There is no need to discuss and argue points to reach agreements when you can simply extort others into backing off.

During the part of Elevatorgate which was being argued and discussed on one of the articles at Abbie Smith's blog, ERV (Dawkins coup de grâce in Vegas), PZ posted a comment stating that he had "some personal, private information about some of the participants in the argument" that he could release, but he wasn't going to "take the cheap shot" of doing so. It sounds like a careful, or else I'm telling your secrets... type of threat, or there'd be no need to mention it at all.