There is no law requiring HTC to post a written code of conduct for the game play space. The forum rules give Skuzzy and Hitech and MODS a quick way to deal with problems which often are started on purpose to be a problem and disruption to the BBS. I suspect what the social justice woke members of this discussion want is something in writing like the following:
3. Do not harass, bully, threaten, harm or cause discomfort for other persons, including any other members. For example:
Use of hate speech or racial, ethnic, sexist, homophobic or religious slurs;
Harassment of a specific person (repeated flaming, personal attacks or posting their private information);
Trolling or baiting the community in general with inflammatory statements, such as ones designed to elicit a negative response from the community; or
Posting or otherwise disclosing any personal or private information of another person, or any confidential information pertaining to a business, without consent.
This is a written suicide pact for Hitech and his company when he has already met the standards of social conduct by stating you privately contact HTC about the above kinds of problems after you use the report function in the game to report the bad actor. This gives Skuzzy a starting point for his private research to see what happened based on the logs and saved text chat from every evening.
Something like I posted can be construed as an implied contract to hold HTC hostage legally over every minute perceived violation of the words of that rule. Once you post something like that you are stuck spending all of your time making sure it is enforced to the minutia of the letter to avoid woke social justice cranks with nothing else in their lives but to be offended by everyone else breathing on the same continent.
The HTC policy of report a bad actor then contact HTC in person is all that is required becasue HTC is waiting in good faith to carry out their side of the issue once contacted. It also forces the offended party to make the effort to be involved and not just being an easily offended crank themselves. Otherwise the offended party by not being personally responsible for kicking this off is now having HTC judge a paying customer as guilty until that customer proves their own innocence. Having a written code of conduct becomes a suicide pact becasue it allows a crank to use the letter of the policy to never be satisfied with HTC's efforts until they get whatever it is they really want. Often it's revenge for being offended and HTC will suffice as the sacrifice if the party they perceived to offend them cannot be punished.
In the end, if it is of real world importance that the offense of another party be addressed by HTC, you will real world contact HTC and work with them as they need to help address your issue.
If Hitech does not choose to post a written rules of conduct for his game that's his business decision but, no law is being violated by it. He does have in place a robust system to report bad actors and will always be responsive to personal contact about said bad actors. It's still ultimately his decision if the situation requires intervention. I've watched the ch200 crowd go to some worse places than what happened recently over 16 years, and everyone walked away with both eyes and all four limbs intact.
It is very sad that we have lost a good player from our community. Now it sounds like people are still wanting some kind of a retribution or what happens after every shooting incident in real life.
"There has got to be a Law to stop anyone else from doing this!!"
Or at the least a line for the just and unjust so the just can demand a blood-tax for infractions of the law. Sort of a social justice woke kinda 21st century thing......
