I bring this up because, when I first came to WP, the
one policy I found
most disturbing was the one concerning ³incivility². Most especially the
practice of banning (punishing) members of the WP community for using words
and phrases considered by whoever made up the policy to be ³offensive².
This, to me, made WP free in every thing but speech.
You misunderstand the policy. It's not about words, it's about
behaviour. Using a particular word is not, in itself, incivil. It's
what use you put the word to that is important, not what word it is.
You can be incivil without cursing, and you can curse without being
incivil - they are completely independent.