Yeah, exactly. It's a dysfunctional pattern. I enjoy it, but I really think there's a systemic tendency to dysfunctional patterns here. That's inevitable with any social software, so you have to plan for your dysfunctions. Look at Stack Overflow, the dysfunction they get is karma whores answering as many questions as possible, and competing to be first with the answer. That's a pretty great dysfunction. The dysfunction we have here is anybody who polarizes opinions gets banned. The cynical (me) find it amusing and the sensitive (Giraffes) get their feelings hurt. Either way, it's bad. You don't want a community which punishes anyone for voicing controversial opinions, but that's inherent to the design here.