I guess Theymos do not want to provide rules because he believes more in discretion then than some written rules.
I guess he is afraid that people will find loopholes in written rules and try to beat them.
I and mprep have these PM conversations about rules.
Rule 23 will be applied to any
loopholes or trying to
beat them.
23. When deciding if a user has broken the rules, the staff have the right to follow their interpretation of the rules.[e]
Further explanation about rule 23:
23. This rule is meant to prevent users from exploiting possible loopholes in the rules or some interpretations that follow the literal meaning of the rule rather than the meaning of what it truly wanted to prevent.
Staff interpretation(s) will kick in
if they think that a certain rule is being violated.
I will just make this latest topic here in Meta as an example ->
[Spam Accusation]The Prince Of Egifts [Bump Spam]We know that there is no written rule about
bumping a thread using sockpuppets or alt accounts. However, user did violate rule 13 and rule 23 was applied.