I am making every effort to distinguish between the two cases, which is why I specifically use phrases like constructive criticism as a preferred mode and flaming/disruption as ill-received.

We might actually agree more on what a "flame boy" is except that I get the feeling you've missed some important comments on this subject. Also, your original post here seems to start off defending one individual (who really wasn't that bad if we are thinking of the same one) but then you start generalizing.

But still: even though in a perfect world we would think that provocative words fail to stick, the reality is that they do. The guy I'm referring to made the mistake of using charged words and generalizing to an extreme, which will never be met well in a community. To his credit, however, he did acknowledge his errors-- as opposed to the outright trolls/flamers who I think are very obvious.