Defamation vs. personal insults

I disagree completely. If people are allowed to actually say and do what they please then I'm confident we'd see a better, more active forum. People getting pissed at each other is a rare enough occasion, and the site enables users to block other users if they so choose, so anyone who is really angry can just do that.

I don't think it's very likely that it'll change, regardless of my position. That doesn't mean I'm going to lie down and take it. Being principled seems to be a damn curse around here, and if you ever take a stand for anything but someone's emotional turmoil then you're a cynic or some crazy hate-filled bigot. The number one priority that I have and always have had is guaranteeing a free environment for discussion, and avoiding at all costs the kind of Canadian malarkey whereby meanness is criminalized. Of course it hasn't been a rousing success so far but I think that my, and some other mods, opposition to the general consensus of 'don't like what's being said, then ban' has prevented a further slide into that particular brand of tyranny. Every crisis in the history of the forums has at its core been about the restriction of speech, and were it not for intervention on the part of myself and/or those previously mentioned others, I think we'd be seeing fewer people around now.

Would it be a 'nicer' place? Probably not. But I think it would be a more engaging, entertaining, and enjoyable place.

If you eradicate laws you eradicate crime...

I dont see the point in the insult rule we have now frankly. If somebody hurt your feelings well you can just ignore them. Is it that hard to just ignore the person who is insulting you? I mean we even have a block button believe to make that even easier.

Talk of getting rid of the insult users rule? I can't wait to be bragged with insults for having a slightly different opinion than someone else.

The insult rule should be stricter, not lighter. We used to be able to infract without the OP reporting, we don't do this anymore. The forums were a much nicer place back then with much less insults. There are several users who do almost nothing but insult others and they rarely get reported. It is not a good thing to allow even more insults, is that really the kind of forum you guys want, for more free speech on it? To turn it into a shit-hole that you can say just about anything in? It is a forum, free speech simply needs to be limited on it, much more so than irl. Unless we want to drive even more members off and keep the insulting ones.

I disagree. What now?

I disagree with your disagreement.

The way I see it, the middle ground has little for us. We must go for one extreme or the other. Both have pros and cons, but the way I see it, the current state has very little pros and many more cons.

Bravo, you're a regular Barry Goldwater.

It doesn't change the fact that even if you block them they will still be going around insulting you with nothing done about it. I also don't see it as that rare of an occasion for people to get mad at others here and people have almost never used the block feature, I assume most don't even know it's there. It was the same on the other site. The forums may be more enjoyable for you with fewer rules and restrictions on free speech but many people aren't like you and don't want to be insulted constantly on a forum with the staff doing nothing. I imagine it would limit the enjoyment of many who just want to come here for fun and or to relax and not to get insulted.

So if you feel insulted, report the post, and it will go away, and the insulter will be dealt with whatever torture methods you mods use. And if they don't care about the insults, then nobody else does either! Everybody wins!

I was talking about if we removed or made the insult rule even lighter and harder to enforce.

People being little girls about their feeeeeeelings doesn't make it okay to punish someone for what they've said. Members can act like reasonable people and be treated as such, or they can act like unreasonable people and be blocked, ignored, or ostracized as a result. The reputation of a member will sort out their behavior.

Except that many people find it funny when someone insults another user here, their rep would hardly be that hurt. It absolutely is okay to punish someone on a forum for something they have said. The forum is made up entirely of things that people have said, if many people are saying bad (personally insulting) things it lowers the quality of this forum and will drive members out. It hardly makes someone a "little girl" to not want to be insulted here. We can all be civil, it's not that hard or that much of a loss for someone to not be able to be an asshole to others here.

Yes, but this forum is full of assholes. As a matter of fact I would venture to say that up to 80% of our members are assholes. An anti-asshole rule that punishes insulters before they have been reported by the insulted would drive them off. And then the only people left would be the fags and it would slowly disappear.

80% of our members are assholes? Maybe they wouldn't be if we did things a bit differently. I suspect many are because they know they can get away with it. I'm simply saying that at the very least removing the insult rule we currently have would be a very bad thing. The way it was before worked and the forum wasn't nearly as bad in my opinion.

To be honest what's wrong with the status quo?

People get banned for being 'mean.'

And there is nothing wrong with that if they're getting banned for insulting many people, for example calling someone a bitch. You can be "mean" without actually insulting people if you must, which you know obviously. But insults should never be allowed on a forum. This isn't real life, this has to be run differently to keep the site in good shape.

Oh like Toast?