"Dave the T and a couple more gleefully joined Team Musket in personal abuse"
Many people have been guilty of personal abuse of one sort or another - one of the problems is that they only seem to recognise it when they are the target.
Some people's behaviour has become intolerable and obsessive, which has, I have little doubt, given rise to personal abuse.
It really isn't a chicken and egg situation - discussion, however heated, seldom starts abusively, so if everybody, looked to their own behaviour instead of eternally complaining others' it might help.
Gleefully reveling in sexually transmitted diseases only confirms your position - Mrs Whitehouse would have been proud of you.
Jim Carroll