Guide to Parsing Logs or "How do I prove the admins wrong"

[Timberpoes]

This guide is adapted from the admin team's internal guide to parsing logs.

That guide was originally penned by Phuzzylodgik, edited by dragomagol aka tattle, and has now been edited again by Timberpoes

1. Download Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/
2. Download the logs you need.
   1. For everyone:
      • Statbus links to logs for that shift via "Logs: Original" button, but also has its own viewing setup. In practice, admins that use Statbus tend to have a number of URLs like https://sb.atlantaned.space/rounds/188889 in thier browser history, and simply replace the round ID then follow the link to find our own hosted logs.
      • Scrubby links to logs for that shift via "View the original source files" link, but also has its own viewing setup. In practice, admins that use Scrubby tend to have a number of URLs like https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/188643 in thier browser history, and simply replace the round ID then follow the link to find our own hosted logs.
      • Our public logs in the /{server_name}/data/logs/{year}/{month}/{day} subdirectory.
      • These resources may take upwards of an hour to update and go live from the shift ending. If nothing works for you, try again in an hour.
   2. Additional ways for admins:
      • In game via the Admin Tab >> Get Server Logs/Get Current Logs verb set.
      • Our raw, uncensored and unredacted logs - Make sure you're logged in on the forums, or you'll be unable to read raw logs! Do not use raw logs in appeals without removing all private information from them manually. If in doubt, ask the team for help.
   3. "game" logs include say, OOC, emotes and a number of other non-combat messages including admin actions.
   4. "attack" logs include all attacks.
3. This guide will assume you're not using 3rd party websites to view the logs and that you're accessing our public logs either by linking from Scrubby or Statbus, or by finding them directly on the publics log page by date. This approach is the current best-practice taught to new admins, so players should be able to pick it up very easily too.
4. Open the logs in Notepad++ and copy-paste them all into a single document.
5. Use CTRL+F to brings up the search window.
   • Click over to the Mark tab.
   • Hit the "Clear all marks" button to the right.
   • Make sure the Bookmark Line option is tickeed.
   • Enter one of the ckeys you're looking for in the search bar.
   • Click Mark All
   • Repeat adding keys and clicking Mark All for each ckey you're interested in.
6. This has added a marker to all lines with the specific ckey in them. We will now filter out all other lines.
   • Go to the Search dropdown menu at the top of the window.
   • Hover your mouse over the Bookmark submenu, then select Remove Unmarked Lines from it.
7. Your now have all log entries that involve the ckeys you were looking for, but they will be out of order if you've used multiple different log files. Because our log entries start with datetime stamps, we can rely on Lexicographic sorting to merge them all together.
   • Go to the Edit dropdown menu at the top of the window.
   • Hover your mouse over the Line Operations submenu, then select Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending from it.
   • For larger log files or when using multiple logs, especially attack logs, this may take 30-40 seconds and your Notepad++ may appear to freeze while doing it. Just be patient and wait for it to finish!

Congratulations, you have successfully filtered and organised the log files and are ready to CTRL-F search them for keywords or timestamps.

When using logs in appeals, ensure you provide links to the logs you have relied upon and any edits you have made.

Example:
Logs used
https://tgstation13.org/parsed-logs/bas ... 5/game.txt
https://tgstation13.org/parsed-logs/bas ... attack.txt

These logs were filtered by the ckeys "Timberpoes", "MrMelbert" and "Mothblocks"

Good practice is to wrap the logs in code tags and, where the logs are long, spoiler them with a summary like so:

They attacked me while I was hijacking the shuttle

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

[2022-08-20 10:42:57.109] ATTACK: MiiyaBox/(Ascy Viant) stun attacked Dessysalta/(Intoxicated Jet) with the police baton (NEWHP: 100)  (a meteor with engines strapped to it (158,130,13))
[2022-08-20 10:43:00.559] EMOTE: Dessysalta/(Intoxicated Jet) claps. (a meteor with engines strapped to it (157,131,13))
[2022-08-20 10:43:02.719] ATTACK: MiiyaBox/(Ascy Viant) stun attacked Dessysalta/(Intoxicated Jet) with the police baton (NEWHP: 100)  (a meteor with engines strapped to it (158,130,13))
[2022-08-20 10:43:03.982] GAME: Dessysalta/(Intoxicated Jet) is hijacking the emergency shuttle console. (a meteor with engines strapped to it (157,131,13))

[Timberpoes]

The starting point in any appeal will be the admin reading the appeal and deciding if there are any factual disagreements - to be set aside from interpretation of rules and policy, or whether the severity was proportionate when the facts are not disputed.

Players and admins in ban appeals should work together to establish these key facts so the appeal is resolved swiftly and fairly.

To this end, a common legal adage can be applied: "s/he whom asserts, must prove". It's up to you to prove your version of events.

There's flexibility built into all systems. If both the player and the admin agree, you don't need logs to prove it. It can just be taken at face value to be correct.

As a result, the importance providing logs can really be boiled down factual disagreement. And that disagreement most often shows up in two scenarios:

1. If you claim that someone did something and they say they did not, it's up to you to prove it via the logs.
2. If you claim that someone else is wrong and that something else happened instead, both parties can prove their own version of events or disprove the other version of events via the logs with equal effort.

When the appeal has all the disputed facts corrected via logs, appeals get handled faster. Bans get overturned faster. Headmins resolve appeals faster.

The system benefits everyone. So prove your points via the logs.