I dunno, I think we can point out that saying something like “Would you mind reformatting this?” works better in a single message board reply. The ask-don’t-tell heuristic itself is pretty easy—it’s learning how to generate heuristics like that on one’s own that’s hard.
Voluntary coordination needs rapport to work, and this tone isn’t very good for building one.
… what IS a good tone for it then?
You need a bit more than a single message board reply to learn it if you can’t tell why the ordering people around above is putting people off.
I dunno, I think we can point out that saying something like “Would you mind reformatting this?” works better in a single message board reply. The ask-don’t-tell heuristic itself is pretty easy—it’s learning how to generate heuristics like that on one’s own that’s hard.