[Plunger]

1: Little to no communication with the accused
Based on the fact every banned player was confused and made a ban appeal, it's safe to assume the GM team did not reach out to them to get their side of the story. And based on the fact Lumi and Aegis got banned, we can assume they didn't get the full story due to this. This is unfair to the accused because it means the evidence gathered will be entirely in the favor of the accuser. Not only that, but it also means they will get no warnings and thus have no opportunity to rectify their behavior. Even worse, they'll get suddenly banned mid-rp, having the rug pulled out from under their feet. A very stressful and confusing moment.

I think it's important to remember that just because you know someone OOC'ly does not mean you know what goes on behind closed doors and I don't really see what kind of information could have been conveyed to or given by the accused that wouldn't immediately set off red flags as to who reported or was targeted in this case. As soon as you ask them what they were saying about Blank then it looks like Blank reported them, end of story. It shouldn't be on the victim of harassment to just grin and bear it because the harassers feel it is unfair.

2: Whoever talks to the GMs first has the advantage
Related to point 1, a big issue here is that the GMs are clearly weaponizable. I'm not saying that the accuser had bad intentions, but what I'm saying is that whenever there is an OOC conflict, whoever messages the GMs gets an advantage as they can feed any evidence they see fit to the team and nobody on the opposing side will know. This, in my opinion, is not a very healthy part of a community, as it means the GMs aren't being used to solve issues, they're being used to ban. So when you reach out to a GM, you're going with the nuclear option, and you better strike first as it gives you the high ground. This brings me to the last point.

This one seems pretty simple to me. If you don't want to be banned for OOC conflict, harassment, insults, etc. don't participate in that behavior? No one is forcing anyone Out of Character to harass people or insult them and assuming that someone reporting that behavior is also at fault is essentially victim blaming.

3: Bans based on OOC drama are counter-productive
What was even accomplished with these bans? Massive confusion, frustration, stress, disruption of events in game, increase of hostility between players, and the player base being left to speculate. A one week ban without a proper explanation and reached understanding beforehand is essentially pointless unless your goal is to completely kick out some people from the game and never have to deal with them again. Because these people will just come back after one week and guess what, everything is worse now because people are scared, they feel antagonized, they still feel confused, they wonder if they should even continue playing.

If they antagonized, confused, or like they should quit over this imagine how the actual victims of harassment or abuse feel.

It's section one of the official rules for the game:

https://neus-projects.net/wiki/index.php/Game_Rules

And in my opinion the most obvious use of the rules beyond cheating. What else are you meant to do to curb OOC drama if not ban them? It's meant to be a punishment, they should feel punished when it comes down on them so they can learn that actions have consequences. If OOC drama is allowed to simply run rampant in the community then it'll only get more toxic and that toxicity will become more and more public facing.