pidl said:
So basically:
1) Foul language is allowed, don't come crying because someone used an expletive or slur.
3) Personal attacks are kinda allowed, no action will be taken if there is no report, but if you have an issue with how someone adressed you, report it and the mods will remove it and warn the perpetrator.
4) Not every insulting word is meant as an insult.
a) "Personal attacks are kinda allowed" introduces "personal attacks" as a semantically separate entity from "foul language," and doesn't define it.
b) We're told that it's "kinda" allowed, which is an unnecessary vagueness.
c) If "personal attacks" and "foul language" are taken as equivalent due to the non-definition, "if you have an issue with how someone adressed you, report it and the mods will remove it and warn the perpetrator" becomes equivalent to "come crying whenever someone uses an expletive or slur," which contradicts the first rule.
d) "Foul language is allowed" might be taken as equivalent to "Not every insulting word is meant as an insult," which makes this no more or less redundant that the version I posed.
e) Alternatively, the latter might be read as a differentiation between "foul language" and "personal attacks," but the actual difference is still unclear. (Even to say that personal attacks are foul language directed at a person. However, by common sense, there can be actions interpretable as "personal attacks" that don't involve "foul language.")
Commenting on my own post:
a) The first line, "Personal attacks are allowed, unless complaint is given," seems to permit that complaints given by somebody aside from the target will still be honored by forum staff. This probably shouldn't be the case.
b) In the case of complaint by nontarget, the burden of proof that an attack was intended might fall to the complainer?
c) Something equivalent to Pidl's line, "the mods will remove it and warn the perpetrator" should be appended after "the target may request to have them removed," because what I wrote fails to indicate the standard enforcement action.
d) What constitutes a "personal attack" is left vague and undefined. It should probably be along the lines of "actions reasonably perceived by a target to be directed against them, as an attack." The moderation team is thus left to deliberate whether an action is "reasonable" on report, case by case.
e) As a note, under the above, there is no functional distinction intended between "foul language" and "personal attacks." These rules would treat the two entities as exactly identical.
In general, I guess, the more complex and unnecessary the wording is, the more difficult it is to enforce.