I agree that if there's an automatic, significant change to the rule that havoc is going to arise. It seems evident with, as of late, that quite a few newer players try to pester people by exploiting shortcomings of rules which further leads to toxicity. That being said, I think if we can ease into something more balanced and reasonable instead of a drastic, obvious rule change, I don't think this will have a drastic effect in return. I think the process of easing into a potential rule change could be like this:
1. Deal with language that interferes with other players' experiences when it's obvious. I think that the phrase "baiting racism" and the like should be done away with. By all means, the admins have the right to tell someone to calm down when someone's escalating a situation when the subject matter is outright racist, but when someone (purposely or accidentally) hints at racial subject matter, that should be ignored if people obviously aren't stirred up by it. This step could help the community ease into a transition because, while it's still keeping the use of racial slurs and harmful language which interferes with other players' experiences in check, it does away with micromanaging what people say. I don't notice micromanaging done by the admins as much as I used to, but again, I think that this step is vital to begin a transition into something more reasonable. Hell, even this step could be done in a trial manner so we can see how people react to it.
2. Once the above step has been attempted, I think it would be fair to start allowing things like "nigga" and "nibba" temporarily, not by saying it's okay in a public manner, but in a way that, when admins are on the server, they simply wouldn't react to the usage of those words, but instead they would pay attention to the dynamic of the conversation when these words with the soft a are used. If the usage of those words upsurges toxicity more often than if it didn't have any effect on the conversation whatsoever, then we could confirm that it would be best to leave things the way they were. However, if implicitly allowing these words didn't show to have any drastic consequences, then we could move on from here and continue discussing based on the actual consequences.
While this process is based on speculative judgment and personal bias shaped by the behavior that I've noticed on the servers, I still believe that the process that I mentioned should be given a chance or at least be subject to discussion. I'm not calling for an outright rule change, again, this is just so that we can ease into something better informed and better supported.
