It's really easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment and take a path that leads somewhere you would never intentionally go, and it's especially easy when that heated moment is occurring online. There's something seductively free of normal responsibilities when you're talking to faceless pseudonyms from behind a faceless pseudonym.
We're seeing some really unexpectedly nasty stuff on this site recently, and I just wanted to expand briefly on gchaucer2's diary yesterday from a highly personal perspective. Because I really think we could all use some reinforcement on the concept of "stepping back," as she so appropriately refers to it.