Most of us do in fact generally avoid the personal invectives and flaming. What is harder to do is to resist falling into the tricks of debating - for example, when we ignoring the weak points in our own positions, and the strong points in those of the people we are arguing with.

The aim of arguing here ought to be to try to get closer to the truth, and to get a clearer understanding of the views of those who disagree with, together with a clearer undewrstanding of what we ourselves actually think.

(And I also think that we should avoid doing things which we know are seen as unfriendly and discourteous, such as posting as unnamed GUESTs.)