In a small enough community, the Boy Who Cried Wolf remains a pertinent tale.

If you had the reputation as a decent and polite poster, the sudden use of a vile cuss, judiciously applied, yielded far greater aggregate results than someone who used them all the time. At the very least, you would save it for someone who really did deserve it.

Perhaps the sanding off of the web’s edges is simply a product of its size. Maybe we should go back to Usenet.

Believe it or not, there are a few of us out there who grew up on the web calling each other shitheads in both endearing and insulting ways. It was certainly in the spirit of earlier Internet communities.