Hell of communities name-call 24/7 and it's their community norm.

Yeah but I don't consider it genuine name-calling as it's not done with genuinely hurtful intent. If everyone obviously knows it's playful, it's fine. But if someone is just trying to be a hurtful ass, then that violates the name-calling level.

It's about intent. And the pyramid of debate is just an objective (as possible) metric by which we can judge people with good intent from those with bad intent. It's a lot more specific then most sites which just say "no hate speech" which can mean almost anything at all. The pyramid of debate is just a well-laid-out way of saying "don't be a dick". So if someone is calling names but everyone involved knows the language is meant in a joking manner, then they're not being a dick. So the pyramid doesn't really apply in that case.

But at the same time, someone can't just be an ass and then claim they were just joking. If they're the only one joking, it's not a joke. Everyone more or less has to be in on the joke. Again it's about intent.

If people have bad intent, the pyramid of debate lets us objectively measure how far off track they are compared to good quality discussion. Then an accumulation of low-pyramid events indicates a pattern that can then be acted on.

That's how I think about it. I hope that makes it more clear. I want this stuff to be clear for everyone, because it's the basis of the site's administration. To really boil it down, the pyramid is just a way to see how much of a jerk someone is being, while minimizing emotions getting in the way while making the judgement, which is very often a problem with site administration and moderation.