Acid test for any social network or fedi instance:

If you say "fuck you" to a Nazi, who gets banned?

@woozle On this instance, both 🙂
@sebastien @woozle oh, so it's a *polite* authoritarian instance?
@mawhrin @woozle lol...I knew I'd be getting flak for replying. But hey, the question shows up in my feed, so what's it for?
So - I think cultivating a space for cordial civil discussion is important. The non-Nazi user would be expected (in our community) to report the offending post/user to mods so the offending behavior can be blocked from the entire instance. This benefits the community. Insults don't.
(I wouldn't *ban* the "non-Nazi" user, but they'd get a warning)

@sebastien @woozle it's grand; i'm just saying that i can't be arsed to care for a community that polices the language so.

a society that enforces politeness always leans authoritarian.

@mawhrin @woozle politeness and civility are different.
Being polite: using good manners to not offend others.
Telling someone "You're a fucking genius" is not polite, but we'd have no rule against that :-)
Being civil: behaving in a respectful / benevolent fashion.
Enforcing politeness is useless, because it creates communities that are politely toxic.
The problem with "Fuck you" is not "Fuck".
@sebastien @woozle you did just the very thing here. thanks for making my point for me.

@sebastien @mawhrin

A good moderator understands what you just said.

Too many moderators don't, and that's when things can end up at "fuck you".

How the argument is handled at that point is key.