I suppose where I’m at with it is this: People saying things need to be mature and sensitive of others; and people hearing things need to be mature and not overreact.
The arguments people make about offensive conversation seem to gravitate toward one side or the other, when I think both are exactly equally important. On the one side people accuse the offended as “snowflakes”, and on the other side people accuse the offensive as racist, whatever-negative-stereotype.
I think the important thing is to be mature about things, whether speaking or listening in equal measure. And that doesn’t mean people have to watch everything they say, but that they can also diffuse a tense moment quickly and easily when it happens by being civil and mature.
A: "[unknowningly offensive word]"
B: "Please don’t use that word. It’s offensive to me."
A: “Oh. Okay, I’m sorry.”
I’m guilty of over-reacting here as well. And, for me at least, it’s because for a long time, it was nearly impossible to get the moderation to do anything unless a post was really over the top vile (like the guy who posted 100 anime dicks). So things naturally escalated, and we would all just basically act like bigger and bigger (anime) dicks toward each other. Walking away was probably the right thing to do. But with little moderation in place, walking away might have felt more like just handing over the thread to people who are in the wrong. Frink may have felt that way at times, and I certainly think people have thought it when they’ve stood up to Frink at times when he hijacked threads.
We have moderation now. And Jason seems to be quite responsive. We should be able to deal with inflammatory posters in a reasonable way like many other forums do, now. Maybe I’m wrong, and Frink’s behavior doesn’t stem from this. I just think that a lot of the tension and escalation that happens here is due to it, previously, being a bit ‘wild west’ and people defending themselves instead of being able to rely on moderation.