Open Up HoS to All Mentors

[Flourish]

Great post Vitatroll I agree with you completely on everything you said.

I made a comment about badass certification in my last post, but honestly, HoS stopped being a certified badass a few years ago when it seems it was made more common. I still respect the position, as they obviously know what they're doing, but I won't assume that 'they got this'. Prior to that, if someone was a HoS, I'd treat them like a bollywood superhero and yeah they usually delivered.

If mentors got HoS I'd lose all respect for the position and would treat them like a second captain or HoP. I'd also be calling for the mentor list to be wiped. That or seriously weakening the position to being strictly the Head of Security and not an ubercaptain.

I'm sure this seems like a rant, but I honestly don't mind either way. I just wanna note that it isn't a minor change and proper consideration needs to be taken.

Oh, and Noah? Changing the title from "Make HoS reapply/Wipe HoS list" or whatever it was to "Open Up HoS to All Mentors" is a clear bait and switch.

This sums up every single concern of mine.

Pretty much.

[SageAcrin]

I'd be okay with it, with a caveat.

Abusing HoS=mentor removal, with fairly strict view on that. Whole thing, part and parcel.

Now I'm not 100% sure how everyone would feel about that... though... given that you could just... not play HoS, I think it'd be a non-issue?

Otherwise I think people make a bit much of a deal of this. There's already a ton of fretting about if someone should be a mentor, mentors are already held to a pretty solid standard, and I suspect anyone seen as remotely abusive of the position will get came down on three times as hard as someone abusing normal Sec. The extra fretting is fair, but honestly, it'd be fine either way.

'course I'm also fine with the current system, too.

[Frank_Stein]

Here's my honest opinion about this:

What makes for a good mentor is someone who knows a good deal about most things, and maybe a great deal about one thing in particular, but more importantly they are able to either communicate that information or steer someone towards discovering it on their own.

What makes for a good HoS is someone who has good judgement, and is able to separate their own subjective ideas about players, rounds, and server culture to act in a way that is fair according to the objective truths of the situation at hand. Being robust, or having good observation and deductive reasoning skills help, but are secondary to the above.

They are two separate skill sets for two different jobs, and while it's possible to be good at both, being good at one doesn't mean you're suited for the other. I don't think merging the two is the greatest idea, and I don't think wiping them clean is either. If you have a complaint about a HoS and how they are treating the role, admin help it and let them look into it. If it's a consistent problem, they'll probably get the boot eventually.

That said, I honestly wouldn't care if HoS was a role that stopped being something people applied for and did degrade into secondary captain. The biggest justifications I've heard for it being locked behind a vetting process have been:

1. The armory needs a person who can be trusted to know when to use it
   
2. The crew should have a player they know they can trust to be competent 
   

And both of those are pretty flimsy considering

1. More often than not the armory sits untouched when there is a HoS, or gets broken into by antags or looters, and could just as easily be removed from the game altogether 
   
2. A HoS can be mindslaved, absorbed, or otherwise impersonated making that trust a liability.
   

Really, remove their armory access, e-gun, and fancy hat and the only thing separating a HoS from regular old Sec is that a majority of players have agreed they are good at the job. 

Maybe there's a better way to go about this whole thing? Maybe the job should only be open to players who have logged a certain amount of time as a Sec Officer? Maybe there should be an election on the forums and only a certain amount of players should be allowed to hold the role at any given time and if you want to make a new HoS you have to boot an old one? Maybe the easiest thing is to just keep things the way they are and leave well enough alone?

[Ed Venture]

I don't really agree with removing a person when a new person goes to be apply for a HoS why should someone be removed when we don't have a set number rule for how many we can have? Again that just feels like a punishment for the sake of punishing and punishing someone for nothing is wrong. This whole discussion is starting to sound pointless to me. I feel the current system works and does not need changing after giving this more thought in the coming days since this topic started.

Really being a HoS is not about getting access to an E-Gun or the armory (I feel the weapons in the armory are useless anyway since the shotguns got nerfed) being an HoS means you proven yourself to the community and to the admins that you can play the role of Secuirty better than most and that you can be trusted with ordering all of security, teaching new players the role, rooting out shit security and dealing out harsh and sometimes lethal punishment to asshats while being inside the rules. Some say there are some abusing this trust right now and like I've said I have yet to see any proof of this. If that accusation is true then these people need to be removed from the role and if they are not then I guess admins are not doing their jobs that well regarding those players.

---

It also does not help that when people want to bring light to "Shit HoS Players" that they get shut down cause it's similar to an player complaint. Which is why I say record it if you see it. If you show you have what you feel is proof of the wrong doing from these players then at least you have something to bring to the table since your word seems to not be enough to get this person at the least on a watch list by the admins and at most removed from the role.

[Firepower]

The reason I don't play HoS more (although I still play somewhat often) is that nobody else plays security. It sucks never having anyone to back you up. You do get the occasional competent security officer, and those rounds playing sec is a blast. But unfortunately they're few and far between.


If a mentor wants to play HoS they can always just play regular security and apply for HoS like the rest of us had to. I bet the more people play regular security the more HoS's you'll see around.

[Noah Buttes]

The title got changed because an admin changed it to opening it up to everyone, then I changed it to all mentirs. I then changed it once more to correct the misspelling.

I must confess, I firsr suggested this idea with the ulterior motive of getting to write another application.

I like writing applications.

[babayetu83]

i like the idea of it being open to mentors. i might give it a try myself and begin the draft and beat up people and drag them back to the brig and deputize them into sec officers. kind of like metal gear peacewalker

[cyberTripping]

After some deliberations and actual thought on the topic I'm gonna agree with firepower here, not that my opinion is too valuable. I'm on the side of "HoS is the important sec who leads other sec" rather than "HoS is the de-facto leader of the station". More people play security, eventually you get people rising to the top and wanting to keep things under control. If the sort of stuff Ed has talked about elsewhere is true, I think the problem in this topic is just a symptom of a greater problem with a desire to play security for worthwhile means in the community currently.