This is a cross post on a comment I left on the book of webcasting on the screencasts page on kicking the stream. 

O.K. I still don't understand the basic premise behind kicking the stream. It sounds cool!  I see how having access to shoutcast server and getting statistical info on listeners is useful. I guess you could kick a listener  or perhaps ban an I.P.  But kick someone who is actively streaming? Why wouldn't they relinquish the stream voluntarily.  Are we talking about a hacker?  In the webcast academy we talked about a streamer that has a system that is taxed and can't maintain the stream etc... but even then, this is a live webcast.  "dead" air isn't such a big deal.  I guess I just want to make sure it's authentic. I can jump through hoops as good as anyone else. I just need to know the justification.

Are we talking about keeping a stream active so that a listener doesn't have to reload player? Are we trying to replicate what happens on radio?  I guess the only other thing I thought about was change of programing at the top of the hour kind of what Jeff I did during the graduation. I had finished my webcast and the next slot was his.  If I remembered correctly I stopped my encoder and he started streaming. I'm not sure what happened on his end. Supposing he kicked the stream. Then why did I have to stop my encorder?  Let's say Jeff kicked the stream without me stopping the encorder. I guess the goal as I remember correctly was to maintain the stream and not have an interruption on the listener side.  Let me know if I am missing something here.

Jose Rodriguez, 3rd Grade and Adult ESL Teacher; It's Elementary Webcast