I think if you look back Min has probably banned most of the best and top winbolo players at one time or another. It is really insulting to real players and is probably part of the reason why there aren't as many around.
Blah blah blah..... really? your still on this even after what? 10 years? Ok, let me spell it out for you. I used to ban people from the irc chat room for being assholes to people... especially new players. This included you, edawg, etc. You really liked to snivel about it. Bitched and complained about it plenty. I even banned mel and phil once becuase they purposely tried to ruin a IBL matchup that was in progress. No regrets.
These days, I only ban people from -my server- that I -pay for- .... if you don't like me banning people from my own equipment. Feel free to buy your own game server, and let people do whatever they want on it.
You want to talk about driving people away? you know what drove people away? -Bitching- did ... you know like the hours and hours of hell you gave me becuase you thought no good player should ever be banned even if they treated new players like shit and chased them away (which regularly happened and has happened plenty since). You know what else drove people away? passwording the servers so that no new players could join... guess what else did? bugs, huge amounts of bugs .... -way more- than 1.08 ever had. Oh yes, and hacking, tons and tons of hacking. Of course there was the morons ruining games every night also(like diabolo is doing now). All the veterans treating new players like complete and utter dirt. etc.
Don't try to place global blame on me banning a few people back in 2002 when you used to play. People don't follow the rules on my equipment, I remove them. Simple. Doesn't matter who they are or how awesome they are, if they insist on screwing up games for everyone else, I will remove their ability to play so that people can get in good games still.
Feel free to code all the player kicking abilities you want, the code has been open-source for a number of years now. If you don't like it ... Fix it yourself. I have submitted numerous bug fixes and code updates. What have you contributed other than your bitching? fuck all .... and I'm sorry, bitching and complaining about something that happened 2 years ago (banning chaps for like 8 hours from my server) becuase you have an old beef with me is not necessary, its definitely not contributing anything positive towards this community. Its just bitching. But I guess that's what you always did best.
Feel free to stick around, mentor some of the new players, teach people how to actually play... and be a positive influence on community growth .... or play for a month, go away, come back, bitch about me some more. Moan about how there isn't any 'good' players left. Rinse Wash Repeat .... like you've been doing for the last 10 years.
Min