RaveRadbury - /tg/station, a place you can tell your friends about

[RaveRadbury]

Hi there! I’m RaveRadbury

I’m an admin, I mostly play and admin on the MRP server. I started playing in 2019 and I was adminned around the start of 2020. /tg/station has been a great place to play and I have enjoyed my time here. Especially during Covid, this community has been important to having any sense of normalcy or regular socializing. I am very grateful to all of you for playing here and taking the time to post in the forums and discord.


I am running for headmin because I wish to give back further to the community that has done so much for me and I have time to dedicate to the position.


If elected headmin I plan to focus on improving and growing the community

SS13 has been around for nearing 20 years now, and while we like to joke about the Curse, there are two projects that have sought to free it from BYOND that are now on the Steam Store. I believe that these projects pose an existential threat to our community that we must take seriously. In preparation for a future where at least one of these projects becomes successful, I feel that it is important that we take steps to strengthen and grow our community, as ultimately the community members and active culture are a finite resource that cannot be copied.


A comfortable environment with reduced toxicity

Community members put so much time contributing to this game and playing it to have to add a bunch of caveats and warnings to the project they have dedicated themselves to before showing it to their IRL friends. Have you ever wanted to tell someone about this game, but held back because of the kinds of behaviors and things that are said around here? I think that’s a shame, and I would like to change that.

I will work for better enforcement of Rule 11 and Discord rule 12. I will also see to the appointment of at least one discord moderator exclusively for the oversight of #politics-containment.


Notes shouldn’t be a punishment

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the role of notes and how they lead up to bans. During the course of my term I would like to evaluate and investigate this further. As an immediate actionable first step, I would address the current practice of “ban this person if they do x again” in notes, disallowing it from occurring further and encouraging community members with such phrases in their notes to appeal to have the note edited to remove the problematic section. This practice literally makes notes a punishment, and must be dealt with.

While adminning on MRP I was advised by headmins during its early days to take an approach of correction and discussion over noting. This is something that I embraced, and when I was made admintrainer I sought to pass it on to those I trained for the MRP server. Having originally adminned on Bagil and Sybil, I found that this approach produced a lot of fruitful conversations with players that resulted in growth and a lack of future problems on their part. As such I would like to consider a lighter touch on the LRP servers as well, we’re all here to enjoy the game and mistakes happen.


Any specific plans for LRP/MRP?

At this time no, I have no sweeping changes I’d like to see happen to either ruleset. I think our headmins have done a great job with MRP policy, and I think that Mothblock’s work on Dynamic 2021 has been a boon to all of our servers.

I would prefer instead to source feedback from the community in regards to the changes that they would like to see. If there is something that you would like to see changed/added, please make a debate thread about it, or feel free to DM me on discord. I will also be spending time in the VC channels during the course of the elections if you’d like to speak with me there.


Common debate thread pre-emptive answers

Drones? Yes, I’ve been a supporter of JJRCop’s fix to drones from the beginning.
ERP? No, it squicks people out and it produced toxic cliques


I look forward to hearing feedback from everyone and discussing the future of our community.
Thank you for playing here, participating in the community, and contributing to the project.

[MortoSasye]

How would you handle cases in which a player waits to be able to appeal their note, gets it removed, and starts breaking the same rule again but with no record of what they did?

[RaveRadbury]

How would you handle cases in which a player waits to be able to appeal their note, gets it removed, and starts breaking the same rule again but with no record of what they did?

The appeal would be in regards to modifying the note to remove the "ban them if it happens again" part, not the factual aspects of the note.

"Ban them if this happens again" is a problem for both players as it's a punishment note, and admins as they are passing the buck to make someone else responsible for the ban and possible appeal. This is something that I myself have done, and look forward to correcting during my term if elected.

I can understand how my language was ambiguous here and will be making a correction, thank your for pointing it out Morto!

[Malkraz]

what does "better" enforcement of Rule 11 mean

[RaveRadbury]

what does "better" enforcement of Rule 11 mean

It means that usage of slurs outside of the context of serious discussion, such as shouting them alone in a vacuum, are bigoted.

[Malkraz]

Will you have a list of banned slurs, and if so who will curate it

[TribeOfBeavers]

Re: Notes as a punishment

What do you feel the role of notes should be, if they aren't a punishment?

[RaveRadbury]

Will you have a list of banned slurs, and if so who will curate it

The common sense approach has worked so far, no list of banned slurs will be needed or curated, especially because MSO has established that such things are needless for the enforcement of the rules. If you feel that your usage of a slur was not a slur or was used in good faith, you are welcome to appeal the administrative action against you, in accordance with current policy.

[MortoSasye]

How would you handle cases in which a player waits to be able to appeal their note, gets it removed, and starts breaking the same rule again but with no record of what they did?

I can understand how my language was ambiguous here and will be making a correction, thank your for pointing it out Morto!

No problem, thanks for replying

[Malkraz]

That's effectively the exact same as having a list of banned words, except that they're hidden from the playerbase. Currently I can call someone a nigger or a faggot so long as I'm not "seeking to demean them due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, orientation", whereas your approach bans those words only short of telling me they're banned. This is the exact kind of slippery slope concern people had over this kind of rule, that it would gradually be taken further until it became outright word bans.

[Domitius]

While adminning on MRP I was advised by headmins during its early days to take an approach of correction and discussion over noting. This is something that I embraced, and when I was made admintrainer I sought to pass it on to those I trained for the MRP server. Having originally adminned on Bagil and Sybil, I found that this approach produced a lot of fruitful conversations with players that resulted in growth and a lack of future problems on their part. As such I would like to consider a lighter touch on the LRP servers as well, we’re all here to enjoy the game and mistakes happen.

I have seen Rave implement this lighter touch to great effect and found great results using it myself. If Headmins can be used to set an example this is the best example I could ever hope for.

RaveRadbury has devoted enormous amounts of their time to the community and would for sure make sure all the work gets done. Everything in their platform is readily achievable with their skillset.

+1

[RaveRadbury]

Re: Notes as a punishment

What do you feel the role of notes should be, if they aren't a punishment?

Behavioral notes are for the recording of factual information.

I've worked in jobs where notes on clients were life or death, this is just a spaceman game. While yes there are some situations that do warrant notes, there are others that are more of an "err on the side of caution thing" that can end up becoming problematic. This isn't something so srs that letting someone who is receptive to the conversation and doesn't seem like they will do it again an opportunity to get by without having a mark that's going to affect them.

[RaveRadbury]

That's effectively the exact same as having a list of banned words, except that they're hidden from the playerbase. Currently I can call someone a nigger or a faggot so long as I'm not "seeking to demean them due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, orientation", whereas your approach bans those words only short of telling me they're banned. This is the exact kind of slippery slope concern people had over this kind of rule, that it would gradually be taken further until it became outright word bans.

I appreciate your concern for this issue, however I will not bend on this. I am taking this stand based on the conversations that I have had with others who put a lot of time and energy into this community and are uncomfortable playing on our servers or introducing the game to others over concern of the embarrassment of having to apologize for the kind of behavior you're describing.

If people agree with me they will vote for me, if they agree with you they will not vote for me.

Thank you for taking the time to engage my thread and I hope that if I am elected that you will still be able to enjoy participating in the community and playing the game.

[TribeOfBeavers]

Re: Notes as a punishment

What do you feel the role of notes should be, if they aren't a punishment?

Behavioral notes are for the recording of factual information.

I've worked in jobs where notes on clients were life or death, this is just a spaceman game. While yes there are some situations that do warrant notes, there are others that are more of an "err on the side of caution thing" that can end up becoming problematic. This isn't something so srs that letting someone who is receptive to the conversation and doesn't seem like they will do it again an opportunity to get by without having a mark that's going to affect them.

A recording of factual information can be a punishment if the player feels like it is though.
Having a note vs not having one can affect your future interactions with admins, from being more likely to be banned for something similar to being less likely to be selected as an admin to being more likely to be permabanned etc etc

While I agree that not everything needs to be extremely serious and everything must be noted at all times and no discussions with the player are needed, I think it's impossible not to view notes as a punishment when you're a player receiving one.

In any case
Beyond banning the phrase mentioned, do you have a plan for encouraging admins to have more discussions with players rather than just noting?
Do you have a plan for handling players who might attempt to abuse the lowered note frequency to get away with something multiple times by saying it was the first time?

[Malkraz]

That's effectively the exact same as having a list of banned words, except that they're hidden from the playerbase. Currently I can call someone a nigger or a faggot so long as I'm not "seeking to demean them due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, orientation", whereas your approach bans those words only short of telling me they're banned. This is the exact kind of slippery slope concern people had over this kind of rule, that it would gradually be taken further until it became outright word bans.

I appreciate your concern for this issue, however I will not bend on this. I am taking this stand based on the conversations that I have had with others who put a lot of work into this community and are uncomfortable playing on our servers or introducing the game to others over concern of the embarrassment of having to apologize for the kind of behavior you're describing.

If people agree with me they will vote for me, if they agree with you they will not vote for me.

Thank you for taking the time to engage my thread and I hope that if I am elected that you will still be able to enjoy participating in the community and playing the game.

Rather than that purely politicized response, you should clarify on your actual plan of enforcement as I asked before. How are you keeping in line with the "common sense approach" when the point of that approach was to disallow targeting players themselves and essentially OOC usage such as running around yelling "I hate niggers"? You just said certain words will be banned completely outside of "serious discussion", so how do you honestly expect to enforce this without having some list of which words we will be banned for using outside of that? How do you expect to keep this enforcement consistent when many people have very different ideas of what words and terms are considered bigoted?

[RaveRadbury]

Beyond banning the phrase mentioned, do you have a plan for encouraging admins to have more discussions with players rather than just noting?
Do you have a plan for handling players who might attempt to abuse the lowered note frequency to get away with something multiple times by saying it was the first time?

I admit that I have a lot of thinking to do still about how to address this issue, however I cannot avoid the very persuasive and well-meaning arguments of those who have put forth the "Notes are punishments" issue.

I have been practicing a philosophy of "correction over noting" and one of the current headmins has found it endorsable in their own adoption and practice of it.

I have seen Rave implement this lighter touch to great effect and found great results using it myself. If Headmins can be used to set an example this is the best example I could ever hope for.

In regards to potential abuse of kindness, the kinds of issues I am describing are the ones that are worth risking taking a lighter touch on. I think that the team is capable of sussing out when someone is acting in bad-faith, and on the off-chance that they manage to slip through the cracks it is only a matter of time before an admin who is around to witness it twice can respond to it.

I have personal experience with the "see something, note something" attitude towards accounts, but the importance of those in IRL situations are in regards to life-threatening medical conditions or potential for suicide, the kinds of things that one cannot afford to let go unwritten. We have very few things that even begin to approach such seriousness.

[RaveRadbury]

Rather than that purely politicized response, you should clarify on your actual plan of enforcement as I asked before. How are you keeping in line with the "common sense approach" when the point of that approach was to disallow targeting players themselves and essentially OOC usage such as running around yelling "I hate niggers"? You just said certain words will be banned completely outside of "serious discussion", so how do you honestly expect to enforce this without having some list of which words we will be banned for using outside of that? How do you expect to keep this enforcement consistent when many people have very different ideas of what words and terms are considered bigoted?

Common sense has worked so far, I do not expect it to fail now. If you would like more clarification, there are appeals that have happened in the current term that demonstrate the kind of language that we take issue with and its usage. If there are any gray areas, they will be sorted out in the appeal, and policy will be furthered.

Keep in mind, of course, that I will be working with two other headmins in my goals to enact community change and we will be working together to find what is best for the community. I'm sure that they will have their own opinions on the situation and I will have to make compromises. However, if the other elected headmin and the host pick agree with me fully then ultimately the community will have spoken on the level of host pick headmin, admin pick headmin, and player pick headmin.

Should I find myself in complete opposition to the other headmin opinions I have no issue with respecting the circumstance and moving forward onto my other goals.

[Plapatin]

yeah he's goated

[Malkraz]

You're just skirting around stating what your actual personal plans for enforcement are because they appear to explicitly go against the current approaches' intentional avoidance of word bans.

[RaveRadbury]

You're just skirting around stating what your actual personal plans for enforcement are because they appear to explicitly go against the current approaches' intentional avoidance of word bans.

I've been very clear, I apologize that it doesn't meet the outcome you desire. We will not have word bans. I only seek to have an environment of common-sense decency like one would find when meeting with friends at a board game/card shop. We are, after all, a community dedicated to working on a game and playing it.

[Malkraz]

We will not have word bans.

It means that usage of slurs outside of the context of serious discussion, such as shouting them alone in a vacuum, are bigoted.

[carshalash]

You've made it quite open to the public that you are largely in favour of events run by players, going ahead in the future do you plan on making more "eventmin" roles for those that can show they wish to take the role seriously?

[RaveRadbury]

We will not have word bans.

It means that usage of slurs outside of the context of serious discussion, such as shouting them alone in a vacuum, are bigoted.

These two statements are non-exclusive. This is a good summation of my platform, thank you.

[RaveRadbury]

You've made it quite open to the public that you are largely in favour of events run by players, going ahead in the future do you plan on making more "eventmin" roles for those that can show they wish to take the role seriously?

Coconutwarrior is the one who opened the events workshop to players, I am just someone who has encouraged players to approach me with something in mind.

At this point we cannot provide an unsupervised eventmin role, all current event runners are supervised by an admin trainer. Part of the reasoning for this is that if someone deems themselves responsible enough to use the tools without supervision that (in part due to how it's all coded and how permissions are separated out) that they might as well be an admin at that point.

[chiva]

Honestly I've always had a really great experience with you, both IC and as an admin. I've been able to hit them up on discord asking about situational clarification (regarding past rounds) and IG ahelping about things I'm unsure about. They've never been anything but helpful. I'd be happy to see them put in a headmin position.

[Timberpoes]

Since this will directly impact me as a game admin, I'm going to home in on this specific point of your headmin platform.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the role of notes and how they lead up to bans. During the course of my term I would like to evaluate and investigate this further. As an immediate actionable first step, I would address the current practice of “ban this person if they do x again” in notes, disallowing it from occurring further and encouraging community members with such phrases in their notes to appeal to have the note edited to remove the problematic section. This practice literally makes notes a punishment, and must be dealt with.

Negative notes are a punishment. Factually recording that a player has broken a rule in the past, as well as documenting some information around that rule break, is a punishment in and of itself for as long as an admin can take that note into account when they make future decisions.

This is a view shared by some administrators. Please reconcile the above viewpoint with your headmin platform heading: "Notes shouldn't be a punishment" - How do you intend to make it so that factually documenting a rule break is not a punishment in and of itself?

Regarding disallowing "ban this person if they do x again" - Do you expect this will lead to an increase in bans being issued instead of final warning notes? And for your answer, on what grounds do you base your belief in it?

Often such notes are given because an admin wishes to grant a player some final chance of redemption and an opportunity not to offend again. Which do you think players would prefer, the ability for admins to give final warnings and empower future admins to act on them, or for that discretion to be taken away and admins be left with two options - Inert note as a non-punishment, or immediate ban as a punishment?

[RaveRadbury]

Negative notes are a punishment. Factually recording that a player has broken a rule in the past, as well as documenting some information around that rule break, is a punishment in and of itself for as long as an admin can take that note into account when they make future decisions.

This is a view shared by some administrators. Please reconcile the above viewpoint with your headmin platform heading: "Notes shouldn't be a punishment" - How do you intend to make it so that factually documenting a rule break is not a punishment in and of itself?

This is a false dilemma, if any such documentation of a rule break is considered to be a punishment then the only solution is no documentation at all. Instead we must accept that a documentation of facts must occur when a note is made and instead ask after the necessity of the note itself in regards to likelihood of recidivism; a discussion that I had with TribeOfBeavers earlier and an approach that Domitius approved as well. If there are fewer notes the future decisions are lighter. Unnecessary or frivolous notes within this model are the cause of "most punishment" as they contribute to the final undesired outcome while also having the least importance. If all notes are punishment we must take a utilitarian approach and suss out what would create least suffering.

Regarding disallowing "ban this person if they do x again" - Do you expect this will lead to an increase in bans being issued instead of final warning notes? And for your answer, on what grounds do you base your belief in it?

This will result in fewer bans, as the opinion of "just ban them" is not present. The bans that are issued will not be due to an admin making a choice and then passing the buck. If you want to ban them, do it. If not, don't. Don't make the next admin down the line take responsibility for your opinions. They will have to hit the button and handle the appeal, not you. If you don't have the confidence to make the ban then and there, it is not your place to tell the next person what to do. Let the next admin view the situation without the pressure of your expectation.

Often such notes are given because an admin wishes to grant a player some final chance of redemption and an opportunity not to offend again. Which do you think players would prefer, the ability for admins to give final warnings and empower future admins to act on them, or for that discretion to be taken away and admins be left with two options - Inert note as a non-punishment, or immediate ban as a punishment?

This is not an appropriate way of handling things. Probations are handed out during the course of ban appeals, it is heavy-handed can-kicking to pre-empt bans with this. It subverts the ban/note system. You're welcome to express opinions with them as you handle the ticket but ultimately you're compromising the idea of notes as records and instead are playing judge while washing your hands of the ruling and aftermath. Earlier discussion has been had about correction over noting, if you'd like to have talks with players then by all means do so; but you shouldn't be setting them up with the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads in a note. Stuff like this is why we have the problems in the first place, especially because you're setting someone up for a potential perma entirely out-of-sight as opposed to discussing it in a ban appeal.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

>Community members put so much time contributing to this game and playing it to have to add a bunch of caveats and warnings to the project they have dedicated themselves to before showing it to their IRL friends. Have you ever wanted to tell someone about this game, but held back because of the kinds of behaviors and things that are said around here? I think that’s a shame, and I would like to change that.

i think the problem when telling about ss13 to other people is how you explain them that those furries, the vore server, ERP, catgirls and scalies have nothing to do with the essence of the game

[Timonk]

cambridge dictionary defines bigot as
"a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life"

oxford dictionary defines bigot as
"a person who has very strong, unreasonable beliefs or opinions about race, religion or politics and who will not listen to or accept the opinions of anyone who disagrees"

How does saying the n word in a game indicate unreasonable believes about race? Theres a line between saying something and actually believing it, and i believe that we already filtered out those people since they arent really hard to miss. do you agree on that?

personally i believe that the enforcing of rule 11 is just fine right now, a great middle ground. if people cant get out of their mental hugbox and not be hurt by a word directed at their character in a game then they should probably search a different hugbox, like bay, fulp or goon. not all games are for everyone. would you transform a horse racing game into a FPS because you dont like horses?

[Armhulen]

Personally, what holds my friends back is how hard the game is to get into and control sadly :^( 100% unrelated to me running since this is code but I'm gonna try to work on that or help the people who are

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Notes are a punishment man, they're just deferred. That isn't a bad thing.

On the other hand "Ban if he does it again" is needlessly hostile terminology.

Personally, what holds my friends back is how hard the game is to get into and control

Idk about you Rave, but I've never had "Oh yeah people are mean" as a "Yeah maybe this one isn't for you" on my end either.

Well, that and the fact you can't discord chat in the background which defeats 90% of the point of playing a game with friends.

[Cimika]

Disregarding the rule 11 controversy, I'm glad that you brought up the rise of SS14 and UnityStation. Do you feel that, despite our best attempts at improving the user experience, our "old" codebase might prevent us from reaching an ever wider audience ? Do you have any specific goals in regards to this ?

[RaveRadbury]

Idk about you Rave, but I've never had "Oh yeah people are mean" as a "Yeah maybe this one isn't for you" on my end either.

I assure you that I have had the conversation with other community members many times over. It's more just the use of slurs and the impact that they have on atmosphere. Although people being dicks is definitely an issue.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Personally while I'm not against banning slurs, I really can't understand how you reconcile "Saying a slur in a vacuum, to nobody, is considered bigotry"(Bigotry being an instantly bannable offense) with "We are not banning slurs". Furthermore, I don't really like the idea of having "hidden lists" for this sort of thing, given the extremely vicious arguments that have occurred between admins in admin channels over what constitutes a slur in the past. Can you clarify your position rather than smugly skirting around the edge and refusing to answer how I as an admin will be expected to carry out the new policy if I vote for you?

---

Seperately, can you clarify why you believe that there will be less notes for "Ban them if they do it again", given that that's usually how admins word notes when they let someone off for something that they should have been banned for?

[Farquaar]

Personally, what holds my friends back is how hard the game is to get into and control sadly :^(

Yeah, this is true in my experience as well. Everybody I know who has experience with video games understands that foulmouthed banter is part and parcel of the online gaming experience.

That aside, Rave is a good guy and fun to play spaceman with. Even if I don't agree with everything on his platform, he's got the character for the job.

[Super Aggro Crag]

im gonna vote for him cuz he's my friend

[Flatulent]

without toxicity tgstation will be a slaaneshi cult, mr raveradbury, so im not exactly sure how tgstation in this case will be family friendly content

[wesoda25]

I’d love to see what rave could do as headmin. Very dedicated community member, had a large role in turning MRP into what it is today. The wording of some of his policies gives me pause, but voting is more of a character based thing anyways so it’s not really a turn off for me 🤷‍♂️. A headmin with a large stake in and commitment to Manuel would be great for the server, godspeed.

[Rohesie]

Too good for this community. Still, one can hope.
Good luck, Rave.

[RaveRadbury]

i think the problem when telling about ss13 to other people is how you explain them that those furries, the vore server, ERP, catgirls and scalies have nothing to do with the essence of the game

Hey Tlal, thanks for taking the time to engage my thread.

I see what you're saying about these aspects, however a lot of what you're talking about are things that exist on other servers. That /is/ something that we are distinctly separate from, as ERP was made aginst the rules in 2014. In regards to catgirls and scalies, I think that our current "Human Supremacy" policy indicates that we are looking to have such species represented as non-human aliens, the servers that take the furry label tend to promote interspecies equality. Of course you can say, "nah, still catgirls and scalies" which then boils down to a matter of labelling and opinion. These days I think potential community members are less likely to be driven away by what you have highlighted here than the use of slurs. There's plenty of media in the world that engages the things that you're bringing up, yet they also avoid casual slur use. It's just not a polite thing to do or something that people feel contributes to making something better.

[RaveRadbury]

This post was deleted by RaveRadbury on Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:32 am.
Reason: magical double post?

[RaveRadbury]

cambridge dictionary defines bigot as
"a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life"

oxford dictionary defines bigot as
"a person who has very strong, unreasonable beliefs or opinions about race, religion or politics and who will not listen to or accept the opinions of anyone who disagrees"

How does saying the n word in a game indicate unreasonable believes about race? Theres a line between saying something and actually believing it, and i believe that we already filtered out those people since they arent really hard to miss. do you agree on that?

Welcome timonk, thank you for engaging my platform.

I'd like to start off by engaging the definitions you've provided, and say that using slurs like "nigger" reflects an unreasonable belief or opinion in regards to asserting that the word does not have harm or would not be found offensive in many cases. Just like the difference between sincerity and sarcasm can be hard to see, likewise we cannot claim that someone who would go so far as to use a word that clearly has loaded connotation (hence why it is seen as "edgy") is using it "sincerely" or not. What's more, we cannot, and should not seek to have the minority status of the person using the word or being targeted by the word reveal their minority status in order for the issue to be be taken seriously. We have evidence of the kinds of toxic behavior and questioning and ridicule of claimed affected party status in a recent discord appeal. The only solution is to assume that any player may be offended by such a word and not allow its needless casual use.

We still have people skirting the line to use bigoted language, so I can't say that we've really handled it.

personally i believe that the enforcing of rule 11 is just fine right now, a great middle ground. if people cant get out of their mental hugbox and not be hurt by a word directed at their character in a game then they should probably search a different hugbox, like bay, fulp or goon. not all games are for everyone. would you transform a horse racing game into a FPS because you dont like horses?

I'm sorry Timonk, but I do not think that usage of IRL slurs and slur-derivatives adds anything of value to the game, and it definitely does not go so far as to alter the genre of the game that we are playing. Rule 11 already says that there is no racism in our game, only xenophobic-speciesism. This is already in effect, my platform is that it has not been enforced enough and that more can be done.

[RaveRadbury]

Yeah, this is true in my experience as well. Everybody I know who has experience with video games understands that foulmouthed banter is part and parcel of the online gaming experience.

That aside, Rave is a good guy and fun to play spaceman with. Even if I don't agree with everything on his platform, he's got the character for the job.

I am so, so happy that you and others who have taken the time to post in this thread have not had to deal with the experience of having people losing interest in the game or even leaving the community because of the kinds of things that are said around here.

I appreciate that you can value my character separate from my platform. While my platform is something that I would like to see happen in our community, ultimately I will be working in conjunction with two others who have their own thoughts and opinions. I am ready for this and am prepared to work for the betterment of the community even if my platform cannot be executed.

Thank you for engaging my thread.

[Qustinnus]

who would you assign to moderate the politics containment? Every time an admin shows up in politics containment they're either:
1. Trolling the shit out of both sides
2. Complaining about the side they dislike and threatening to ban/mute/slowmode

how will you find someone that's not going to do exactly that?


edit:

also on a sidenote, the fact that you mention the remakes as a competitor is a meme. I think most of the coders will jump ship to ss14 at some point (if development doesn't suddenly stop), and at that point your culture and community wont mean much.

[RaveRadbury]

Disregarding the rule 11 controversy, I'm glad that you brought up the rise of SS14 and UnityStation. Do you feel that, despite our best attempts at improving the user experience, our "old" codebase might prevent us from reaching an ever wider audience ? Do you have any specific goals in regards to this ?

This is such a difficult question, in part because I admittedly have yet to do my field-research on it. What will it look like should we choose to migrate to one of these? Will these versions allow for our current open-source contribution model to exist and thrive? If we can simply transplant to one without needing to have any changes in maintainers or admin team, will contributing to this new codebase be easier or harder than BYOND? I would hope that if migration isn't viable that we will continue to get traffic as people play the non-BYOND versions and wonder about where it all started.

I assume that the long-term members such as oranges and MSO have thoughts and possible plans for the future, and I'd hope to hear from them if they have any. Currently though, these remain threats on the horizon and not something that I think we have to make any large action against aside from ensuring that the community remains healthy and growing.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I hope you don't mind me asking why do you insist on a word ban while also insisting on not having a list?

It looks like you're trying to double dip between the word ban crowd and "of course it isn't a word ban that would be too much". Where a more concrete position would be more appreciated, if possibly not as popular.

I like you as a candidate because you're one of the nicer individuals running, I just don't like this encouragement of vague policy - part of why rp enforcement is often contested.

[RaveRadbury]

Personally while I'm not against banning slurs, I really can't understand how you reconcile "Saying a slur in a vacuum, to nobody, is considered bigotry"(Bigotry being an instantly bannable offense) with "We are not banning slurs". Furthermore, I don't really like the idea of having "hidden lists" for this sort of thing, given the extremely vicious arguments that have occurred between admins in admin channels over what constitutes a slur in the past. Can you clarify your position rather than smugly skirting around the edge and refusing to answer how I as an admin will be expected to carry out the new policy if I vote for you?

Our current Rule 11 policy does not say that we instantly ban for bigoted language, and that we are meant to consider the circumstances of the player and discuss the issue with them before any sort of ban is applied. I am not looking to kick people out of the community.

In regards to "we are not banning slurs", I can think of two easily applied common-sense scenarios. Should a member of the community wish to share art or music that isn't bigoted in nature but does contain language that wouldn't sit well in a vacuum, they shouldn't be made to provide a censored version or receive warning for posting it. Likewise, should something occur that is newsworthy and is a topic of discussion, community members shouldn't need to censor quotes from the part involved.

As for admin enforcement, like all other forms of admin work, these are done at the discretion of the admin. You don't want to enforce the rule? I can't make you, and I'm not about to try and force you. There however are admins who would like to enforce it and I would like to empower them to do so.

Finally, in regards to smugness on my part, I would like to apologize. I don't think I'm special or great, nor do I think that I am doing anything special here or in general. I am simply acting within the allowed bounds to present something that I have had many others speak to me about. The host says we can't have a slur list, so we won't. Enforcement has been common-sense, so it will be. I recognize that in my responses here I have forgotten the implications of my position and activity in the community. I simply seek to engage community members politely, if this has produced smug-looking behavior then I have failed to do so. To reiterate, I'm not great or cool. I am a nerd who plays a space game a lot. I am not on this platform out of a sense of moral superiority, I am on this platform in response to what I have heard from community members.

Seperately, can you clarify why you believe that there will be less notes for "Ban them if they do it again", given that that's usually how admins word notes when they let someone off for something that they should have been banned for?

I think there may be a mix-up here, I think that "ban them if they do it again" will produce fewer bans, and the bans that it does produce will not be someone carrying out an administrative opinion (and possible ban appeal) on someone else's behalf. While there are some who may do these notes to save a player from a ban, there are others who do it because they feel that a ban would not be warranted in that incident but would be in the next one.

The philosophy of "correction before noting" would produce fewer notes.

Please let me know if this satisfied your query, as I would like to make sure.

Additionally, most feedback I have received in regards to this idea have received negative or neutral "non-issue" feedback. I am considering that this change may not be worthwhile.

[RaveRadbury]

This post was deleted by RaveRadbury on Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:19 am.
Reason: wth why is it double-posting me

[RaveRadbury]

without toxicity tgstation will be a slaaneshi cult, mr raveradbury, so im not exactly sure how tgstation in this case will be family friendly content

Mr. FlatulentIndustrialist,

By no means do I seek to make tgstation "family-friendly" content. We are all meant to be 18+ here, and the themes we have are not appropriate for all ages.

Your vision of a tgstation without toxicity is very witty, I lol'ed.

Thank you for your engagement of my thread.

Regards,
Mr. RaveRadbury

[RaveRadbury]

who would you assign to moderate the politics containment? Every time an admin shows up in politics containment they're either:
1. Trolling the shit out of both sides
2. Complaining about the side they dislike and threatening to ban/mute/slowmode

how will you find someone that's not going to do exactly that?

This is the challenge exactly! I have been thinking about this and would welcome feedback on it. If we can't find a member of the admin team that can be deemed responsible enough to handle it, we might need to consider sourcing someone from the politics containment sub-community. I would hope that there is at least one or two among them that they could all agree on as level-headed and even-handed. This of course, would complicate things, but I think those that participate in the channel care about it and deserve decent moderation. Otherwise the channel is untenable, and I think that would be a failure on the staff's part. Either way we should consider a vote by the channel participants.

also on a sidenote, the fact that you mention the remakes as a competitor is a meme. I think most of the coders will jump ship to ss14 at some point (if development doesn't suddenly stop), and at that point your culture and community wont mean much.

Gotta admit, Qust, your feedback here definitely has me shaken. Is the SS14 codebase going to be monolithic, or will it be able to splinter like current SS13 codebases? I'd like to think that leaving an established community of familiar faces comes with its share of drawbacks. If you decide to jump ship, I'll miss you.