I would like to point out that most players, new and old, are ultimately picking servers to cater their literal ability to play the game. You do not join deathrun if you want to play on 2fort, you pick whichever servers caters to your play preferences. I did not join Skial due to a reputation, I joined because the regular communities I did play on died one by one, and Skial was just merely on the community list with more people.
The luxury of community servers is we can define what is and isn't apart of what can be done. Regardless of whether a server is friendly or toxic, if neither let you play the actual game you won't touch them.
Why would it matter then to have a toxicity rule? A 'friendlier' community does not immediately discourage a majority of the TF community from wanting to join say if that majority is particularly offended or disgusted by something a toxic community allows. A few bad apples might just be hellbent on whining, but overall they will join wherever the game is played. Chat doesn't change the ability to play the game no, but it does weed out who does and does not want to be here. If you know a community is going to call you racial slurs, and you don't like it, you aren't going to join. If you ARE a toxic person who enjoys that, but are mostly here to play the game, it won't really affect you much to join a community that is just going to punish you for your slur usage, so long as it does not literally affect your ability to play the game.
I do not sincerely believe a limit on toxicity, especially extreme versions, is going to at all keep people from joining Skial. Youtube has changed a lot of their policies and gutted lots of great content, yet people still try to upload there because it doesn't stop you from using it exactly for that; uploading videos. It evolved, and so must we if our reputation convinces people to find better places. The reasons big companies get away with it is because they offer their services to play their game or use their platforms, no matter what rules you throw on them people who like to use them will use them regardless, and either adhere to the rules or get banned anyway. It's not going to turn into a 'shell' unless the players here get offended and run off to other communities, which I doubt would occur unless they don't play Skial to play the game.
To have it all be admin interpretation DOES mean some people are going to get away with things that others don't. I have seen this with my own eyes playing, a player with a questionable name, 'DirtyGringo' is that racist? I know we have a rule on racial slurs and all, but even that has made me question the power of ones own perception; that user is a known regular who behaves himself, was not causing issues, and has played with other admins without issue- but just on that particular day, the admin that did happen to be there decided it was racist.
Are users who call themselves aimbotters via username subject to a ban? It doesn't look like it, but then if you change it just enough to look like a real advert or such, you get banned because you've been interpreted as trying to do just that, even if it was just a shitty joke.
This is not to argue against having any level of admin interpretation, but to warn as to how individuals without guidelines could easily make a mistake, not having meant harm but trying to just adhere to a vague idea of what is and isn't considered toxic. In those examples above, there are at least rules to help the admin in question make a choice and not have to really second guess their decision. Without any guideline, Skial remains the 'toxic' major community. If we had no rule to prevent racism, people would not join unless they were okay with that racism stuff, or worse, they DO join, come here, complain, then leave and spread their experience out like wildfire without all the context. Now that people can say Skial is okay with death threats, while also being able to call people like Gala an admin abuser on reddit for stopping said death threats, they will do so. The sooner that reaches the ears of malicious users who don't even play, the sooner they will use that against the community, where as a rule would allow bottiger to defend against such allegations.
It's better to be ugly and smell nice than to be ugly and smell like shit. People will still judge, but what they judge about you has to fit. If that person complains you smell like roses, because idk your perfume is scented, that does not stop other people from being near you unless they are hellbent on hating the smell of roses, which does not affect the majority whatsoever.
I also think it would let us free up some space on the server rules, making any redundant with a general toxicity rule like racism as that would just fall under the umbrella term
