Dave Winer writes about abusive e-mail that he and other people get. Winer says,
A word of encouragement to people who write publicly, passing on something that was said to me a few years ago by a journalist. Look at the Letters to the Editor page in magazines. You’ll see abusive people saying nasty personal things about public writers. This isn’t a new thing. If you go through it, you’ll be a better writer. Not sure if this is true, but mean readers are a fact of life. Email makes communication easier, and that includes abusive communication.
As someone who has worked as a journalist here’s my take: the only way you know you’re having an impact on people is when some of them start sending you hate mail. Ignore it.
Personally, abusive e-mail is pretty easy to deal with. I zap such messages into my archives folder without giving them another thought. Life’s busy enough without having to deal with profanity filled, poorly written rants (legitimate criticism, however, I read carefully).
On the other hand when I wrote for a print newspaper I came home once to find a death threat on my answering machine, and I know other people who had irate readers try to physically intimidate them.
Abusive e-mail is much easier to deal with.