Hi -
(I am second-guessing myself because for some odd reason I have something to offer to the world's arbiters of information. But I do.)
I'm a mod on a little tiny forum out in the middle of nowhere that is invite-only, and I too got sucked into a poetry duel for some odd reason. I managed to make the poetry duel between myself and the resident nihilist (I avoid pessimism because of previous psychological... stuff). It spiraled off through all sorts of odd concepts and, eventually, by misunderstanding, he did the equivalent of slapping me in the face. It takes a good deal of tact to stop things from there (the site admin had to step in and everything!), and I even had to avoid the site for a while until things calmed down enough for me to approach without explosions.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that it's still a really good idea to AGF in any environment, whether it be animal, mineral, listserv, or Wikipedia.
~orngjce223