Rules are almost always arbitrary and their merit occurs largely from convincing people to follow them so that we know what to reasonably expect. When you say “screw the rules,” chaos follows. That’s how rules work in general. There is no further justification, nor does there need to be – unless your mind happens to be caught up in the idea that everything needs to be justified to satisfy you personally.

Everything else – the merits of X or Y particular set of rules – is just window dressing. When you get caught up in that you are missing the point.

The reward for being a decent human being is more opportunities to be a decent human being – AKA, hardship.

People are mean on the Internet.

We can go into the psychology of it – they don’t see other people as people, they don’t grasp that teamwork means taking your teammates’ weaknesses into account, and so on – but basically it boils down to the fact that some people are callous, unsympathetic, etc. to people they’ve never met in person.

This is a fact that extends beyond online gaming or even being online. It is an artifact of how our brains are wired (“Help the tribe first, above strangers”) which, while helpful thousands of years ago, is maladaptive now.

What I’m getting at is – this is a problem that a single gaming community can never truly fix, because it is endemic in man. Man’s inhumanity to man has been the subject of plays, books, poetry, etc. for thousands of years. Admins can ban those who display a magnificent lack of empathy, but in the foreseeable future, there will always be those people. It sucks, but you have to learn to not let them get to you.