So, I know I said I wasn't going to mingle overmuch in this thread anymore (as in, engage in the discussion at all) and I'm still not really intent on picking much of any sides here. That being said, I think I have a... somewhat new angle to tackle this from, considering current progression of the discussion?

So, basically, the issue as I see it right now is "There's nothing to really protect members against generally vile statements not targeted to any specific users", right? And I do agree there- the rules don't cover ideas, they only cover individuals. That being said, there was an incident on the status bar yesterday that reminded me of the discussion, which I lampshaded at the time. Notorious shitposter Gorgenmast made a status saying something along the lines of "Awww yeah, can't wait to take my estrogen pills. BABY WANTS XER BREAKFAST 🍽️😍" which, in my humble opinion, was pretty poor taste even by his standards. Now, I thought "okay, yeah, statuses like these make me see the case for why the rules could be changed..." since I had no grounds to report it.

Thing is, though? When I looked to grab a screenshot of it for posterity for this very post, it was [url=https://i.imgur.com/KwAL2bR.png]gone[/url]. 

Make no mistake for anyone not in the loop; a status along the lines of what I typed above was right underneath my own. In fact, I would've never made my joke if it hadn't been there. This leaves me... conflicted. Gorgen is not the type to delete his own statuses, to my mind. It is entirely possible he took it down by himself, but I find it unlikely. Much more likely is that either a mod saw it spontaneously or someone reported it and, in either case, the mod deleted the status.

This shows that the mods do, in fact, not tolerate rather obvious cases of bigotry or otherwise nasty behaviour. While one case is hardly representative of the site as a whole, it reinforces my intial belief of "People [i]are[/i] safe and welcomed on this site". After all, there was a problem and the mods took care of it.

That being said, I do agree that the incident in question is not actually covered in the rules. It's more of an implied, common sense thing to be generally nice to each-other, a real "Fonz cool" moment. Fonz cool, nebulous as it may be, seems to still be the core philosophy behind moderation. On one hand the problem expressed in this thread [i]does[/i] get taken care of (on-site, at least), on the other, the rules do not accurately reflect what actual moderation policy is.

I'm not entirely sure what side to take, myself. I'm naturally more inclined to my original position of "There's no problem, therefor the rules are fine" but I'm not entirely convinced of my own stance given the, admittedly singular, incident.

I do however agree with broken; if the issue primarily occurs on the guild [i]discord[/i] and does not reflect the attitude of members on the site, then the guild [i]discord[/i] should be the one to change. I propose a more general "Keep the status bar clean." rule, instead. Something more along the lines of "Do not post any excessively controversial, disgusting or otherwise abrasive messages in the status bar. It is the front page of the website; we do not want to turn away members at the door."

Granted the exact wording I use is most definitely not the right way to go about it, but it's merely an illustration. I think a rule like this is a fair compromise and also more in-line with how the moderators have historically handled the status bar.