This is where emotional intelligence comes in. I’m posting on the forum for some reason, right? If it’s just to put my thoughts out there on display so everyone can know what goes on inside my head, then yeah, no filtering necessary. But if I’m more interested in communication, then I have to take their perspective into consideration. Forthrightness isn’t a virtue if all it does is trigger people’s defenses so that they stop listening.
I don’t participate in a lot of fora. I’m not interested in just spouting off to a bunch of strangers, so I stay here and try to get to know the people as best I can. When I post something, I have a sense of talking to people that I know and care about. That definitely affects how I say what I have to say.
If you’re in traffic, and the driver next to you pisses you off, what do you do? Now imagine that before you lean on the horn or shoot the finger, you look over and see that it’s your next door neighbor; now what do you do? Are you being dishonest or inauthentic just because you don’t go off ont your neighbor the way you might go off ont a total stranger?
People here are my neighbors.