It seems that the main crime here was using CwN skill multiple times in the row. It's questionable how much of a transgression this actually is, imho, because you still can channel and abandon quests one by one, until you contact your favourite quest giver.
Punishing a tree, of all things, makes me think of ancient Greece, where an object that killed a man in an accident would be taken to court, judged, and exiled. If anything, the offending party could just select a different quest giver, still connected to their glorius road network.
Unless, of course, completing quests with roads is a crime, in which case admins need to adress this by reworking roads (weariness is a popular idea), not by sending cryptic messages on the board.
I've played Haven extensively, and in my whole playlife only encountered (was victim to) an abusable bug once, which was promptly fixed. But, however, some interactions in the game are quite intricate, and it's never clear what is a bug to be reported, and what is a «creative use of game mechanics». For example, is hunting via boats, bouncing the fleeing animal around the shallows is one of such bugs? I've used this method all the time and even included it in my guide, which was recieved well, despite showing clear abuse of the animal AI.
In cases like these, i believe that it's the game that must priority — to be made better, more balanced and polished. Punishing the community is relatively pointless — players will optimize the fun/mystery from the game, and killing a tree affects more people, who did nothing wrong, then just the offenders.