[Eighty Swords]

I still think that this is trying to fix something that isn't broken.

Things that this would fix:
Lack of house space (doesn't exist in the slightest)
Statics being owned by people who have quit. (this is legit)
Item count (negligible. I'm pretty sure a server in the year 2009 can handle running a server of a game that was released in 1997, and there are better ways of lowering item counts)

Things that this would hurt:
Returning players (with as few players as we have at the moment, we don't want to alienate the people who have quit for a while and decide to come back. Lets face it, noone will devote their entire gaming lives to one game. You play UO some, you play something else, you come back to UO. Who are we to put a time limit on that?)
Vacationing players (a 3 month decay means that you're telling the player, you can't leave for more than 3 months or we'll take your shit from you. Then, if they do decide to leave, some GM has to come set their house to not decay.)

I agree with everything you said here. Unfortunately Sindern we're on the losing side and it seems a full-fledged system will be implemented shortly.

I'm a big fan of the system that I suggested earlier in the thread. Let me recap the main points:

• Add a timer to each house that starts counting when the script is added.
  
• Every time owner/coowner/friend opens the door or dclick the sign, the timer is reset to 0.
  
• Add a {.checkhousetimer X} command where X is the number of months you want to check for.
  
• Add a .condemn command. Use it and target a sign and the house will delete after 7 days (1 week). You could even have it broadcast that a house has been condemned.
  
• Condemn all houses that aren't refreshed after 6 months.
  
• An owner/coowner/friend can dclick the sign/door after a house is condemned to un-condemn it and reset the timer to 0.
  

This sounds like it's a lot of work for GMs, but it's really not. Just use .checkhousetimer every few days and condemn the houses that are unused. You'll very rarely get one that's past 6 months since they'll nearly always be refreshed unless the player quits.

After 6 months, you'd see a surge in un-used houses that you can go to and check out and .condemn. After that, you'll hardly see any of them.

I'm not a big fan of having everything automated. For instance, if you see a house in the middle of nowhere with lots of stuff inside, you can leave it alone and reset its timer since it's not in a prime location and the player has a lot invested in it. You can also check to see who the player is to see the likelihood of them coming back. However, if it's in a prime location, is a static or is empty, condemn it.

Maybe I didn't understand this part 100%, but from the way I read it it sounds like the GMs decide what house to condemn and if that's right, I don't like it because it leaves too much gray area and people will start calling staff corrupt and saying stuff like 'HEY! GM XYZ didn't erase ginz's house because ginz is a GM but the house hasn't been used in 1 year so why's it still there?!?!' or 'HEY! GM XYZ didn't erase player abc's house because he's a friend with the GM'.