This is why I often think that even bothering with a warning is a waste of time. There are just too many people out there who use their warning as a free pass. Breaking the rules because they know until the warning has been issued, they can get away with it. Only stopping once a real threat (such as a ban) is presented to them. If it's something like spawn raping, or something as globally common a rule as that, their should be no warning given. Anyone being given a warning, is most likely a problem causer anyways, so I say just get rid of them. After all, you pay for the server and they don't! They are just making more work for you......

EDIT - of course when the game first came out I didn't feel this way. But this late in BF2's life, there really isn't any excuse for not knowing server rules (unless they are obscure ones)..

Raile,

I think that is an interesting take, but have you considered this: many server do have obscure rules or certainly one could make the argument that some servers have gray areas in the interpretation of the rules. This was even discussed on the 30+ thread post I mention previously. Now take maniac's point of spawn rape, is it spawn rape if we take the tank to south gas, in an attempt to not only steal the BH, but also cap the flag thus giving our side a double advantage? At what point is it considered spawn rape? Does a certain time have to pass that no forward progress is being made, what would actually be the determining factor. Would we even need human admins if the rules were iron clad? My point is this, one man's spawn rape is another man's valid strategy for enhancing his teams chances of winning. My recollection was that for the most part the flag was taken or attempted to be taken after the BH was stolen. Seems like a valid strategy to me, and if I was either warned or kicked for it first, it would have stopped.

Now what does that have to do with your post: warnings are useful tools for the admins to communicate to the users that their behavior is not acceptable. The user can argue the behavior at a latter date if he thinks the rules are not being broken, but the admin's wishes should be observed by the user and the user should use the prescribed channels to air his grievances if he thinks his actions do not violate server rules. The kick after the warning can be necessary to get their attention as sometimes the scroll goes by to fast or you are in the heat of battle and just don't see it. No excuse for ignoring a VOIP warning from an admin. Obviously the ban is for people who got kicked multiple times and just can't get the hint. Even the ban generally has a prescribed path to remedy if the user wants to get the ban lifted.

There are obviously exceptions to the rule, like TKing for aircraft/vehicle/armor that are blatant, but even in my day of being an admin, I only kicked for that even though it was on the lower left corner every time the map loaded. I am not sure I have ever heard a valid reason to TK that way and the only real explanation I have ever gotten is he did it to me first.

Do you think any of this is valid?

ahh subjective interpretation of rules.. I think the old rules that we've used on BF2 and the new ones for BC2 are written in a way to cope with this as much as possible. But for things that are subjective e.g. the servers that say "NO BUNNYHOPPING!" - just how many jumps over what period of time consitutes bunnyhopping? Obviously rules of this sort are open to bias from admins.

To be hoenst we operated no baserape on karkand.. untiol we added automated tools that warned and kicked atuomatically depending on distance, prior to this it was admin discretion, however we did include a full breakdown of the rules including maps etc., on the website. I personally have kicked people without warning - the rules were on the loading banner and ingame spam, often they came back and did it again.

The exception was low ranked players where I may have warned first if I thought there was a chance they were unfamiliar with rules like this.

To be honest we never gave VOIP warnings - we operate from the UK and as such always had a contingent of players who couldn't speak english.

However ultimately if someone is kicked by an admin then the arbitration still has to come from within the clan rather than an independant source (although this makes me think the use of a non-clan independant arbitrator might be useful in disputes - will discuss with =SM=), but in the end the ones who pass the judgement are the clan and if they uphold the ban.

Now the important point of your post above is that you're saying you would kick/ban based on certain criteria, however the clan who run the server in question may not have the same criteria - they may act upon the same offences but how they act upon them may be different to the way you would. They might beleive banning on a first offence is completely appropriate (hell, we always banned for 1st offence on racism and we only lifted 1 ban for that in 3 years) and just because you wouldn't run a server in that manner doesn't necessarily mean that they're wrong. Just a different way of doing things.

However you can't exepect them to accept your opinions of how a server should be run as being correct, so ultimately

The answer to this post, is quite simply, that I am a gamer first, and don't have time to argue every single admin decision I make. If you have ever played Karkand IO then you know that admining is a full time job. So yes, I will kick people without warning, and leave it up to them to figure out what they did wrong. If they want to come argue it in the forums after, then let them. But I won't spend my entire game admining and not playing. (now you do get guys like Monkey who are good enough to write their own automated warnings/bans etc, but there are few people doing that).

And as Monkey said, if people don't like that, then they won't come back.. if they don't pay for the server, then they don't really have any rights.

To add to this.. I am usually the person who argues against making obscure server rules, for this exact reason. They are way too hard to police, and I am unwilling to put the time in. So in kicking people without warning, I would only be doing it when they broke very common server rules.

i like where this is going which is probably nowhere, but gives me something to read while in work

Not really related to the topic other than its =FaRT= and one of UneManArmy's videos..

Looks like a number of =FaRT='s have moved on to BC2 as well!
Lots of =FaRT= members killed in 0neManArmy's new BC2 video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9SIDceKbnE

i wonder if i was in that video? bastard