I agree that those problems won't go away but the clear would provide a forced no afk for awhile to bring life back to the server.
Not really. You can successfully level afk starting at level 1 rl0. Den and Cavern are the only zones where afk for low rls is difficult. By RL1-3 (one-two days tops) the better players are already afk full time again.
I can't think of any way to completely defeat the AFK problem. Particle was working on something, but he hasn't shared what it is, just yet. If he did, I could start finding a way around it so we could improve it.
A clear solves no problems. Sure you'll bring more "life" to the server for the first week or two. People who say they'll come back if there's a clear will come back for about two weeks (if that), get bored again then leave. Meanwhile, other players will have quit completely because of the clear. You'll probably lose a few low RL noobs who just hit rl5, got cleared and are like "wtf??? I just started!!! screw that!"
A clear solves no problems: it provides only extreme short-term patches to much larger problems. And by short-term, I mean on the order of less than 1 month.
It is my theory that the majority of players who vote for the clear do so only to spite the other players who have invested more time in the game than they have, and thus have a large advantage.
Overmugging/killing would be difficult to solve through a pure mod change. If the player is afk, then it's perfectly okay for other players to overmug and overkill that player. There's currently no way to decide if a player if afk or not.
Just look at the facts, these are the people who voted yes:
Dyre -Doesn't play
bungle -Doesn't play
Xanth -Hardly plays once a week
Vorter_X_ -Doesn't play
RedneckNoob -Doesn't play
Lidge Farkley -Doesn't play
Kingpin (Kingpin_Strife) -Just started playing again after several months gone
JayJay -Doesn't play
Achromatos -Hasn't played since the LAST clear. 4 years, now?
Of the people who have voted yes, only two have any semblance of a legitimate vote. And those two hardly even play at all. So are we actually considering completely wiping the character files of everyone...because two people who barely play think it's a good idea?
I'll quit if so.