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I admire your attitude, but don't see it quite that way. If he was posting in good faith, then yes, he got recommendations and his ignorance is ameliorated. Hurrah. But if he's not, and was rather hoping to garner emotional reward from the rise and attention he gets out of people, or their sympathetic and confirmatory anti-woman posts, then engaging with him is just entertaining him.
That's not your call, though.
Your choice is not "engage with him in good faith" or "scold him to let him know how disgusting he is."
Your choice is "engage with him in good faith" or "do not engage."
Okay, them's the rules. I think it leaves you a bit undefended against bad-faith posters with itches to scratch, though I am all for the experiment.
We've been running this "experiment" for years. You're not wrong that there are failure modes that have caused frequent discussions about whether and how moderation should be changed, and there's no perfect solution, but by design, this place polices tone more than content. So yes, that means this is a place where you can get away with being sexist (within constraints, you can't just say "Women suck") and be modded for being rude to the sexist.
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