Pfft, new rules these are not. It's really just a more in-depth description of what the 'code of conduct' has been in the past few months. Fuck all has changed really, now it's just a lot less vague. This is an improvement, but the system is still largely broken.
The biggest change is not including, advocating or linking to "Illegal Drugs" because the Escapist community is probably one of the biggest groups of pot heads in the gaming community, or at least the most vocal. Last night I remember two threads on cannabis, and there seems to be at least one of these threads every week. This will have interesting results, and probably cause the most rage from the community, if it's actually enforced, which I doubt.
I disagree with the warning system. I think it's good that you now know when someone has been warned for a certain behaviour, but I think that the warnings themselves are pointless. If the people give a shit about posting here, and they know that the mods hand out 1-3 days bans like candy, they're going to try to avoid that negative behaviour because they want to post. If the punishment they receive is still going to let them post, nothing is taken away and the punishment is nothing. I understand the role of probation is so that people continue to post and show what they got into trouble for, but the result of this is also having people show what you can get away with and still continue to post. It's basically a bar saying "If I'm this much of a jerk I don't have anything taken away", which is in my opinion a broken system.
If people don't care about posting and are just here to troll and be a jerk, then that means they don't need to be brought to mod attention 5+ times before they're kicked out.
The mods also need to be more consistent, I feel that too many of them have personal ideas on what constitutes a jerk. Maybe an Anime fan will ban someone for posting "Anime is shit" but not care if they post "Glam Rock is shit" because they agree with that statement.
The problem really is is that a large number of people on the Internet are jackasses (maybe even myself?) who feel the need to be assertive over people, attack their opinions, act aggressively and be a general jerk. You can't fight these people by telling them to stop, you need to place a clear and negative consequence for their actions. Right now The Escapist just isn't doing that, and that's what is causing problems.
Also, I have to laugh at those who say "I've been a model poster and have a perfect record except for a couple of warnings, and now I don't have a perfect record, this is so BULLSHIT!" Moron, if you were a model poster than you wouldn't have those warnings, and you don't have a perfect record.