I wonder how likely that guy would have been to respond that way in a face-to-face meeting? I mean, I suspect he would have been somewhat likely, but on some order of magnitude less so than for internet communication.

Why do people treat internet based communication differently than other, older forms? I've never had a misunderstanding in person, over the phone, or over snail mail devolve into such a vile display of human worthlessness.

Does the mode change people or does the mode bring us into contact with more people who would be likely to respond in this manner? I know I have gotten into more arguments online than in person, but I also know that most of the people I know in person are fairly reasonable people. The relative anonymity of the internet tends to hide details that would lead me to avoid certain types of people long before such an argument appeared.

Maybe in 20 years, when everyone can no longer remember a time before the internet, we will have figured out "etiquette" properly. Ha, that reminds me, I haven't seen a "'netiquette" posting in so long; they used to be so popular 10 years ago. Do we just assume (wrongly) that every gets it?