The weird things about personal attacks are that sometimes it can be very difficult to figure out what might be perceived as a personal attack by someone else.

The weird things about personal attacks are that sometimes it can be very difficult to figure out what might be perceived as a personal attack by someone else. Which is why a certain amount of conservatism in your communication is so important when you are participating in large public forum of semi-random people. Pretending like your words won't be taken exactly as you meant them means you won't learn how best to communicate in that context. You won't pick up on the cues showing you perhaps accidentally crossed a line with some portion of audience. If you then blame the audience for how they reacted to the communication and don't adapt but instead dig in even more then a flamewar happens and your opportunity to communicate disappears.