Careful. Apparently you're a troll and you are making a blanket assertion that will be taken as an attack by those who disagree with you, despite the fact that it is clearly you saying it (and thus is your opinion). People get testy when a viewpoint diverges from their own.
Ha, I hear you. In much the same way I was attacking you right?
As I say, don't mind me, I stayed up too late for the release lat night and started posting nonsense. Or, at least I was hardly clear. I just find the use of language when it comes to fact, opinion and so on to be very interesting and worth discussing, so I jumped into your discussion.
I never assume anyone is a troll and to repeat myself I have no issue with your original comment. I just thought I could add something regarding the, 'Why should they have to state it outright?' issue.
Let me try to address this again. I suspect you understand what a declarative statement is, but I'll try to show that I do also (I won't bother using some definition from a textbook or wiki or anything). A declarative statement can be either (but not limited to) an assertion/statement of fact (as widely accepted eg 'Larian Studios is in Belgium') or an opinion (eg 'If done properly, controller > kb/m every single day'). This is not always a black&white distinction - the form of a declarative statement can be obvious or ambiguous and often depends on how contentious the claim is. BTW I thought your statement was clearly an opinion, though I did wonder why you would bother posting it without substantiating it, not that it really matters. Internet forums are full of unsubstantiated assertions, one more won't hurt
There is no essential reason why someone would 'have to' clarify their statement with an, 'IMHO', 'in my view', 'I believe that' etc as this wouldn't affect the truth-value of the statement, and indeed this sort of superfluous writing is discouraged in argumentative essays.
However, I would argue that such phrases have value and
can add meaning to a statement or text. They can help differentiate between whether the author intends to state a widely accepted view or venture a contentious opinion. They can add tone and show that the author recognizes that they are addressing a contentious or delicate topic, or they may act as a disclaimer for an opinion the author does not intend to substantiate with an argument.
In informal discourse and on internet forums in particular where it can be difficult to discern tone, I find such phrases very useful. Note the prevalence of IMHO and IMO as acronyms. If nothing else, the use of these phrases can help keep things polite and forestall people 'perceiving' arrogance, as happened with you when people jumped on your initial remark ITT.
