In view of the fact that I missed the T.o.S. link and did not complete my thoughts because of that, some confusion is reasonable.
On this page where I am replying to you there is a top left icon that giives a menu of various Junk. At the lower left is a gear whose menu dos not contain About. I have to go to a higher level page to access the menu you refer to. I did look at About before; I missed the T.o.S. link.
Comment on T.o.S.: When I started reading the first screen of it, it immediately struck me as the sort of legalise one has to agree to to do anything anywhere, including getting updates of sw one has paid for. Either you sign whatever it says, even if it applies limits that might not stand up in court, or you get nothing so you can safely agree to these things if you want to do anything on a computer.
But I persisted and buried in the middle I found
Code of Conduct
By using our service you agree not to:
Cheat at any games provided by Online-Go.com
Threaten, harass, or stalk other members.
Upload, post, or otherwise make available any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, offensive, vulgar, obscene, libelous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable content on Online-Go.com or any service which utilizes Online-Go.com Widgets or Software.
Impersonate any person or entity
Disrupt the normal flow of dialog or otherwise act in a manner that negatively affects other users’ ability to communicate through or use Services provided by Online-Go.com
Intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, noational, or international law
Solicit or advertise for any competing Go services
Under these T.o.S. I see that there is a clause(s) that would allow me to make a valid complaint. I could consider repeated profanities as harassment without knowing what they are if I ask the user to stop swearing at me and the behavior continues. Depending on what might be deduced from the context, one might be able to justify a complaint based on the grounds of “abusive, defamatory, offensive, vulgar, obscene, libelous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable”. The fact that it says “otherwise objectionable” puts considerable weight on the perceptions of the offended party.
This is my suggestion: During a chat a user might feel subjected to offensive comments, either explicit or implicit. It would be very useful to be able to direct the other party to the Code of Conduct, not the version embedded in the legal mumbo jumbo of the T.o.S.
Ideally there would be a button visible on the page named Code of Conduct or “Etiquette” It’s mere presence serves as a reminder that there is one. This is not bad because having a Profanity Filter implies that exposure to profanity is voluntary, hence profanity is tolerated and therefore there may be little constraint on or sanction for its use.
If a user feels it appropriate to call another user’s attention to a problem, it is simple to write “I don’t like the way you are speaking to me, read the Code of Conduct” or just “read OGS Etiq”.
The easier it is to remind someone to behave or else, the less likely a situation is to escalate. Having given a warning, the next move is to disengage and contact OGS Admin.