My vote is to maintain a more relaxed participation in plime©, we haven't, and plime© hasn't been around long enough to make hard-line rules. As far as I'm aware galoot is the only member to have a 20+ rating, and as he has stated in another thread, that rating isn't permanently written in stone. So let's all sit back, enjoy the ride and see what happens. I like the idea of a self governing site, I think it can work, while I will admit that the Internet has a dark side and it is likely that seep in, I don't believe this to be a serious problem that won't fix itself.
As far as your offensive word question, a couple points.
1. I believe you have the right to be offended by the word "Bastard" although I'm not.
2. If a majority of people are offended, then weather it's fair or not, The users name will adversely affect the users ratings. Human nature 101
3.
is an example of the word and uses, once again not saying it should not offend you, just showing the possibilities of seeing the word used in actual articles submitted.
Lastly I do think that there are certain words that should never be used in a user name, I'm just honestly not sure of how slippery that slope could become.
My $12.02 worth.

Thanks for that but I understand the site and I understand word usage.

The word in question was used in a certain way. A user name isnt in context. Its context comes from the person reading it when it pops in front of their face - without choice. So an article about words used in context is irrelevent here.

Now id rather leave this post alone now, ive said enough and the weight is against me. Fair enough.
What isnt fair is to make a point like has been made against me in this thread and then not make a statement of it somewhere.
It seems the verdict is unanimous. So tell people officially if thats the case. Otherwise it will happen over and over and if it hasnt been stated somewhere then there really isnt much anyone can do about it.

Edit -
Human nature 101.
A low rating does not stop a person posting doing much at all. We can only edit after the damge is done.

How about this.
A word filter on usernames and all in-site text. Problem solved.

Edit -
Sorry im wrong, not all in site text, but deffo usernames.

Hey folks, if you dislike someone's username or actions on the site, vote them down. If enough users do so, they will be banned and their username will stop appearing on the site.

Incidentally, voting will become anonymous shortly.

I do want to reiterate that this site is largely an experiment into community collaboration. It's your task, at this stage of the game to decide what is and isn't acceptable here. Part of the process will involve having access to something that might offend you, because without the offensive things we won't know what offends us as a community.

Fair enough.
But a good discussion none the less.