, but give me a clue as to how this is half as vicious as Old Uncle Eddie Grondine's heading posts with "MARK EBY IS A LIAR" and then in text accusing him of genocide in lobying for Mars missions?
This is mild stuff here in comparison. What gives?

I'm not familiar with the posts in question, but I can try to address it as a hypothetical case contrasted with this real case.

The overriding factor here was that a flame war was developing--a general conflagration consuming a significant part of a thread. Isolated nastiness, as I think you're describing, is par for the course, and it's reasonable to expect people to get over it; it's when they don't that you get a flame war.

A second factor would be the relevance of the post. I'd grit my teeth but bear a lot over a very heated but on-topic discussion. This thread about Bluh wasn't about space, but about the person. Being off-topic and personal makes two strikes against it already.

I know Justin started the thread. He didn't seem to be trying to start a flame war, but was doing his duty as he saw it to put the complaint he'd received about Bluh before the community. He said he'd prefer email comments, but he wouldn't be against posts on the subject. Probably a tactical mistake right there--I'd have requested that any comments go directly to Flame.

The one thing I hope you'll take into account is that because we have the Flame board and I was able to move the posts and didn't have to delete them, everyone's right to be heard has been preserved. That's very important to me because I value freedom of speech above almost anything else. I'm counting on free speech being important to everybody.

--Robert