The Adminstrator himself has specified these rules:
- No sexual content or pornography, or links to any sites with it. This includes signatures. First attempt will get warning points. Further distribution will result in a permanent ban.
- Please report any spam IMMEDIATELY.
Given how these Spam-bots are virtually "disposable accounts", it would be meaningless to award them with warning points. If they are not banned swiftly, there will be more piling up and evertually, the forums will be overwhelmed by them. Literally half the new sign-ups are Spam-bots and I believe that it is very necesassary to deal with them, rather than letting them conjest and adding to our problems.
It is an obvious sign that if an account has a link to an advertisment, it is a Spam-bot, and nothing more or less. We did have instances where the link would lead to a porn site and whatnot and it would be too much of a risk to let them go un-banned.
As for what counts as "ban-worthy", VashX has made them clear in the past. ->
http://pixelgun3dforums.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules-new-members-please-read-this-first.10178/
It the scenario is unheard of, it all comes down to the past verdicts to be used as references or the at-the-spot decision of the moderators. This also raises the need for more moderators however, as GoldMan27 has been the one who generally takes out these Spam-bots, and even he has his life. The others are busy as well and cannot be bothered with. This may sound like a rant, but I question how much thought was put into the planning of timezones, busyness of the staff-members, and schedulings. I have been hearing from many members stating that the forum goes unprotected and unwatched for too often, and many other prominent members (both new and old sign-ups) agree that it may be essential to have more staff-members to compensate for that lacking surveilance.