JC should have called out “someone who – as I recall from prior conversations – appears be humor- and sarcasm-impaired” as the operative insult. Do you not see that as insulting Bone? You may have said that in jest, but it’s not clear at all to the casual reader (or the humor and sarcasm impaired reader 
)
Too bad someone didn’t flag that back-and-forth earlier as it was pretty clearly headed for no good.
I started this thread because I was genuinely surprised and I personally didn’t think it was fair, but I was interested to see what the reaction would be from others, and I was prepared to accept whatever it was. But to be fair, you did quote the whole post, in its entirety with the poem, which you never deemed offensive, and cited only the following as being the offensive part: “accusing Bone of OCD is not responding to his arguments but rather an attack on him.” Hence my objection, and confusion, because what I said applied to the argument and not the person.
-50
I WIN!!!
Continuing the hypothetical… while OCD is rarely (almost never?) applied to concepts or objects, it is on occasion applied to behavior. Certainly its vulgar cousin “Anal” (short for anal-retentive) is.
One appropriate test for moderation is, “Is there a non-insulting point that is being repressed by the curb on insulting language? Or could the poster have easily delivered content without the insulting part?” A lot of times folks are modded for posts that are close to empty of substance. I don’t see that in this case. I agree that wolfpup went too far though. And I think if you type a phrase like “Comical OCD pattern of argumentation”, you should think seriously about dialing it back or throwing in some softeners. On the third hand, the phrase does have the advantage of vividness and not incidental clarity.
Firstly: Factual? Determined by whom? And who determined that the sarcasm in question was legit sarcasm. As we know, “sarcasm is hard”.
Secondly: You left out “humor-impaired”. Is that factual also?
Thirdly: Is it your assertion that something factual cannot be insulting?
I like how that works! 
The crucial question that is always subjective is indeed the question of where to draw the line between making points expressively and just being disruptive, and the purpose of the thread was to get feedback from other posters and from JC on essentially this question. Those responses were very helpful, thank you and thanks to the others.
I don’t have the exchanges I was thinking of at hand at the moment despite a quick search, but there is a certain type of debating technique that many of us are familiar with that consists of a deadpan literal interpretation of everything your opponent says that sometimes makes it difficult to have a constructive conversation.
No, that’s a subjective opinion.
Of course it can. The question, as MfM correctly assessed, is how to express substantive criticism without being deemed “insulting”. Sometimes it’s an art form.
I agree with the mods, and Kyrie Eleison, on this one. Arguing that the post was not an attempt to level an insult to the poster requires Clintonesque parsing.
Congratulations on your first official warning, wolfpup, this should be a time of celebration for you. Print it out, frame it and hang it on your wall … someday your kids will ask and you’ll be able to tell such a magnificent tall tale. You’ll never have a first warning ever again so enjoy the moment.
Yeah, OCD is a personal insult … maybe 6 months ago you’d have been Noted or Knock-It-Offed … today this will get you a full Warning. The Mods are treading to more strict compliance with these rules, those that limit-test are getting caught.
Seems to me the question is whether or not rules were broken. When you tell someone that “you are <insert characteristic here>”. and the characteristic is not flattering, then most likely the rule has been broken. Now, one can go overboard searching for that elusive bright line of when rules were broken or not, but I’m not seeing your post as being anywhere near that line.
Applying personal insults as modifiers to behavior doesn’t make them impersonal.
e.g. saying one’s arguments are retarded- an argument cannot actually be retarded. It’s an abstraction. The person making the argument can be retarded. And that’s what saying someone’s argument is retarded means. It means the person making the argument is retarded.
It’s a cute way to try to skirt the personal insult rules. I wasn’t saying *you *like to bone donkeys, I was saying your arguments do, because they’re dumb and smelly and racist. See? Nothing personal here.
An argument can be factual or not, incomprehensible, or offensive to me. It can’t actually bone a donkey, as one example.
I don’t get it.
I can say that an argument is stupid *without *implying that the arguer is stupid, right?
But you won’t grant that a word like retarded, originally designating an individual, cannot drift (or has not yet drifted) in meaning to describe an idea?
I should add that, as I said earlier, it was unfortunate JC chose to emphasize the OCD part. That is, as many have noted, questionable. But the part about humor-impaired was, IMO, not even close.
No insult there, bad call.
Did you read the entire post?
Ye, it was witty and snarky but I saw no insult. He meant no insult.
Calling someone humor-impaired is an insult. If you don’t see it as an insult, you need to understand at the very least that you use the word “insult” in such an idiosyncratic sense that you should never assume other people–including those who wrote the rules for this messageboard–are using the definition you prefer.
Are you calling me definition-impaired? That’s an insult!
Cole Oyl:* I want an apology!*
If you genuinely believe that, it’s further evidence of your idiosyncratic definition of “insult.” I’m all about idiosyncrasy, but you gotta know you got it.
Now you’re calling me idiosyncratic.
Seriously now, why is OCD and humor-impaired both insults but idiosyncratic and definition-impaired NOT an insult?
No I’m not.
" I’m all about idiosyncrasy, but you gotta know you got it."