(1) is worse, although (2) probably does more harm.

Personally, I think we should put up a bit of an introduction to the site, which people *have* to read when they sign up. In that I believe the rule should be stated (yes I know we don't have one but we must decide and say).
In my view, in a game you can do whatever you want. However, if people believe strongly that this should be changed, then fair enough, but we must publicise it. Out of a game, everyone should be polite and respectful. Whilst I would like people to be like this ingame, that is a choice they make and shouldn't be enforced.

maybe we should form committee of members to decide on what words are appropriate nominate, Lazy, Diplomat1824, Sicarius, Trim and P.Tea - when they have all agreed can somebody wake me from my frozen sleep?

my only problem is with blatantly racist/homophobic words, i have no problems with swearing etc

And therein lies the problem, what about people who would be offended at being called say a warmonger, liar, a conman, a bitch, etc etc.

their not racist though are they

so we should have a rule that restricts our language if it offends some people, but allows us to use words that offend other people?

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!

and people who post in caps should be banned..

you cant please everyone all of the time!

Maniac I don't think the rules needs to be quite so legalistic, when commonsense will suffice. In general the rule should be try to treat other players with respect. If a player makes a racist remark I don't think they should be automatically kicked out, but a comment from a moderator "hey you're crossing the line there" might be called for.
In this case lazysummer has a right to defend himself. He might not have meant it the way it was taken.
I think we should be careful not to judge lazysummer on the basis of his views on the debate on homosexuality. He has a right to his opinions, and as I recall he was respectful with the way he put his views across.

Some people begin shouting when they are to dumb to get the sutleties of your words, isn't that right lazysummer? Just makes want to visit the respective country's capital with an army or two. So I guess this 'strategy' does not work very well. Diplomacy is an art, and errr... art has degraded over the past decades. Bummer..

* subtleties

It's late.

i didn't call him that. he's taking it out of context to make drama and get me kicked out of the league. the scenario is that he wasn't replying to a request for an alliance made by me and two other players. we weren't getting any reply from him what so ever so i tried to get his attention by using some 'slang'.

my words were "yo nigga answer me i wanna be friends"

i did not say 'nigger'.

if you're unfamiliar with today's popular culture, 'nigga' is not the same as 'nigger' or 'n******' as he cleverly put it.
i meant it in friendly, amicable way. like how black people typically use it.
how could i be racist/hateful when i can't even see his skin colour - for all i know he could be chinese.

bottom line is he's just playing clever and creating drama. with all of you who jumped to conclusions and took his word and started slandering me, great job - he succeeded.
for those of you who thought with better judgement e.g. edi, ivo, spy, thank you and may you continue to be on this board to defend against sheer ignorance.

thanks to valo too.

I am not convinced

that explains a lot lazysummers , you should have explained yourself before. personally i think what you did doesnt sound that bad at all.

Yeah I get lazysummer's explanation. He was play acting.
I am an Australian of British descent and if some one called me nigger would not be offended. I would assume my friend was pretending we were both gansta rappers (or something like that).
However the term is extremely offensive to African Americans - so I wouldn't use the term here because you don't always know who you are talking to.

lazysummer in pop culture it is only ok for african americans to call each other niggers. It is not okay for non-african americans to refer to an african american as nigger. Major faux pas.

hmm yes the same way i can call Spyman a skippy :)

I can call you a skippy too, right Sean? Actually I am not offended by skippy at all, just like most Mediterranean Australians are no longer offended by being called wogs.

yes, im a skippy

hello!!

p.Tea---- ?De donde eres?

no es importa.

BTW: hello to you too, alamothe!

I wouldn't take insults too seriously, this is a site where people are encouraged to lie and backstab after all

At some point in the future we may add a way to mute people who you deem offensive, and we have banned people for being offensive just for the sake of being offensive in the past, but there won't be any site wide censorship because I don't like the idea and it's also impractical. When you can write words upside down it's pretty hard to write an effective censorship filter :-)

Well, actually I think the people you banned who were offensive had multi-accounts, Kestas.
I remember one...that mapleleafrulz guy?

In the BBC's official list, the most offensive word is "nigger". "Fuck, shit, wank" etc are all quite low down the list these days. "Cunt" is still quite high up the list but it is below several phrases deemed highly offensive on racist grounds (before anyone asks, Welsh is not one of them)

Perhaps we could have a similar list which can be used to determine the cut off point for what is and what isnt acceptable?