I'll tell you something, it starts with that. That's how it always starts. With good intentions. Oh, we'll just shut down excessive shouting so everyone has a fair shot.
But then it grows. It always grows. I've seen it in every community. First come the rules. Then, the moderators. Then, the moderation over time grows stricter.
You must fight this tooth and nail because you'll lose freedom. You think it's worth it to shut down a few troublemakers but I'm telling you from experience it never ever stops there. And once you open that door you can't ever close it and it'll open ever wider.
There's a difference between shouting loudly (which didn't affect the other person's freedom to shout themselves or wait until the shouting dies down) and silencing the one who shouts. Now tell me again which one of those is silencing speech?
Behavior is not speech. And if the argument is actually free-behavior and that people should be able to engage in any behavior they want, I don't really agree with that. While I generally think the fewer rules and restrictions the better, there are certain behaviors that should be regulated.
That is often misunderstood in debates about free speech, because many behaviors are expressed through speech and people equate them with speech. And on forums it is even easier to equate because speech is basically the only means of interaction.
Harassment is a behavior, it is not speech. And harassment is not the same thing as shouting, despite the way you are trying to claim they are the same.
I don't think there is any particularly notable benefit to harassment that would overcome its many negatives. One of those negatives being that it is used to shut down speech. Harassment is anti-speech. I think harassment is very much a type of behavior that should be regulated but still balanced against the concerns that the anti-harassment rules would be weaponized by those acting in bad faith.
I don't think the Codex's rule on what harassment is or the process for enforcing it is particularly capable of being weaponized. I don't think simple banter is capable of getting unfairly ruled as harrassment.
For what it is worth, I do share the concerns about excess moderation, even with good intentions. And the slippery slope of more and more moderation is a real concern, as more moderation creates more opportunities for people to try to game the system to try to weaponize the rules against someone else or otherwise prohibit something that could be beneficial.
But not every slope is so slippery that the slightest step leads all the way to the bottom, in fact very few slopes are that slippery.
But I am open to hearing any arguments from someone if they feel harassment has benefits and should be allowed. Especially when the bar for getting in trouble for it involves prolonged behavior and being warned to knock it off repeatedly by multiple people. I don't see any slipperiness there.