I think insults can have a high degree of success in that verbal context. In the written context, I don’t see them having as much value, except on the level of humor.

People who use insults in their written arguments… well, that just seems lazy to me. Writing allows for a much more thorough expression of ideas. So to me it seems like something only hack-writers do. It’s the standard juvenile cheapshot. Again the latter can be funny…

Don’t get me wrong, there are some masterful trolls on the internet. But I see them more as entertainment, than serious debaters.

It’s like people who get their news from Colbert or the Daily show. Both Colbert and Stewart do a good job at social criticism, and really reach the level of art on occasion. But, it is performance and by its nature, superficial. That is not a criticism, they are both really great at what they do.

Heheh, I guess I’m a bit of a snob.

Different communities can have different standards, as you say, but a community that tried to completely eliminate the emotional and subjective aspect of human communication (or selectively eliminate the negative part thereof) would not be a place where I’d want to spend much time. Equally, I wouldn’t linger around people who just wanted to insult each other, and I have a lot more time for wicked, cutting remarks (such as Churchill’s possibly apocryphal description of Clement Attlee as “a modest man, with much to be modest about”) than for reciprocal cries of “stupid idiot!”. However, the bottom line for me is that we need to be able to articulate and compare perceptions, as well as ideas, and our perceptions of other people aren’t always going to be positive.

Is your comment a private joke, or are you exercising your right to free speech?

Larry Moran “respectfully disagree[s]” with Ophelia Benson and Daniel Fincke, but as OB points out among the 56 comments,

“Daniel’s post was about how commenters on his blog should address each other, rather than about how he and they should talk about third parties. That’s what I was addressing in my post – and I said Dan had a point, as opposed to saying I agreed with him 100%.”
and
“I was talking about comments on my blog – how we talk to each other in discussions, not how we talk about outside parties.”

Coyne’s rule # 5 is a good one to read because it highlights the fact that people or groups can make rules about what commenter can and can’t say on their blog.