couldn there be a list of unaceptable words.

[2shoes]

I have just been educated on another thread.
these arguments seem to flare up every now and agian. so wouldn't it make like easier,.
I would put Spaz and retard.

surely we can just use the exclamation mark thing to alert MN twoers?

It would be lovely if people didnt use personally offensive labelling terms on people. All we can do is report it when it happens I guess.

You'd have to ban an awful lot of things. Not only those mentioned by the OP, but also the likes of "Joey" (only people in a certain age group will know about that one). And anyway, people would get round it if they really wanted to by writing sp@z and r£tard.

Then there's the problem of separating individual words. You hear about these email filters that won't allow people to say they have been for a day trip to Scunthorpe (S**horpe) or that they live in Penistone.

If you ban "paki", the software probably wouldn't let you talk about Pakistani people. The "snigger" example is another good one. And could I say I have a small chink of light coming through my curtains?

I think the current system of reporting offensive posts works pretty well