Monday Poll in Review

If you are moderately observant you may have noticed there is no The Monday Poll this week. Not even a special Tuesday edition of The Monday Poll.. Mostly because I don't feel like doing one--and I don't feel like it because I'm going to be in Germany for the next week or so and didn't have an inspired poll topic anyway.
Last week's poll was an interesting one however. In the wake of the UWL banning of a player for (unrepentant?) cheating I was curious to see what you lot made of it so I asked what the most important lesson learned from the incident was--and supplied a few choices with the usual caveat that you could include your own in comments. (Which seldom if ever happens. Either my choices are perfect or you people are simply lazy slackers and even I won't go so far as to suggest my poll "answers" options are perfect--all the time.) In any case my ulterior motive was to get a reading on you the voters.
Option 1: Never argue with the Ultimate (a somewhat tongue-in-cheek choice) received 1% of the vote.
Option 2: All leagues should drop the hammer on cheaters collected 6% of the vote.
Option 3: Assigned penalties, especially high profile ones, need to be consistent with the rules grabbed 17% of the votes.
Option 4: All leagues should have clear cut rules in place for dealing with on field infractions garnered 15% of the votes.
Option 5: In this day and age anything you say or do can end up on the internet was the choice of 8% of the voters.
Option 6: Zero tolerance for cheaters at every level of paintball took a whopping 33% of the vote.
Option 7: Paintball players second favorite past time is taking the moral high ground received 8% of the votes.
Option 8: It wasn't a big deal and got blown out of proportion was the choice of 7% of the voters.

A vote for options 1,5,7 or 8 (25% total) suggests a voter not taking the situation too seriously for whatever reason.
A vote for either option 3 or 4 (32%) chose to look at a specific incident in terms of its Big Picture general application.
Votes for options 2 or 6 (40%) applauded the banning and think more of that sort of rules enforcement would be good for paintball in general.

The 25% voter is/was clearly the sanest and most well adjusted voter for refusing to get too caught up in any of this nonsense. The 32% chose reason over emotion in choosing an option with universal applicability minus the hang 'em mentality. The 40% voter is probably your run-of-the-mill knee jerk hypocrite but may also be too invested in a simple game to have a rational point of view. And if you think I'm overdoing it with the hammer droppers consider this: nearly everyone is going to define what a "cheater" is slightly differently and I have yet to run across a player who hasn't run afoul of the rules, even unintentionally at least once or twice. Only walked halfway back to the reinsertion point before starting to play again? Is that cheating? Ref pulled both players, the guy making a bunker run and the player in the prop. Did they both really shoot each other at the same time or did somebody play on? Is everyone who plays on with a pack hit a cheater? A hopper hit? Ever used an "illegal" paintball? Or gun? Ever done anything in the heat of the moment that would get you designated as a "cheater"? At best enforcing a witch hunt mentality will ultimately see an ever dwindling group of the purest of the pure playing a game that isn't much fun for anyone anymore. Which isn't to say that rules shouldn't be enforced but that rules need to be written--and enforced--from a proper perspective; a perspective aimed at promoting a fun fair game for everyone and anyone as opposed to this silly rule breakers must be punished to preserve the integrity of the game nonsense. Games don't have integrity, (some) people do.