Harassment Protocol

I've noticed a certain trend in harassment protocol as of late that I find unnecessary and downright wrong, and some recent events have pushed me to start this thread.

How do we define harassment? Is it name-calling? Is it slander? Is it both? And how far does something have to go to be considered harassment?

A series of recent petty reports between several members would suggest that simply one instance of name-calling is enough to be warned for harassment. I'm assuming a lot of you wouldn't consider one instance of name-calling to be harassment. It's the internet- you're going to get called names. If it persists, contact a staff member. Getting called a bitch or a retard once is not harassment.

In shoutbox the other day, there was a player claiming that transgenderism was a mental illness. It wasn't directed at any specific player. Is it harassment? I would say that it isn't for the sole reason of it not being directed at a specific person. Nevertheless, the player was assigned a warning point for "Discord Rule 1 (Don't be an ass)", and they were auto-banned. If a member of the Ku Klux Klan was constantly spewing horrible shit about black people on their website they wouldn't get arrested for harassment because it's free speech. Here's how I go about situations like these: somebody's saying something you find to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. If they're not directing their hate towards someone, let them be. They will make a fool of themselves. Also, don't be an ass? That's a rule? This is SERIOUS GMOD. We dissect every possible rule to make them as specific as possible, and this is a rule? We already have rules about harassment and toxicity. Remove this rule.

I see no reason to police someone for having an opinion if they are not actively attacking another person. It may even be an opinion you disagree with; however, they should be allowed to voice their opinion. Freedom of speech is one of the many things that makes the U.S., and other countries that have it, great.

It's instances like what happened to the guy in shoutbox that make me concerned about people being able to freely express their opinions.

Feeling harassed does not necessarily mean you are being harassed. If this were the case, someone could shut down any negative criticism of themselves.

TL;DR- One instance of name-calling is not harassment, and conduct needs to be directed at a specific person to even be considered harassment.

I'd like to hear what everyone thinks about this.