[Christien]

Another take on this: what about online arguments developing into flame wars in a forum where there's a chance you might know or meet the person in real life? Case in point, I recently got into a bit of a flame war (or at least one-sided insult-fest) on the rennlist Canada forum. I've never met the other party in person (at least not to my knowledge) but very likely will run into him someday as we both attend the same track events. He took issue with my line of questioning and ended up resorting to somewhat humourous insults (none of which I got because I didn't know the references he was making). Would the conversation have deteriorated so badly in real life? Not likely. Would we be acrimonious if we were introduced by screen name in real life? I would like to think not, but maybe.