/tg/Station 13

ForcefulCJS has now been in the .txt as a Trial Admin for a month now.

Please use this thread as public review; it's encouraged for players to comment on how well/badly the trial admin has done and whether or not they think the trial admin should be made a full admin, if they should be removed from the .txt or if their promotion should be delayed.

Done a fine job as trialmin so far, has pulled some pretty interesting gimmicks and makes his decisions with confidence, I vote to promote.

Who would have thought he could turn out so good

i said he would turn out good and he did because I AM AMAZING
he is good promote him to host
(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

A very pleasant and efficient admin to deal with, for the short while I've been here. Definitely worth promoting.

Hah, I'm glad someone thinks I'm efficient but as I sit there with 10 windows open trying to sort through three different /say logs under VV trying to figure out their relative timing to one another so that I can piece together a conversation about the HoS willingly joining a gang (why has this happened twice this week)... I certainly feel like I got plenty of learnin' to do.

Forum activity has by my reckoning appeared to be professional and I can only imagine how Oldman's expertise with game mechanics helps him with active administration. Dare I say it, Promote He. You have earned my respect.


As for your actual commentary, one should never Stop learning. Keep it up.

Undisclosed IRC conversation from a few weeks ago wrote:<NikNak> Randomly feel the need to rant about oldman. Everytime I'm on I can't stand him because he argues over spawning something that may or may not be round ending based on his very bad (imo) view of how balance works. Doesn't really strike me as a decent admin and spawns/runs far too many memes/gimmicks. To me it seems like he uses admining as a vessel to force his shitty playstyle/view of the game on to others. I can't even stand to argue with the guy because he's so thick and doesn't give up so most times he's online I just log off. Don't care to specifically say this to anyone because he'll be promoted to game admin anyway no matter what he does because our admin standards are a joke! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Slightly changed viewpoint is that I guess if no one ever made a complaint about things he spawned it can't be as bad as some of the admins who rammed that deathsquad button in the past, but my opinion still stands mostly unchanged.

Correct views or not, I can't argue that hte man hasn't been professional on the forums since being trialminned. I also disagree with his playstyle and beliefs, but i can't argue that his conduct here has been unprofessional.

Given that we've only shared a few rounds together Niknak, I think you've got a skewed view of how I admin most rounds. Almost every time I hastened a round's end, it was intentional (most traitors dead, crew praying for fun). I don't think I've ever intervened in a non-traitor round. All my events hand off something interesting to at least one player that -isn't- me (instead of just shitting stuff that have NPC's/environmental shit killing people with no fun being created).

I think my worst offense was giving a DA an ATV with a staff of change turret for 20TC. The ATV itself didn't directly screw anything up, but the crew didn't really address the syndieborg that was spawned and it went on a rampage.

I do enjoy var/modding though. It treads a fine line between forced admin memes and round-enhancing events, but the only way I'll learn is through trial. Most of the events have been successes in my book.

I'm always open to discussing when events are inappropriate and I've changed my approach based on feedback I've gotten in asay, so I do think we could talk about it if you have concerns.

I don't like oldman as a player and I really don't like their personality for reasons I can't really figure out.

But I've only ever had one bad experience with them as an admin so I can't say that he doesn't deserve to be promoted.

I haven't seen force spawning anything as of late, much less anything round ruining. The only negative feedback I've heard about him was one time when he spawned the honk sniper a few rounds in a row and someone ahelped "wow are you really spawning this again", and that's pretty benign.

NikNakFlak wrote:

Y-you only see me when I just h-happen to be meming!

Oh cmon. I'm trying to be reasonable here and my feedback/review threads aren't full of people raging at my events. I try to put effort into them and always with the aim of making making a round more entertaining for everyone.

@Shaps

HONK sniper was only 2 consecutive rounds and that's all it took for me to realize that players had low tolerance for repeat events, even if they were completely harmless. I had only run it once the night before as an experiment and have run it once since to fine-tune it. I know it wasn't intended as a serious criticism, but I wanted to be transparent about my memes since I figure there's been no issue with my bans/ahelp responses.

smells to me like hbl levels of pandering/fishing for popularity in terms of events but whatever.

the masses need only bread and circuses, everything else may be disregarded etc

It is well documented that ancient, shitty players make the best admins. See: Kor

ColonicAcid wrote:smells to me like hbl levels of pandering/fishing for popularity in terms of events but whatever.

the masses need only bread and circuses, everything else may be disregarded etc

I just try to have fun. I'm about the last person who's ever going to fish for popularity. I want people to enjoy my events because that's why I do them, but if I cared that much about what the server thinks of me... well Oldman wouldn't have the reputation he does.

I haven't watched them admin too much, but the times I've noticed they were having arguments with other admins about stuff like being activeminned while playing.
From what I've seen on the forums and github, their confrontational attitude of not giving up when they think they are right hasn't changed.
I think that just their attitude in general is going to cause many headaches for the administration team when a decision is made that they don't like. I'm voting against promotion.

voting for promotion, he actually started taking action in the community for once

admin clique club just doesn't like his radical new ideas like "giving the players fun stuff to do"

I'd suggest extend, IIRC things have changed in what trialmins have access to, and I'd like to see another few weeks of what having all the buttons does.

Ok.

palpatine213 wrote:I haven't watched them admin too much, but the times I've noticed they were having arguments with other admins about stuff like being activeminned while playing.
From what I've seen on the forums and github, their confrontational attitude of not giving up when they think they are right hasn't changed.
I think that just their attitude in general is going to cause many headaches for the administration team when a decision is made that they don't like. I'm voting against promotion.

I was talking about a very real, rather ambiguous, policy about activeminning while playing.

The incident in particular involved an administrator selfreviving their character, but the discussion was always civil. I'm willing to discuss almost any aspect of how I admin, but how do you want me to respond to this?

I won't challenge the status quo or raise contentious issues about our policy because, gasp, asay might be sometimes used to have policy discussions and not just meme'ing or laughing at players? I really see no merit to your complaint Palpatine.

I think his point, Robustin, is that he worries your attitude may make the team effort of adminstration more difficult for the others. Can you explain why that may not be the case?

The discussion over adminning while playing was very much civil, and I'd much rather have admins bringing up their concerns for discussion than just let everyone do their own thing (not to mention that trialmin is the time where you're supposed to be asking more senior admins about what is/isn't okay). At no time has forceful been belligerent or rude, and I don't see him causing any headaches. I stick to voting for promotion.

Never had any issues myself, handles himself well so I'll go ahead and say

lollerderby wrote:Ok.

I think it's as simple as others have pointed out: I'm polite, professional, and respectful when acting as an admin.

I don't antagonize the other admins, insult them, second-guess, provoke, or anything of those sorts. I was having a serious debate with two admins about our adminning-while-playing policy. It's one of the few areas where I disagree with the stance taken by some others, but my position was never hostile toward other admins.

It's not even up for debate that adminning-while-playing creates huge conflicts of interest, its a breeding ground for admin abuse. Our policy is "we trust our admins to do better", and that's fine, but I was simply pointing out that:

1) Even if our admins do better, it can still create the appearance of corruption and that can affect player's faith in our server and the reputation of our administration. Anyone remember that Gamespot debacle several years ago where that guy got fired shortly after posting a negative review of a game that had been a major advertiser on the site? The management said he was fired for other reasons, but everyone just saw it as a conspiracy to keep reviews "rigged". Even if the management was absolutely correct in firing that guy, the appearance of corruption is a powerful thing and it only takes one bad incident to set off a whole scandal with people speculating if an admin-player used OOC knowledge to cheat.

2) OOC knowledge is like pandora's box, or like the phrase goes, "You can't put the genie back in the bottle". Once you're aware of critical OOC information it will influence how you play the round, even if you're not aware of it. Most people tend to see the primary problem "Admins will use OOC to gain an advantage" but there are secondary and tertiary problems too. Take a hypothetical: I'm admin-playing and I go to grab a welder to bust into tech storage to grab some boards I want, then I see an ahelp come in, "Assistant just killed me in tech storage, valid?". I talk to the assistant and get the full story before ruling that its an "IC issue", but what do I do now? If I decide to avoid tool storage so that it doesn't look like I reacted to OOC info, then I'm still letting OOC info change the outcome of a round. If I tell myself "Nah I was going to tool storage anyway, I'll just mentally block that the ahelp ever happened", then we still run into the problem with #1 where ForcefulCJS is watching you as a ghost, reading your logs, and asking you about your behavior, then 30 seconds later Oldman Robustin is breaking in and screaming about you on radio... it looks like I'm cheating. I take a skeptical view that all admins, including myself, can just put a magical mental block on OOC info we get while admin-playing.

My argument was that it would be better if we just set firm rules about when you can play both admin and a character.

Two other admins disagreed and we engaged in a civil discussion about the merits of each position. You could not have asked for a better model of using Asay to advance discussion about important admin policies. Among those two admins, one has voted to promote me and the other has yet to say anything negative about my trialminship. That's why I'm so baffled by Palpatine's comment. If the people I was debating with don't see me as too confrontational, why would you use that as a grounds not just for extending a period, but for outright denying it... is beyond me.

Furthermore, any debates I've had challenging the positions of others are extremely rare. Even during this debate, I cannot stress this enough, my position was always deferential. It was never "You're wrong, I'm right, you're dumb for thinking otherwise", it was always "I understand our policy and I respect it, but it could be improved due to problems with _________".

Lastly, there ought to be some confrontation in adminbus. Comradery is good, but it should never cross the line from "everyone being on good terms and civil with one another" to "protectionist racket old boy's club, don't question the way we do things here or you'll end up like Vinny". That's why I'm offended by Palpatine's comment because it sounds a lot more like the latter. The way I see it there's nothing better than fresh blood on the admin team to see things from a different perspective. If I had taken this debate and smeared it all over admin complaints, policy discussion, general thread, deadchat, and OOC accusing other admins of corruption and self-serving abuse then you could say I was undermining the team effort, but it was a civil debate in Asay and that's all there was to it. I can't fathom that ever undermining the administration.

Others who have had more than a passing experience with me have testified as much, that I keep things very civil and I'm not some bull-headed provocateur lashing out at everyone I disagree with.

I will note that (HOT LEAKS ALERT) this sort of discussion is not uncommon in asay, and by no means unique to Oldman in the slightest.

I just want to take this time to remind people, that when it comes to text on the internet, how you already view a person will influence what tone you read what that person is saying in.

I've seen this alot on all sides of the board, if you think somebody is a whiner, all of the sudden everything they say sounds like whining, even when it's not.

If you think somebody is an asshole, all of the sudden everything they say sounds like it's rude, every tongue in cheek comment sounds like a personal insult.

I've even seen admins have this happen where they get it in their head that a player is shit, and all of sudden every thing they ahelp seems like ban baiting, and every ahelp against them seems legit. Brotemis a prime example, in both directions, as even when brotemis was trying to be nice and respectful, people who had a bad experience with him would view everything he said as rude and aggressive.

MrStonedOne wrote:I just want to take this time to remind people, that when it comes to text on the internet, how you already view a person will influence what tone you read what that person is saying in.

I've seen this alot on all sides of the board, if you think somebody is a whiner, all of the sudden everything they say sounds like whining, even when it's not.

If you think somebody is an asshole, all of the sudden everything they say sounds like it's rude, every tongue in cheek comment sounds like a personal insult.

I've even seen admins have this happen where they get it in their head that a player is shit, and all of sudden every thing they ahelp seems like ban baiting, and every ahelp against them seems legit. Brotemis a prime example, in both directions, as even when brotemis was trying to be nice and respectful, people who had a bad experience with him would view everything he said as rude and aggressive.

That's just human nature, man.

Hell, me and oldman have probably gone at it the worst but I think he's making a pretty earnest effort to learn. Haven't gotten to admin with him yet since he's usually on sybil and I mostly chill on basil.

Hg is for
I'm still against because that's what my gut feeling is saying pretty much.
It's up to kor for the final decision I guess.

I'll be fine with whatever decision he makes on this.

Oldman Robustin wrote:Most people tend to see the primary problem "Admins will use OOC to gain an advantage" but there are secondary and tertiary problems too. Take a hypothetical: I'm admin-playing and I go to grab a welder to bust into tech storage to grab some boards I want, then I see an ahelp come in, "Assistant just killed me in tech storage, valid?". I talk to the assistant and get the full story before ruling that its an "IC issue", but what do I do now? If I decide to avoid tool storage so that it doesn't look like I reacted to OOC info, then I'm still letting OOC info change the outcome of a round. If I tell myself "Nah I was going to tool storage anyway, I'll just mentally block that the ahelp ever happened", then we still run into the problem with #1 where ForcefulCJS is watching you as a ghost, reading your logs, and asking you about your behavior, then 30 seconds later Oldman Robustin is breaking in and screaming about you on radio... it looks like I'm cheating. I take a skeptical view that all admins, including myself, can just put a magical mental block on OOC info we get while admin-playing.

And this is why I never admin while playing "seriously", unless i'm the only one around. If i'm not observing, i'll maint fort, play a drone, botany maybe. Basically something nobody would give a shit about if I just went braindead in the middle of the hall as a greyshirt when I have to ghost around for ahelps. If I die, whatever. (I can just spawn myself in as a drone in maint and keep going if I still feel like playing)
I just don't put myself or my character in a position where I would care about antags doing antag things.

You can't not be spoiled for things, theres enough coming in like "ADMIN LOG: BIG FAT SYNDIE BOMB BLEW UP IN TCOMMS VIA Notta Cindy's RED BUTTON" "ADMIN LOG: Shitdick McCargo just ordered a syndie crate from cargo" or "Allahu Ackbar attached a signaller to a TTV", "____ Opened plasma can in Escape Shuttle Hallway"

You get the idea. Its concerns like this I had whenever I saw a certain former admin doing the usual turbo validhunt or while currently an antag.

Oldman Robustin wrote:The incident in particular involved an administrator selfreviving their character

Uhm, do go on please, I want to hear about how this was resolved.

Listen the guy was clearly griefing me and he deserved for me to rise from the grave and be axed to death

Anyways, we should probably focus this thread on things that involve promoting him, not the thing that you argued about.

oranges wrote:

Oldman Robustin wrote:The incident in particular involved an administrator selfreviving their character

Uhm, do go on please, I want to hear about how this was resolved.

Not really related to the issue at hand, but during a traitor round I was running around as a doctor when someone ahelped about getting killed by someone else for a dumb reason. After a short while, I hid myself in a locker in the locker room and ghosted out to deal with the issue since none of the other admins online were dealing with it. After a few minutes of dealing with the issue, I resolved the case and went back to my body to find the locker room flooded in plasma and I choked out just after I got my mask and internals on. I asked in asay if anyone minded me giving me enough charcoal to get on my feet since I got critted while dealing with an admin issue that no one else was handling, and did so when no one objected. Later on, force expressed concern over it in asay, and we had a discussion about protocol for answering ahelps, admin communication, and playing while adminning. Bringing it back to the topic at hand, forceful was professional the entire time, and I'm glad he brought it up since it was something worth talking about within the admin team, and it would have gone ignored otherwise.

Thanks

Yea I didn't want to sidetrack things, I just wanted to make the point that I was trying to have a serious conversation in Asay.

Shaps has been great about talking things through and I was happy to get substantive responses in Asay about our policy.

I finally realized why i dislike cjs. They remind me of tsar.

Forceful won't get to the shittiness Tsar was at.

tsar did 0 wrong

Haven't been online for a whole lot of his trialmin process but Forceful's mellowed out considerably and approaches the game from a much better perspective since he started playing again. My only real interaction with him as an admin was a few admin gimmicks, were creative, fun, and didn't derail the round. He's as reasonable as ever and with a much cooler head, and he's a voice of reason on the codebase too. I'd say promote.

palpatine213 wrote:I finally realized why i dislike cjs. They remind me of tsar.

you would

Hg is bullying kor to promote CJS, and I haven't seen the things I was worried about recently from him, so I'm going to go ahead and change my vote and promote them.
Jobbans still apply to admins so I can still bomb ban him in the future. :^)