Interesting stance you have. Based on your romanticized description: "The truly free exchange of ideas, thoughts, and opinion." and what you admit the actual

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."