How about you don't respond to tone or tenor at all? It's a bad argument on the best of days (PG's hierarchy has that near the bottom, one step above straight up ad hominem.)

It's a diversion at best. If you feel someone is being unpleasant, deal with it. You needn't be pleasant to be right. If they're being unpleasant and wrong, reply with why they're wrong, or alternatively downvote and move on. No need for meta noise in any case.

I respectfully disagree with the idea that we should simply ignore unpleasantness in the community. A healthy ecosystem is determined by a lot more than mere factual correctness.

But it's also determined by a lot more than a veneer of politically-correct pleasantness. I suggest that the best way to deal with such people is use the downvote button. Complaining about tone is just so much noise... it adds nothing to any discussion.

There is a very large gap between not being a jackass and being politically correct. The OP of this thread suggested the former.

I see very little jackassery in this thread. Certainly nothing worth the amount of attention it's garnered.

I do, however, see a lot of useless, time-wasting, off topic tone arguments.