Originally Posted by jayeff

"It's your fault." "No it's not, it's yours." "Prove it." "No, you prove it." "I'm not going to prove it because that's what you want me to do." "I'm not going to prove it because that's what you want."

Repeat (with sigs) ad nauseam...

Friends and enemies are not likely to switch sides as a result of such persuasive arguments. But I wonder if people who decide to handle threads this way ever stop to think how many "bystanders" will make a note never to deal with either of the parties involved.

By way of contrast, John of NATS and Rand of ePassporte come to mind as two of the people here who actually deal with critical threads professionally and emerge with their personal credibility intact. At worst they limit the damage to their services and often turn the situation around.