That just invites trouble, I'll have to disagree with others there. There ARE people who'll get all fussed if you respond with kindness and you might turn a sour grapes into a reader, but the majority of the time it's someone who's bored and likes to stomp on other people's fun to fill their void, and they'll only respond with more and more bile or change their strategy to something that'll REALLY get under your skin. It's people with issues, it's people who can't fathom that you do Thing They Don't Like and try to pick at justifications for you to be a bad person for having a different opinion, sometimes it's just plain prejudice over your content that they feel a righteous need to destroy.
It's not a small community where everyone knows each other and there's a reputation to keep. They can just make an account, say all the hateful things they want, and never be discovered elsewhere. There's no downside to creating alts(they can get banned but you need to report them all first), or tracking down all your links to keep doing it until they get what they want. Sucks, really.