Your first point I think you answer yourself, is that fair?

I would have preferred if everyone were conforming, because then my argument could have waited.

I think this just represents a real difference in our goals and objectives: you want focused and on-topic comments, and I want to respond to this thread.

Given the dichotomy in objectives, I think I should make the comment, and you should complain again and down-vote me.

Logistically, you should probably have made it more clear in the Less Wrong post that you were trying to enforce this norm; I didn't know about this until I read a comment you made far down in the thread that we needed to read and follow the rules in a paragraph at the end of your blog post.

Logical rudeness, as I read the article, was referring to switching arguments in the pattern A to B to A but only switching after A was essentially debunked. If byrnema never switches back to A it doesn't fit the pattern.

I could have misinterpreted the article.

One develops a sense of the flow of discourse, the give and take of argument. It's possible to do things that completely derail that flow of discourse without shouting or swearing. These may not be considered offenses against politeness, as our so-called "civilization" defines that term. But they are offenses against the cooperative exchange of arguments, or even the rules of engagement with the loyal opposition. They are logically rude.

Okay, I was misinterpreting.

As much as threads are better than anything else I have seen to track multiple participants in a conversation, I get the itch that there is a better way. Maybe I should go find one...