[CalebD]

Boatless Roger,
I have a similar background to you and I have witnessed this bad behavior on the old USENET sailing.xxx group (what was it's name?). I think it is still around or at the least it is archived somewhere. There was always at least 1 pompous azzhole who would jump in and flame the unwitting poster. Mostly, it was the same people flaming the group over and over and apparently enjoying belittling their fellow humans; their egos seemed to thrive on this kind of behavior.
Have you visited Sailing Anarchy (SA) yet? I'm pretty sure that most of the folks we are talking about hang out over there. And as Stillraining just pointed out, sailnet is open to the public so now and then things get a bit out of hand. That makes the bouncers (moderators) job a long suffering, thankless position. Hats off to the mods!