The Book of Enforcement

Stephen 'stepto' Toulouse is Xbox Live's Director of Policy and Enforcement. Recently he held a panel at Pax in Seatle, which was rebroadcast on a recent posting of Major Nelson's Podcast. I found the intro extremely funny and thought I would share it with you. For those with consoles, who play a lot of multiplayer games, you will find this very informative.




Here is the actually transcript of the above video in case you're like me and have to crank your volume up to the point of annoying love ones. Yea Tinnitus.

To begin, a reading from the book of enforcement.

And it came to pass that the user did sign up for Xbox LIVE. And it was good. And the service smiled upon the user and did ask, "by what name shalt thou be known?"

But a shadow passed over the user's soul, and they were tempted. And they did indulge this temptation and entered a name unfit for the eyes of others. And the service spake forth, saying "Thy gamertag is not appropriate"

But the service was kind and forgiving and bade the user, "Please try another"

But the user had hardened their heart. and did carefully shroud their name in trickery. And it came to pass that O's became zeroes. The letter T became as a plus sign. Falsely clothed in their new finery, the service was fooled by the user and did bid them welcome with the customary ancient incantation "P00nhunter has signed into Xbox LIVE"

And the user did commit unspeakable acts of evil in their profile. The soul of those who looked upon the gaping maw of the user's Bio field were rent asunder, left as small and twitchy as a beaten purse dog.

Poonhunter did travel to the battlefields of 1943, where they intended to darken the hearts of their brethren. On the highest point of wake island they preached their dark fellowship aloud to their team mates, and poonhunter’s words became as stones.

Verily poonhunter intoned in great detail the false histories of their team mate's lineage. They bore false witness to the tendencies of the very wombs that begat them to lie with all manner of creatures, two legged, four legged, 8 legged, and even the very crops of the earth. And poonhunter did take the last plane on the carrier and then did use that plane to try and knock the team mates from the ship with the plane's wings. And in their dark blasphemy poonhunter proclaimed his team's habits of routinely spilling their seed upon the ground.

And the team did cry out in anguish to the sky "why, why is this douchebag on our team" And more than one among them did file a complaint.

But my children, the service heard.

A light shown in the void, and it blew over the game like a cool breeze and said "time to regulate".

And it came to pass that the service archangels swooped down, and poonhunter's mouth was suddenly silenced. Their words fell as inconsequential as a forgotten gas receipt at the pump. And suddenly the archangels did smite the user with such a force that the shockwave reached the other players, a shockwave that explained itself as simply as it was effective: "Poonhunter has left the game"

And on the other end of that judgment there was a wailing and gnashing of teeth. And the service looked upon the fires of a two week ban and smiled, and it was good.

Can I get an amen.

I would recommend listening to the entire panel discussion or reading the rest of the transcript on Stepto's website.