@Vermillion-Rx How hard to be is a really tough one. Its great to see you publicly wrestling with the question because I think its one we all have to wrestle with privately and I think getting it right is very important both for the future of these fora and for the men we would like to help.

We all need good advice, We all mess up, we all benefit from encouragement.

We have to tell them where we think they are going wrong but we have to keep them engaged. I tend to think friendly is the way to go but some guys really come over badly in their posts and then you I sometimes feel "This guy could do with a shake up, he is blindly going the wrong way pissing men and women off and not helping himself"

I think so much depends on if the OP is doing a "humble brag post of great stupidity" or if he is just a guy who is not very good with people and communication who is genuinely looking for help. When it comes to the first case, we still don't want to actually drive most of these guys away, just straighten them out to keep traffic up.

Overall, I would say that not piling in too hard on some guys too soon would be a good plan. If we all go in hard on a guy who is acting very dumbly, it will probably just drive him away. I appreciate every case is unique though, we actually want some guys to leave but they are a very small minority.

Hitting the right tone in written speech is tricky. I can think of some times, I wish I had not been quite so clever in my reply and thought more about the reader.