Toward the mantenance of that magisterium mentioned in tsuwm's recent post , two thoughts/suggestions:

In general, the substance of those dialogues arising in response to ill-meaning posts as well as to the feaux pas of new comers, form in rough, the elaboration of an informal, unwritten constitution or charter governing speech in a community of speech. (Leaving aside the anomoly of Wordapalooza). Since these elaborations tend to produce a lot of bad blood, it seems to me it might be useful to us to draw up a very brief charter to which members might refer or be referred when things seem to be getting out of hand. I do not suggest limiting discourse strictly; it is the nature of this group to be social and to wander off the topic of words. But efforts to so disrupt the group as to threaten its dissolution could be more easily thwarted if reference could be made to a clear and simple charter. (Given the style of this post, I would suggest someone else write it).

Second

Disruptive posts do more damage in the exchanges they engender than in the mere fact of their presence on the board. Understandably, persons angered by such posts will wish to say so. However, any elaboration AT ALL gives place for rebuttal and leads the way to the abyss. In a face to face community, one can make a show of ignoring a statement. That very often says enough, and if the purpose is to silence, it gives little room for continued provocation.

Therefore

I suggest the creation of a humorous emoticon signaling that the poster is ignoring the previous post. Placed beside the subject heading on the menu, or at the start of body of the message, it would say the essential and leave off the rest. And it might even say the essential playfully. If the offending party persists, they'd just get a lot of ignoricons from other contributors.

From New York, without spell checker,

IP