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Yup, it was a private conversation. It was also taking place on a private MUD. This means, in very simple terms, that the owner or admins actually are indeed judge, jury and executioner.
Let's not get back to the debate of snooping ethics. Suffice to say, snoop is an administrative tool that may be percieved as nasty, but is often a necessary evil.
What is certainly unethical is advertising a MUD as non-snooping and doing it nonetheless. I didn't bother to read Maarken's privacy policy, but if he stated how and when he'd use snoop, and used it in conformance with this policy, there's absolutely nothing unethical about it.
That's certainly a very strong point of Aardwolf. My opinion is based on personal experience. I certainly don't claim to be the unique authority on such issues.
First off, I'm no "admin type" by any means.
Second, no, I don't see players as mere "livestock" to populate the game. But an online community is a delicate balance: there are no universal recipes. The one which I saw working best in the past is to simply state the reason for the ban (abuse) - airing dirty laundry between the staff and former players is firstly bad for the kind of community I have experience with, and more importantly, is unfair to the banned players who cannot respond on the same medium.
Rightly? Why? Because they're long time players? Meaning they have a "right" to special treatment? If long-term players are treated any differently than newbies, I can see that rightly ****ing people off.
If memory doesn't fail me, the majority advised banning after one warning.
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