I think people misremember when discussions could be blunt without being abusive, because they didn’t recognize and appreciate sensible small-forum moderation. I don’t want oversight that forbids people from using a list of no-no words. I want human beings to skim a conversation and judge when people are causing problems.
In real-life interactions, there are legitimate occasions for being rude. Civility is an ideal. It’s not a death cult. You don’t pledge your honor to never calling someone an asshole. You just try to avoid dealing with assholes.
If a forum does not want strife between users, the mods better be proactive in removing fascists, trolls, bigots, and other dehumanizing forces.
If mods don’t remove that crap, but demand everyone play nice with those assholes - the forum exists for the benefit of those assholes. Everyone else is an unwitting victim for them to play with. And any moderation against accurately and reasonably saying ‘fuck off, abusive liar’ is acting as cover and force multiplication for abusive liars.
A vulgar explanation of how someone’s incorrect is often good-faith participation. Infuriating bullshit in televisable language is not.