Automatic afk-kick?

[Motte]

Hi there,
After some recent things Ive seen on different servers, various reports about afk-ing people on servers and recalling some other online games, I thought I'd propose/ask for something like an automatic kicking from servers due to inactivity. In another game I have played long ago, you would just get kicked out of the game for not doing anything else than standing somewhere for 30 minutes. Of course, NI is a way more fast-paced game, so 30 minutes would be quite a lot, rather too much time to give. Main motivation: Everybody hates leeches, and players who go afk for a longer period of time are taking a slot in the game, that could have been used by an active player - and be it a level 52 with a barrel or a tome, that character is worth nothing when noone is actually controlling it, so Id even prefer a redshirt in the game on hardmode over a statue.

Anyway, what about something like this: Someone leaves his/her character, not doing anything but hiding behind a heavy cade or just standing in the open field would be automatically kicked off the server after 3 minutes time. I think 3 minutes are enough time to handle little urgent tasks (fetching another bottle of water, answering a short phone call, getting your clothes out of the washing machine.. stuff like that), but anything other than that (things I have heared so far, so dont blame me for irrealistic suggestions ;-) ) suprise visitors, emergency within the family, longer and important phone call would not let you join the game after 3 minutes time, anyway. And I cannot imagine that someone would (be allowed to) be mad when his/her character would be kicked, after leaving the house.

Only problem I - with my absolutelly limited knowledge and skill about/in programming and the like - stumbled upon is the difference between alive players and dead ones or even specators. Could a programm tell them from each other so that this "rule" would only apply to alive players?