The very core idea of the community administration is to prevent it from tearing itself apart. Especially on the internet - people tend to be more stubborn, more extreme, more vulgar, - more outspoken and especially - MUCH more argumentative than in real life.
It is near impossible to write the rules in a way that they cover all instances of harming the community - and the more vague the rules are ... the larger the grey areas are.
Players on the other hand tend to explore those grey areas. Veterans in particular test the limits. (often unintentionally but sometimes intentionally...)
- How far can i go with "my" roleplay before someone takes offense?
- How much can i force other players to play by my rules until they complain?
- What does it take for the Admins to take notice?
Easy examples are of course the above examples like "what can i get away with in forum chat? What can i get away with in chats that are not the forum but closely related to Disco? What can i get away with in unrelated chats? How hateful, racist can i be until the excuse "i am just joking..." does not work anymore?"
Or the very simple case of "How much can i tax that fat cash cow no-name-newbie-trader and get away with?
It seems second nature to explore such limits.
The admins on the other hand need to consider the actions. And while i am anything but a fan of the Admin team - they need to ensure that such grey areas are monitored. (i really do not like how you guys are selected - and how there is hardly any mechanism to make you adhere to your own rules - or a mechanism to demote you)
So to get back to my previous example of hateful speech....
It is very easy to report a violation of a swear word (quite honestly a moronic server rule) ... the evidence is CLEAR. If such a "bad" word was written - there is your evidence.
But what about players that are just generally negative towards other players? Players that are passive aggressive, that are "just very argumentative" and tend to disagree with another player. Players that tend to talk down to others and treat them like lesser beings?
It is MUCH harder to get solid evidence for that. Sure you can present an entire history of posts - each post by itself being harmless ... only together they paint a more negative picture - but who is meant to do that work? Lawyers?
What remains is often a negative "picture" of a person. You know someone is harmful - but you do not have an incident to point at.
It might be even worse ... What about a player that influences others to do harmful things in Disco related chats - while being totally polite on the official forum?
If you knew that this happened and your job is to keep the community healthy - what should you do? - There is no in-game or forum evidence.... .
All in all - it is a fuzzy grey area - and it all comes down to that....
How much do you trust the Admins to make decisions that are GOOD for the community.
![[Image: just_a_signature_by_sjrarj-d63yjsx.png]](https://img00.deviantart.net/ca73/i/2013/123/e/a/just_a_signature_by_sjrarj-d63yjsx.png)