Statement 1:
Bob said something that I disagree with. This is why I think he's wrong.
Statement 2:
Bob is an idiot. This is why I think he's an idiot.
I hope it's pretty clear that the first statement is at least vaguely productive, while the second is not.
Which isn't to say I restrict myself to being productive all the time. This is my blog, and what's the point of self-publishing if you can't be self-indulgent and insulting when you feel like it?
What's annoying is when you try quite hard to write a type-1 post, and someone comes in and writes a type-2 comment. Any work you did to stick to the facts is immediately undermined: however balanced your post may or may not have been, the presence of the comment skews any perception of the original post.
What do you do? If you leave the comment un-challenged, you look like you're providing a supportive environment for random flamers. If you try to interject, you're getting into an argument that's really between the commenter and Bob, that you really have no personal interest in being a part of. Ultimately, you don't care, and any time spent debating the matter is time that could be better spent drinking tea and watching documentaries about just how many maggots can legally be contained within a can of tomatoes according to the US FDA1.
And, of course, if you delete the comment then you feel like you're silencing dissent, which is totally counter to the reason you opened up comments in the first place.
1 Two, I think.
