Good thread. Couple of points, as a person definitely guilty of heated posts.
Message boards are tough places. It is not always as easy to debate points here as it is to do so in person, over a beer. Sometimes in the effort to be efficient in our typing/answer/whatever, we lose the ability to express our true emotions. I enjoy a good debate, I'm a former academic, but my posts are long enough without throwing in a lot of emoticons, ums, ers, ya knows and what not- things that I have in my normal conversations they may betray the fact that I am simply debating a point, and most welcome counterpoints. This can be misinterpreted as aggression, rudeness, and the like.
Sometimes people have, well, just plane teribley gramma speling and stuff (grammar is the worst part....one sentence run-on "where is the question" types). This cAN geT anoiing and git annoye rep lies. Take a moment to read over your post, to see if people can understand the issue.
But keep in mind that by posting questions, you are asking for answers, and you have agreed to this. Sometimes people say "I want to keep such and such a fish with these things" (Jillian's thread for example). The answer is based on what else is in the tank, so to say "I didn't want your opinion on the other fish, just this one" is somewhat silly. It is part of the equation, and people have a right to justify their answer when you ask a question.
"Can I add this clown fish to my 6 month old 150g tank with a dwarf angel" will not result in too many heated replies. "Can I add this clown fish to my 6 month old 30g tank with a yellow tang, 2 dwarf angels, a mandarin, 5 chromis, and tiny blue tang" will be a different story. For the poster to say "it doesn't matter because my fish are healthy just tell me about the clown fish I don't want your other opinions" is silly.
And sometimes people get downright desperate, and I am in this boat. Sometimes you can see a disaster coming, and become desperate to try and get that information out....if not for the original poster, then for anyone who might stumble across the thread later.
This is where the limits of a message board become even more clear, because desperation and abruptness/rudeness are difficult to tell apart, difficult to distinguish even with emoticons, and there is perhaps no room for IMO, IME, etc etc. Maybe there is no opinion whatsoever, just common knowledge!
You just read something and have a gut reaction to respond, ASAP, courtesy and friendly chat be darned.
There are lives at risk. While there is no reason, IMO, for overreactions in things like filtration, lighting etc (there are lots of ways to keep tanks successfully), when there are animals in question, unpopular things may need to be said. When you ask a question, you won't always hear what you want. But when people are very very passionate, then maybe the point will get across. After awhile, people will turn to sarcasm, if they feel the point is not getting across.
I don't really understand the Fire!! thread. IME, it is not a standard flame type troll message, but I believe the parties involved have made apologies.
