Heh... y'know what the best part of all this is?
At a time, the forums itself, was used for fun. I remember even leading a small game, where you arrive and post a single message, simple in itself, where you told how your day was, and based on the time you posted, based on hour, minute and second of the day, you added a randomized statement and commented on it while you talked with others. It was simple, perhaps childish, but I think that is what alot of us loved as children. It's something that drew us to games and manga alike. That child-like joy and wonder at what the next day would bring or what the next thing you read would be kept us going and what the next game would hold kept us buying. We never had a need for... This.
This, where people have lost their since of child-like innocence in exchange for a ironfisted rule of about twelve people on a forums deciding how things work where, what smells like what and whose color is red or blue. I ponder when the last time someone, anyone on this forum asked another how their day was. I wonder who takes time, escaping from the harsh reality that the roleplays become, to act childish or chat in the gardens, as they no longer can freely within the villages themselves without getting a slap on the wrist from their kages for being out of line.
All things change. It's a reality that SL, just as everything else, has to endure. But there is a difference between changing from the better and from the worse. With rules on bijuu, rules on canon items, and now a discussion on rules of summon contracts, I wonder when the rules of kage would come into question. When will a provoking statement, most likely from Bocchiere, since he so lovingly calls me out on everything I say that I may as well pick on him now, force the question on if someone could challenge another for the seat of Kage of a village.
This is exactly what happens, in some D&D games. Where the powergaming elitist is so consumed with themselves that they've forgotten what fun is. They've forgotten, that what their definition of fun isn't the same as everyone elses. Raifudo, you consider this something of a democracy, yes? Where every vote counts, right? Are you certain this isn't just an anarchy? The new player, the younger players that still have the time to come in, and go straight to the gardens all-too aware of the hostilities of Iwagakure, Otogakure, Kumogakure and so forth, where do their votes come into play? Perhaps it's simple to exclude them from this system because they are, for lack of better words, not involved in the seriousness of zoning and war, But don't you feel somewhere, you haven't given them a choice? Where else can they go but the garden, to be able to simply chat with each other without the local ANBU, Jounin, or even the kage of the village taking what they do in their village to heart and excommunicating them and 'voiding' them madly?
It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be you're either serious or you're not. Hell it shouldn't be you're either with Bocchiere or against him, but that's how he's decided things are to be. Perhaps Neji won't ban Bocchiere, despite the criminalizing evidence stacked against him, and maybe that doesn't even matter to those that picked Bocchiere's side in what may as well be the biggest zoning fight in Shinobi Legend history; the OOC battle against Bocchiere. But I know no one else seems to have the heart to speak up about this.
Forsake these rules, for once. Come up with something else if you -really- need something to cover this. Make there be a rule where you must use at least once item in a given zone. Make there be a time limit where you have to zone with said item once or twice a month. Hell. REMOVE the items, save the Seven Swords, from the RP itself! I'm sure Mioku won't mind losing his sword if he, as Bocchiere claims, doesn't use it anyway! I'd even remove the swords if they were so crucial to Kirigakure as a village, unlike almost every other canon item that isn't branded a village specific thing!
And while you're at it, try to make this roleplay fun, not a dick size contest.