I'd like a little more respect, please

No, not for me: for everyone. I'd like fewer unfounded allegations, fewer gratuitous personal insults, fewer threats of physical violence. Satire and ridicule, fine. Reasoned criticism, fine. Questions arising from facts, great. But lay off the schoolyard stuff. I don't like having to edit the comments, but there's a bit of a fetid aroma rising from them these days.