>I'll grant that was over the top, but the "if you can't see the difference between A and B then you're not as smart as I thought" is pretty bad as well.
>
>I keep forgetting that most people up here don't get sarcasm. The phrase "I am just trying to help you become a better person." was meant to be tongue in cheek. Thanks for the support, though :)

IMO the problem is not with sarcasm detectors, but with the communication channel. Certainly ironic and sarcastic were first items in a Poisson-distributed list of probable intentions, but not knowing if you night have salted your coffee by mistake or similar stuff sprinkles in too much uncertainty when not able to pick up visual cues. Even tone of voice carries a lot of side-channel info, which is totally missing here. So even as someone who has met you in person a few times, although always in the conference bee hive atmosphere, there was a wide range of levels I could visualize your current deurination level to have reached ;-)