Peanut Gallery Commentary on the Staff Log of Bannings and such like.

[Joods]

I think it's more about using logic and common sense. If the intent is there to maliciously call out another member then, yeah, it's obviously a rule violation. If the intent is to continue a topic that spun off from another thread, and you mention the person, because well, you want to take the discussion further without disrupting the original thread, then I wouldn't consider that calling out. 

The birthday threads aren't calling anyone out because it's not being done with malicious intent. 

Creating a thread that baits a certain person into responding, that's calling out as well, I would think. For example, we know certain members on here are never in the majority of many of the more heated topics of conversation, so starting a thread which would cause those particular persons to respond negatively, in my opinion, would be considered calling them out. The reasoning is because you wouldn't be expecting a response from anyone else who would agree with the majority POV that the thread topic would be based on, therefore you are trying to bait those with differing opinions into responding angrily. 

That's my understanding of it anyway.