Oh dear jesus tapdancing christ... This is internet. Furthermore this is a forum. Even furthermore people browsing this forum are most likely:
A) Participating more or less actively in the discussions and thus having a certain amount of knowledge over online forums in general and the people involved in the discussions at this particular forum.
B) Not registered but have been observing this board for a short or a longer time, but they also have been around the internet a few times and know how things are in most of the forums out there.
Getting offended by a single word such as "wat" is just the beginning to something more or less drastic. People are different for sure, but the web being as old as it is and online forums being as old as they are people should by now have a clear undestanding that there are a lot of young people browsing these forums, thus you simply can't be offended by all the little (and pointless) stuff people blargh out of their fingers, mostly because it's uncalled for.
Seriously, getting offended by such a ridiculous little internet meme'ish thing and also calling the usage of the word disrespectful towards others... it's year 2009, it's the internet, there are young people participating here and all the older ones should by now have a grip of the oh-so-common-in-forums internet language. Yes, I'm more or less telling to get used to it, whether you like it or not. It'll be easier if you go with it, because it's not going to vanish anywhere. It might get outdated at some point like "lol" or "rofl", but nevertheless.
It's most definitely not ok to type random nonsense nonstop, making probable interesting posts difficult or at least really annoying to read through and in the end most likely leaving you with no desire to take part in such a random topic.
If someone was writing the holy book of the internet laws, using the word "wat" in forum posts described earlier in this thread would most likely be allowed. Same goes for "+1" and all the alike.
No offense or such LPChip and others, this is just how I feel about this certain word and the amount of hassle it creates in some people. I'd guess a steady 99% of the people posting stuff on the internet are rude in one way or another, but I honestly don't think people want to be mean towards others intentionally. Smiley icons are here to help us not to get misunderstood, but people tend to abuse those as well so it's better not to stress over it.
I've also come to the conclusion that whoever makes the biggest "funny" in the internet WINS. Or at least if that's the case, people sure are trying their best (=worst) to win.