Civility

Megan McArdle recently made her quarterly plea for civility among those that comment on her blog.  Fortunately....I think.....I don't have nearly the same scale of problems as almost every comment I have ever received has been polite.

As Megan suggests, disagreeing with someone does not automagically mean

My opponent is a selfish jerk who wants to bring as many people as possible under the dominion of his iron fist.  Also, he is stupid, has poor taste in clothes, and vivisects puppies in his spare time.

Quite right.  I think that many of the observations in that post apply equally well to other forms of communication on the Internet and well beyond it.