I'm not sure I understand this Russ.

Are you saying that the person being insulted deserves the insult because there is something to be learned from not having the person's respect in the first place? Or that we should be patient because invetiably there will be social pressure on them to stop behaving in such a way?

I'm not a passionate believer in law for law's sake, but I think rules can be helpful. As a teacher I am not allowed to discipline students physically, nor would I want to if I were allowed to. I want to have a relationship with my students that is based on respect and not fear. It's the same with my daughter. Having said that, then I would never earn their respect if I let them do what they wanted to all the time, hoping they'd simply learn from their mistakes. If I imposed your kind of system in my classroom there would be anarchy. The previous teacher I took over from never bothered to discipline the kids and they've been very resistant to turn their MP3 players off, stop chatting, and pay attention to me.

I don't believe that the people who have written objectionable things to me here are going to learn anything while this behaviour is condoned here, nor do I think any kind of pressure is being put on them to change. You seem to think that those of us at whom it is aimed should ignore it in the knowledge that we are setting the better example. That is ideal, but do you really think it's pleasant to carry on conversations where the other person is deliberately trying to provoke? Their cognitive dissonance in the creation/evolution forum is such that if information is presented which challenges certain people's religious views, they will reject it and attack the sender of the information instead. You say know thyself; I say look deep down and ask yourself if you're happy to let people do this to me and others there because perhaps you also engage in this way of thinking sometimes.

Bottom line: I don't think it's OK to let people insult each other on a forum, and the vast majority of site owners of other forums have rules about this. It's obviously your call but it makes for unfortunate situations here at times.