[pct-l] what's worse than an offensive or off-topic posting?

[David Hough on pct-l]

What's worse is an ongoing public meta-discussion of an offensive or
off-topic posting.    Almost nobody cares who was right or wrong, they just wish the disputants would take it offline.      

This was true 30 years ago when internet
addresses looked like {decwrl,ucbvax,research,ihnp4}!sun!me and it's
still true today.

In this electronic discussion context, the best response to perceived
error is to ignore it.    Second best is to send a private email to the
perceived offender.     If such private discussion succeeds in getting 
a consensus between the two of you about what the right thing is, then announce that consensus publicly.      This hardly ever seems to happen
though.

Nobody keeps track of who scores the most points in back-and-forth.
Everybody notices that the back-and-forth goes on too long.