Notably, Shards opened April 1999. About 10 people have been banned since inception, despite quite a few people itching for more, or worse yet, needlessly expecting the ax to fall. Without naming names, four were banned for active harassment of other players: the first for continually creating characters to circumvent a room ban solely to antagonize another player and the second for posting harassment in his bio so people couldn't filter it out. Since you can see how much people already put in their profiles, you can guess it must have been pretty nasty for us to consider banning someone for it. On another notable occasion, two people systematically went to every populated room on site screaming and swearing at the populace since they were angry with the Admin.

The rest followed the first example, making multiple accounts to pass more room bans, and then lying about it when confronted with evidence to the contrary.

Now, being strict with multiple accounts suddenly makes sense, doesn't it?

Then there's the server resources issue: the more people using accounts at a time (multiple or otherwise) means that fewer people can get in, the server slows down and bandwidth shoots up, and we become liable for overage charges from our host, which puts one more dent in the Donation reserve. Needless to say, that's not cool.

Furthermore, we cap the number of rooms and characters and sessions for social reasons. I address these individually.

• Rooms
  The more rooms one has, the more one person and one person alone can support an entire hub. As Abel put it, he coined the term 'hub' as a way to radiate roleplay in all directions in the same manner spokes of a wheel splay out. Smaller numbers of rooms mean the players have to work together to create a setting, so more people have greater interest in furthering that setting's story. If one person bears the brunt of creation for one hub, the entire play tends to revolve around that one person, which has detrimental results. What if that person cannot make time for regular roleplay due to short-lived, personal issues? The hub will essentially die off in that time, then revive at the arrival of the person in question. While the roleplay with that person might be great, it is not an indication that the hub is healthy.

  Also, Shards statistically has 1.5 accounts per room. The more rooms players have, the more widespread the populace gets, instead of having a tightly knit community. As it stands, we view the number of rooms available as a problem that is not helped by adding to the cap.

• Characters
  We cap the number of characters for a similar reason. We encourage you to branch out and play in multiple settings and wear multiple faces. But where's the stopping point? If you create a new character a week, how involved are you in the role? Far be it for us to tell you that's a wrong thing to do. Frankly, it's good to experiment with different concepts and ideas. After all, you don't pick out a new outfit by going to the store and picking out the first plausible-looking combination, why should that idea apply here? Continuing the metaphor, though, it leads to saying that you cannot buy out the whole store and take it home with you without massive overhead.

• Open Sessions
  We allow only two active open sessions for several reasons. Computer resources are #1 again. As many as half of the characters simultaneously logged into Shards can be second sessions, which means that one set of people costs double bandwidth. Increasing that cap creates a sharp graphical curve of bandwidth costs. The mathematically inclined can calculate how much that would cost comparatively. Though we don't doubt that some of you multitask well enough to play five characters simultaneously, that slows the average player down, no matter how awesome they are. If you're concentrating on 5 characters at once, how much are you making everyone else wait on you and how well are you really playing the role?

Shards is not registered with the Better Business Bureau like a formal non-profit because we have not sought tax breaks from Shards. None of the Admin have the time to delve that deeply into the accounting even if we wanted to sign up as one.

And check this out! Signing up for the BBB or registering as a business costs even more money, as you must pay a substantial fee just to start the paperwork. Registering as a business exposes us to tax liabilities: Dallas charges property taxes for "business personal property" which potentially includes the apartment, the computers, furniture used in operating Shards, Texas franchise taxes, etc. And finally, the joke would be on us, because Shards is not a charitable organization and thus is not eligible for 501(c) status. The law would consider Shards a business that just doesn't happen to turn a profit.

Remember, people of all ages get harassed all the time on forums, AIM, and various people-meet and blog sites. Forums, AIM, and blogs are not liable because of the Communications Decency Act passed in the United States. Shards is especially not at fault for harassment that takes place outside of Shards as you are the person who gives out your contact information, thus you are responsible for it.

One of the main reasons people are uncomfortable with our access to the logs is that it feels like a breach of privacy. Well, the landlord to an apartment building has a key to every apartment. However, they do not have the time to install cameras in every bedroom and bathroom, and they certainly don't have the time to watch all the titillating footage. We certainly don't have the time, much less the inclination. We just ask that you respect public rooms as public locations in real life. In return, we'll respect your privacy in private rooms.

And realize that the Pathfinders like to roleplay too! As such, when they are not in their Master Account handles, they will not appear on the Pathfinder list, despite the fact that they are actually online.

For more information on Pathfinders, look here.

Another reason is that Newbs arrive all the time, and are very often frozen out for various reasons, like cliquish behavior, they don't quite understand the style, or they haven't learned to read the whole page to know what's going on before they trudge in careworn and in need of a drink. Or sometimes they just plain suck.

It's not up to the Pathfinders alone to welcome and train them- it's up to you, too. Pathfinders are intended to be a resource, not the end-all be-all. Many players who started in Shards and its predecessor never would have stayed if they hadn't been welcomed, as opposed to provoked or ignored. Not every newb can be told, "Ask a Pathfinder" for everything. It's up to the Pathfinders to embrace them, but it's up to you, too. After all, the Pathfinders touch this world briefly and can help shape and motivate it, but we're only as affective as the entire populace. So take the gamble, try training a newb or two. After all, if you show them how you want to play, you may one more person likely to be compatible with your style.

Be gentle, or I'll dent your head. :)