I think a harsh tone can sometimes be helpful in communicating the severity of a particular infraction. I also think that, by posting in the Pit, you’re implicitly agreeing to a looser standard of civility to begin with. Not that I’m condoning outright abuse, but I don’t think bringing in a little “bad cop” to the moderation of the Pit is inappropriate.
That being said, I do want to justify the second post, where I warned spinky. Calling him a liar wasn’t just me taking a shot at him, it was part of the justification for the warning. Here’s the post he was warned for:
I felt it was important to let him know that I was not accepting his excuse. Given the open hostility he’d already expressed, I did not feel compelled to be particularly polite about it.