By not allowing people who have those opinions to express them, we might also limit the possibility to widen their minds and learn about why people feel the way they do.
I don't see why this site should be a place for people who seem to be unwilling to debate - who just seem to use this place as a blog. Imo in order to be able to widen your mind there has to be a certain willingness/openness to reflect on what others are saying.
All some seem to care about is getting their noise out - seemingly unmoved by anything they usually continue their song, when occasionally noticing a different tune they just seem to turn up their volume.
If a person is willing to have a discussion, perhaps with a few not too serious insults, and if they have a very "primitve" world view, I think that is not a problem.
Not too serious insults - what's a not too serious insult? Like lostforever said: this is very subjective, but that does not mean that because it is subjective all is allowed.
I think it's best just to mention "insults" in the TOS - let the site owner and moderators decide what is acceptable in a given situation and what not. In cases they do not step in the person that felt insulted will probably contact them and start an argument why that's unacceptable, after which the moderators or site owner may change their decision.
If you ask me: insulting someone just shows how weak you feel - compensating a lack of arguments by trying to inflate yourself - and a first sign of having lost the debate. Apart from that insults will NOT win the other over to your side, on the contrary. So as to effectiveness: zero.
Starting a thread with insults might people provoke to react - for the wrong reason.
Big chance the debate will go off-topic: attention to the insults instead of the point that was attempted to bring forward. For is there any reason why others should tolerate being insulted and not start insulting in return? Apart from self esteem or self constraint? I feel like losing when lowering myself to the mud someone is trying to drag me into. But yes, we all have our weak spots that can crack our decency.
Imo abusers can be held accountable for hindering a debate and creating a toxic atmoshpere - perfect rule for a TOS.
When it comes to topics I agree with Myrthos: I don't think carte blanche is a good idea. How to best rape women, the easiest way to kill blacks, etc… Plenty of other channels, the Codex(?), 4chan, etc. The European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) would indeed be a nice start for this site, considering it's subject to European law.
BTW I think many, many topics can be discussed - without any mod intervention at any time - but yes, time may be needed to think about how your message is served, what words to be used. Not bluntly speaking your mind might be hard for some.
What I am trying to get at is that we *need* a dumping ground so there is place for people to vent, rant etc otherwise all the built up anger will spill into other sections of the forums.
To vent the built-up anger. Reading this I instantly thought of a "name-calling forum". Everybody will be reading it just to see if you're mentioned or not.
If you ask me: rant all you like, but not at the expense of others. Why would one do that? What's the gain? To stop people turning off their computer and get on with their life? Right.
If you ask me: all you can do on the internet when playing foul, and playing the man instead of the ball, is make yourself look like a loser at best.
Thing I don't understand is, when someone post a topic with obvious troll bait, why do people respond to it? Why do they feed the troll? Why can't they just ignore it and move on?
Ignoring won't help, I don't think we are talking about trolls here, about attention seekers. At least that's my impression.