In any case -either that staff will have in-depth punishment guidelines, or not- staff will be covered with clarification requests and busy handling an overwhelming amount of violations because the rules were too vague. Because that's what vague public rules unavoidably lead to: endless questions due to uncertainty and lots of in-good-faith violations.

 

The first things that come to my mind:

• Use of tile entities as building blocks (I guess it's forbidden because they create lag, as they can be interacted with; however an average player might not know this and might decide -for their own aesthetic preference, or because they want to enclose an area and they don't know about obby- to make a house out of furnaces: how are they supposed to know?)
• What about /own? I had to ask a couple questions about it and the answers were not obvious at all (at least, to me: why on Earth would you allow /own-ing a tool for a friend but not as a paid-for service? How would you enforce this and determine the difference? Why would "the spirit" of the command allow the former but not the latter? And so on).
• Is taking stuff from unlocked chests fair play or not? What about stuff on the ground?

These are just the first 3 simple examples that came to my mind, but you get the idea.

 

Why?

Really? How about this:

If I take advantage of an unlocked chest full of goodies that I didn't put there, am I not stealing what someone else put there? I guess I definitely am! This is a perfectly legit interpretation of your generic rule; nonetheless, it's considered fair play.
What constitutes "stealing" and what doesn't is a complex matter, and you can't define it in a ten words rule; let alone delegating the task to a dictionary (which definition found in which dictionary?)
I'm not an expert in law, not at all; and I hate complicated laws; however I acknowledge that there's a reason why laws need to be detailed.
Now, I'm not saying we need a 1500 page long rulebook as if this was real life; but on the other hand a rulebook so short and broad that it can't be used as a clear reference would be totally useless.
Again: I'm all for a simple short summary, even shorter than the one you made; but only insofar it's just a quick introductory recap for new users: the whole player base still needs a clear and detailed rulebook.

 

But someone might mean it differently. Look, here we're not discussing about telling stories or explaining stuff each other; if that was the case, then all this fuss about the exact meaning of a sentence would be pointless: because, if something you were saying appeared unclear to me, I could just stop you asking "wait, explain that better" (and conversely). But here we're talking static, written rules, and there can't be room for misunderstanding: because "but I thought that it meant that..." can't be an excuse. Rules must be crystal clear and everybody reading the rulebook should be able to tell whether something is allowed or not, before doing it.
And, I hope it is clear, the exact meaning of the word "dishonestly" is not the true point of this comment, but is just a representative example of the much broader problem of "general" rules.

 

True, but I never said that we need a perfectly complete rulebook. And the fact that perfection is out of reach is no reason to aim lower than needed.

WAT? How can you say that? Obviously, the more you explain and specify, the less uncertainties there will be on the meaning and applicability!
It does get worse with shorter ones: take this (rather extreme) example I made earlier

This is obviously the worst possible rulebook ever, and look how short it is. Longer doesn't automatically mean better, of course: because you can always easily add garbage text and write two times the exact same thing; but, if you put a limit to the length of a text, you are automatically putting a limit to the total amount of information it could possibly contain. I dare you to put enough information to make a sensible rulebook in 100 characters, since "it does not get worse with shorter ones".
So, the point is not if, but where: where do we want to stop? Where are we going to feel content with the compromise between compactness and thoroughness? If we're discussing where, fine; and I've shown you earlier how a rulebook as short as your version can be barely complete. But I hope that we're not discussing if, because [length is irrelevant, therefore let's make it as short as possible] is a blatantly false premise.

 

I agree. Something like that takes 10 seconds to read, which is good because you're sure people will bother to actually read it. On the other hand it's too broad and it's so sensible that it's pretty obvious.
I totally take the point that if the rulebook takes more than 2 minutes to read, people will not bother to even start reading it, it's definitely true. But I disagree on the idea that explaining something in detail makes things worse. I think that a short rulebook + detailed explanation would be optimum, because it would be 1) fast to read for new members (just the short version), and 2) include all reference needed to understand the exact meaning of rules and how they apply.
You actually did something like that in your version: a big title, such as "Griefing is not allowed." (level 0) + a very few lines explaining the general meaning of it (level 1). Why not add a level 2 explaining in details? If it's written in small characters, people will get that they are not expected to read that whole part and will happily read just through levels 0 and 1. But, at the same time, people who are already members and have a doubt on whether a given rule applies in a particular circumstance or not have the means of doing so. I'll make an example putting together what you wrote and some portion of text from the current rules:

I'll take an example from this. I want to make a wild-west town: a region where every member is allowed to grief. Can I do that? If the public rules are limited to level 0 and 1, I might get that I can't do that, because towns are protected areas and grief is not allowed in protected areas. However, If rules are equipped with a more specific (level 2) description with details on applicability and exceptions, I may go read the small text and happily realize that I would actually be allowed to make such a bizarre town (provided that I warn users, etc, but you get the idea).
(you might argue that no sane person would ever want to make such a town, but that would be a subjective judgment; and, in any case, then why was that exception included in the rules in the first place? Because someone wanted to do that, and there was no reason to prohibit that.)

I agree that people shouldn't be compelled to know all the details, because otherwise they just wouldn't read the rules: better they know a short version than no version; indeed, they should be compelled to know only the main core (levels 0+1).
But, on the other hand, people should be allowed to know every detail they might want to know, without having to ask: because maybe they need to know something right then and can't wait for staff to go read the private guidelines and reply; rules details should be available on tap and not subject to staff being online and not busy/afk (set aside the fact that adding one more person in the chain of data transmission increases the chance of misunderstanding).

 

Ok @Nicit6 @UnitedStates2 @Dewsy92, have at it.
You all have me on skype, poke me when you're done.

 

At this time I don't want the rules changed / altered. If I want to take this project on I will contact you about it @Nicit6 and we will plan it out via Skype. Feel free to remind me during our next call.