Wow, can I go out on a limb and say that most of you have never been a moderator or admin in any capacity before?
It's tough and thankless (as evidenced by this thread) work and after doing it for a while, you get the feeling that everyone has got some complaint about everything. Too much, too little, he did this, he did that, wahh wahh I want the old version, etc. If you judge the admins' work by how many complaints they get and how loud it is, then the entire admin team should have quit just about when 4.85 was released. People will ALWAYS complain about whoever is "in power" and part of being in that position is learning to filter out most of the random complaints, and find the ones that are actually useful and will benefit the group.
When I joined the server, I spent the first two months mostly trading. In fact, I had just two characters: my trader, and my police-IFFed freelancer that just sort of wandered around. I played the game quietly, traded to get money, read the forums, and figured out how the server worked. THEN I started to get more involved, joined factions, started more intensive RP interactions, etc. And that is my secret to never getting in "trouble" with the rules: learn them first. Trading is a nice safe activity, and as long as you remember to not F1 and pay the pirates, you can't really go wrong there. And it provides a good "safe" environment from which to learn how the server works. Once you've gotten some experience, then you know what it takes to do whatever other things you want to do.
