Should head of staff have more admin protection?

[Armhulen]

Right now head of staff are currently left as "the one guy who gets more gear" because maintainers have agreed there is no point in increasing the responsibility and consequentially the power of a head of staff if there is no admin backing on enforcing head of staff actually having any more respect than the average staffie. Leaving coding solutions out of the picture as they will only matter if policy is enacted, what level of increased hea dof staff protection would make sense to you? None is a valid answer, but I do want to hear a good justification no matter what you think.

[TheFinalPotato]

Enforce the chain of command no balls

[Armhulen]

At the very least, agreement by headmins means to some degree that chain of command will be enforced. But what does enforcing the chain of command mean to YOU, since it's kind of a catch all term that could mean very little or it could mean a ton

[Mothblocks]

Is this asking from like, the perspective of what direction we (head admins) want heads of staff to go in, or are you looking for something more hard for admins to be able to enforce?

We do have the part about valid demotions being meta-protected, curious if there's anything else you have in mind or if you simply want to know what velocity we want.

[thgvr]

Trying to get people to listen to you outside of being Captain or Head of Security is quite a miserable task, if heads are granted more protections/rights they need to be protected roles in the same way captain and HOS are.

Heads of staff should be given full authority over their dept - just as the HoS is now. If an officer disobeys the HoS or Captain, they're demoted or arrested or whatever, but if you tell someone to do something as CMO you will most likely be told to bite it or even attacked by several people if you try to use your baton to put them into place.

There's another somewhat similar policy thread up about head of staff antagonists that probably has some good points to look at somewhere.

[Armhulen]

I've been told the chain of command is as of right now unenforced

[Mothblocks]

I've been told the chain of command is as of right now unenforced

Yeah but what does that mean to you?

Basically, what outcome do you see as being within scope to what you're talking about? Note: Not what outcome do you want to see, but what are actual replies to what you're asking?

[Pandarsenic]

I think the Heads of Staff should, at least on MRP, should have these examples as a rough guideline:

• The right to bar anyone from their department's grounds, even if they have access, temporarily or permanently. Permanent shooing of people who work there requires an actual demotion.
• The responsibility to haze welcome interns.
• The right to permit or refuse transfers into the department.
• The right to issue reasonable orders that their subordinates must follow unless they straight-up do not know how, in which case they should say as much.
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  "Set up the engine" is a fine baseline expectation, "Set up a CO2-cooled perpetual power engine and pluoxium harvester, I don't want to see a single molecule of N2 in there" is not. "Dissect a monkey" is probably fine, "Knock out an assistant and dissect them" is not. "Make synthflesh" is fine, "Make 2 bottles of every healing chem" is not because holy shit there are a lot of healing chems. "Someone who knows toxins, do the large explosion research node" is fine, "Bring me 5 maxcaps and remote signalers" is sketchy enough that people can be like Wait What about it.
• The right to demote/fire people, barring Captain intervention, for serious transgressions related to their access to their job goodies
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  Blowing up Chemistry with meth; destroying the engine through malice or negligence; spending all of the station's oxygen supply on making a bunch of Tritium; breaking into the Vault with Thermite or Engie Gear; repeatedly ignoring valid orders about the type of engine setup to use or what to order from the cargo console; etc.
• RP rule expectation that people care if they're kicked out of their department, namely that they can't just go "Oh it'll be fine consequences never stick anyway"
• A counter to the above for antagonists, who have a safety net from their Syndicate backing, changeling badassery, etc., as appropriate IC
• A counter for characters who "abuse" their job goodies, ignore job duties, or go against their head of staff in a way that prevents the loss of one or more lives, even an antagonist life, or who prevent serious damage to the station, its finances, or Nanotrasen's general interests.
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  In those situations, unless they're truly tremendous fuckups, they can expect IC backing from CentCom HR/legal in the incident report to avoid Nanotrasen exposure to fiscal responsibility. Nobody wants to clean up plasma fires or hull breaches, CentCom least of all.
• If you wanna be fucked up, make it so you only have a guarantee of CentCom backing if the disobedience saves human lives, not nonhumans.

On LRP, they should have similar but harsher privileges: Kicking people out of their departments with Sec/HOP aid, using their Head of Staff Gamer Gear like the batons to perform field demotions, and kicking the ass of anyone who invades their department if sec doesn't show up.

Rather than LRP people having an enforced expectation of semi-realistic response to the threat of firing, LRP heads are just allowed to kick the ass of anyone in their department.

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Is this asking from like, the perspective of what direction we (head admins) want heads of staff to go in, or are you looking for something more hard for admins to be able to enforce?

In a way, I would say that there's no difference - you have a broad mandate to determine the limits of that enforcement based on what you think is best for the health of the server and the desires of the players. You can define clear limits on their power, or just say "it's the respect and authority you would expect from someone who is your manager but also is expected to know how to do your job, now RP you assholes."

[Armhulen]

I guess it means complete lack of any kind of rank respect in the sense that heads of staff have no power to order anyone to do anything, non heads of staff just treat them like equals and focus on their own thing, heads of staff have no agency to enforce any kind of special gimmick. What I mean by that last part is that the captain can, within reason, do something special and take the whole round with him on a special "player run event". Heads of staff couldn't do the same thing to their staffees, showing the difference.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Is this a Manuel issue? On Sybil I never see people disrespect heads of staff unless the head of staff is being a complete dickwad.

Also cant all this be solved by existing in game mechanics anyway? If someone is insubordinate for no good reason, tell security and have them arrested for insubordination. That's the correct way to handle insubordination in roleplay. It doesnt need any fancy new admin policies, you guys should be handling this issue in game, in character.

[toemas]

there should unironically be a whitelist for command roles and chain of command should be enforced. Nobody takes command roles seriously, and deservedly so, because they can act like retards and go unpunished

[Mothblocks]

I have two big ways I'm looking at this.

One is that I want heads of staff to be more important. If this thread is just about like, head admin opinion on where the codebase can go in that regard or something, that would be my personal answer?

The other is that I'm not sure what specifically you want me to say with regards to making it more important. I know they aren't really, but it's harder for me to pin down why.

Valid demotions are protected. Valid demotions does not have to be egregious, to me. If someone is denying your very reasonable orders (make healing chems), and is instead doing something that is also far from productive (making meth), then I would protect heads of staff trying to demote you for that, for instance. But that's obviously not enough. What are your thoughts?

[sinfulbliss]

Sort of hard to think of anything that could be added to enforce this. I think sometimes heads of staff get forcibly demoted by the department over disagreements, and that's usually IC issues. Perhaps making that disallowed, but the thing is there are often incompetent heads of staff where a forced demotion is necessary and even good.

I don't think there'd be anything concrete you could add policy-wise to fix this. Codebase solutions would probably work, like adding ID modification access to every head's tablet so they could do demotions on-the-fly.

[terranaut]

you can't give heads of staff admin protection without giving players protection from retarded heads of staff that have no business being in that position

[Mothblocks]

I think sometimes heads of staff get forcibly demoted by the department over disagreements, and that's usually IC issues. Perhaps making that disallowed, but the thing is there are often incompetent heads of staff where a forced demotion is necessary and even good.

We already don't allow mutinies against captains, I would defend that same type of thing for heads of staff like, already. I don't think I've ever seen that.

[Pandarsenic]

The one that immediately leaps to mind is "Pay for treatment" medical, which, uh

I wish people were so ready to throw hands over being denied basic medical care IRL

[cacogen]

Security holds all the actual power and acting captain gets zero fucking respect with the excuse that they could be a traitor despite all the responsibility and work that role can involve.

So yes, staging a coup because you're a cunt and want to be able to do whatever you want without having to follow the chain of command should not be allowed. It should be up to the admins/Centcom to deal with heads of staff that are doing rulebreaking shit. And if it's not rulebreaking, they should be allowed to do it.

Otherwise whether you get to remain captain/acting captain and whether or not you have any juice/political capital/ability to get other people to do what you want is determined by a popularity contest, which greatly disfavours newer players or random names.

We already don't allow mutinies against captains

Is this something that's changed recently? Because it's not how it plays out in my experience. You do not get to do shit as captain without security's backing, and if the HoS is an egotistical bitch with no sense of humour and no imagination then enjoy your boring round.

[Mothblocks]

Should rephrase about the mutiny part after getting a DM on that and after you're getting confused--I'm referring to this, you need a very good reason for it.

Any situation in which security has acted poorly enough that you could kill them all without getting banned is a situation that the security players probably would have already been banned in.

So to answer your question, basically never.

...which is the top Ctrl+F on headmin rulings for "mutinies".

[Vekter]

Enforce the chain of command no balls

We already do this for executions. I'm not really sure why we don't have other stuff enforced.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Enforce the chain of command no balls

We already do this for executions. I'm not really sure why we don't have other stuff enforced.

Do you really want the Chemist to be noted/banned for telling the CMO to fuck off while he goes to make meth, when he should be like, demoted or maybe arrested depending on the circumstances at worst? Like maybe he doesn't make a cure during a viral outbreak. Okay, he's shit. But that doesn't mean that he should be freaking noted. At least not on LRP.

I don't think it would be a good idea for MRP either though because it would give too much control without roleplay or social interaction from heads of staff over those under them. You would be removing WAY too much player agency. I certainly don't want to play on a server where the CMO says jump and I have to jump or I get ahelped.

[Pandarsenic]

If you wanna make Meth Lab Medical, just be the CMO, then.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

If you wanna make Meth Lab Medical, just be the CMO, then.

Sure, unlock command roles for non-humans then, since I prefer to play Felinid or Ethereal.

[Mothblocks]

@Pandarsenic Roleplay rules include "Chain of command and security are important.", though I'm assuming what Armhulen is talking about, since they're asking in context of the codebase, is for more encompassing rules outside of MRP.

That being said, I'd still like some thoughts from Armhulen on what he has in mind, since I agree that head of staff should be more important, but am not sure the best way to go about it that isn't tangentially covered by the existing meta-protection of demotions.

[Itseasytosee2me]

If you wanna make Meth Lab Medical, just be the CMO, then.

Sure, unlock command roles for non-humans then, since I prefer to play Felinid or Ethereal.

[Tapubulu]

The day nonhumans become command is the day that I'll be banned.

[Sylphet]

Yes, but it needs to be paired with higher standards and the removal of head antags, similar to security.

[Armhulen]

and the removal of head antags, similar to security.

Elaborate on why?

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

and the removal of head antags, similar to security.

Elaborate on why?

Security works as a team and always has each other's backs because they know none of them are antag.

The CMO, CE, and RD could all be antags. Is the CMO ordering you to morgue/debrain/whatever else the guy who still has a soul because he was REALLY a traitor, or because he saw the CMO with traitor gear and was killed to silence him?

Imagine the traitor CMO orders you to do something you disagree with, but you end up doing it out of fear of getting banned by the admemes, but it turns out you didn't have to listen to them at all actually, because it turns out they were a traitor at the end of the shift, but you didnt know that so you just went along with their orders because you didnt want to get ahelped for not following their orders. Wouldnt that be shitty?

[terranaut]

removing head antags is a way in the wrong direction and furthering boring rounds where nothing happens or there are very clearly defined lines between antags and crew
judging from other recent threads this is not what the majority of commenters want

[Armhulen]

removing head antags is a way in the wrong direction and furthering boring rounds where nothing happens or there are very clearly defined lines between antags and crew
judging from other recent threads this is not what the majority of commenters want

I agree with this. Even roles immune to antag can be corrupted into antags, but the few roles that are have very explicit reasoning. Security being the heavy extra set of rules around them antagonism considerations really muck with, and Captain for being OP. Head of Staff aren't either of those since they have normal escalation and simply aren't OP

[toemas]

Enforce the chain of command no balls

We already do this for executions. I'm not really sure why we don't have other stuff enforced.

on mrp maybe

[BeeSting12]

Don't heads of staff have enough meta-protection? They are protected when carrying out demotions, and I think it's implicitly said that the demotion should be over something reasonable. It could be made more clear that heads of staff are allowed to and expected to give their department reasonable orders, and not carrying out these orders without good reason is a demotable offense, but I feel like that's just explicitly saying what the rules and job description already say. On Manuel, maybe Pandarsenics idea can be added to the roleplay rules, but I see no reason why that should be added on the other servers

[Farquaar]

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If you wanna make Meth Lab Medical, just be the CMO, then.

Sure, unlock command roles for non-humans then, since I prefer to play Felinid or Ethereal.

On a more serious note, I don't think Heads of Staff need much more admin protection. I think that protecting valid demotions was a great step forward; the playerbase just needs to adjust to it. After all, if you're not willing to demote someone over their mischief, is it really a big enough deal that admins need to get involved?

That said, it would be cool to see Heads of Staff have more in-game powers (i.e. pay raises/docks etc), but that would be a matter for the codebase, not the administration.

[MooCow12]

If heads of staff are granted increased metaprotections they need to be held to a higher standard by the same forces that protect them.

I think the opposite is more appealing on sybil and terry. The crew should be the ones that hold heads of staff to a higher standard (lynching/fighting back), so heads of staff are able to make a mistake without getting in big trouble. This game has alot of limited information in it and a lot of players (including head of staff players) are not mentally equipped to act on limited information.

[Mothblocks]

We talked about this in the recent community meeting. Armhulen and the head admins agree that we don't need to do extra policy changes right now (given valid demotions being protected), but that as head admins, we want to see the codebase move in the direction of giving heads of staff more responsibilites, and we will do what we can to work with the codebase on creating policy to protect head of staff when necessary.