I wanted to follow up on something from several months ago. On Y17 D225, we banned Naomi Felian and Jeor Knight for spying rules violations. Several players, including those punished, spoke with me following this incident and we discussed the rules and the particular situation. Ultimately, I changed my mind about the bans and both players were unbanned within a week (I think? It was a long time ago), however I failed to post a simnews at the time to discuss it further. As a quick refresher, both players were punished for using a player's account on a faction forum, after he had been removed from the faction, to determine what IC information was known to him at the time. I was under the impression that impersonation had also taken place with regards to forum activity, but this was shown to be a technical side-effect (the specific details aren't all that interesting).

I felt and still feel that this violates the spying rules, as written. However, the information itself is available to the forum owners through other means (not requiring the departing players cooperation) that would have sidestepped the technicalities of the rules and thus been permitted. Therefore we have a conflict as the actions are both allowed and prohibited. It seems unreasonable to provide a punishment in such circumstances, and it highlights limitations of the SWC rules. The game's rules try to provide a happy, safe environment for players, not deal with the intricacies of IP ownership. Many in game factions are played as companies, yet we do not have the luxury of employment agreements, lawyers, or even a developed legal framework for what happens when groups part ways, which could be applied by the game staff. The prudent choice, it seems, is for the administration to avoid getting involved whenever possible, as otherwise there are dozens of questions that need to be answered. In the future, therefore, we will generally be uninvolved in internal faction issues that do not violate other rules. As far as I can tell, such intricacies do not exist in external interactions (i.e. using a different player's account on another faction's website is not permitted) and so we will continue to punish players who abuse this when it is reported and verified.

With that in mind, unbanning Jeor and Naomi was the only sensible choice. They have not violated the spirit of the rules as I see them now and as they will be considered by the game staff in the future, and I was too quick to act before.