The head honchos have weighed in so I'll keep it brief. The principle is simple: While online, people should adhere to the same standards of behavior that they follow in real life.
As far as my tagline, that's a jokey quote from Westley aka Dread Pirate Roberts in Princess Bride, a PG movie (and IMHO a Top 10 comedy). I put a link next to that quote to clear up any confusion.
P.S. I'm looking for the quad from that movie (for a not unreasonable price of course):
I do agree with this. I have never said anything in any online forum, whether it be this one, MPF, NS4 or Mopo, that I would not have said in real life. When I'm writing, I always write as if real people are standing before me overlooking what I'm writing, including the people involved in the writing if that's appropriate. It's not something that I mutter to myself -- "real people are here...real people are here" it's just the way I think.
I've said before and I'll say it again -- I'm a true believer in the concept of the "marketplace of ideas." Censorship is not the right path. Dialog is. Nothing that has been said here is wrong or, for that matter, right. They are statements of what each of us believes. I may not use the "c" word, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to tell someone else they cannot. But, like some others have said, there is an art to making a point firmly without using expletives. Calling someone a dumb c@#t is blunt force when a razor may be something like saying the person who uses the phrase "dumb c@#t" is, in fact, intellectually vapid.
Overall, this kind of banter is EXACTLY what online communities are all about. I don't ever want to be part of a community that forbids speech in any regard, except that, as Thierry said, and to expand on it, racial, ethnic, gender slurs and other hateful language will not be countenanced, regardless of whether that language relates to posters or not.
Anyone who does not get this is not only intellectually vapid, but is a dumb c@#t.
