Man I didn't want to get in a matrix debate with anyone, wow. Whether it is cause or coincidence does not matter. What matters is the two co-exist. It is not nearly as complex as what you're drawing it out to be.

Uhh, what I said wasn't at all complex?

Somebody just took Philosophy 120 last semester....

It's logic, not philosophy. In any case, I've never taken philosophy or logic classes. I thought this type of stuff was fairly standard knowledge, but I guess I'll just stick to mindless gibberish on these forums.

Maybe I can explain some of what I have seen when the naming violation is left unchecked. The server in a lot of ways seems to take on its own life. It has its own personality and its own maturity. Each guild on here has its own personality and its own maturity. The maturity and personality is based off of the people who compose each. At times in the past when naming violation or training were left unchecked the over all maturity of the server goes down. You see people coming on line and spewing all sorts of drama in ooc, cursing every other word, training, kill stealing and griefing in general. There are 2 things that I have seen that help the most in keeping the maturity level up the most. Naming violation and ninja looters. Keeping those two at bay adds a good 5 years to the server maturity in my opinion.

In the past when those things were left unchecked I have seen Hunter have to come in and do mass bannings. In one day I saw 17 people banned for warping. Hunter even had a post on the old old forums, (ez.makeforum.org). It is one of the few times he has ever listed names. Another time I saw nearly an entire guild banned for throwing an immature shitfit on the forums and in ooc.

It is always hard to see the benefit of preventative maintenance.

This sounds like there can be some confusing of correlation vs. causation here. Not necessarily saying that it is the case, but could be.

What I mean is that, say during these periods of time where perceived maturity decreases (let me point out there really isn't some objective way to truly measure the maturity level) it may not be the result of names, but rather you see more of those names because it is during a time when less administration of the rules is going on. So it's not like people make dumb names, and then from there start acting like douchebags, but rather it just happens at the same time and you wind up seeing more dumb names AND more violators of other rules because there has been less bansticks going out.

One may not be causing the other in any way, but rather they are simply correlated by the fact that less people are being whacked with the banstick. I mean, like I said, I really don't know for sure. I just know it's incredibly easy to confuse correlation vs. causation without even realizing it.  

Holy hell, I understand the concept of self policing and such, but I'm rather... shocked at how upset people seem to be over names. Especially stuff like "Fapfap", seriously?

It's just beyond me how people get so bothered by names. Yeah, if someone has a name like "Jizzmonkey" that's pretty retarded, but for the life of me I can't imagine being bothered by it or caring in the least. I just genuinely don't get it. Yes, I know the rules, I'm not interested in debating them, and feel free to check all my chars, they are all kosher. I'm just saying the rationale for caring is beyond me.

I mean, I suppose it's good that there are so few people actually making things unpleasant by training or KSing or whatever that we don't really need to worry about that and rather it's just about playing name police. That's good I suppose.