I, for one, agree with that position. I personally refuse to allow myself to get dragged in to a running series of personal attacks - not that I can recall being targeted on this board, but I certainly have been in other places. Given the annonimity these sorts of sites provide, it's quite easy to start lobbing bombs. The other users are just names, after all. I've seen similar things happen in the real world where teams in London and Boston working for the same company on the same product bickered about really stupid things (like spelling) mostly because they'd never met and were just names to each other.
I'm all for strong, intense debate. I love to see it, and to be a part of it. The process makes everyone involved better on one level or another. When I see someone starting to attack a person rather than their opinion or point of view, though, it makes me think they've decided they can't win the argument on the topic at hand. In order to save face (internally, if nothing else), they essentially change the subject and at the same time try to imply that the person on the other side of the debate is somehow less than them, thus reducing the value of that individual's statements.
The thing is that sometimes folks are just tossing stuff out there to wind people up know that by triggering an emotional response they've effectively put themselves in a superior position (again, at least to themselves, if to no one else). If we allow ourselves to get sucked in, we just feed their ego and encourage them to repeat that behavior.
That's my own little psychological analysis, anyway. Feel free to call me an idiot. 😉
