I am always amazed at the vulgar language people try to use online to convince others of the importance of their argument. 

When people begin to curse and insult others in a vicious manner, the good people tune out instead of engaging.

I always laugh as my Hate Mail
tries to top itself daily with baser insults and harsher vitriol while
I sit there and giggle at the angry minions that try to put me in my
place. 

I wonder if they ever pause to realize I’ve been called worse by better people?

Gary Kamiya is one of my favorite writers on Salon.com but today he
gets it wrong as he creatively tries to argue that to preserve the
internet we need to employ “good manners” to keep communication alive and prescient:

How do we move away from destructively competitive and
testosterone-driven arguments, and promote ones that are frank,
passionate and engaged, yet preserve the fragile bonds of civility?

Two words: good manners.

Good manners mean nothing on the internet.

The internet requires verifiable ownership and full-disclosure identification.

We must require a key licensing system where people cannot spew their hate from behind pseudonyms and faked email addresses. 

To save the internet we need to set a minimum age for posting public
messages — 21 sounds reasonable to me — and then require everyone
else to pass a writing cogency exam before their words are allowed to
appear in any public venue. 

Internet speech is not free speech. 

Not all speech is required to be heard or read.

Moderation of comments and messages can be helpful, but why not
force the haters and the drive-by snipers to stand with their
viciousness and require their ownership of the dread they vomit on the
rest of us every day?

I realize my argument may be ill-mannered — but I’d rather be tatted with that label than ever be considered ill-tempered.