Are Notes bad??? :-)

[BONERMASTER]

Of course they fucking are. They are used to keep track of your awful behavior, and nothing else. There is nothing good about that! You don't ever want to have these, and if Vekter is spreading his 1984 propaganda like "notes are purely factual", don't even have a second think about it: reject it, disagree with it and see it for what it is, just an inflammatory statement to provoke you into starting a fight.

Don't fall for the jannitor's tricks.


With modern regards
-BONERMASTER

[Shadowflame909]

I would like more good notes to outweigh my old bad notes

admins gib more good notes or do more events so i can get good notes for playing your event character perfectly

[Mothblocks]

well I give lots of positive notes

[Rageguy505]

I only have positive notes, actual skill issue

[BlevRuz]

i can see the usefulness of notes in the abstract but admins keep ERPing in mine, cant they get a dedicated channel for that instead?

[Kendrickorium]

well I give lots of positive notes

it doesn't say "best captain" anywhere in my notes so I'm inclined to believe this is a lie.

[Qbmax32]

real

[Boot]

I got two antag tokens so notes can't always be bad buddy.

[Vekter]

We discussed in our last meeting that we want to try and give out more positive notes from time to time, especially for people who had a lot of negative ones and have shown improvement in their behavior. I don't see them as inherently negative, they're just a way for us to keep track of whether or not you've been talked to about something that happened. This ends up being negative quite often since we don't really have a history of giving out what you'd consider positive notes, but the way I see it, getting one should just be an incentive to improve your behavior.

tl;dr they're not bad as long as you learn from them and don't make the same mistakes again.

[BONERMASTER]

"they're not bad as long as you learn from them and don't make the same mistakes again."

Let me refute this clearly: You did learn and never made the same mistake again. But somewhere in the heat of the moment, in a completely different scenario, you break a completely unrelated rule. What does the administrator look at for reference? The note that was left on you, for a behavior you have never continued after it was issued. And he will turn to you and say that your note history is bad, and the punishment you get will be greater, so you learn your lesson.
That ain't bad?
I think it is.

To put it bluntly, there is NOTHING good about having a note. The only one that benefits from you having a note, is the admin that bans you. An admin like Vekter, for example.


With no regards
-BONERMASTER

[Vekter]

What does the administrator look at for reference? The note that was left on you, for a behavior you have never continued after it was issued.

This isn't and has never been true unless you have something like 20 notes in a month. I can't really speak for everyone else in the admin team, but the only time I've ever let someone's notes affect how I handled the issue are either:

1) They have prior notes for the same violation.
2) Have a high number of notes within a short period of time.

The former is obvious, the latter just tells me that the person might need some guidance in how they handle things in the future. If someone has like 15-20 notes within a month, it might indicate they're either not here in good faith or need to be made aware that their history is becoming a major issue.

tl;dr I'm not going to bonk you for having 4-5 visible notes but if you get a lot in a short period it's a problem.

[wesoda25]

Notes are bad for their recipient but good for the servers. It's just a matter of perspective. The most important and deciding factor is fairness - not accuracy, because while all fair notes are accurate, not all accurate notes are fair. Some people get this last part backwards.

[iain0]

Not this again. I figured it was mostly a joke but since some valid points are being raised:

Notes are good, notes are the line inbetween doing absolutely nothing and banning you.

Let out a stupid virus due to some weird freak of dormant DNA activation and a teleporting monkey? Worth a ban? Probably not. Worth having zero record of entirely? Also a bad idea. Notes fill the gap. "Okay, maybe you learned something new here, have a note instead of a ban, but if you do it again, might be a ban".

Without notes, more things are bans, because the only thing below that would be zero record of events which just invites people to play the adminwho game.

Notes are good, if you got a note, it possibly saved you from something worse. If you end up converting that note into something worse, you got more chances than you otherwise would have. Either way, players should be generally benefitting from this level of "warning" rather than ban.

Admins should (IMO) generally be looking for the appropriate notes, with dates and played hours and relevant to what is currently being investigated. Sheer volume /can/ be an issue sometimes but its a lot slower for that to kick in and tends to be a separate process than a reaction to a specific ticket/event.

[oranges]

What does the administrator look at for reference? The note that was left on you, for a behavior you have never continued after it was issued.

This isn't and has never been true unless you have something like 20 notes in a month. I can't really speak for everyone else in the admin team, but the only time I've ever let someone's notes affect how I handled the issue are either:

they lied

[wesoda25]

Notes are good, notes are the line inbetween doing absolutely nothing and banning you.

Something being less severe does not automatically make it good, to players it's still a form of reprimand. In the big picture yes documentation is good, but notes are a highly personal thing for most as well as a negative experience (even if it's not as negative as it could be).

[iain0]

Depends on the perspective. It's relatively good compared to notes not existing, because if we just got rid of notes entirely, what's the handling for all those incidents. Objectively it's all worse than having a clean record I suppose but that's more a factor of having done something in the first place ; once you're at that point, the note outcome is better than ban outcome.

I get what you mean but their existence is good, and perhaps "are notes bad" has more than one interpretation and answer

[wesoda25]

When I read your post I got the impression you were taking the line of "no, this thing is actually good for you because it could be worse" but if that wasn't your intention then I yield.

[BONERMASTER]

I get it, it's time for this thread to die. But let me throw out one last point on the way out:

Auto-delete notes after a certain amount of playtime.

You retain the ability to track borderline behavior for it's relevant period, and they don't become your noose two years down the line. I think that would be a fair deal as far as players and admin interests are concerned, because I can understand that you'd want a more finetuned tool to deal with difficult personalities.
And at the end of the day, this is what I wanted to remind our community of with this thread. It is a tool to track bad behavior, and it is there to give reasonable justification to ban players that are difficult to pin down on something.

There is nothing good about having notes as a player. With my above suggestion though, their scope and impact would be a lot more reasonable. It makes no sense to have a note from two years ago about ruffing up an assistant be listed in my record. These should only be there for entertainment purposes, not to be actively consulted and evaluated for a current situation.

And I mean deleted, not just put into an extra tab of "old" notes.


With fading regards
-BONERMASTER

[Pandarsenic]

Love this thread popping upright as the cat appeal happens

[Timberpoes]

In the past I've actually gone over what the admin-side of notes looks like. Historic notes get faded out over time, however only in-game. We also have a web panel to access notes, bans and other player information which does not fade out old notes. We also have a Discord bot that can retrieve note histories, also does not fade old notes.

We do also have expiring notes, but culturally they are almost never used.

Non-positive notes are and always will be a punishment.

The admin team often reads a player's notes before they've finished investigating an ahelp.

Notes are regularly used to influence opinions on if a player is likely to have broken the rules or not.

Whenever we discuss players in the adminbus channel, it's almost inevitable that someone will bring up their note history.

Discussing note histories out of game in these ways is ESPECIALLY bad for taking into account old notes as none of our out-of-game tools fade historic notes.

Anyone trying to spin the idea that notes are not a punishment is mistaken.

The onus is on the entire admin team from candidate to headmin to use a player's prior notes responsibly. Consider only what is relevant, ignore what is irrelevant, apply appropriate weight to all factors and identify conscious and unconscious biases and discard them when making decisions.

[Annihilite111]

Not this again. I figured it was mostly a joke but since some valid points are being raised:

Notes are good, notes are the line inbetween doing absolutely nothing and banning you.

Let out a stupid virus due to some weird freak of dormant DNA activation and a teleporting monkey? Worth a ban? Probably not. Worth having zero record of entirely? Also a bad idea. Notes fill the gap. "Okay, maybe you learned something new here, have a note instead of a ban, but if you do it again, might be a ban".

Without notes, more things are bans, because the only thing below that would be zero record of events which just invites people to play the adminwho game.

Notes are good, if you got a note, it possibly saved you from something worse. If you end up converting that note into something worse, you got more chances than you otherwise would have. Either way, players should be generally benefitting from this level of "warning" rather than ban.

Admins should (IMO) generally be looking for the appropriate notes, with dates and played hours and relevant to what is currently being investigated. Sheer volume /can/ be an issue sometimes but its a lot slower for that to kick in and tends to be a separate process than a reaction to a specific ticket/event.

Kind of off-topic, but if i as the virologist was doing my job (those monkeys are there for the express purpose of being tortured with death viruses. There's even ingame flavortext telling you this), and something as uforseeable as one of the bastards having spatial instability activated by the dormant DNA symptom and somehow managing to not space itself out of virology where 3/4 directions go into space happened, i would be absolutely furious if i got noted for it.
That's like noting a scientist for the experimentor blowing up and killing botany. If you didn't want people to use a feature it should be removed, and if someone has done nothing wrong you shouldnt note them.

[iain0]

Eh, falls perfectly into the "is probably an accident, but you dont want people doing this 10 times and going 'oops' every time". Which makes it a perfect note candidate.

I want future me to remember if I've talked to you about this in the past -> it becomes a note.

Fury isn't really necessary, and if we removed everything you could fuck up accidentally then .... yeah

[Mothblocks]

TLDR: If you get noted just don't do it again and nobody cares

[BONERMASTER]

TLDR: If you get noted just don't do it again and nobody cares

That is not true. Admins will care, even if you never do it again, as can be witnessed in this current prominent admin complaint.


With factual regards
-BONERMASTER

[Mothblocks]

If that's the case and they're filling an admin complaint then what's the problem, obviously it's out of the norm enough to be worthy of one?

[Annihilite111]

Eh, falls perfectly into the "is probably an accident, but you dont want people doing this 10 times and going 'oops' every time". Which makes it a perfect note candidate.

I want future me to remember if I've talked to you about this in the past -> it becomes a note.

Fury isn't really necessary, and if we removed everything you could fuck up accidentally then .... yeah

The issue is that notes are inevitably used to increase the severity of punishment against a player. It's a criminal record, and other admins will look at that note and assume that it means you were a shitter.

[Cobby]

Notes are such a good punishment because then you can’t play the gam- oh wait well at least you can’t play the role you were doing wron- oh wait.

If you get pulled over for speeding and don’t get a ticket do you think that’s a punishment? If you do it again and they see the previous warning for speeding so they give you a ticket is that warning a punishment or just the ticket? In this entire mental exercise did you ever consider just not speeding again?

Notes are extremely good because they are used to describe a player in a way that can be disputed. Imagine if we didn’t have notes and an admin who didn’t like you was asked about your history in an admin channel you can’t contest. You’d be screwed.

With a notes system not only does it prevent embellishing the situation down the line like word of mouth would, it’s also available to the player and appealable if they believe the note is not true or overly harsh.

There is no alternative where you receive such benefits as a player unless you want to consider a world without any system, which I think would let genuine bad actors run around.

Of all the admin policies the notes system seems like the most out of place to take issue with

[YBS]

Stop taking notes on me so I can push the shitter envelope without repercussions thanks

[Atlanta-Ned]

if u dont want notes then

► Show Spoiler

dont break the rules

[Shadowflame909]

i would like all my bad notes expunged

im a good boy now i should be able to work as a teacher or police officer sir

[BONERMASTER]

These last few replies are honestly dogshit. We had a pretty good back and forth though, I think this thread has now outlived it's purpose.

Thread is closed.


With warm regards
-BONERMASTER