Your post does sound a bit confrontational, and I think I can understand why it was called a "rant" and "rhetoric". There are a few reasons for this:
The title "Can you please give new users some time to breathe?"
Assuming you didn't mean to be confrontational, there are a few potential issues here:
- "Can you please" can often sound exasperated or annoyed, especially when talking about a negative subject. I would recommend avoiding the use of it in general. "could" is often softer than "can", but even "could you please" can sound harsh sometimes. Part of this is that the use of "please" here, contrary to usually making things more polite, actually serves to add emphasis to the (negative) question, making it sound harsher.
- In general, the use of "you" when discussing anything that's perceived as a problem can make it seem more personal (and more attacking) for the reader, as though you are blaming them for the problem. It is often better to emphasize that you are trying to work together to fix something by using words like "we" instead, or just try to leave out personal pronouns entirely.
- "time to breathe" is a rather strong and blunt way to phrase things. It implies people are being very excessive. While this may have been what you wanted to discuss, hitting people with it all in just three words (without context) before they even finish reading the title can be perceived as aggressive or intending to provoke a response.
The combination of all these things means that, even though you've got a question mark at the end, the title really doesn't seem to be a question, but more an expression of anger/frustration (that is, a rant).
An example of a much softer title, which does not sound like as much of an attack, might be:
Could we give new users more time to respond?
The body of the question
There's a couple of things here that also make this sound more like rhetoric than an attempt at discussion:
- Bolding the phrase "5 minutes ago" could be perceived as unnecessary extra emphasis (i.e. "yelling").
- The only real question in this whole thing is "Is that ok?". Given that it's already apparent from everything else that you think it isn't OK, then you're not really asking for constructive discussion, you're just presenting people with a problem in the guise of an (already answered) question.
So the whole thing does not really seem like you're asking for anyone else's input (hence the labelling of it as "rhetoric").
Some ways to soften things so that they don't seem as "ranty" might include:
- Asking for other people's opinions on how things can be improved (instead of just saying/implying "this is not OK")
- Asking if there are reasons you're not aware of why people are doing things this way (there might be)
- Phrasing things to emphasize that you're talking about your own perceptions, not necessarily absolute truths (e.g. "it seems to me", or "i feel that"), etc.
- (Not necessarily as applicable in this case, but in some cases) Acknowledging that you might be wrong by asking for confirmation of your basis or reasoning (e.g. "am I being unreasonable?" or "is there something I'm missing/unaware of here?")
I hope my view on things helps a bit..