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Benjamin Franklin once said, "I never heard or saw the introductory words 'Without vanity I may say,' etc., but some vain thing immediately followed."[1] Likewise, I notice that when people say, "No offense, but..." or "I don't mean to be a dick, but..." they usually say something offensive immediately afterward. For that reason, whenever I find myself about to say, "I don't mean to offend you by saying this, but..." or "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but..." I take it as a red flag that I should probably reconsider whether I really want to say what I'm about to say. Chances are, it's something that will ruffle their feathers; otherwise, I wouldn't need that preface. It would be better to come up with a more tactful thing to say that doesn't require some preface like that to mitigate it.
Actually, saying "No offense, but..." may make it even worse because it almost throws in their face that you're well aware that you're saying something offensive, but you don't respect them enough to restrain yourself from saying it. It also has a condescending tone, often carrying a subtext of, "I realize you may feel stupid for not knowing this, but..." If you just come out and say what you're going to say without that preface, it will probably be less offensive, ironically enough.
To illustrate, I will take a real life example from an AfD I was involved in. (I can use this example without worrying about offending the person who said it, because it's highly unlikely he/she will stumble across this essay and make the connection.) We were debating the deletion of a certain page, and my initial research came across nothing useful, beyond a Yahoo Answers discussion of the subject. I pointed out that they hadn't figured out the answer to our conundrum on Yahoo Answers, and someone responded, "No offense, but what they have and have not figured out on yahoo answers has no value here." It would probably have been less offensive if he had simply made the factual statement, "What they have and have not figured out on yahoo answers has no value here." Or even, "To be blunt, what they have and have not figured out on yahoo answers has no value here."
- ^ Franklin, Autobiog., p. 3.