[Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

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elyina
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[Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by elyina » #600634

When and where this incident occured (Game Server, forums, Discord): Discord
Byond account and character name OR Discord name: Elyina
Admin:Head admins
Detailed summary:

Before I start, I want to posit something here that I think you will find sensible: When a long serving admin retires on good terms, and in good standing, it is pretty safe to assume that if they had not retired and continued the same good admin behavior for however long, it's very unlikely they would have ever been deadminned forcibly in that time frame. This also applies to admins that do not retire, but instead log in a couple times a month and handle some easy game mechanics ahelps with the game running in the background before logging off. Deadminning is something that does not happen lightly, it generally requires multiple admin complaints and solid evidence of serious misconduct. It has long been precedent that new headmins do not have the power to deadmin an established admin because they do not like them personally, they were mean to them, they heard bad things about them etc. Retiring is also considered the correct and polite thing to do when one no longer has an interest in adminning on the server, rather than using the dormancy tactic mentioned above.

It would make sense, then, that an admin who retired on good terms and standing is afforded the same protections as the dormant admin, if not more so, as they have done the right thing in their case by retiring instead of just clinging to the admin role for the sake of it.
That is not so, according to the current team of headmins. According to them, a returning admin requires a unanimous yes vote from both the current headmins and the headmins that were around when you retired. Any of them can say no for any reason or no reason at all, including "I don't like you" or "they were mean to me once".
This is blatantly unacceptable for the same reason it would be to outright deadmin an active admin for these reasons. If an admin in good standing retires and is assured they can return whenever they wish, then is denied when they attempt to do so later on, I believe this is equivalent to having outright deadmined them. It is not acceptable to do so without providing strong evidence and reasoning.

It sounds like an absurd situation, but this is precisely what has happened to me. A year and a half ago, I was very burnt out with tgstation and retired with a very clean admin record. I had passed on my first trial, there was not a single complaint on my trial review thread, there was never a serious admin complaint of any kind. Regardless of how you feel about my personality, I feel comfortable saying it's objective that I had good admin conduct and judgment. Headmins would be very hard pressed to find a reason to deadmin someone under such a circumstance, yet they have effectively just done so to me.

It was specifically written in my retirement post on the staffing log: "Elyina has retired and is welcome back anytime." The headmins have dishonored this for unjustified reasons, and have left me with no other choice but to make this post.

I would like my status to be restored as I requested, and I want to see it be clearly established that retired admins, many of whom have put in many, many hours of work towards the betterment of this community are not treated in this way in the future, and are afforded the same protections as even a dormant admin would have in terms of their admin status.
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by oranges » #600641

You don't have a clean admin record though, do you.
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by Pandarsenic » #600648

I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret asking this, but since this thread is semi-relevant to me, I'm going to anyway.
A year and a half ago, I was very burnt out with tgstation and retired with a very clean admin record. I had passed on my first trial, there was not a single complaint on my trial review thread, there was never a serious admin complaint of any kind. Regardless of how you feel about my personality, I feel comfortable saying it's objective that I had good admin conduct and judgment. Headmins would be very hard pressed to find a reason to deadmin someone under such a circumstance, yet they have effectively just done so to me.

It was specifically written in my retirement post on the staffing log: "Elyina has retired and is welcome back anytime." The headmins have dishonored this for unjustified reasons, and have left me with no other choice but to make this post.
You don't have a clean admin record though, do you.
1) Given that those statements are incompatible - does Elyina have a clean record or not, officially? I have a vague awareness of some sort of drama during my long absence but it seems threads were deleted, maybe?

2) Is there a standing, known policy on what constitutes cause to deny? Does it have to be things that would cause someone to be deadminned? Do they need (as implied by another thread) 1 month of good behavior after an extended absence? What exactly are the criteria for a returning admin?
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by oranges » #600649

The criteria for returning admins is entirely up to the headadmins, they have already applied activity requirements and more to returning admins, and appear to be willing to enforce that.

there's no recourse on this, as long as they are all in agreement on the specifics.
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by elyina » #600655

Interesting that oranges was defending Morto on discord on this very same subject not long ago, but now that it involves someone he dislikes, his opinion has mysteriously morphed to suit! Truly embarrassing behavior!
@Pandarsenic Yes, my admin record is officially clean. At most 1 or 2 minor things I can't even remember the details about.
The drama you are referring to is from nearly 8 years ago and I honestly don't give a single solitary sh!t about it at this point.
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by legality » #600662

The headmin judgement on this already seems pretty clear and was issued and stated in the staffing log - they are welcome back any time. It seems like the question is whether new headmins should be retroactively enforcing new decisions and policies on admins who retired on specific terms. “Is welcome back any time” seems like a clearly stated contract on behalf of the tgstation executives to a staff member, and those don’t become null and void just because someone new filling the executive role has a different opinion.

Ideally, it should not be the headmins deciding the extent of their own power on issues like this, but *shrug*
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by oranges » #600671

elyina wrote:Interesting that oranges was defending Morto on discord on this very same subject not long ago, but now that it involves someone he dislikes, his opinion has mysteriously morphed to suit! Truly embarrassing behavior!
Unfortunately for you the nuance is quite a bit less black and white than you make it seem.

Do I think it's unfair that activity standards are applied to retired admins who wish to return that are not applied to game admins under normal circumstances? Yes, I do, and I made it clear at the time.

Do I also think it's fair that admins are required to not have extenuating circumstances that could bring their conduct into question? Yes, I do, because that standard is applied to everyone, admins, candidates, trials, gamemasters and retired admins equally.

Do I ultimately believe that it's up to the headadmins to have the right to choose? Yes, so despite my position on point one, I haven't pushed it more than the few times I did.

Do I think your constant downplaying of things that happened in the past and refusal to acknowledge that it might lead admins to question your judgement and character means you should be subject to point 2? Yes, yes I do, and therefore In this case I do support the head-admins decision, ultimately I support them on their right to apply activity standards too, even if I think it's unfair.

I don't think anyone would argue that we're not exactly on good terms, but I don't think my position on this is unreasonable, and your response, laced as it is with unnecessary sarcasm and toxicity only reinforces the point.
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Re: [Headmins] Unfair & arbitrary treatment of Retired Admins / Unjustified deadmining

Post by MrStonedOne » #600678

As our admin count has grown, each headmin term has tried different tactics to manage adminship.

If the current term wants to focus on quality over quantity, that is their prerogative.

I took a look through how the headmins investigated readmining you and found no issues or flaws in their process. (In short: because they didn't know you, they asked tgs-leads, and nobody in #tgs-leads could find anything positive to say about you.)

If it were up to me: You were abrasive during your first stint, and you "retired" during your second stint because you didn't like the (perceived) age of a headmin that had just been pulled in to fill in a vacancy. ya, that would be a no.
... retired admins, [..] whom have put in many, many hours of work towards the betterment of this community are not treated in this way in the future


I don't think this will be an issue.

(as an aside: The welcome back at anytime bit stopped meaning anything well before your retirement. Intentionally omitting it can become a source of drama and is in general publicizing private matters, so the bar for not adding it just kept getting higher and higher. This is partly why recent terms moved to always using the generic "has retired" and leaving notes in the headmin forums when necessary.)
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