What does any of this have to do with server passwords?If the refund thing is widespread among games like this, no doubt it changes the way people make purchasing decisions. This is a generation after all that has effectively ended the shopping mall. Our local one just got bulldozed.
I really liked this third-party-plugin I used in the past on the Source engine where a player who connected and got into the game had to press 1 to agree or 2 to disagree (and be insta-kicked) to a list of rules.
I really challenge the conventional ways people are used to things. Tutorials should be mandatory, but that's a pipe dream. Any arrogance you see in a place like this doesn't even come close to touching the arrogance of the throngs of players who just go straight into a game and have no idea what they're doing taking critical roles. One aught to know how to open the menu and check their controls. It goes for any game, you see it all the time. IMO a mandatory training would be impossible but I think it should be standard for any server you join in any game that you have to agree to the rules to be there.
When I say "Message of the Day" I'm thinking of a system where you join a server and the first page you see is a screen which could maybe be an embedded HTML page or just some page coded in HTML or something where the server owner can put rules, announcements or whatever. An easy way of putting out information that everyone sees. Then you should have to hit "Agree." The autokick (for being AFK) should apply to that as well. Just getting people to see that might help, even though many will grow to just skip through it as fast as they can. Ideally it would have a server-side setting where the "Agree" button only becomes activated after a set number of seconds leaving the connector with nothing better to do for 5 seconds than read about any upcoming events you're trying to advertise.
Steam groups used to be a great way to network but Steam utterly neutered them a year ago last August by requiring friendship to invite. So something like that is even more critical to get info out.