A quick refresher concerning our Posting Guidelines...
I was just phrasing it as the way it was originally posted. "Criticize the play not the player."
The reason I asked is because I see quite a bit of it during the season so it would seem to be something that is either selectively enforced or that happens so often is hard to extinguish.
I see how you could interpret it that way, but I think you are taking this out of context with the quoted rule which welcomes constructive criticism.
Insofar as enforcement, its an art more than a science. By its nature it will appear arbitrary to some. Some will never see the distinction between a "Brees stunk it up today" comment and a "Brees is garbage" comment. The second comment likely gets moderated, the first comment not.
Even then, if someone wants to argue the "Brees is garbage" thought in a respectful manner, its perfectly okay. One can argue Brees is over the hill, lacks arm strength, etc, we get a handful of those threads after every loss. Now some will beat a dead horse and hop from thread to thread saying the same thing and that can be moderated as well. Inevitably they will claim their comments were respectful and negative comments are discouraged. What is discouraged is beating everyone over the head with persistent negative comments.
Moderating will never be as consistent as some will demand. You have a crew of volunteer moderators enforcing rules that are subject to interpretation. Its inevitable there will be some inconsistency.
For the 80% of posters on the forum that never really come close to breaking the rules, that inconsistency never bothers them.
For those who like to push the rules or live on the edge, they are more likely to have a problem with moderation.
Having a posting history hurts and helps. If you are a well known poster who has a history of providing thoughtful and civil discourse, the chances of having a moderator mistake a post close to the edge as being a violation is less.
If you are a well known knucklehead, you might get less slack. Many times a post that is moderated can seem in and of itself not a big violation, but if its from someone continually living on the edge they may get a violation.
For most people on the board, I don't think they find the rules confusing or inconsistent. For those who prefer smack talk boards (which is fine and what some folks prefer) there is the locker room board where the rules are relaxed. The fact that this board has tons more traffic than the locker room shows that the majority on this forum prefer more civil discourse.