So letter of the rule is more important than the spirit of the rule? Healthy forum requires a bit of a leeway, which includes friendly ribbing. Humour is part of healthy life and healthy psyche, so I really don't get why his comment should have led to this sort of reaction. Also, what you stated differs significantly from Zoe's OP, specifically this part:
We give quite a bit of leeway. That leeway does, however, have limits.
Comparisons to Hitler, whether joking or serious, are pretty much always going to be rules and/or TOS violations. It is essentially always going to be uncivil behavior that adds nothing to a thread or discussion and is of zero value.
Making such a joke in a thread explicitly made by the forum Owner to notify the user base that the staff would be stepping up the enforcement of the civility rules and both an Admin and Super Moderator had affirmed that position is basically the sheer embodiment of uncivil behavior.
Bluntly speaking, if
@Shipmaster Sane hadn't been joking in that post, he would be enjoying at least a very extended ban from the entire forum if not an outright permanent ban.
He is
lucky that we decided to treat his post as a joke and nothing more than either an attempt to bait the staff into hitting him or to prove some ability to flaunt the rules.
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To make this very clear. "I was joking", "It was humor", "I didn't mean it.", "I wasn't serious." and variations on that theme are never going to be counted as acceptable excuses for violating the rules.
In some cases they may well be mitigating circumstances that reduce the punishment, it other cases the very act of it being a "joke" may well act as a contributing factor in increasing a punishment.
A joke in the Talk About Anything thread is going to be treated differently than one in a thread for an official forum policy announcement. That this is the case should be blindingly obvious.
So either
"neither member broke the rules, but because of a personal distaste for the second user we punished them regardless"
Or
"Both members broke the rules, but because of a personal bias in favor of the first user we didn't punish them"
Or, both members broke the rules. The
punishment for breaking the rules on TS is largely based on previous user behavior and can be highly variable.
If you have a history of good behavior, being a generally decent member of the forum who positively contributes to discussions, and not being too much of an asshole then one rule breaking post is probably only going to get you a friendly warning to tone it down.
If you have a history of riding the very line of acceptability, generally being a troll whose very presence actively inhibits discussions, and act like a complete asshole then
any post of yours that does violate the rules is going to get hammered with little to no sympathy from the staff.
Be an asshole but obey the rules? You won't get hit.
Be a positive, helpful, member but occasionally violate a rule? You will probably get a slap on the wrist as we extend the benefit of the doubt.
Be an asshole and violate the rules? You have no good will and are liable to get hit significantly harder.