Man, I feel obligated for some unholy reason to put my few cents in here. Once upon a time I really had a thing against spook. He went around insulting a lot of people a lot of the time. I thought he was rude as fuck. I mean, he really IS rude as fuck. But at some point I came to enjoy Spook's company in the server. He's fucking hilarious to me. He's rather intelligent; something very rare for someone as verbose as him. If he was some dumbfuck, I wouldn't stick a centimetre of my neck out for him.
Here's my problem with this ban. I can understand why the ban happened. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. He got banned for being too rude too much. However, I do not feel that he was banned for a CONCRETE reason. Basically, I do not feel that the rules are concrete enough in this situation. The rule that he has broken is this: "No offensive behavior anywhere. Remember that this is the internet. Don't be insulted if someone calls you an idiot." If this rule were properly enforced, I would say that a solid 1/6 of the cRPG community would be out of here. I saw posted here that one of the problems that many admins had was that he said the word "bundle of sticks" too many times. Well holy shit, if that word is against the rules for being "offensive" or "homophobic", then please enforce it as such or re-think the rules. The problem that I see is that the rules for being "offensive" are not enforced heavily until an ADMIN is offended.
Now, I've had the (sometimes mis)pleasure of playing with dear spook in battle and siege MANY times. I cannot recall one time that he called someone a friend or a spic or any other racial epithet. These terms are obviously off-limits, although once again they are not specifically enumerated in the rules. If you fine folks in charge would simply put into the rules that you cannot utter the word "bundle of sticks" I would stake my extremely meagre finances on a bet that spook would not say the word "bundle of sticks". Spook has followed the rules as they are laid out and how he perceives them, and he has done that to a T.
I'm getting the feeling that this wall o' text is not exactly a coherent one, so let me sum up my rambling thoughts. I believe there are many players that frequent the NA servers that would be banned if the same judgement that was handed to spook were applied to them. I believe that the rules as they are laid out are entirely too vague for this community, which has a tendency to be extremely friendly and kind at times and extremely rude and trollsy at others (whether out of true hostility or in the spirit of having a good time). I believe that there is a large double-standard when it comes to "offending" or "insulting" players vs admins. I also think that it is difficult to gauge someone being "offended". One of the first terms that I learned when I started playing this mod was BAN HE. Many (maybe even most?) players want to see blood, they want to see a ban. If someone says "nigga", tons of players will immediately scream RACIST, BAN. In reality, these players are not in the slightest offended.
Also; I agree with you folks that Spook is a dick. He's rude to people, often-times without sufficient provocation. However, I do not feel that this warrants a permanent ban when many, MANY other players have not had action taken against them.
So uh, you guys have a good day.
