> If you spend any time on the internet, you're quickly trained that discussion forums are places for combat. The goal is to look as smart as possible while tearing everybody else down. To have an unrefuted comment is to win, and nobody is going to let you do that so they'll tear your comment apart line by line. Naturally, that person is a moron and needs to be told so, preferably by turning his own trick against him and tearing his comment apart.

You just described IRC perfectly.