the only great sin in todays culture is intolerance...

While I think this is a prevalent attitude in today’s world, I don’t see it very often here. Instead I see a much healthier version of tolerance in which people are viewed with respect, even if their ideas are not. I can think of many conversations in which there have been sharp responses where ideas were attacked and not the people posting them. Thus you have statements along the lines of “XXX is not a logically supportable position because of YYY,” rather than “You are an idiot if you believe XXX.” In fact, not only do people mostly stick to debating ideas, but even when there is a sharp conflict in one thread, in another the same two people might together be trying to figure out some technological difficulty. The result is a community built on respect of persons, not ideas.

In contrast, I think the popular sentiment in the world is that “all ideas are equally meritorious,” which is not only silly, but also self-defeating since some people disagree with the premise and therefore their ideas (based on the original statement) must be meritorious. So then you get a revision like “all ideas are equally meritorious, except for those who do not believe that all ideas are meritorious, in which case their ideas are not meritorious.” That doesn’t sound quite as nice though, so it gets rephrased as “we will tolerate everything but intolerance.” Sounds nice, but doesn’t work and often results with the “intolerant” people being treated with disrespect.

As I said though, this BBS doesn’t seem to fall into the second trap. It is generally accepted that all ideas are not equally meritorious, and when one is posted that is disagreeable it is generally debated vigorously, but within the realm of ideas, not personal attacks. A little more on-topic, I think this is why the “you people” in the original post got such a rise. Interpreted rightly or not, this was perceived as an attack of persons, not just ideas.