Yeah, they should rephrase it to avoid this kind of ambiguity.
As long as we’re talking about the rules – as opposed to game mechanics – this will always be the case to some degree. The only way to phrase the rules in a way that does not rely on interpretation and judgment in any way would be to phrase them in a way that is trivial to abuse.
Sure, they could do that. They would still need the rules for people who find ways to abuse the system despite the in-game limits, but at least it would help reduce the problems from overbuilding.
Maybe. I’m pretty sure we’ll keep seeing a lot of frustrations stemming from the rules and their enforcement, mostly because it’s… well… I don’t have a nice way of saying this, so I’ll just say what I think: it’s a total clusterf*ck.
There was a thread I saw yesterday. It was the most level-headed and polite post I’ve ever seen about a ban. The person who made it admitted they broke the rules and explained that they were not complaining or criticizing, but rather wanted to tell their story as a cautionary tale for anyone else who might be breaking the rules.
For whatever reason, that thread has been locked and unlisted, but I would still invite anyone interested in the topic of rules to read it.
One thing that stands out in that testimony is that the player who got banned had to allegedly suffer a whole lot of toxicity in chat, including not only the typical foul language but also threats of all kinds. This kind of behavior is clearly against the rules, and yet, according to the player’s testimony, reports of that went unanswered.
Now, I have no idea if things happened that way or not. I have no idea if the reports of toxicity in chat included screenshots of evidence or not. And to be honest, I don’t even care. The only reason I’m bringing this up is because it’s not the rules themselves that cause the frustrations, it’s the perceived injustice in enforcing them.
I’ve seen threads from people who claimed they submitted proof of a player cheating and bragging about it in chat, only to see that completely ignored, and then they themselves got banned for saying something in chat or for claim spam.
Enforcement is not working properly. There are many reasons why this might be the case, but regardless of the reasons, the outcome is undeniable. We can quibble about the rules, but even if the rules spanned hundreds of pages of legalese, specifying all the possible criteria and outcomes, it would still be worthless without proper enforcement.