Game Rules Rewrite

[popecrunch]

I'm a bit iffy on saying this but I do feel that it is a valid point that will help discussion:

There seem to be two mindsets here. One that we need a long set of rules to cover more situations that ensure people fully understand the rules and don't accidentally get themselves banned.
Another that we should keep the rules short and sweet so that they can be easily digested so that nobody accidentally gets themselves banned after forgetting one line in a 5 page rulebook.
With 1, 2, and 3 being links to pages explaining what being an asshole etc is in the eyes of the admins.

This is exactly the issue. I can't even count the number of times an admin interaction with someone has gone they are fucking up -> hi why are you fucking up -> i'm not though??? -> did you read the rules -> lol no they're a million pages long -> you jerk read the rules

The existing rulespage is too long. That is the entire purpose of the rewrite. The only reason it is going to be extended more than a sentence or two from where it is now is if something really VERY important is suggested, and I'm only interested in having a separate page for the finer points of grife because it's an issue worth expanding, and I even want to keep that reined in.

No, a shorter rulespage is not going to cover every possible situation. There will never be a rulespage that covers every possible situation even if it's the length of War and Peace, because there are just so many ways for things to interact in this game. Attempting an all-encompassing rulespage is a failing proposition anyway because the vast majority of the time, you're going to miss something, which means some jerk will murder every fourth player with a screwdriver painted pink on a Thursday in a month that has an even number of days in it, and think they'll be able to get away with it because rule 87 paragraph 3 subsection d CLEARLY states...

Sure, we could just ban the jerk murdering people with a screwdriver and trying to ruleslawyer their way out of it, but I'd rather avoid the situation that generates it.

And let's say for the sake of argument we DO manage to write a ruleset that covers the vast, overwhelming majority of interactions and as a bonus assumption, that nobody starts exploring the weird edge cases. Great, we've now codified exactly how to play this game in a way that deviating from the beep boop formula is implied to be Bad And Wrong. This takes all the magic of emergent gameplay out of the game.

There's no situation in which an attempt at an all-encompassing ruleset is a net positive. It's not happening, the rules are getting shorter, learn to deal with it.