# The Universal Rules of Civilized Discourse

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/4705>\
**Category:** Blog\
**Created:** [3월 12, 2013, 11:45오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/4705 "2013-03-12T23:45:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [3월 15, 2013, 8:33오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/4705/10 "2013-03-15T20:33:17Z")

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> [@gimpf](#):
>
> almost all topics can appear to be abusive or offensive to a significant fraction of reasonable people

The general guideline in such cases is a “reasonable” person. You could also measure it as the percentage of people in your specific community willing to flag something as offensive or objectionable. Different communities have different norms, of course, and some might be more sensitive or less sensitive.

So, **always have good intentions** – that to me is what this text is about – but don’t hesitate to throw the post out there, and react accordingly.

It’s the people with _bad_ intentions that we worry about. Honest mistakes are fine and can be recalibrated.

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