Agreed.

This is one of the reasons why I like remote work so much. If most of the work conversation is happening in a basecamp or hipchat which is logged then if a particular team member is phrasing his communication in a demeaning way or doing anything else to discourage others from group-learning then that behavior pattern will be discerned by everyone else relatively quickly and it can be dealt with. In an office team people can get away with being a dick for years without anyone being able to call them on it to correct the situation.

more on these themes here: http://37signals.com/remote/