/tg/Station 13

I’ve been told there aren’t enough people running.

The Who

Silicon enthusiast, self-proclaimed boomer and polcon regular. I’ve been an admin since fall of 2020 and a player since spring 2019 with various amounts of activity and effort throughout the years, mainly Terry. I have grown very attached to Terry’s wacky woohoo tider adventures despite not being much of a tider myself and having come to the game from something of an MRP mindset thanks to doing a lot of tabletop gaming. Also I am the rightful heir to the player vote as the oldest living member of the Lepi dynasty, even if some jealous people keep pointing out I’m a pink moth and not a pink cat…

The What

I am very much a status quo choice. I do not have plans for any sweeping changes of my own, but I do have the analytical capabilities to weigh in on anything being suggested and enough theory of mind to see many perspectives on an issue. My advanced age grants me unparalleled wisdom in matters of ethics and politics. Communication and people skills are the bread and butter of my education but I would greatly prefer to be rude instead. Specific ideas and scenarios are better left for debates, so I’ll describe how I feel about certain things which I see popping up more often than not.

SPIRIT OF THE GAME : Even in my tabletop RPG groups, I greatly enjoy when things go unexpected and wrong. I adore the freedom LRP gives for the story to go completely off the rails and to enjoy all the quirks of the mechanics baked into the game. This freedom however comes with a price – people need to take into account there are other human beings playing the game, and sometimes the most fun can be had by losing. The bare minimum, and necessary, constraints of staying IC and trying to have a good time together leave the bar very low.

ADMIN VS PLAYER : We demand quite a bit from our admins and there have been periods where admins burning out and trying to get new ones have been issues. When it comes to players, Pareto’s law comes into mind: 80% of work is caused by 20% of players, experience suggests the numbers are closer to 97-5. A noticeable portion of our players enjoy conflict, and some of those players are very efficient at making conflict happen. It’s a lot of effort to stay civil and professional at all times in these situations. Personally I see this as an issue easiest reached through rules. Recent terms have done a lot of pruning, and if we’re taking this route further, we have to put emphasis on DON’T BE A DICK and IN-GAME RULINGS ARE FINAL. I’ll back up any admin gut feelings unless the ban itself seems a malicious as a 15 minute account maxcapping entire station for no reason. The other route would be to instead add rules until our players comfortably know the exact dance steps needed to start a fight without getting consequences. Adminning relies on volunteers, not having volunteers would make the servers unplayable and I’d rather see them being unplayable due to all players being banned than all admins burning out.

NOTES ARE PUNISHMENT : Yes, they are, but they’re also necessary for admins to communicate regarding a player's behaviour.

SILICONS : JUST FOLLOW YOUR LAWS YOU CAN LITERALLY CLICK A BUTTON TO SEE THEM

The Cons

I don’t actually live like I preach and I let a lot of people go with a slap on the wrist. I do not hold Honda Mothra to any standards because they leave the AI core alone. My in-game activity waxes and wanes. Despite a lot of time spent here I am not too familiar with certain inner workings of the INTERNAL DISCUSSIONS tower. I may have to return to edit this post once I develop some takes with more substance and less train of thought or notice spelling errors.

The REAL What

We need to let oranges back into admin-chatter.

Low-key but chill as heck. Would watch them stream Grim Fandango again/10

Tegun is a cool admin, I'm sure they'd be good at being a headmin too

Hey Tegun,

My only question really is: what do you plan to do? Is it keeping the lights on? Your texts are inspired but they feel like statements of fact rather than a platform.

Thanks and good luck.

conrad wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:50 pm Hey Tegun,

My only question really is: what do you plan to do? Is it keeping the lights on? Your texts are inspired but they feel like statements of fact rather than a platform.

Thanks and good luck.

Spot on. Since I don't have any plans other than keeping the lights on, I just write something that might let people extrapolate how I might respond to different situations or suggestions. In some ways that's probably better than having some really specific changes ready, because what are the odds that one day a headmin wakes up to a gazillion discord pings saying "dude wake the fuck up we have to implement the changes you wanted all along RIGHT FUCKING NOW"?

What's your sell, in your words, as to why should people who have been happy with the things happening over the last term vote you up instead of the returning headadmin who implemented these things in the first place?

Secondly, you're not the only make-no-changes keep-the-lights-on candidate. How do you think players/admins should choose between you?

Not-Dorsidarf wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 8:15 pm What's your sell, in your words, as to why should people who have been happy with the things happening over the last term vote you up instead of the returning headadmin who implemented these things in the first place?

To be fair, I am not entirely sure what "things happening over the last term" consists of. What's noteworthy enough for players, what have I missed? Probably everything? Using TBM's candidate thread to see what they consider their term's achievements, I can't really make claims about rule changes. Regarding the HR aspect of adminning, this is something I could do well. I've got skills in that department and my stance is very much that we should make sure our admins enjoy being admins.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 8:15 pm Secondly, you're not the only make-no-changes keep-the-lights-on candidate. How do you think players/admins should choose between you?

Well since I'm doing a fair bit of essayposting and honesty for the election, the choice here is clear. People should pick whoever they think actually does the job without burning out halfway through the term. In my opinion the best indicator here would be having been a headmin before, those candidates know what they're signing up for and they won't be blindsided by the everyday of headminning. On top of that all terms are not equal, sometimes you have drama and big incidents, sometimes it's just smooth sailing where keeping the lights on describes it well. People who can keep their head cool when things aren't going their way are good options.