Who cares what MSO thinks?(The fuck does host mean anymore?)

[Falamazeer]

Name in the title is just being dramatic for the hell of it, Not attacking MSO, he's a good dude, personally helped me link my byond to my forum account. but I've asked this before and got an answer and now it's come up again so here I am

My understanding thus far, since the departing of SoS, is that since no one person is paying the server costs, the host position has been limited due to it not being one of the most crucial elements required to have the game exist at all

First it was brought up in the terbs appeal, foot down, and I tried to bring it up then, in a thread where in the very title I said not for trials and TERBulations, but it devolved into a salty shit pile, but I got a decent answer. which I'll quote in spoilers below.

Spoiler:

Ok, so I only just now noticed this thread existed.

A little bit you all don't know, on monday, the day after this all blew up, I was rushed to the ER over an infection on one of my tooths that spread overnight saturday night to my sinuses, and spread overnight sunday night to my tear ducts, meaning it was starting to affect my vision.

I've been on prescription painkillers and copious amounts of marijuana as well as corticosteroids and super strong antibiotics and just haven't had much of the time or energy or clarity of mind to do much other than check in and skim around.

anyways, this is gonna sound rambly because I'm super high on high CDB weed and a hydrocodone, and i'm gonna build this by copy pasting what i've already said on singulo and build on that. but lets plow thru this:


Technically speaking, I have the power sos once had by virtue of being the only person with remote access to the vm host machine the server's vms run off of.

Basically speaking, I've volunteered over most power to the headmins.

For instance, my vote, the host vote, will be going to the headmins next election where they can either give it to coderbus, give it to the player base or admins as a second vote, or unanimously pick a non-current headmin. Failing any agreement on those options, I'll just pick somebody

When people ask me to change some probability of game modes or change a config setting, i tell them to ask the headmins, (who all have remote and the power to handle doing that themselves)

I mainly handle sysadmin stuff (like disabling blob when it crashes the server twice in a row), and stepping to help the headmins come to an agreement on something.

Moving on:

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding of what the blacklist is.

The blacklist was, in at least sos's days, the host's do not unban if you don't want to get deadmined for unbanning, list.

Its the host's super banned person list.

Control over that was just assumed by everybody, headmins included to go to me. When kavaloosh asked to appeal his blacklist, sticky, and hg both told him to talk to me.

They even messaged me when he made his appeal here on the forums.

(this was after I had explicitly stated to the headmins they had full control)

So ya, control over the blacklist was handed to me. It's always been the "do not unban without host approval if you don't want to get deadmined" list, so that makes sense.

(And might have even unblacklisted kava if he had made an appeal where he actually avoided doing the thing he got blacklisted for. No, I'm not gonna blacklist somebody purely for being transphobic. But come on, if you appeal a ban for something, you don't do that thing you got banned for in the ban appeal, I couldn't approve that… thats just on principle.
He still would have had that chance if he hadn't blatantly admitted to never changing, and only hiding his rule breaking, metacomming, and making up lies to get away with in game shitty behavior.)

Anywho,

Those are my thoughts on the matter.

tl;dr: the control over the black list was assumed by the host because of the headmins and so it remains, but now he's actively blocking the deadminning of HG for inactivity despite a good sized disaproval rating, two headmins among them according to Kor

Ignoring people is OP it automatically wins any argument online.

MSO made his choice on it though, arguing among ourselves is more or less pointless. Unless someone can convince MSO to change his mind (not likely to happen, especially not in this thread. If the 70% player vote and two head admins asking him to let us put it to a vote didn't chance his mind, one more post here likely won't) this thread will go nowhere.

My simple question is, Where did this come from? I thought he was supposed to stick with server stuff.

Edited to remove my own shitty comment about the HG situation in particular

[Falamazeer]

Please don't discuss the merits of deadminning or non deadminning HG

This is about what host means, and why the right defaults to a position that doesn't really hold the same weight it used to by his own admission of volunteering it out to the headmins (Those democratically voted for by a group of their peers and whatnot)

[Scott]

I think it's fair if only the headmins have the power to blacklist someone.

That said, MSO is very valuable to the community, he may be in a position of power and even using said power, but he also works for the community more than most. SoS paid for the servers, but MSO is actually developing infrastructure.

I am biased, I think, so I won't hold a strong opinion on this.

[Falamazeer]

Well yeah, He's doing a great job, I love the public logs, and the fact that he doesn't have a stick in his anus about security, and he neither pushes nor shoves.

But a big part of going public like this was to avoid scenarios where 72% of the players, and 66.6666 percent of the headmins agree something needs done, but the host wins by default.

[oranges]

Actually about 8 people from the community pay for the servers

[Falamazeer]

Kinda my point oranges.

[oranges]

I know

[lumipharon]

MSO is pretty good, and I respect his judgement usually, especially if it's in a 'tie break' sort of situation.
But I don't thin he should be veto'ing things when 2 headmins agree on it.

If he wants that sort of power, he's got a headmin vote as host - so he could just vote himself as one of the three headmins, which I would personally be fine with.
This would also resolve other issues we currently have.

[oranges]

MSO is pretty good, and I respect his judgement usually, especially if it's in a 'tie break' sort of situation.
But I don't thin he should be veto'ing things when 2 headmins agree on it.

If he wants that sort of power, he's got a headmin vote as host - so he could just vote himself as one of the three headmins, which I would personally be fine with.

Well not really, since one headmin can't veto the other two, thats why there's supposed to be 3 of them.

[lumipharon]

I don't mean veto power, I meant like, weighing in on rulings as a headmin, who we've agreed are supposed to have the power, not the host position.

[Falamazeer]

Agreed, In the thread where kor said that, I said it should be that way lumi.
That'd be fine by me, and I bet most other people.

I just don't think it's fair that hostmin carries the weight it did in SoS's day, where he can just set a policy like that, and overide the headmins and players.

if he wants to be techinical host fine, give his vote to the headmins, if not, he should absorb headmin powers and act as a headmin, not a pseudo-when-it's-convieniant SoS, and a blameless just a host who gave out his powers for the good of the realm when it's not.

[oranges]

Disappointing, but ultimately about what I expected to happen with such a poorly defined role

[MrStonedOne]

See, I read the thread, and a good amount of people said a simple vote shouldn't be able to cause somebody to get removed from headmin, and i agreed,

So when those other two headmins came to be about this, i looked at the core issue being brought up, activity, and when i looked, they were more active (*as a headmin*) then I had thought, They were in the headmin channel, with the headmins, head coder, and game masters, talking, often enough over the past little bit, it just didn't always time up with when the other two headmins are on.

Since the only complaint of activity didn't quite pan out, i saw no reason to remove them.

And yes, headmin impeachments are my forte, Do you really want a headmin to be able to get booted out because the other two don't like him. that defeats the whole point of having 3 headmins.

Mind you, when i first talked to hg after getting talked to by the other two headmins, i was ready to give them the impeachment talk, but they pointed out their activity, and they were right, their inactivity has been grossly overstated.

I'm not gonna impeach a headmin because the players and other headmins don't like them, or thought they were slacking more than they were.

Like, what's the point of having the votes then?

[oranges]

Whats the point of having anything if you're just gonna overrule it

[Falamazeer]

See, I read the thread, and a good amount of people said a simple vote shouldn't be able to cause somebody to get removed from headmin, and i agreed,

I know, I'm one of the ones who said it, this isn't a simple vote, this is two thirds headmins, and two thirds playerbase.
and you're overiding that, with a position that's barely defined and riding on the coat-tails of what once was.

So when those other two headmins came to be about this, i looked at the core issue being brought up, activity, and when i looked, they were more active (*as a headmin*) then I had thought, They were in the headmin channel, with the headmins, head coder, and game masters, talking, often enough over the past little bit, it just didn't always time up with when the other two headmins are on.

Since the only complaint of activity didn't quite pan out, i saw no reason to remove them.

See, that's hard to believe, because me and 72% of the players don't see him as active.
He's a meme in his own right, I've been saying HG fell and he couldn't get up since I returned, and should have bought life alert.
I've seen him once in game, and it was during this rush of activity AFTER the poll went up.
Not calling you a liar, but connection and active connections cannot be lining up correctly, it's against all evidence I've seen.

And yes, headmin impeachments are my forte,

Why?

Do you really want a headmin to be able to get booted out because the other two don't like him. that defeats the whole point of having 3 headmins.

Nope, I want two headmins to be able to call a player vote, if two headmins try to vote out a third, and the player base doesn't save him, then he's lost already, and we shouldn't have to wait 6 months to rectify the problem.

I'm not gonna impeach a headmin because the players and other headmins don't like them, or thought they were slacking more than they were.

Like, what's the point of having the votes then?

Again, and most importantly why is this your call? You do a lot of great things, but You're not SoS and assumed rights don't fly when the age old excuse of "my server my rules" don't apply. It's publicly funded.


The only solution I see that makes sense is to eat a headmin vote for yourself, and I'm sure that's fair, and allow server direction to be decided by you and the democratically voted for headmins. otherwise you're just eating the old role of SoS slowly, and we'll be right back where we started in a few months, and we'll see how long it takes before people get tired of it.

[QuartzCrystal]

Do you really want a headmin to be able to get booted out because the other two don't like him. that defeats the whole point of having 3 headmins.

Then why are you giving your host vote to the two headmins to then choose someone they deem their favorite potentially?

[Saegrimr]

ITT: People slowly realize this isn't america, but a forum for a video game, and the veil of democracy doesn't mean shit here.

Just play your damn game.

[Saegrimr]

Furthermore, this is ironically the same non-problem people had with SoS. (greytiding not included)

[Falamazeer]

Honestly if he's giving out his headmin vote why does he still have a vote at all? much less one that over-rules two thirds majority headmins and players?

This is what happens with poorly defined roles, SoS did this when he gave coders their own headmin with "his" vote, but kept right along fucking with stuff anyways.

[oranges]

Furthermore, this is ironically the same non-problem people had with SoS. (greytiding not included)

actually the problem was that sos was making making admin calls that were in the opposite direction to prevailing admin precedent at the time.

MSO isn't that bad yet.

[John_Oxford]

We will have MSO as the new stalin...

Soon.....
Very soon.....

[DemonFiren]

Be good and keep your head down, or you will be exiled to Artyom Badger Basil Badger! Bagil.

[SkipsPro]

I feel like if MSO is gonna take the responsibility to host the servers, he should also have the responsibility of being able to overturn anything, or applying rule 0 to admin shit.

[TechnoAlchemist]

Hosting the server is a lot of work, payment aside, I think that whoever is putting in the time to host the server should have at the very least a headmin level of influence on decisions.

The fact that MSO has stayed active in the community and seems to actually care/and not go made with power is a godsend.

[Steelpoint]

If he wants to be a headmin doesn't he have a headmin position slot? He can just nominate himself as a headmin from that and be done with it.

[Oldman Robustin]

MSO might as well be SoS to me. Both are sane in the broadest sense, but really don't fully grasp SS13 as its played here and they will frequently do shit that has you scratching your head going "What? Really?!"

The prior host and the current one are at their best when they just stick to their basic duties and the less they're talked about, the better.

The idea that we should be bartering responsibility for power is just silly. Everything I've seen from MSO demonstrates that he's not the kind of personality appropriate for headmin-level decisions.

[Tornadium]

The fact that headmins are appointed by a popularity contest is equally silly.

[Stickymayhem]

Connection logs aren't the best way to check !!ACTIVITY!! for a headmin anyway. I think it's more important that they be around for decisions and discussions.

Anyone can afk on the server for a couple hours a day from work.

It's totally ridiculous to compare MSO to SoS though. You're either a newfag or a retard if you can possibly make that kind of comparison. I was on the front line of the kill SoS brigade and that dude did constant shady shit entirely for themselves.

MSO doesn't benefit in any way from the dozens of hours of shit a week he does for us. He's active, impartial in 90% of things and in 99.9% of things he only acts when we ask him to. He runs the server better than anyone has in years technically, codes amazing stuff for us and will lay down heaps of time to please the community doing everything from scratch to a standard higher than almost anything else in this game.

The host SHOULD have power. A video game server full of fuckwits needs a single point of power because we aren't sophisticated enough to cope with anything else. This is not real life so we can't expect that level of devotion to work. MSO is the most perfectly-suited person we've had running the show in years.

I still can't fathom how some of you can take one action from a person and define their entire being around that single action, hating them over it. The fact is MSO does have power to determine how headmin elections and demotions should work. It's one of his few powers in fact. Any time MSO has hopped in with policy decisions it's been discussed with us before, and we're either using him as an arbitrator or to just lay down the law with the few who won't even accept headmin decisions.

I disagree with his decision but the fact is that it's his decision

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I completely support MSO being in charge, because as people have said, we need a point of final appeal because holy fuck we're getting too fucking politicky around here as it is.

The point of contention here is that he explicitly and repeatedly, with the agreement of the headmins, agreed that he'd be below them, with them being in charge, but that as soon as something he disagrees with occurs, he turned around and declared himself to be in charge.

^^^notmyopinionthatsjustwhatfalamazeeriscomplainingabout^^^

[Stickymayhem]

He's disagreed with us on other stuff before but it's happened.

This is the first thing we disagree with him on that is entirely his authority. The blacklist and headmin management is the sole right of the host.

[oranges]

DAMN IT STICKY YOU CUCK

[MrStonedOne]

but that as soon as something he disagrees with occurs, he turned around and declared himself to be in charge.

You have no idea how untrue that is.

I've disagreed with a lot of things, There are admins on the team that if I had my way, wouldn't be on the team. The low rules events are another thing I dislike. On that note some of the rules we have or where the ic/ooc line is I have issue with.

There have been some decisions on how to handle certain admin complaints I have taken major issue with, and the headmins knew that.

I have not been 100% in agreeance with how the headmins have done things, but i just raise my concern to them and move on.

[Cik]

yeah man why rock the boat everything's fine

Spoiler:

i'm actually serious

[Falamazeer]

Because we already went through shovel loads of horse shit to get out of the position where ONE fallable human being from earth was overturning two-thirds players and headmins because of host position, and people went with it because he paid the bills, this does not apply, the host position as it was should be dead, MSO as good a guy as he is should not be making great sweeping changes over the headmins heads. whether sticky wants it or not, this should not be the case because this goes against what very little was laid out when the position changed hands.

If he wants some recognition from the host position I'm fine with that, everyone is fine with that, eat the headmin vote next election (or now) and be a headmin, you'll be tied for first and foremost important decision makers on the server, but the days of one guy overturning anything he personally disagrees with are, and should remain dead.

[duncathan]

MSO is, without a doubt, making the right decision. I want HG gone as much as the next guy, but there needs to be an official impeachment process. Don't we have some sort of committee (MSO, Quartz, oranges I think?) in charge of headmin elections? Those three should come to an agreement on what exactly needs to be done to get a headmin impeached. While they're at it, they should consult with the headmins and figure out what an appropriate metric of activity would be. Once those two things are figured out, there can be a very clear, cut and dry decision on whether HG remains headmin.

[Oldman Robustin]

The fact that headmins are appointed by a popularity contest is equally silly.

It seems to have worked fairly well so far. Compared to Head Coder, Forum Mods, etc. I think Headmins to generally be the best leaders/managers of the community. Both current and prior headmins have all generally been level-headed folks who improve rather than detract from the experience here.

[callanrockslol]

Remember all that shit I bitched about at An0n about not clarifying exactly where the host stands in regards to the headmins. Guess where we are again.

[Ergovisavi]

Whoever runs the servers holds the power... MSO could spawn himself as wizard every round and it'd be within his right to do so. I'd quit playing on the server, but it's his every right, and as a result, he has last say on any decision in regards to the server itself, since he holds the keys to it and runs it.

I think people believing that a server is run in some sort of democracy instead of it being a (benign) dictatorship are idiots. For better or worse, MSO's word is law, and that's cool, because he runs the fucking thing we all play on, and if we don't like it, we're free to pack up and leave to hippiestation or whatever.

[Falamazeer]

That line of reasoning was very popular when SoS was running the show too.
But he payed for everything himself so it's not really the same now is it?

Either way, nobody seems to give enough of a shit so far, I guess we'll just have to see how far MSO feels like stretching his legs and whether anyone cares at some later date.

[callanrockslol]

We either give host absolute power and accept that, in which case they better the bills themselves,or accept that who hosts the server isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things considering how easily replaceable almost anyone in charge or hosting something for this server has proven to be when it comes down to it.

[Saegrimr]

considering how easily replaceable almost anyone in charge or hosting something for this server has proven to be when it comes down to it.

You're forgetting the last two changes of hosts were completely voluntary.
I'm actually extremely curious to see how the community divides should the situation happen where we get a turbo asshole host who refuses to leave.

[Oldman Robustin]

Yea if the server isn't being paid for by the Host, he loses the absolute sovereign immunity bullshit stuff.

We're crowdfunded now and if the Host used his power to run this server into the ground with abuse and intentional shittery, he'd be exposing himself to legal liability. You can break your own toys if you don't want anyone else to play (and even then there are limits to this), but you can't break a crowdfunded toy just because people trusted you with it.

[AdenAbrafo]

We're crowdfunded now and if the Host used his power to run this server into the ground with abuse and intentional shittery, he'd be exposing himself to legal liability.

lol oh man

everyone is taking this too seriously

[John_Oxford]

"Hey guys, we're gonna fucking sue MSO if he dives this server into the ground, fucking freedom, fuck yeah!"

[peoplearestrange]

We're crowdfunded now and if the Host used his power to run this server into the ground with abuse and intentional shittery, he'd be exposing himself to legal liability.

Yeah because crowd funding defintly holds up as a binding contract.

And people have definitely never not fulfilled their side of the bargin in a crowd source before (see the "PicturesOfSadChildren" book for an example).

But seriously I'm not really sure this is really an issue, any of this, other servers survive fine with "grand host", even SoS without the greytiding/adminabuse wasn't exactly terrible as a host. If anything MSO has been particularly hands off, in terms of admin, and seems to just be concentrating on making shit work and teach others how to fix things when they go lag.

[Oldman Robustin]

We're crowdfunded now and if the Host used his power to run this server into the ground with abuse and intentional shittery, he'd be exposing himself to legal liability.

Yeah because crowd funding defintly holds up as a binding contract.

And people have definitely never not fulfilled their side of the bargin in a crowd source before (see the "PicturesOfSadChildren" book for an example).

But seriously I'm not really sure this is really an issue, any of this, other servers survive fine with "grand host", even SoS without the greytiding/adminabuse wasn't exactly terrible as a host. If anything MSO has been particularly hands off, in terms of admin, and seems to just be concentrating on making shit work and teach others how to fix things when they go lag.

There are absolutely aspects of contract law that apply here. Google Promissory Estoppel. It's never as simple as "holding your end of a bargain" either, there's a distinct difference between nonfeasance, misfeasance, and malfeasance.

I don't think it's an issue right now either, but anyone who thinks that MSO has any unqualified rights to do as he pleases is not correct.

[AdenAbrafo]

The server is up. He isn't running away with the money. Turn off your computer for an hour, step outside or something.

[Oldman Robustin]

The server is up. He isn't running away with the money. Turn off your computer for an hour, step outside or something.

I only brought it up to dispel this shit:

Whoever runs the servers holds the power... MSO could spawn himself as wizard every round and it'd be within his right to do so. I'd quit playing on the server, but it's his every right, and as a result, he has last say on any decision in regards to the server itself, since he holds the keys to it and runs it.

I think people believing that a server is run in some sort of democracy instead of it being a (benign) dictatorship are idiots. For better or worse, MSO's word is law, and that's cool, because he runs the fucking thing we all play on, and if we don't like it, we're free to pack up and leave to hippiestation or whatever.

[Stickymayhem]

Who gives a fuck about the law.

MSO has unqualified rights to do as he pleases because this is a video game that he is hosting the server for.

SoS literally abused this in and out of game frequently thanks to this.

Can we just all be fucking normal human beings who don't have to break out the fucking bill of rights in every discussion.

[Oldman Robustin]

Who gives a fuck about the law.

MSO has unqualified rights to do as he pleases because this is a video game that he is hosting the server for.

SoS literally abused this in and out of game frequently thanks to this.

Can we just all be fucking normal human beings who don't have to break out the fucking bill of rights in every discussion.

SoS paid for the servers.

MSO is crowdfunding the servers.

It's not hard to appreciate the difference between paying something and soliciting others to pay for something. When you promise to do something in return for someone else's money, you do not get unqualified rights. Everyone here is a lot happier knowing that MSO isn't one Clinton 2016 election away from going full-SoS or worse, advancing the position that only his personality is holding him back from abusing his position is not a good position to be advancing... especially as a headmin Sticky.

The position that is currently correct,and the one that is best for the future (aka WHY WE HAVE THIS THREAD) is that the host is largely a maintenance role that in return for their service, receives a heightened status on the forums and on administration matters, the ear of the headmins, etc.

Why in the world a Headmin would push the stance of "MSO is literally our god and its only his benevolence that spares us" instead of a more democratic vision of how power is balanced here is just beyond me. MSO is not a god/absolute authority/etc., but as long as a headmin like you takes that stance then he might as well be.