Lack of Admins

[Technature]

I've been thinking on this Mini-admin thing, and this is what I've come up with.

The person is able to issue something I'm calling a "Ban note" from here on.  A person who gets a note sends a message to an Admin to look at and they can determine if it's worth taking action on.  The note itself would include why that person thinks they should be talked to, and there must be a reason for it.

Alternatively, "Ban Votes".  Certain people who can be trusted are given the ability to place a Ban vote on a player, and when it reaches a certain threshold (Based on the current population of such players but never lower than 3, something like 75% of what's there) the person is given a ban that lasts a few hours.  This requires that several people confirm that the person is being an annoying shit that's ruining peoples rounds.  Of course, it needs to be monitored so that people who try to abuse it are punished.

I'm thinking that requirements for either one should include Being around for a decent amount of time (Like I dunno...three months?) and not having the reputation for being a constant asshole.  I'm sure the Admins alone are capable of determining this, but if possible public consent can be made in the same way via HoS or Mentor apps.

[Mordent]

I've been thinking on this Mini-admin thing, and this is what I've come up with.

The person is able to issue something I'm calling a "Ban note" from here on.  A person who gets a note sends a message to an Admin to look at and they can determine if it's worth taking action on.  The note itself would include why that person thinks they should be talked to, and there must be a reason for it.

Alternatively, "Ban Votes".  Certain people who can be trusted are given the ability to place a Ban vote on a player, and when it reaches a certain threshold (Based on the current population of such players but never lower than 3, something like 75% of what's there) the person is given a ban that lasts a few hours.  This requires that several people confirm that the person is being an annoying shit that's ruining peoples rounds.  Of course, it needs to be monitored so that people who try to abuse it are punished.

I'm thinking that requirements for either one should include Being around for a decent amount of time (Like I dunno...three months?) and not having the reputation for being a constant asshole.  I'm sure the Admins alone are capable of determining this, but if possible public consent can be made in the same way via HoS or Mentor apps.

Given that mentors are deemed "not shit", why not use them for whatever variant of the banhammer/ban-slap-on-the-wrist is worked out?

[Roomba]

I think mini-admins would just make things worse - that sounds like way too much potential drama right there, especially with regard to ban by popular demand.

Given that mentors are deemed "not shit", why not use them for whatever variant of the banhammer/ban-slap-on-the-wrist is worked out?

The absolute worst behaviour I've ever seen on a round to round basis is from mentors and HOSes, secure in the knowledge that they're too much of a station fixture to be given anything more than a slap on the wrist and too robust to face in-game consequences.

[Noah Buttes]

The absolute worst behaviour I've ever seen on a round to round basis is from mentors and HOSes, secure in the knowledge that they're too much of a station fixture to be given anything more than a slap on the wrist and too robust to face in-game consequences.

I do hope you're just talking about a few bad eggs rather than the whole assembly of mentors and Heads of Security.

[Ed Venture]

The absolute worst behaviour I've ever seen on a round to round basis is from mentors and HOSes, secure in the knowledge that they're too much of a station fixture to be given anything more than a slap on the wrist and too robust to face in-game consequences.

I love that people still think this. HoS and Mentors still get in trouble hell Houka has been banned for a few weeks in the past for his behavior as a HoS before and I've been put in the prison zone a few times because of my actions. I'm a mentor/HoS and I don't want to be a admin seems like way too much stress honestly. But to sit there and say that HoS/Mentors never get in trouble is ludicrous and honestly reeks of salt on your part. Also I may be robust but I am a shadow of my former self when it comes to combat. These days I'll give you a hard time in combat but I'm so god damn clumsy that I am often my own undoing. Also I firmly believe Chemistry exist to counter robust players so abuse the hell out of it.

Also this is hardly the place to complain about "muh purple text boggieman"

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Also for the record I've been told that my next ban will be a permaban and even though that warning was given years ago I've been walking on eggshells ever since.

[Frank_Stein]

Don't all admin messages sit around in a place where admins can see them? Aren't they timestamped, so an admin can sort through when the message was received and match them to a round to look through the logs and investigate?

If that's the case, as long as you write a concise admin message that includes as many details to help them narrow down the search (names, keys, actions, context, round times, locations, etc) there shouldn't be a need for any kind of ticket system or something.

The only problem would then would be times in which no admin is around to respond to the incident as it is occurring, and giving more people authority only works if they are consistently online to create 24 hour coverage.

I don't know what goes on behind the administrative curtain, but I'm going to assume you guys are already doing that as much as you can without inconveniencing your lives beyond what you're being compensated for doing an unpaid volunteer postition

[atamusvaleo]

I hold no grudge toward the admins for what occurred. The fault lies entirely on people who break the rules when no admin is around because of their "while the cat is away the mice will play" mentality.

The thing that leaves me sore about this situation — and other times it has happened — is how utterly disrespectful people will be to other non-mentor/non-admin players on the grounds that there are presumably no real repercussions for doing so. I can take constructive criticism any day, I do on a daily basis in my line of work, but I have no patience for people who are vulgar and obscene for no reason other than to be offensive.

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PPS: Wonk, the option to PM you is unavailable for some reason... for you alone too. I have the option for everyone else.

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I've emailed it to you.

[Firebarrage]

Glad to hear the two situations were handled. I wanted to touch on the "ban vote" idea though. Even when dealing only with trusted players, I think it's important to remember that mentors are still nothing more than players - we don't know who the traitors are, we don't know how people got items, we don't know if someone is a miscreant who is specifically supposed to be annoying someone so much that they get murdered. In the end, even if someone is being shit and going on a rampage or being super annoying, there's no way we can have enough evidence from a player perspective to accurately give a ban vote. Even if we were given the ability to peek at these details, that would ruin the game for us - it's no fun to have all the mysteries revealed the second someone starts going on a rampage.

I'm happy with the current system, even if a few bad apples slip through the cracks. As it is right now, I've rarely seen major issues in a game go unresolved for long. When they do, it tends to last only a round or two before the problem is taken care of. And in many cases, such as a non antag rampager, I've seen the crew handle the situation themselves when an admin isn't around. No system is ever going to be perfect, but I'd say what we have going now is working out nicely, and there's no real need to change things up.

[Haine]

The absolute worst behaviour I've ever seen on a round to round basis is from mentors and HOSes, secure in the knowledge that they're too much of a station fixture to be given anything more than a slap on the wrist and too robust to face in-game consequences.

I dunno about everybody else but for me, mentor/HoS status means jack shit in someone's favor if they're breaking a rule.  If anything, it puts people into "you should really know better than this" territory pretty fast.  I don't give a shit if someone is a "station fixture," if they break rules they get treated like anyone else.  Admin PMs and player profiles don't exactly broadcast HEY THIS PERSON IS PURPLE!! either.  I'd be surprised if any other admins felt differently.
Do you have any examples of this bad behavior?  What exactly are people getting away with?

[Technature]

Glad to hear the two situations were handled. I wanted to touch on the "ban vote" idea though. Even when dealing only with trusted players, I think it's important to remember that mentors are still nothing more than players - we don't know who the traitors are, we don't know how people got items, we don't know if someone is a miscreant who is specifically supposed to be annoying someone so much that they get murdered. In the end, even if someone is being shit and going on a rampage or being super annoying, there's no way we can have enough evidence from a player perspective to accurately give a ban vote. Even if we were given the ability to peek at these details, that would ruin the game for us - it's no fun to have all the mysteries revealed the second someone starts going on a rampage.

I actually realized the traitor thing like an hour after I posted it.  I would imagine that just affecting Non-Traitors would be enough, but then I realized that leads to the same problem as a Traitor being banned would tell anyone "Hey, this guys allowed to do this because bad guy" and I could see it being difficult for people to not suddenly validhunt because someone said over the radio that a person they voted to be banned for for wrecking peoples rounds wasn't gone yetyuim .  So I thought after one group vote, if the person is a traitor, nothing would be done (Specific rules can't really be enforced with this, but nothing's stopping an admin from checking logs later and doing things about saying that F word/similar situations).  If they're not a traitor, they would receive a warning that people dislike what they're doing and to stop.  No one would be notified anything was done either way, so secrecy is still possible even if a non-traitor was being an asshole when he shouldn't have been.  A second vote would boot them for said number of hours (again, if they're not antags).

All that being said, if the admin's don't like the idea, no amount of changes will affect if it's getting in or not, and I can definitely understand what Wonkmin is saying.  Thinking on it, I don't really think it's that good of an idea anyways due to the rampant abilities of abuse this can have, even with the precautions taken.

[Ed Venture]

and too robust to face in-game consequences.

Sorry but I forgot to add this in my first post when replying to this post.

This is a seriously poor attitude I keep seeing from new players to somewhat old players. Do you think that these really old players of Goonstation got good at combat over night? No. It took years to get to their level of skill and constant readjustments as changes to the combat happened alot back in the old days. It is so much easier then it was when I started playing in 2009 that I don't see a excuse for no one trying to get decent at the combat in this game. There are so many ways you can buff yourself and players like myself willing to spend a whole round just boxing with players to teach them how to fight well. Some players treat this combat in Space Station the same way as Fighting games and don't even try and that baffles me as it's not where near that hard. Do you think back then when faced with some super robust nerd that we whined about it constantly and never attempted to stop shit players from doing it? No. Even if we failed we never gave up and rise above their shit and got better then them.

No in-game consequences my ass you are just not trying hard enough.


If any admin feels like merging this with my first post please do.

[atamusvaleo]

Some of the time that's possible, Ed. In my situation, I was able to gain the upper hand but it was largely with the help of fellow crew members. When I say 'no in-game repercussions,' I'm referring to admin intervention: shame cube, finger waggling, etc.

[Ed Venture]

I was responding to Roomba's post.

Your side is understandable but what I was referring to was people who do even try and I see alot of them these days as they like to constantly whine that the combat is too hard for them to do anything and I firmly believe they are not putting in any effort. Having other crew members help you in a battle is for sure one of the best ways to win and I'll promote teamwork any day.

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* who don't even try *

[Ines]

Oh dear what a tangent

[babayetu83]

i think something that would increase user confidence would be to have it so it displays something like your ahelp has been looked at