very differently. If you don't want to go into your reasoning, I'm not sure there's much else to say.

Obviously to explain was my exact intention, which is why I provided several arguments to your one.

Honestly, I find your first sentence hard to believe.

Because I was talking about the implication itself, not the whole sentence. The implication was clear.

> Obviously to explain was my exact intention, which is why I provided several arguments to your one.

You're convinced of the intent of the original commenter, I have doubts. It's natural that I don't need to provide as many arguments, I just need to justify enough reasonable doubt in your mind as to your assessment of the original comment to make you question whether your approach was appropriate (for whatever level that is for you).

The crux of this is your assessment of the original comment, but you're unwilling to revisit that. I've never experienced what you seem to think was going on here (IIUC, the use of past tense to imply an incorrect status of some project or person for the purpose increasing the estimation of the thing it is actively being compared to). That obviously colors whether I think that's a likely scenario for what we had. When pressed if you have experienced something like this before, or for any justification of why you think this rare (in my estimation) scenario is what we witnessed, you've decided you don't want to continue down that line of inquiry. That's your right, but I don't feel like there's much useful information to mine here with that avenue cut off, as I view it as the most relevant.

> Honestly, I find your first sentence hard to believe.

Yet you keep responding. I'll make it easy for you, since by that statement you've left me to conclude two likely situations. Either you really don't want to be part of this conversation but can't help yourself, or you think I'm not conversing in good conscience and am instead trying to troll you. Neither situation is one in which I feel comfortable continuing, so this will be my last reply in this thread. The best thing I can do to actually communicate my intent is to follow through on my statement that my intent is not to agitate.

Feel free to respond if you like, I'll be notified if you do and will read your response, so you have a chance to express any final thoughts you like on this issue or the conversation in general.