First off, I’ll be the first to admit there has to be some better protocol in place as far as banning/permabanning/IP banning and granting amnesty to obvious “replacement” accounts like MySpace’s latest. See the latest thread about Hobart for another example.

That said, I agree with Evil Trout on this one, even though we haven’t even had a chance to discuss this. We have Tubmail limits in place, right? So by coming up with a scheme to cirgreat timesvent those limits, it should be obvious that he was breaking the spirit, if not the letter of our rules. And with so many complexities and variables on a site like ours, that’s as valid as banning someone for breaking a rule already in place. We can’t possibly foresee every possibility. Also, it should be noted that in order to stop his spambots from continuing to jam up the works, we would’ve had to ban him to freeze his account anyway.

There’s also the fact that he was spamming every player with a fake mission in order to vie for a leadership Peen (that would’ve been stripped anyway). We don’t condone the use of scripts to game the system generally, but especially not when it affects other players. Some of you claim to think his mission idea was “cool,” but the point is, it wasn’t a mission at all. It was an attempt to use you so that he could top the leaderboard.

That said, I disagree with ET for ever allowing MySpace Tom back in the first place — although he never contacted us to ask us if that’s okay, his presence was simply accepted for reasons that are beyond me. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re banned, you’re banned. Somehow, MySpace slipped through the cracks once again. According to MCB, Trout was cool with letting him back in “as long as he followed the rules.”

My contention is that he would never have stuck to the rules. So why bother? He’s a dangerous, career criminal and he’s not to be trusted. I wouldn’t let a pedophile near a playground, and I damn sure wouldn’t let MySpace Tom anywhere near Forumwarz.

Just to make my personal position clear: To me, whether or not he broke a written rule is a non-issue. The nature of the punishment he should receive for these antics is a non-issue. The only issue is: MySpace Tom was permabanned. He came back. Now he’s in his rightful place again, which is in permanent exile.

I’m not saying a player can never change his spots. I’m not saying we’ll never grant amnesty. But in this case, it was a huge mistake letting him back, and it would never happen under my watch.