As posted by Dev Ngreth Thergn on the EQ forums, March 2, 2020.
Volume, as in a mathematical "volume" of space.
the script gets a list of all players within a 3D rectangle (a volume. It has a width, a depth, and a height. I this case the bottom of this cubic rectangle is NOT at the floor of the fighting area, but lower the feet of the lowest of the 4 bosses.) If a character is in this volume, a flag for "fail" is set, and then it uses a command that makes the NPC mentioned above casts a targeted, very-long-range, no-line-of-sight de-buff on you.
Oh. this script DOES check to see if you are the most hated. If you are the most hated, it skips you. (it actually removes the most hated from the list of people in the volume before it loops through the list checking for failure and casting spells)
In the group game, I think pets can often be the most hated... and I, intentionally, do not take this into consideration. If you are going to let a pet tank, then let the pet tank