Paul Graham‘s writing is hit-or-miss for me. His most recent posting, called “How to Disagree,” definitely hit home. Everyone involved in a community should read it. It describes a hierarchy of disagreement types from irrelevant insults to arguments that actually refute to the main point. After you read it, you will recognize which responses are baseless claims and which ones deserve consideration. This will also help in understanding debates of all sorts that you aren’t involved in but just observe.