If you look a little closer you see that 'the own author' was persuaded to concede that later comment in the argument and was then more generous and conciliatory than he perhaps needed to be. I would be extremely disappointed if the meta discussion here actually made the author retract his comment. What we have here is a demonstration of why it is usually status-enhancing to treat arguments as soldiers. If you don't, you're just giving the 'enemy' ammunition.

Willingness to concede weak points in a position is a rare trait and one that I like to encourage. This means I will never use 'look, he admitted he was wrong' as way to coerce people into down-voting them or shame those that don't.

EDIT: I mean status enhancing specifically not rational in general.