The reason a trolling post elicits a personal attack by way of reply is that the trolling post is a form of attack, itself. If a post says "republicans are stupid" or "Jews are conniving", for instance, then anybody who is a republican or who is Jewish has been attacked just as surely as if they were singled out personally. To reward the original poster by censoring the replies that rise to that same level of insult only acts to support the trolling post. Why not deal with the original attack instead of only the replies that attack back?

I'm reminded of the old school ground here where the bully would taunt and then sucker punch a kid andthe school marms would only show up to catch the retaliation. The difference here is that the original statements are right there in print, so the marms of this place should at least take into account what was said originally that elicited the response.