Tone, look before you leap

Ok so I had an issue about three years ago where an elder and much respected person in a group I am associated with sent me an email which seemed to berate me and belittle my contribution. I showed this to a few trusted friends and they agreed. I wrote back a stern reply reminding this person of certain things, anyway, after a heated exchange we met in person and realized that I had mistaken the tone of his first message. I learned a valuable lesson that day, email while very useful and almost necessary, can be taken in the wrong way just by not having tone. So I say all of this because it happened again today. I had a commenter on this blog post something that I could very easily take as a flame. I will however take it as a helpful suggestion, no flame or malice intended. So Jon, wherever you are, thank you.