A designated asshole is nearly mandatory, especially for mixed technical audiences and issues where someone can have an [opinion on the bike shed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality). Most people can't fill this role because they don't like conflict or have a reputation to protect (real or imaginary) but conferences should always assign a moderator to play the jerk.

I know this might be off topic, but did you just try to use Markdown?

That's how you link on Reddit. Maybe he thought it worked the same way here.