I know it feels that way, but people's perceptions of each other online are so distorted that this is just a recipe for massive conflict. That's off topic on HN because it isn't interesting.

I'm not referring to people's perceptions. Some people write with clearly inflated self worth built into their arguments. If writing style isn't related to rules of writing then we're just welcoming chaos through the back door.

If we're at the point of defending people's literacy as a society than we've fallen into the Orwellian trap of goodspeek.

I'm not insulting people I'm making a demonstrable statement that most people post with a view that they are always correct online. I see it from undergrad work too and it gets shot down there as well for being either just wrong or pretentious and wrong.

Not allowing people's egos to get a needed correction is a bad thing. Using demonstrable right/wrong conversations as a stick to grind other axes however is unacceptable in any context.

People should always approach a topic with an "I am wrong" approach and work backwards to establish that you're not, but almost nobody does, instead wading in with "my trusted source X knows better than you" which is tantamount to "my holy book Y says you should..." Anti-intellectualism at its finest.

> Some people write with clearly inflated self worth built into their arguments.

That's the kind of perception I'm talking about. I can tell you for sure, after all the years I've been doing this job, that such perceptions are anything but clear. They feel clear because that interpretation matches your priors, but such a feeling is not reliable, and when people use it as a basis for strongly-worded comments (e.g. "taking down a peg"), the result is conflict.