Actually, having just observed a situation where a bunch of people who met in real life exploded into an immature email discussion full of insults and accusatio

Actually, having just observed a situation where a bunch of people who met in real life exploded into an immature email discussion full of insults and accusations, I don't think the civility on here is any worse than it is in real life. I think the reason why it feels like "real life" is more civil is that you don't hear about people insulting each other in real life, because they don't usually shout it out on the rooftops (in my experience, after a particularly nasty discussion, both sides prefer to keep it quiet and just not talk to each other anymore).