Rule of Three: [Timberpoes] for Headmin - A Meme-tastic Boss Fight!

[Timberpoes]

Who?

Game Master. Trainer. Discord Jannie. Keyholder. Maintainer.

Feb 2022-Sep 2022 Host Vote Headmin ft. Mothblocks and Melbert
Mar 2023-Sep 2023 Admin Vote Headmin ft. Kieth4 and Misdoubful.

I bring necessary class and style to any headmin team, with a zesty blend of seriousness, sass and shitposting.

Now undergoing training to obtain my air traffic controller licence, a journey that will last me the entire next term and then some.

Although I'm busier than usual as a result, I believe the time is right for a third term. I am well rested and ready to serve once again.

What have I accomplished in the past?

Rewrote MRP murderbone rules, opening the way for more antag freedom on MRP.
Initial draft and heavily involved in rewrite of entire MRP ruleset, pushing for rules where players with good IC reasons for their actions are less restricted by the rules.
Rewrote silicon policy, massively increasing silicon freedom to antagonise the crew, lawyer laws and generally act as a malevolent force - if they so wish.

Plenty of housekeeping in policy and appeals both in the back channels and in public.

I direct efforts from within the admin team to make tgstation the perfect space others can play SS13 in.

What do I want to do this time?

Usual appeal and policy and keeping the lights on stuff. Two terms, tried and tested with involving myself in all aspects of headminnery.

Many of you know what you get already. Fair, honest and transparent headministration with open door DMs and discussions with utmost candour. Admin standards upheld. Unfair admin actions reversed. Fair ones upheld. Admin conduct enforced so that players can actually trust we're acting to make tgstation the best SS13 there is.

I also want to work with Dendy, who was on my headmin shortlist last term but we wanted to give her 6 months to cook hoping a future term would vote 'em.

My landmark goal for next term though?

Overhaul the core server rules page. It's too long. Too many precedents. It's just plain bloated.

The reason behind having such a behemoth set of rules is obvious - a more comprehensive set of documented rules should mean more consistent enforcement.

But the reality is that few players read the rules. They're too long. And players don't need to read them anyway cuz they're all just common sense stuff.

I want to Silicon Policy it. Long-term discussion over the course of the term. Find out what works, what doesn't. What are necessary precedents, and what aren't. What the admin team is competent to enforce, and what they're not. Create a solid foundation for the future headmins and players of tgstation to build on once again. A rules page and ruleset fit for 2024 tgstation and beyond.

When I'm not keeping the lights on, that's what I plan to do.

MRP or LRP?

My history of headmin rulings and stances on appeals and policy would place me smack bang in LRP with a strong focus on RP. I support unrestricted freedoms on roleplayers to act as they please as long as they can justify their actions in-character, regardless of server.

So both, obviously. Why choose one or the other when I have the power and capacity to make LRP and MRP great again?

MRP is where players chase IC goals if they have suitable in-character reasoning for it. Style and sportsmanship in pursuit of the ultimate SS13 story.

The MRP sandbox is smaller, but has much greater depth and amazing treasures can be found if you dig deep enough - many require players working as a group to uncover. But before you know it... The blob that just dropped their core in the chapel is now the station's new God. A civil war breaks out as religious zealouts try to defend their misbegotten deity.

LRP has players chasing their OOC goals as we expect less in the way of in-character reasoning. We can sacrifice a bit of the setting to expand the gameplay exploit the mechanics of SS13 more freely.

The LRP sandbox is complicated. It's far bigger, but is more shallow. The treasures aren't buried deep and are easy to dig up, but they're less valuable. Individual players can shape entire shifts with a little fortune. Maybe they won't find any genies in the bottles they dig up, but they can still smash someone over the head with it for sassing them.

[AwkwardStereo]

If I still played TG13 I'd be voting for this ocelot.

[Timberpoes]

o7

I'll miss you at the debates.

[conrad]

Hey Timber,

Some of these questions I already asked you about, but I wanted to put them out in the open as a way to transparently let other people form their opinions:

Disclaimer: Questions that pertain to admin stuff I'm gonna try to not leak anything from bus by waves hands vagueposting, but I feel they're good to ask anyway based on previous interactions. Mods, feel free to delete my post, but do tell me where I leaked something if I did.

- The current term seemingly did a lot of work to reduce the verbiage of the rules page. What do you plan to do, exactly? Have you thought out the process and, if so, what rules/precedents would you can immediately, for example?

- Do you plan to use the headmin position to break FNR rules again if you win?

- There has been situations where you drop sentences like "The admin team" followed by something really bad. Like "The admin team doesn't like appeals so they don't ban this specific shitter", or "enforcing this specific rule is our job and we don't enforce it", with a very royal "we" since you barely touched the game for the last 12 months. As a headmin, do you plan, this time, to change your stance and try to lead by example, or perhaps be more specific than "the admin team", as to show what you actually want?

- What do you mean with your comparison of MRP and LRP? I'm not sure I understood, but it seems that the stories of LRP are low quality but more frequent, and MRP has less stories with greater value? Could you elaborate? Also how does that relate to your plans as headmin? To me it read like a statement of fact rather than an platform idea, but I could be wrong.

You are a very strong candidate and I think your work on silicon policy and the compromise you achieved with ligger to be stellar, but sometimes working with you feels like working with a co-worker you really like and vibe with but feel dissapointment at because he's demoralizing your team from time to time without any productive outcome. I'd like to see that change if you get the seat again.

Thanks and good luck!

[Timberpoes]

For reference I don't really care about generally discussing my admin-side hidden conduct during elections in sweeping generalisations. If the topic is directly relevant to my suitability as headmin it's fair game to address regardless of where it came from.

- The current term seemingly did a lot of work to reduce the verbiage of the rules page. What do you plan to do, exactly? Have you thought out the process and, if so, what rules/precedents would you can immediately, for example?

tl;dr - Same way I did silipol. Stuff like R4 P2 can be policy.json'd, R2 P3 is basically just R2 again in new words, R3 P1 has crappy wording and is basically meaningless as the rule already covers it.

Spoiler:

There's a multi-pronged process at play to any major rule rewrite and a lot of what I plan to do can be drawn from my experience rewriting silicon policy during my last term.

1. Define the overarching goal of the rules page - Can we accomplish that outcome by removing rules, rulings or precedents entirely? Who do we expect to read this page - players, admins or both?
2. Identify why things are how they are - Is this rule, ruling or precedent relevant in modern tgstation? Was it created because a rule was poorly worded, and a better worded rule would work better?
3. Consider ruling and precedent necessity - Are the rulings and precedents linked with a rule truly necessary? Are any of them distracting away from key precedents?
4. Consider rule wordings - Can this rule be made more clear with fewer words and precedents? Is this rule easily understandable by players?
5. Assess ease of enforcement - Can this rule be easily enforced?

This is a sweep down the list. So Step 1 enables Step 2, which enables Step 3, which necessitates Step 4.

A simple example is the Rule 4 precedent:
Xeno Queens/Broodmothers are treated the same as Malf AI and Cyborg as far as team antagonists go. Xenos/Spiders should prioritize following the directions of their leaders where possible.

The policy.json allows us to set custom policy text for these roles that allows such policy to be communicated clearly via in-game methods instead of being buried on the rules page.

Another is from Rule 2:
Similar to how characters are allowed to know everything about in-game mechanics or antagonists under rule 2, characters are allowed to have persistent knowledge/relationships/friendships with the caveat that knowledge of a character being an antagonist from a previous round is not used maliciously.

When Rule 2 itself contains:
Characters are otherwise allowed to know everything about ingame mechanics or antagonists, as well as keep persistent friendships or relationships with other characters when not for the purpose of unfair advantage by teaming up together for little IC reason.

This entire precedent could be baked into rule 2 since it's 75% already in Rule 2 anyway.

Rule 3 precedent:
References to the current round, even if vague, are still considered being IC in OOC.

What does this even mean? I know what it means (trying to refer to the concept that this is a "round" IC is bad, but the wording is so terrible I don't expect players to understand it. Rule 3 itself already covers precisely what this precedent covers.

You get the idea.

- Do you plan to use the headmin position to break FNR rules again if you win?

tl;dr - FNR rules exempt headmins from peanut policy. I will continue peanut posting in an effort to resolve appeals. I will continue peanut roasting when it seems the best way to communicate with players. My door is always open to chat if you think I've been a cunt in any given appeal. My appeal post history with 550 posts.

Spoiler:

This is a very loaded question and I'm going to rebut it by remind you that under the FNR rules for Peanut Policy: "Reminder that this applies to uninvolved admins except Headmins."

What you're getting at is asking if I will use my FNR headmin privilege to post when I'm not an involved player/admin, relying on the above clause that allows headmins to post opinions and more?

Absolutely yes. As a headmin I know precisely what information players and admins need to cover in order to convince me to either deny or accept an appeal.

For absolutely clarity, I want to point to the search results for my username in the ban appeal subforum. The absolute overwhelming majority of my historic headmin posts are resolving appeals directly.

Will I continue to occasionally roast people trying to appeal?

Also absolutely yes, but I have taken on board your critique of when I do this. There is no one-size fits all solution and sometimes you have to speak to people in a format they will actually understand, or it's not worth couching your language for their benefit.

I'm not going to pretend it's necessary, but allowing headmins to do this is one of the very small privileges headmins get that actually makes the role enjoyable.

As always my DMs are always open if you or any other member of the community takes issue with how I handle any given appeal. I've fucked up and apologised before and I'm sure I'll fuck up and have to apologise again.

- There has been situations where you drop sentences like "The admin team" followed by something really bad. Like "The admin team doesn't like appeals so they don't ban this specific shitter", or "this enforcing this specific rule is our job and we don't enforce it", with a very royal "we" since you barely touched the game for the last 12 months. As a headmin, do you plan, this time, to change your stance and try to lead by example, or perhaps be more specific than "the admin team", as to show what you actually want?

tl;dr - I'll take on board your words and have tangible examples of leading by example last term, but there are a ton of caveats to leading by example that I keep in mind. I will do my utmost to figure out alternative ways to get my messaging across when I think there's room to improve in any aspect of how members of the team as a general abstract entity do things without just taking over it entirely.

Spoiler:

You're a good admin so you get super tilted when I say the admin team sucks at enforcing certain rules, and you're super opinionated and not quiet about your opinions. This is fine is a trait more of us can benefit from.

But leading by example is something headmins can't always win with. I'll explain, although it'll be lengthy.

The problem with asking me to lead by example is that last term I did still lead by example on various occasions. Let's take a topic like placing discretionary QC bans against players when the admin team requested I do so. It's just one example, but the reality is the headmins should never have to place these bans. I banned 3 players simply because they already should have been banned by other admins but weren't. A player was giving Chesh shit in a ticket, so I logged on and handled that player.

To me, that's me butting in and deciding I know best. That's ALSO the inherent risk in leading by example; headmins are the top of the totem pole and this dictates what everyone else must do.

That kind of "I'll do it myself, then, because I know best" attitude is incredibly bad. From one perspective I merely placed some well-needed QC bans. What I did in practice was overrule the last admin interactions on three players and decide that admin was incorrect and I am correct. Then banning the player for the crime of other admins having been too lenient on them to the point that other-other admins got pissed off and just wanted them banned, but couldn't do it themselves because they weren't already headmins and there was a lot of things we could do to stop them, thus asking me to do it for them.

Is that the correct kind of leading by example, or the incorrect kind? Dunno, depends who you ask. For the admin requesting the QC ban, great! They got rid of a shitter and didn't even need to put any effort in. For the last admin that handled that player? Probably kinda sucked to have a headmin come in and decide you were wrong and permaban someone you didn't think should have been permabanned. For the player? HYPER shitty. A headmin just decided to ban them cuz of their note history, even though they'd not broken any rules since their last note.

You have to be careful with how by example your headmins lead, because if you're not 100% completely aligned with them in every single way they can very quickly unravel everything and made adminning truly miserable. Go talk to Nameless about how it feels when a headmin you're not aligned with is on your server dictating how everything is supposed to be done. She'll tell you how it can go wrong.

With that context, consider that I have a very forceful personality and I risk overpowering others. This was repeated by a bunch of old hat GMs that I'm difficult to work with blah blah blah you get the idea during my last headmin campaign - I'm sure you can recall what a beautiful fire that thread turned into.

I'm still trying to balance nudging subtle changes without starting a speech at the rally grounds in Nuremberg. On that note, I will do my utmost to figure out alternative ways to get that messaging across. There's definite room to improve on that approach and I am aware of it, in no small part to your quips every time I do it <3.

- What do you mean with your comparison of MRP and LRP? I'm not sure I understood, but it seems that the stories of LRP are low quality but more frequent, and MRP has less stories with greater value? Could you elaborate? Also how does that relate to your plans as headmin? To me it read like a statement of fact rather than an platform idea, but I could be wrong.

tl;dr - Ya, it's just a statement of fact. LRP is like a kebab after a night out binge drinking. MRP is like getting dolled up to go to a fancy restraunt with your mates. Sometimes I like to go out wining and dining, but the entire time I'll be secretly wishing I was eating that drunk kebab.

Spoiler:

You're right, it is way more of a statement of fact! It's not a platform portion, but more meant as a vibe check of what direction I approach policy and appeals from. A lot of players and admins like to know which way the wind blows and how a headmin views LRP and MRP, because ban appeals and policy have a massive impact on how the game is played and how contested appeals play out.

I see SS13 as a vehicle for storytelling. MRP x LRP is a way to differentiate the types and scopes of stories we see.

I think LRP plays best with fewer player restrictions and fewer player expectations. It's like a kebab after a night out binge drinking.
MRP plays best with more restrictions and more expectations. Like getting dolled up to go to a fancy Indian restraunt with your mates.

Sometimes I like to go out wining and dining, but the entire time I'll be secretly wishing I was eating that drunk kebab.

When I'm deciding how to direct my policy efforts and how to resolve contested appeals that come down to RP standards, that's the kind of stuff that's in my head?????????????

You are a very strong candidate and I think your work on silicon policy and the compromise you achieved with ligger to be stellar, but sometimes working with you feels like working with a co-worker you really like and vice with but feel dissapointment at because he's demoralizing your team from time to time without any productive outcome. I'd like to see that change if you get the seat again.

Thanks and good luck!

I'm not perfect, but I wear my flaws on my sleeve for the world to see. I try and better myself whenever I get the opportunity and whether I win or not I'll continue taking on board what you've said and trying to work on it - because I know you'd also like to see that change even if I don't get the seat again.

[iansdoor]

I am happy to see you shake off the rust!

I know you have stated in the past, you run for headmin when you see issues and have a problem with them.

I am curious to know what you noticed or is this term to continue the work that began awhile ago?

[Timberpoes]

I am happy to see you shake off the rust!

I know you have stated in the past, you run for headmin when you see issues and have a problem with them.

I am curious to know what you noticed or is this term to continue the work that began awhile ago?

Good eye. This time it's observing how admins and players navigate the rules.

I'm blessed to have a decent grasp of the rules and to generally know where everything is, but this didn't happen until after my first headmin term where I was constantly exposed to niche rulings and precedents.

My experience observing others is that the rules page is quite long, quite wordy and most players don't read it. And a big hurdle for new admins is learning rules, rulings and precedents.

Instead of only trying to trim it down to size, I also want to take the opportunity to assess the current tgstation core ruleset in its entirety to see if we can make something transformative - brand new, and fit for the best 2024 tgstation LRP experience out there.

This is a very serious task and will involve a lot of communication with players and admins to figure out if a full rule rewrite is even desirable, let alone necessary. But with Dendy as the host vote, I think we've got everything we need to run this with the community and find out how we can turn the next 6 months into magic.

[Boot]

Hey there Timber. Glad to see you're running again. One of the lads running against you is TBM who you put up to be on the team. Why should somebody vote for you over them if you felt that they were strong enough to be your successor?

[iansdoor]

Good eye. This time it's observing how admins and players navigate the rules.

I'm blessed to have a decent grasp of the rules and to generally know where everything is, but this didn't happen until after my first headmin term where I was constantly exposed to niche rulings and precedents.

My experience observing others is that the rules page is quite long, quite wordy and most players don't read it. And a big hurdle for new admins is learning rules, rulings and precedents.

Instead of only trying to trim it down to size, I also want to take the opportunity to assess the current tgstation core ruleset in its entirety to see if we can make something transformative - brand new, and fit for the best 2024 tgstation LRP experience out there.

This is a very serious task and will involve a lot of communication with players and admins to figure out if a full rule rewrite is even desirable, let alone necessary. But with Dendy as the host vote, I think we've got everything we need to run this with the community and find out how we can turn the next 6 months into magic.

I like that answer, I am fairly sure that others might not. I know that this past term has been on the ball with observations as they come to plate. Rulings and edge cases are swept over sometimes.

I guess, my last question, would be similar to what I asked Rex. Would you consider forcing breaks on admins to have them reset for mental health or you noticed them just aggressively burn out?

[Timberpoes]

Hey there Timber. Glad to see you're running again. One of the lads running against you is TBM who you put up to be on the team. Why should somebody vote for you over them if you felt that they were strong enough to be your successor?

I chose TBM because he represented the best of what old school SS13 had to offer before the LRP and MRP split. He had opinions and wasn't afraid to share them, which is one of the most important headmin traits. His term has not been afraid to try new and/or controversial changes too.

TBM is an old school bae but I still think in a class of my own.

My track record with rule changes and policy shows I'm equally able to churn out LRP, MRP and server agnostic policies. MRP murderbone rewrite. MRP rule rewrite. Silicon policy rewrite. Sec changes with Kieth last term. Ligger validity ported from MRP to LRP. You get the idea.

Appeals and admin complaints I'm second-to-none when it comes to fairness, honesty and transparency. I don't think there's another headmin besides me in the past 3-4 years that has taken such an interest in appeals. I have some 500 odd posts in the appeals subforum attempting to guide players (and I guess admins) through appeals to fair conclusions.

TBM is close, but I still believe my two terms of past headmin experience working successfully with a variety of different co-headmins win out in the end when it comes to any head-to-head.

[kieth4]

Timber was awesome, nothing really bad to say about him. He provided me a lot of flexibility alongside mdoubtful and really helped me in wording some things. If you liked what I did it was only possible thanks to timber so defo sling him highly.

[Timberpoes]

I guess, my last question, would be similar to what I asked Rex. Would you consider forcing breaks on admins to have them reset for mental health or you noticed them just aggressively burn out?

It was during my first term that Mothblocks, Melbert and myself pushed a core mantra within the admin team: Don't try to be a hero. Ask for help. You can walk away from any ticket at any time.

That's still something I say to this very day. Being an admin can be difficult, stressful and simply not enjoyable. Admins aren't paid, there's no obligation to stay online and take tickets. You can walk away, just ping supportmin if there are tickets to do and you want to go do something else.

I have to trust that everyone on the team is an emotionally mature adult that understands when they're no longer enjoying adminning or the game in general. That's the other side of having the freedom to log off at any time without any headmin questioning you on it, actually using it without having to be told.

The only time I'm likely to force a break on an admin is if they're so burned out they're causing admin conduct problems. But that's usually a permanent break from being an admin instead of a temporary one.