Okay, let me try and simplify this as much as possible.
Back a few years ago, there was a glitch for a while in the job system that forced people into Assistant for whatever reason. It didn't last long, but it resulted in some moderately fun rounds centered around assistants trying to overthrow sec. It wasn't admin sponsored, but it just kinda happened. Then, like everything else remotely fun and player based, it got out of control when people started signing up as Assistant specifically to start greytide rounds. It go SO BAD that you'd hear "Welcome to the station crew, enjoy your sta-GREY TIDE WORLD WIDE", then Sec reflexively clenched their assholes.
Eventually the admins gave sec carte blanche to kill assistants who were greytiding (read: wrecking the brig, harming sec officers, etc.) as a general threat to the station. Finally the activity just plain got banned, and even mentioning it was grounds for a 10 minute ban for a while.
FINALLY the fad died off, but then everyone used every last thing as an excuse to greytide. I still remember having to ban a librarian for making a bluetide manifesto and thinking I'LL BE CLEVER, ADMINS WON'T SUSPECT A THING.
The unofficial rule (and my view on the subject) is that, as long as the mob doesn't get out of control, admins don't have a problem with it. That being said, it almost always gets out of control, we end up having to ban 3-4 people for lynching someone and assistant banning the person who started the whole damn thing. I'm starting to think it might just be worth it to have Scaredy turn off lizards.
As a player, I'm sick of seeing the race wars thing because it's played out. It isn't funny or interesting anymore, it's the same gimmick we've seen 10-12 times now that was interesting maybe the first 2. I know the playerbase loves running shit into the ground (ayy lmao, nations, ick in ock, cargonia, etc.) but holy shit, if it's getting to where adminbus is telling you to fucking stop every time it happens, you probably shouldn't fucking do it anymore.
On a more personal note, why is the entire playerbase scared to death of getting an admin PM? It doesn't mean you're going to get banned, usually with things like this it means we might tell you to knock it off. You won't get a note unless you do this every last round.
"Don't be a dick" has always been a terrible rule due to how vague and subjective it is. Rules like this leave players confused as to what they're allowed to do, and are easily exploited by admins to do what they like and justify it. It's not fair on the players and it's incredibly biased in favour of the admins. This is self-evident, but I don't see it getting changed anytime soon because it suits the only people with the power to change it.
Also, calling people line toers because they want clear and objective boundaries instead of arbitrary and subjective ones is just a way of shifting blame from yourselves and an excuse for not doing your job properly.
Rule 1 is meant to be a catch-all for anything that's deemed being a general asshole. As more qualified people have said in this thread, we don't have distinct rules for a lot of things because the rules page would read like War & Peace if we did. There's just too much bullshit for us to have a dedicated list of everything you can and cannot do.
As far as the line toeing problem, if you gave me a day I could probably give you a list of the 10-12 people we've had to perma for toeing the line one too many times. We don't appreciate it because it shows little respect for the rules and makes our lives a pain in the ass. If you do something and get bwoinked for it, don't do it again. If you don't know if you should do it or not...
adminhelp before doing it.
I promise, we will very quickly let you know whether or not it's acceptable.