Interesting stuff
It's not news to anyone with an ounce of self-awareness who's spent any time communicating on the Internet that sarcasm doesn't translate well, but I think a paper published in the December 2005 edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (discussed here) is fascinating regardless.
Researchers at the University of Chicago have actually done a study of how senders and receivers psychologically process the tone of e-mails, and what they've discovered is that 80 percent of the time, people who are using a sarcastic tone think that it's clear -- while receivers only register that sarcasm 50 percent of the time.
The researchers attribute this to basic egocentricism -- that you "hear" what you're writing in your own head differently than how the person who's reading it does. And without visual or audible clues to guide the recipient, they overlay their own mood, expectations and stereotypes on what they're they're reading.
And that's how flamewars happen, and the Wired headline writer says.
What isn't discussed, at least in the context of this article, is how bloody poor at communicating some people are to begin with. I'm sure that doesn't help.