There is a problem with ’anything goes as that is what works for me, I’ve got a thick skin, and I give as good as I get"..
The problem is that the vast number of people who contribute and might contribute to a forum or thread are not of that nature. They are notably more gentle and easy going.
And so, if allowing for nasty behaviour and telling folks to toughen up, we get to a few forum members, with their thick skins - being the only forum denizens.
Everyone else has left as the median of the curve was left out.
So, what one needs to do, in order to run a forum.. a successful forum... is enforce civility --- and cut out, like a cancer, those who won’t be civilized and want free reign to denigrate, be sarcastic, and brow beat at will.
Social and cultural norms that work in a functional society, kinda thing.
FYI, ’users249’ was a pre-internet talk group from the old days, where ’anything goes’, no rules in what could be said..about anything or anyone. The very embodiment of shocking, brutal, extreme....and limited to such who could handle it.