I am not good at diplomacy and I rarely take part in such talk.
However, I feel compelled to put my 2 cents here as I know Tom, I know Banger and I also know dman.
I am against insulting other players. Although, in-game insults like the Spineless worm here, I must say, they add to the flavor. I still think they should not be a topic title. If I was called a spineless worm on a UoH topic title, I would surely react very harshly. That's an important detail.
We should all know that getting personal is not new in PG. I remember many people getting personal over the years. I actually remember a case from really early on and probably the worst of all; it was Jouga with numerous pm harassments, even at the forums. You can find the UoH topic here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=420
I don't remember any CJ interventions over the years. Surely this griefing rule is a step forward. However, CJ is a bit late as I posted before that announcement this nice guide here, you could have a look: Book 4: The Art of Retaliation
At all cases, we should also remember that CJ wants us to resolve these issues on our own and I cannot agree more.
I am always in favor of issuing a challenge to the one you have a problem. Public challenges are the best as you also raise the needed awareness while you can always point back to them in the future (like I did with Jouga now ). Once a challenge is issued, the other party should either accept or propose a different one. Ignoring it or harassing further (like Jouga for example) must be avoided. I like creativity in challenges but in the end, they should be realistic. Issuing a non-realistic challenge is a mockery after all and we are all discussing in a forum thread, called Union of Honor.
I want to close up that I can see a lot of misunderstanding here from all sides involved. In my book, Tom, dman and Banger are all nice guys. Of course, being a nice guy irl does not mean that no one should punch your face in game. It should be taken in account though, in order to get rid of any prejudice affecting your decisions.
These were my 2 cents.
My personal in-game interest is to see this whole deal dropped as Tom should be busy training our newbs