Courtesy of the Weekly Update

I just got banned from Xbox Live, WHY!?

Good. Most likely because you were doing one of the following: Cheating, network-exploiting, cursing, swearing, threatening or abusing other players. The points below cover most of the stuff Xbox Live will ban or suspend people for and frankly, you know who you are. If you've been suspended temporarily, with any luck, you might think twice about cheating again.

Today, we are dropping the ban hammer on a significant number of cheaters. That number is thousands, not dozens or hundreds. Some of them will receive a short suspension of their service; others will be advised of more serious measures. In every instance, the Xbox Live team has gone to great lengths to prove, where possible, severe terms of use violations. If you have been banned, you have not been banned for anything minor, like flag bouncing, or glitch-grabbing an object. If you've been banned or suspended, there's a very good chance you know what you were doing was wrong and that you did it multiple times.

Is this all we're doing to prevent cheating and service abuse? No. A more universal, permanent solution is in the works. However, clearly there's no anti-jerk system – people will continue to be idiots, and this banning and suspension process might slow them down.

We don't care why people are rude, arrogant morons online, the reasons stretch from Ritalin deficiency to sugar-high overload, but we do care that the service be as fun as possible, so kudos to the majority of pleasant, polite players out there who make Halo 2 games a joy.

And yes, saying "Y'all can kiss my ass," in the lobby counts against you. The negative feedback will build and you will be punished. It's easy. DON'T DO IT. Racism? This is particularly galling, and you should know, it is frequently and highly reported. If you're one of those slack-jawed troglodytes who uses racism as his main form of discourse you probably won't even understand this sentence, but note that you should keep your vile, bilious crap sealed up. Nobody wants to hear how stupid you are.

So we encourage the good responsible players (and the vast majority, I should point out) to use feedback. It works. Slowly but surely.

Still confused about why we're allowed to do this? Look at these gems from the terms of use agreement. You may not:

* Interfere with or disrupt networks connected to the Service or violate the regulations, policies, or procedures of such networks.
* Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten, or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others.

And just for good measure:

* Microsoft may terminate or suspend the Service at any time

If you didn't read the terms of use before you signed up for Xbox Live, you can read all the details here. It's in pretty plain language and doesn't contain any real surprises.

Terms of Use details

If you want to know what specific issues can get you in trouble, look here:

Bad Behavior descriptions

I wish I could express in words the rage that Live players feel about cheating and other abusive behavior on Halo 2. The offenders are jackasses, plain and simple. There is no defense or reasonable explanation for that kind of behavior. Quite what is going through the "minds" of these drooling halfwits escapes me, and forgive the editorializing, but I hope that every last one of them gets his fingers slammed in a car door on a cold day. MORONS.

However, if you think you were banned unfairly, try visiting Xbox Live Support