Although this came to a head in a current game, I'm not really talking about that game. This isn't specific to that game (though the idea that it's an issue is derived from conversation therein). Regardless of anything that's come happened up until now, we should have a handle on Rules Violations.
I think the issue might be that we have a process for handling rules violations that operates within the confines of the game. Basically, There are 2 ways to handle rules:
1. Rules are guidelines, with penalties for disobeying them (i.e. "sports"). In this case, rules violations need clear penalties, and should be expected to happen variously (either accidentally or for advantage...since they're well-defined and a player can decide what's best for them/their team)
2. Disobeying rules is "cheating", and will not be tolerated (i.e. "board-game"). In this case, rules violations do not need clear "penalties". Intentional violation of rules should result in being banned from the community. Unintentional violations should be dealt with as appropriate, including at least a warning to "obey the rules".
-In this case if a rules violation occurs, the mod is responsible for determining if balance can be "restored", or the game needs scrapped.
-If an intentional violation occurs, the player is removed from the game, and the mod tries to restore balance/scraps the game. Then we would probably want community guidelines for how cheating is dealt with (i.e. at what point do we ban someone from playing)
Now, there's a trick of determining if a rules violation is intentional in there. But that can be handled by the community moderators.
As mafia is essentially a type of board-game, and this is a board-game forum, I'm in favor of option 2. But, saying "rules violations will result in punishment up to and including mod-kill" I think pushes option 1. Basically if you punish someone in-game for actions taken in-game, then it's just another rule. If you want to prevent rules-violations, you have to take action out-of-game to prevent it. I would personally alter Article III.6 to state: "Rules violations will be dealt with according to their severity, up to and including being banned from the community."
That said, there's a place for game rules that CAN be violated. There are board games where you can cheat and you get punished for it. Then there are games that are a little more ambiguous (i.e. they give ways to handle illegal game positions, but don't explicitly allow you to do that). Some people view those situations as "allowed cheating". To be clear, I don't think there's a problem with that. However, if you bring someone who views it as cheating together with someone who doesn't there's gonna be issues. As a group which plays games together, we need to make it clear how we view that situation.