Insiding is explained pretty well, if you get confused you should definitely learn how to read.

Harrassment however is not as simple as you described, as I wrote in your last suggestion, a staff team is charged to investigate wheter or not the case can fall under harrasment or just some pvp outside claims.
Also diplomacy is not something related to harrassment bans, since staffers never banned someone for doing diplomacy.

Fair enough about the insiding rule people tend to think that the rule encompasses a bit more than what it says even though it specifies its limit that being said there are quite a few unwritten rules of ccnet that are often assumed rather than factual. Though i did ask an admin about camping outside claims and they said it was fine, it was more so about repeatedly spawn killing

1) admins are more than happy to explain to you exactly what is allowed or not, meaning that player interpretation of rules is unneeded and confusion is unwarranted.
2) insiding is presented in full to inspect as a rule, if you want to dig deeper see (1)
3) harassment is a case by case basis, as CCnet players have the annoying habit of sidestepping the rules, which would require a unique staff view rather than a set of firm, solid rules.
4) targeted attacks would fall under harassment, as you are inhibiting their standard gameplay by repeatedly killing them because of a political outcome.

side note: killing people once for revenge is alright, after all Nations is pvp orientated, but please dont blend the lines between nations and factions more than it has to be <3

I very much agree @ImperialCutter. Though the reasons I raid now are mainly for loot rather than trying to cause people to defect.

I want to very quickly reword one of those paragraphs in the suggestion to look at a particular argument, in a hypothetical situation:

-You might think that insulting peaceful town players is immoral, or unfair, or a waste of time. That's why nations exist: to offer protection to those who need it. If a nation is unwilling to protect a member, then the member should leave the nation. Few of the targeted insults on Nations are just for the sake of it. Enjoyment is one part of it, but the main motivation is causing insecurity and trouble in a nation. For example, Gqldn insults people from Celle and Denmark because they are part of Nordic Empire and he wants them to leave it. hurdsell got banned for targeting Hoon_Dawg who defected from Nordic Empire to Rome, gave them information and participated in wars against Nordic.-

I find it difficult to defend the idea that strategies made to specifically damage the relationships and play experience of other players should be allowed to go unchecked. The change that I made to the paragraph above was simply replacing the mentioning of killing with insulting. The arguments work surprisingly well with the change, and I feel like that shows the point made here. If something like insults and harmful trash-talk were used as a strategy in warfare, the exact same arguments could be used to defend those actions.

I want to also touch on a few particular tid-bits said through the latter part of the suggestions, and respond to those in kind:
"Nobody actually thinks this is harassment": It seems the staff members do, and so do a number of peaceful players. It's absolutely sucks when someone can't go outside of their borders because people are spawn-camping it, especially when that's happening due to the actions of the nation they are in.
"Nobody respects or commends staff for enforcing the rule like this.": 'Nobody' respects or commends staff on giving themselves the unilateral power to ban or punish players (G 14), the rules on abuses of bounties (N 9.2), or the real-life trading and transactions rules (G 7) either. Not many rules are actively discussed positively within the community, but that doesn't mean they aren't necessary. It's about creating the community that the server wants to be.
"Gqldn massacres people from Celle and Denmark because they are part of Nordic Empire and he wants them to leave it.": I have to ask you... do you want this to become meta? Is it really a good idea to just say 'yeah you can kill players, spawn-camp their bases and town, whatever?' That seems like a sure-fire way to make a toxic environment, especially with newer players or those unexperienced with pvp. It simply makes the experience unfun, and that can have a horrible impact on the server as a whole (no casual players means no one to fight real wars with).
"there's something called diplomacy": I mean yeah, but that's primarily nation-oriented. A lot of spawn-killers either won't take money/trade (since they only want to damage the nation as a whole), or they want such insane amounts of money or resources that it isn't worth the effort for a new player.
"if you don't want to die at all, there is a server next to Nations on the hub compass, it is called Towny.": I would say something along the lines of 'if you want unregulated warfare, go to a Factions server', but we're both here for this particular blend of battle, industry, economy, and plugins, so how about we learn to get along instead of saying 'if you don't like my view, quit'.

This argument isn't about whether the impacts of this ruling are bad (trust me, there are some faults here). The problem is over whether or not doing nothing is worse. If we want a toxic environment for new players, then sure, stopping this particular interpretation of the rule would work great. But I don't think anyone wants that (correct me if I'm wrong), and it seems bad for the server as a whole, even if the current impacts are unsavory. And keep in mind I'm not saying don't change the interpretation a bit. I'm saying don't demolish it, because that would, in the words of Imperial, be "the height of absurdity", and no one wants that.

"if you don't want to die at all, there is a server next to Nations on the hub compass, it is called Towny." thanks for using my phrase, but it's not the right way to use it

@Liciea

Gqldn has never raided to "make people leave". We have gotten an incredible amount of loot from these raids and that is the reason he raids, it's free stuff. The only reason Hoon defected is because SOMEONE (not mentioning the name) fucking SCREAMED at him in a vc and the bitch was on the verge of crying over hoon dying to Gqldn a few times (I have a recording, it's pretty funny LOL). Talk about toxic environments eh? Sounds like the nords are the PEOPLE making the server a tOxIc eNvIrOnMeNt.

Anyways, spawn camping really isn't that common, I do agree the hurdsell ban was probably bs as he did something similar to what Gqldn did, and can you really blame him for killing an enemy that kept going out of claims to attack him? Overall camping claims is part of war. Maybe the people who joined a war-like nation shouldn't have joined it if they don't like war? Being neutral is possible, look at the soviets or some other smaller nations. I have not seen many cases of spawnkilling because most players spawn inside towns, meaning they'd have to 1, get gear to pvp, 2, go OUTSIDE of their claims TO THE ENEMY to go and ATTACK them, and 3, die again. At what point is the attacker supposed to stop if there's active pvp? Why are we trying to discourage pvp?

I don't really care about the first part of Cutters suggestion but the second part would be good and would stop the rather unfair bans from happening. Rules that can "be interpreted" are almost never good for pvp servers and usually just lead to "ban striking" or whatever it's called. Trying to get your enemy banned for "hArAssMenT" is probably the most retarded tactic on CCNet which is why removing this rule is a great idea, and would also probably lighten the load on staff.

Good Suggestion! Good Fortune!

@Liceia
Killing people is part of the game,you dont want to die dont go off claims,very simple,intentions can be whatever.

Why I never complained when I was being camped/chased etc during roman vs STO or whatever war on purpose on a personal level? Because I know it's a game and it's a part of the game to die and get camped for all sorts of reasons and should always be allowed. Towny exists if you dont like war :/

hurdsell ban is straight up bs and as his "enemy" Im advocating for him to get unbanned. Very unfair if you ask me to get banned cause you killed someone.

I am also advocating for #FreeHurdsell, he did in fact dindu nuffin.

God bless GingfulGlider, I also agree with his PoV

@GingfulGlider & @S3xyBerry

I personally don't care about being spawn-camped. It's happened a few times to me on this server (along with plenty of other times with different servers), and I think that the combat or political situation which come out of it are really interesting. I'm not speaking out of personal experience when I critique the suggestion.

I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't be opposed to hurdsell being unbanned. He was obviously insulted and had retaliated with the spawn-camping (which is a sticky situation for staff, but I digress). I'm not talking about his particular situation when I talk about the suggestion, because personally I see it going either way.

Apologies Gingful for incorrectly attributing motives, I was simply going off of of what Imperial had given for reasons, and combated those in particular.

From what I've seen in the past, some of the most toxic behavior in warfare can come from these border-camping situations, especially when they happen with new or unexperienced players. I'm assuming that's why staff has decided to take this interpretations as they have.

In the end though, I'm not worried about a couple of town raids for resources. What I'm worried about is someone getting a chip on their shoulder and terrorizing towns and nations through this strategy; that's the type of event that can kill servers, something that I've seen first-hand. It may lead to some situations where the ban isn't fair, but it's a safeguard to make sure the community stays intact, which (at least for me), makes it a worthy cost

So it seems this may require staff input.

To the OP, I suggest you ask staff about what insiding means and/or read the rule more carefully, because your view on it seems rather jaded. We would never ban people for simply utilizing intentional game mechanics at an unconvenient (in the gameplay sense) time, such as the example you mentioned (paraphrasing, "couping the nation while it is at war"). The rule covers malicious in-game acts that specifically have to do with direct damages that result from being trusted with a position of power in the town/nation. Insiding is the abuse of that trust at a high-ranking position, to cause direct damages.

That part of the argument died out quickly, but anyway, let's head over to the more important (and more discussed here, from what I can tell) second topic in the post, the subject of harassment.

I agree with ImperialCutter in that the harassment rule being invoked in cases of geopolitics diminishes its gravity. These geopolitics may include raiding, killing people, camping, couping, what have you. I am not aware of any case where these directly translated to the harassment rule being used, but I will still state the following: the rule is *not* meant to be used in these cases mentioned above because they are properly based in gameplay. Where the rule comes into play is when staff see that—and the following statements are meant to be taken at face value exactly as they are stated—consistent, regular targeting of certain individuals, without having anything tangible to gain outside of your personal amusement, is hindering their ability to play the game. The "tangible gain" part is the reason Nations players are doubting the use of the rule, because it does not have an objective measure. However, all harassment cases have always been the subject of consideration from multiple staff members, not just the interpretation of a single one, and they are looked at case-by-case, and those two facts, in the vast majority of cases, override that aforementioned lack of objective measure. We as staff are not meant to discourage in-game geopolitics or strategies, but prevent and/or stop wrongdoers from causing extensive emotional/psychological distress and/or harm to other individuals; and *that* is harassment, not just being in an undesirable/losing position in a strategy game.

I want to let everyone know that staff are highly aware of the fact that players have an intimate liking for getting their enemies banned as a means of "strategy". There have been many instances of players reporting their enemy for malicious reasons instead of the sake of the rules; what you do not see in the background is that those reports are handled accordingly and appropriately when they are submitted for those reasons in the first place. Those ill-intentioned reports, in terms of the rules being broken, may still be valid—meaning, they may result in punishment of individuals (and that is the silver lining)—but if they are invalid, we simply will not act on them. On the side of the players submitting reports, they also seem to have the wrong idea that staff punishing the individuals that are being reported somehow means "siding" with the reporting players. As it stands, there exist severe misconceptions that are untrue and grounded on emotion rather than mindful reasoning that I could personally do without. Bans happen due to the violation of rules, not because staff or players enjoy getting people banned.

On to the responses.

@KingStanchez summarizes the situation and staff's stance well.

@Liciea's first post makes great points about the "war tactics" used that are mentioned or implied in this thread. Some actions are truly unwelcome in our server, and the rules as well as the enforcement of them results in the type of community we want to create and maintain. It's also important to realize that forcing anyone to quit is condemned, as is not a proper solution. Also, I too cannot imagine what would happen if the whole targeting thing was fully accepted by staff and broadly the "meta", but I digress; perhaps anyone would agree that it not being the "meta" is a good thing. And tangent to the points of this paragraph I want to respond to @BigAmungus69/GingfulGlider that, there very much has to be a line drawn somewhere.

Considering my lengthy response to the original post, @S3xyBerry and I are evidently concurring with the fact that killing, raiding, etc. will always be part of the game; staff have fully accepted that for the Nations gamemode since its inception. The disparity comes from our different intepretation of a harassment case, due to there being different points of view. I hope that I have reduced that disparity through my post above.

I also really want to address the elephant in the thread, but I unfortunately cannot respond to the comments about hurdsell's ban. I was neither involved with any discussions or staff actions on it, nor have I looked into the situation from my end.