The original decision was made as a punishment to steak for trolling and wasting staff time by skirting a rule. Nobody wants to get banned and it seemed like a happy medium where nobody got in serious trouble. At the time of the decision, we were unware of the contents of the shulker. In most circumstances this makes no difference on how we enforce rules (otherwise the server becomes pay to not get banned/punished). In this instance however, losing the contents of the shulker was used as a punishment, and as a result the contents are relevant. Forfeiting all of these lored items became a greater punishment than a temp ban due to it's huge value.
Since discovering the shulkers contents, we have decided to revert the punishment and return the shulker to steak. We feel everything that has happened over the past few days acts as a sufficient punishment, so further action is not needed.
Our rules are not black and white. The simple reason for this is there are always people who come along and try to test the rules and find ways around them. We do however, try to make rules are clear and explicit when they can be. An issue with taking rules literally is that a player could drop items all around spawn then report anyone who picks them up for stealing at spawn. Furthermore items could be placed in decorative chests at spawn and that player can claim anybody taking it is stealing because they didn't give them their permission. While these are extreme examples, it does highlight how dangerous it can be taking rules literally.
As a result, staff have to use common sense and discretion. The reason I bring this up is some of the player responses seem to indicate they believe some rules should be taken very literally. Almost no rule is ever black and white or can be taken 100% literally.
What made this decision go weird is that Steak effectively lost a high-value of items over a gray area. It's because of this ambiguity that we don't feel it's correct to keep our "Too bad" judgement here.
Having said that we can make the rules easier to understand and follow by replacing some of them with features that prevent it being possible to break said rule. This is the ultimate goal, as rules only exist because it is the simplest or only way we can prevent a type of behavior.
In the past we had a /trade feature that allowed for secure trading. We coupled this with a change that blocked dropping items at spawn entirely. Unfortunately this was not well received by the community at the time because it made life more difficult for people who liked the convenience of dropping lots of things for trading. Perhaps there's a happy-medium here between these two extremes, but it may very well be that Lokans will have to lose some convenience in order for this rule to go away. Either way it is a rule we want to remove in the near future due to the amount of time staff wastes dealing with it.
Since discovering the shulkers contents, we have decided to revert the punishment and return the shulker to steak. We feel everything that has happened over the past few days acts as a sufficient punishment, so further action is not needed.
Our rules are not black and white. The simple reason for this is there are always people who come along and try to test the rules and find ways around them. We do however, try to make rules are clear and explicit when they can be. An issue with taking rules literally is that a player could drop items all around spawn then report anyone who picks them up for stealing at spawn. Furthermore items could be placed in decorative chests at spawn and that player can claim anybody taking it is stealing because they didn't give them their permission. While these are extreme examples, it does highlight how dangerous it can be taking rules literally.
As a result, staff have to use common sense and discretion. The reason I bring this up is some of the player responses seem to indicate they believe some rules should be taken very literally. Almost no rule is ever black and white or can be taken 100% literally.
What made this decision go weird is that Steak effectively lost a high-value of items over a gray area. It's because of this ambiguity that we don't feel it's correct to keep our "Too bad" judgement here.
Having said that we can make the rules easier to understand and follow by replacing some of them with features that prevent it being possible to break said rule. This is the ultimate goal, as rules only exist because it is the simplest or only way we can prevent a type of behavior.
In the past we had a /trade feature that allowed for secure trading. We coupled this with a change that blocked dropping items at spawn entirely. Unfortunately this was not well received by the community at the time because it made life more difficult for people who liked the convenience of dropping lots of things for trading. Perhaps there's a happy-medium here between these two extremes, but it may very well be that Lokans will have to lose some convenience in order for this rule to go away. Either way it is a rule we want to remove in the near future due to the amount of time staff wastes dealing with it.