This is wrong, the rules have to be the same for everybody: Nobody can get a free pass to harass/abuse other posters just because of who he is. You might discuss the degree of the punishment, but not that there should be a punishment.

This is just a forum about a game of pixel soldiers, and getting banned is not a big deal: the owners have said themselves they have no problem with banned posters coming back under a new identity, if that means they behave properly from then onwards. All the hair pulling in this thread is out of place, getting banned is not the end of the world.

Also, you cannot justify insulting others just by saying that you also insult your buddies (let's be honest, there's a serious difference between friendly poking between peers and the abuse that gets thrown to the ones that are disliked by the hive mind). The mood in the Invision forums is like that of an old boys club: with insiders getting a free pass & outsiders being the target of the real abuse. It's as if you people were back in high school.

I happen to think that our community would be a better place if we all tried to show a minimum respect for each other, including those we do not like.

Young males have always got into fights for the silliest reasons, been there and done it myself, but they are expected to mature and learn sooner or later that their freedom, including their freedom of speech, ends up at that place where it collides with some other people's freedom. If they do not, they will be corrected by their elders or by those that hold the power in their society, as has been the case here.