The guffaw! guffaw! part didn’t land objectively though. You might be doing the same thing of which you accused me. Just saying.
My wording of retort may have been a little too strong.
>> I wasn’t being anywhere near as unkind as I think you think I was being,
That's not for you to say. I only said I thought the comment was mildly unkind. Neither of us knows how it might have been taken by the actual object persons though. Nor the lurkers.
My worry is the cooling effect that a large amount of indirect and minor snark could have on sensitive people. Individually ever-so-slightly, yet en masse broadly deterring them from a culture which seems permeated in it. Such as (to my mind) science.