I don't know what situation you encountered back then, so I can't judge that. But I do understand your point of view, however I think it's based on confusion and misunderstanding. Force roleplay is very vague and it's not defined anywhere, so it's open for interpretation. If for example you are suspecting someone for having weed while he has no weed (invalid suspectation) then we might talk of force roleplay aka powergaming. See spoiler.
A player can be described as a PowerGamer if he or she presumes or declares that his or her own action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on his or her own decisions. This includes but is not limited to:
Forcing actions upon a player.
Failing to allow a player to roleplay their own actions.
Use of items which you haven’t physically obtained.
Acting superhuman.
Taken from https://docs.owlgaming.net/rules/roleplay.html
If a person is speeding, he automatically accepts that he can be pulled over by a cop for speeding. Meaning he indirectly accepts that roleplay, but he can just pay the fine or drive off to get automatically suspected. That would be poor roleplay, but roleplay nonetheless. This way has been done since 2008/2009 when the server started. It has always been relaxed/light roleplay, meaning no roleplay rules are enforced. Which takes me back to your quote 'and if it did exist and was forced out by HQ'. This is not true, ivmp has always been light roleplay, no rules were removed or added for enforcing roleplay. If cases were misjudged based on this 'force roleplay' then that was a mistake.
Together we need to be vigilant about these things. Our stance (hq) about roleplay is to promote and encourage it and has never been different. If cases are misjudged or people are abusing the 'force roleplay' reason then we need to act on it.
I don't know what situation you encountered back then, so I can't judge that. But I do understand your point of view, however I think it's based on confusion and misunderstanding. Force roleplay is very vague and it's not defined anywhere, so it's open for interpretation. If for example you are suspecting someone for having weed while he has no weed (invalid suspectation) then we might talk of force roleplay aka powergaming. See spoiler.
A player can be described as a PowerGamer if he or she presumes or declares that his or her own action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on his or her own decisions. This includes but is not limited to:
Forcing actions upon a player.
Failing to allow a player to roleplay their own actions.
Use of items which you haven’t physically obtained.
Acting superhuman.
Taken from https://docs.owlgaming.net/rules/roleplay.html
If a person is speeding, he automatically accepts that he can be pulled over by a cop for speeding. Meaning he indirectly accepts that roleplay, but he can just pay the fine or drive off to get automatically suspected. That would be poor roleplay, but roleplay nonetheless. This way has been done since 2008/2009 when the server started. It has always been relaxed/light roleplay, meaning no roleplay rules are enforced. Which takes me back to your quote 'and if it did exist and was forced out by HQ'. This is not true, ivmp has always been light roleplay, no rules were removed or added for enforcing roleplay. If cases were misjudged based on this 'force roleplay' then that was a mistake.
Together we need to be vigilant about these things. Our stance (hq) about roleplay is to promote and encourage it and has never been different. If cases are misjudged or people are abusing the 'force roleplay' reason then we need to act on it.
You have a point, that's pretty much what I meant. People and even some administrators used to work with this "forcing roleplay" as in the one written in rules (which in fact is similar to powergaming's, but back then was used for the other wrong mean "to force roleplay").
It's mostly misunderstanding, there isn't a whole topic for example that explains these kind of things. It's always on player's capacity to define it however they like, and even administrators don't have a one stand on it but rather different ones which makes them enforce them as they themselves understand it and not as the HQ defined it.
My only suggestion is to make an explanatory section about the rules, maybe define each rule because most players in IV:MP aren't familiar with roleplay servers and have started on their first (speaking of myself, and seen many others probably most IV players).