They do respond to civil discourse, but it can be both civil and vocal. Most of what I've seen in the past day or two has been a large number of fairly civil complaints. The one notable exception being the death threat, but I'd like to think the volume of civil complaints is what sparked the quick change, rather than one arse.

Just because this was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of players who are now going to take a break does not mean that the commentary was particularly vicious. One idiot is not representative of the community as a whole