Leaving names out of this out of respect for the participants (yes, all of them) because even though Twitter is open, reposting specific conversations that aren't mine seems shady. Ahem.

So earlier tonight someone went on the warpath about Microsoft, and specifically their mishandling of Open Spaces, via Twitter. Some others chimed in, and budding arguments soon came about. After a bit, people started calling for "escalation", referring to Jeff Atwood's post detailing a Twitter argument and his feelings on what is right or wrong regarding excalating debate via electronic media.

All due respect to Jeff here, but I disagree. I find Twitter to be a wonderfully open medium for this kind of discourse.  Twitter perfectly embodies the Law of Two Feet in this scenario. You can watch the debate, you can participate, you can subscribe or unsubscribe to other participants, or you can simply not check Twitter for a while. It's a perfectly open medium allowing for as much passive aggressive participation as each person desires.

Why should you "escalate" or "take it offline"? Assuming that you should take a conversation to IM or email or a forum or a phone call at some point assumes that nobody else was interested or actively contributing. My thought on this is if you are going to start the debate in the open you had damn well better finish it in the open, otherwise what's the point?

How is this better served in another forum, such as email or a web forum? I don't see it. Twitter encourages not only participation, but by its nature also encourages both brevity and forethought. Contrast this to your typical forum or mailing list flame war: walls of text that people don't read anyway and that don't get anything resolved. Maybe nothing gets resolved in the same argument on Twitter either, but the fact is it was probably a more efficient argument, it wasn't cloistered, and tomorrow it's all but gone. I don't look at yesterday's tweets today, and typically conversations don't cross the boundaries of a participant going to sleep and waking up the next day. Unlike a forum post or blog post which is right in your face the next time you go there.

Now I will say that one thought spanning multiple tweets is probably not Twitter-worthy to begin with. Sometimes you can't help but spill to a new 140 chars, but if that's the norm, then yeah you should probably be blogging it or something. However, I still hold that conversations are every bit as viable on Twitter (if not more so in some cases) as they are anywhere else electronically.

So I say bring on the Twitsticuffs* and let the open debate rage. I for one will not arbitrarily say that some conversation should be "escalated" just because I'm sick of seeing it. If it bothers me that much, I'll unfollow for a while. If it's interesting, I'll participate.

*Twitsticuffs was coined by me today in response to this. I have 98 witnesses! I googled it and it didn't exist. I am henceforth the inventor of the term and hold all rights thereof. (for those of you that don't get it...it's fisticuffs...but with twitter...)

**Twitter is awesome. I've made a lot of contacts and had some great conversations via Twitter, and I hope it continues to grow. For a good explanation of how great Twitter is, go check out Keith Elder's blog post. And sign up and follow me.  Let's have a conversation!