From there, I read the linked thread "by" and possibly more accurately "about" the Virginia gardener provided by susan4952. (The Virginia gardener thread link is at the bottom of this post).

Goodness.

That example is not an isolated incident.

Anyone who posts with any perceived authority, experience, or knowledge seems to be especially vulnerable to these attacks.

Knowledge and experience can be threatening, I suppose.

There are those that periodically post things like (paraphrasing here):

Those that don't agree with us usually go away
(I believe that the subtext is: because we'll gang up on them and be so rude that they'll leave and never come back).

Like jerijen who, for her own individual reasons, in (this is a link to the quoted thread:)
I didn't know roses were controversial states:

"...there have been times when I've thrown my hands up and absented myself from these forums for long periods."

Trust me, so have I.

I believe that bad behavior needs to be called out. And I stress this: the behavior, NOT the individual.

And I also believe that pointing out bad behavior is NOT itself bad behavior.

Discussions unhindered by personal attacks allow us to always be learning.
IMHO, even debates do.

Maybe some folks feel that they don't have anything left to learn or in the worst case maybe some folks want to prevent others from learning. I can't be certain of motives. But of the bad behavior, I am certain.

I know that we all can learn something new if we try.

And it isn't always something about roses specifically.

Veronica