Really constructive there, TW.
In the earlier days of FFXI, there wasn't a necessity for a "no real-life identifiable information" rule because there weren't many people who literally knew each other outside the game (or thought they knew). In the latter days, the lines were blurred, and "your mom" or "you're retarded" jokes became touchy subjects.
If anything in respect to the flameboard, I'd loosen some rules up a little bit in terms of reported posts, or what I like to call "benefit of the doubt reporting".
i.e.
User A posts a Flameboard topic about a piece-of-shit player, User B.
User B posts his response, and in the spirit of this example fails miserably.
Users C-X jump on the bandwagon of User A.
User A posts a counter-response to User B.
User B replies with "yeah, well, your mother", or "go die in a fire", or "I bet I could kick ur ass in RL lets go bitch".
User A reports the post with either "my mother's dead" or "does QCDN condone murder/arson?" or "omg he's stalking me".
Logically, I think we can assume that User B does not literally *want* User A dead (maybe he does, but whatever, it's between the two of them). By the guidelines currently in-place, User B would be slapped with an infraction/RO/Ban.
It's the flameboard; it's not meant for the weak of heart. Now yes, there are exceptions to the letter of the law. I realize that saying something like "I will skullfuck your babies, you whore" or "I will hunt you down and stab you in the neck with an icepick" is just a [sarcasm]little[/sarcasm] more vicious than "die in a fire". Posts like that absolutely deserve infractions or outright bans. In this respect, I think it comes down to moderator/administration discretion and telling the rest of the userbase to piss off, and either trust the staff, or get the fuck off the site.
If QCDN is to have the Internet variation of the Maury Povich Show, then we can't be politically correct in an area that's supposed to satisfy people's bloodlust for retard drama.
