Hi, Guts. Any decision about whether to take legal action naturally depends primarily on what the person who has been subjected to hostile treatment thinks. I tend to suppose that most people in Seth Shaw's position would decide to take legal action, because the attacks on him took an extreme, obsessive form, and any inattentive spectator may fall into the trap of believing almost any kind of accusation, especially if there is no level playing field or if, say, a company executive has a duty to dedicate his time to doing his job well, whereas the attacker may be able to work full time on launching personal attacks.

As you say, anyone with a particularly ruthless or super-aggressive predisposition may be tempted to go farther than under other circumstances by the usually complete anonymity offered by most web sites. Many people are tempted by that anonymity to hit out at public figures likes company CEOs, Presidents and those with a reputation to defend in asset markets, partly because reputation is so important to anyone who is well known.

During particularly violent attacks, the ordinary rules of civil behavior are suspended. In my post I was reminding people that if TOS regulations are applied fairly, that should protect everyone from the worst kind of public, but anonymous, attacks. Everyone has their rights protected if the rules are applied correctly and fairly.