Reply #275: I'm not sure what you mean by 'struck down', then

[muriel_volestrangler]

If you just mean they are insulted, and the vast majority of members agree they are trolls and worthless, then they'll say 'so what?' and continue disrupting. If a site gets a reputation for endless shouting matches full of insults and lies, then people won't bother with it. If 'struck down' means 'banned, temporarily or permanently, by the members', then it's a question of how to reconfigure the forum to allow that (Skinner drops hints that DU3 will move in this direction, somehow, but it's been in the future for a long time ...).

Yes, people do feel some insults, when they are bad. Most people can feel hurt by an insult, if it's severe enough.

When you say "what we're discussing here is social", I don't think you're right. This is a political website, and it attracts people not for social reasons, but for political argument. And there are enough RWers on the web who would be happy to pose as Democrats and then put significant effort into disrupting this site by turning it into non-stop personal arguments. You can look at the comments sections of some blogs and see they've become worthless because of the arguing - you can't find the decent discussion hidden inside it.