[HI] Abuse of Voteban Command

I've already written a thread about this. If this even possibly applies to you, read it. We are very close to removing this command completely. The reason is that people just refuse to stop abusing it.

This is for getting rid of problem players who want to grief/exploit/cheat/TK/RDM/kos troll/troll/etc. People who break the rules.

This is NOT a ticket to decide who gets to play here and who doesn't. I just got done reviewing some evidence of a veteran gamer. Yes, they use voteban, but they use it very aggressively. If one person is always casting them, there's an issue. If only new players get votebanned, there's an issue. If veterans are allowed to bypass a voteban for simply being veterans, then there's an issue.

So, in this case, I saw a new player. They had good karma. They had zero RDM's. They had zero TK's or any infractions, anywhere. The rest of the server had no such issues with them. Two others were told about !help, yet this guy was ok and didn't need to be told. However, he got votebanned the moment he KOS'ed someone who was a survivor. Now, this guy who I mentioned, he calld the voteban, as always. I saw several (3?) circumstances where he either called out a veteran for being wrong w/ a KOS, or allowed it w/ no voteban. We have no way of knowing what he saw, or didn't see, but if he acknowledges it, then clearly it's permissable for veterans to be wrong. That's what this guy is trying to say, and he's also saying that new players get different treatment.

This is a perfect example of voteban abuse. Not only costing the community and HI, specifically, players... but also denying them their meaningful right in keeping the community alive, donating... heck... at least having a chance. So, as promised, the bans are getting more stringent on abuse. The most serious and costly thing a gamer could ever do to a community is specifically deny the place it's right to have players come into it. Future examples of abuse will be treated as a deliberate effort to make people not play here, and we will ban for the duration cost the victim + anything else appropriate up to and including a perm ban.

We hate doing this. I didn't plan on spending my Friday night writing "or else" rules clarifications about votebans, but we must return what was brought to our doorstep this time. Abuse like this is serious and it could even be part of why the server has had to have literal life breathed back into it. There are also always admins online, the chatbox is not broken, and yeah. Just unnecessary; use it if you have to, not because it's there and CAN be used. This will be the last time we warn about not abusing this privilege.

I'm closing the thread also, this is not a discussion and it would be very nice for everyone if the 1 or 2 people doing this could disabuse themselves of the illusion that the server is theirs or belongs to them. It does not. It belongs to us all, so do the rules.