# Is this really worth a warning?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-really-worth-a-warning/744472>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [January 28, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-really-worth-a-warning/744472 "2016-01-28T06:35:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 83

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-really-worth-a-warning/744472/83 "2016-01-30T09:06:54Z")

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I think the Warning was quite wrong because, as **SenorBeef** states, the insult was clearly embedded in a false hypothetical. But even ignoring that, the rule about insults seems unclear and arbitrary.

Here’s a post in MundanePointless that did NOT get a Warning.

> [@Positive Gun News of the Day](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-gun-news-of-the-day/735490/384):
>
> I think it’s indicative that **septimus** believes it to be a positive event when firefighters are shot while performing their duties. We’ve already had someone praising suicide as a positive event as well. Everyone has different beliefs - what they consider positive speaks to their character I suppose.

Was this less [insert adjective compliant with rules] than calling someone a “loser”? Does it avoid a warning just because it doesn’t contain a syntactical structure clearly of the form “Septimus is [bad word]”?

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