Addressing your opponent position lets them pick what the topic is. They are picking a topic their position is strong at. Therefore addressing your opponent position in limited-attention setting (aka publicly) is simply a losing move.
For your own sanity, yeah I think so; online 'debates' only drain energy and attention if the other party is not acting in good faith.
That said, if you are playing, the winning move is not to play their games. Don't engage with their attempted straw man arguments, or end up in endless discussions about semantics. Some of the best debates I've seen / read were people not playing games and not reacting to bad faith arguments / tactics, but instead cleverly pointing out something else.
My online posting life got a lot less stressful once I realized that the world will be exactly the same if I neglect to rebut some twitter user's bad/uninformed point of view.
Maybe you have a ton more social clout than I do, though :P
Same here, although I just redefine winning to learning something new, seeing a different perspective or refining my own position. It's all about exchanging information.
