This forum is a community and as such, how people behave here is to a certain extent a reflection of the community.
We can ask people to be nice. We can suggest people don't say unkind remarks. Ultimately though, we need people to cooperate.
If we were to go editing every cross word, insult or sideways remark, we would be branded as being heavy handed. We don't want to do this. Instead we rely on common sense and people responding to polite requests. Doing this though takes time and so comments *may* appear to be allowed even when something is being done about them.
One thing that we do need (given that there are typically between 1,000 and 1,500 posts a day) is for people to point things out to us. If someone is being aggressive or unpleasant to someone then let us know and that way, we can try and do something about it while it's happening. I'm working on a moderator alert feature to make this easier.
Finally, everyone has different standards so yes, someone will find a joke hillarious and someone else may be highly offended. We need to keep this in mind both when we are posting (something that *may* be offensive to some) and when we're reading and perhaps try to be a little more tollerant and forgiving. Don't forget too that there is an incredible mix of age, race, nationality, culture, social background etc... so there will be misunderstandings.
The community we have is something really special because there are some very special people here. We can always make it better if we work together.
