"That said, I fail to see why it's necessarily a sin for a bloggger to trash posters who offend him. Doesn't it depend on how provoked he was, and how far he went? Seems to make this can make a blog better, not worse."
He wasn't using his real name; he invented IDs and replied to criticisms of his writing via use of his sock puppets, which is a definate no-no in the blogging world.
Understood, but I don't see that as a major sin. Rather than worry about whether people are using more than one screen name, blog masters (or whatever they're called) should delete posts that detract from, rather than add to, the discussion. Unless the posters' real identities are known to each other AND they know something about each other independent of what is written, it deosn't much matter who is who. What matters is the quality of the debate.