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Interesting stance you have. Based on your romanticized description:

"The truly free exchange of ideas, thoughts, and opinion."

and what you admit the actuality was:

"I was... one of the aforementioned persons who were... starting flame wars about trivial topics..."

you come to the conclusion that if people don't want to hear/read your flame war, they must not want any communication.

"Soon some of us soon found that we didn't actually want to hear any of it."

You clearly weren't on Usenet in the late 1980s.

I was, but I was also just around 12 years old. Admittedly one of the aforementioned persons who were a "waste of flesh, bone, and dangerously limited brain function" starting flame wars about trivial topics because I had a long distance phone connection I wasn't paying for and a keyboard in front of me.

Though some might say that the more things change... but I digress.

I think you mean we soon found ourselves overwhelmed. He still takes discussion from people over email, twitter and facebook linked directly on the site.