Aye, this is an old chestnut. There's no reason to "define" roleplaying extensively - most people know what it means. It doesn't mean walking around with a name XUBAHD00D and using textspeak constantly, it isn't talking about real life stuff all the time, and it isn't playing the roleplay servers because there are "more mature people" there whilst sneering outright at anyone who does choose to get more in character. It doesn't need to be any more defined than that, and those rules are pretty standard to every roleplay server. The problem is, those rules are so rarely obeyed.
As above, the GMs decide. If someone named XElFgRLzREZX comes up saying "is this an event?" ever five seconds, chances are they're going to get little for their pains. I doubt the GMs will even be pressed to award someone extra points for using Shakespearean English (usually badly). But an effort and trying not to "lol", at actually typing words out properly and not talking about cell phones is at least in the right direction. Up to GM discretion really. I'm sure there will be whinging about this, but there always will be, no matter what is done.
In the end, I roleplay because I love to, not because it will earn me phat lewt. That's a bonus, but not the reason I'll be doing it - I do it because I enjoy it. If it encourages more people to rp, then brilliant, it means less people I have to constantly ignore because they're talking about their high level characters in other games.
