They may not have been deleted for language. Quite often, vitriolic comments are a part of a thread being pulled off topic. We tell the offender why their post has been deleted and quite often they'll tell everyone else a different story. As a rule, we're not going to get into those kind of bicker battles. People who want to believe the worst about us will not have their beliefs altered by the truth.
So, you've adopted the
Star Chamber school of moderation -- i.e. you issue decisions without any supporting rationale or effort at transparency or public accountability. That's ok, it's your board, it's your choice, I don't especially care because it doesn't affect me one way or the other. I will point out, however, that the sociology is well understood, and in larger forums (like this one), this approach contributes to a number of problems (see below).
People who have been moderated in some way, either by having a post removed or by being temporarily banned, often talk about it later to tell everyone why they were unfairly treated when they were moderated. If any of those complaints ever described the reason for that moderation accurately, I sure don't remember it. If you ever read such a post, you can be sure that although you do't know why that person was moderated, you can be pretty sure whatever they said about it was NOT the reason. Often they THINK it is the reason, but in those cases they either misunderstood the explanation or were not given a good explanation for it.
And this is one of the problems of the "star chamber" school of moderation. There's no official explanation, so everyone's left to speculate.
Once more, with feeling.
Some cases are cut and dried. Some cases are very much in a gray area that needs to be discussed. In a previous post, I referred to your third example as a "thinly disguised" attack that would warrant discussion.
I will try to think of another way to explain the concept of that gray area the next time someone brings it up. Eventually we should cover every possible wording.
Another problem of the "star chamber" school of moderation is that it is difficult for people to learn how the grey area is interpreted by the mods, from prior example, because decisions aren't explained.
Believe me, once a student gets a reputation for causing trouble, all teachers pay more attention to that student's behavior and act quickly to deal with it. A teacher who does not do something to deal with a chronic troublemaker is an idiot and will not last long on the job.
When a moderator develops a history of conflict with a poster, that moderator almost always recuses himself or herself from moderating discussions related to that individual. That has actually become a problem we have to deal with, and it has allowed certain individuals to remain as troublemakers far longer than they should have. When a chronic troublemaker has been around long enough, he or she will develop enough longstanding conflicts that the majority of moderators will recuse themselves from the discussions, leaving the decisions to newer moderators who don't know the frequent offender's history. This allows the offender to get by when their long, checkered history should call for stronger action.
This pattern is common and is toxic. I offer you this free advice: Stop recusing yourselves and cut your fellow mods some slack in this area. At the same time, be careful as individuals and discipline *yourself* (not the other mods, there's a big difference) to avoid vendettas and to keep an open mind. You're adults, and the scope of your actions are not a big deal -- this is a web forum, not a parole board for some state prison somewhere where they put people they don't like in cages.
The biggest difference between:
Johny is a moron,
Johny behaves like a moron,
Anyone who behaves like that is a moron,
Is the effort it takes to type it. There is little difference in what the statements convey.
"Moron," and other synonyms that have historically been used to refer to people with low cognitive ability, are words I avoid using.
So much clearer and more life-affirming to simply identify the behavior and the problems with it and the consequences that stem from those problems:
e.g. "anyone who behaves like that isn't diving safely, and I will not dive with people who behave like that."
