It continues to amaze me how seriously people take Twitter comments--good or ill, and that we can have entire posts citing 140 character insults from assholes.
The jerks were in the wrong, but I think the wrong approach is to engage them in their own medium. They are vocalizing their beliefs because they know it will provoke a reaction. You'll never convince them, so the best thing is to ignore them and get on with your life. In the case of reddit, the problematic set is best left to fester and dealt with at higher levels (bans, filtering) or discussed out of band (as in the linked post). "Arguing with a fool only proves that there are two," as they say.
The jerks were in the wrong, but I think the wrong approach is to engage them in their own medium. They are vocalizing their beliefs because they know it will provoke a reaction. You'll never convince them, so the best thing is to ignore them and get on with your life. In the case of reddit, the problematic set is best left to fester and dealt with at higher levels (bans, filtering) or discussed out of band (as in the linked post). "Arguing with a fool only proves that there are two," as they say.