/tg/Station 13

• Hypocrisy and Bias:

viewtopic.php?p=653748#p653748
Calling an appeal histrionic while, in the same post, being histrionic.
The entire appeal was a shitshow, with the deletion of non-peanut messages, clear bias and hypocrisy, and strange rule applications (Like the idea of an admin asking for advice, without calling for a headmin review) He apologized for this, but his apology in this case, I believe, should be taken apart and analyzed for exactly what it means.

RaveRadbury wrote:Hey, everybody. I've unlocked the thread to allow DendyDoom and Timberpoes to reply. This whole situation turned out to be a bit of a mess, and I'm sorry that it ended up like this. My intent in both of my replies was never to be rude or targeting of DendyDoom, though it seems like it's definitely come off like that. I lost perspective during attempts to sound impartial, and I do want to apologize for my mistake to both DendyDoom and Timber.

Would any rational person, without reading the apology, assume RaveRadbury was attempting to be impartial at any point in the DrearyDoom case? I believe the answer is no. The appeal has multiple cases of "I was trying to do X, but it did not come off as X." Sadly, it's hard to prove whether or not he was trying to be impartial, but I'd like you to continue asking the question "Would a rational person assume he was trying to be X?" where X is impartial in this first section of his apology.

RaveRadbury wrote:After further deliberation, we have decided to reconsider the ruling and allow the issue to resolve between the two originally involved in the appeal, Timber and Dendy. This is a decision that the full headmin team talked about between all three of us and discussed, before making sure with each other that it would be okay to post - this also applied to the original rejection message, which had been talked about in the same fashion.

It is necessary to point out that their rejection message was controversial, and generated more salt in players club than any decision made by headmins in a long time. If it wasn't for internal admin pressure, and external player pressure, do you believe that they would have reconsidered their ruling to allow the issue to be resolved between Timberpoes and Dendy?

RaveRadbury wrote:It may have been a bit rash for me to delete both of your posts and lock the thread - I was afraid of it becoming a bit of a mess, and wanted to sort everything out as best as I could, as the sudden turn was a bit of a shock. In light of this, I've undeleted both of them and unlocked the thread to rectify this.

The deletion of player messages ties into my next bolded point "Listening:" so try to keep this part in mind for later.

RaveRadbury wrote:Essentially, when we talked about the original issue we all made a decision, and then we posted it with the assumption that everything would be fine from there. We didn't expect Timber to overrule it afterward, which is what caused the main amount of confusion and mess - but after some reflection, and the fact that if the original appeal was done without headmin review, this appeal seems like it will be fine to just simply allow to resolve naturally with the decision of Timberpoes and any (if required) further talk to DendyDoom.

This is in regards to the strange rule application mentioned earlier. I don't think there has ever been a case of an admin asking for headmin advice, the headmins taking that as a request for a headmin review, and then the admin overruling the headmin decision. This isn't relevant to my explanation of my vote, and I'm only including this so I don't get called out for removing parts of his apology to make him look worst.

RaveRadbury wrote:Again, I'd like to apologize for how I acted and came across in both cases. My intention was only to be impartial, and I don't think I did the best job coming across as that. I hope that, going forward, we can all avoid situations like this, myself included, and use this appeal as something to reflect upon going forward in both naming policy, headmin interaction and player appeals.

The first sentence is a straight-forward apology, and likely the best apology in the thread. But after that it only gets worst. The second sentence is a case of, as I mentioned earlier, "I was trying to do X, but it did not come off as X." Again, ask the question, would any rational person assume RaveRadbury was trying to be impartial? His third sentence is an opinion, a hope, that seems to imply the shitshow was a group effort. It wasn't. It started because Timberpoes misunderstood the admin consensus on naming policy, or it changed over time and he was left behind, and it spiraled out of control when RaveRadbury and the other two headmins (not named, they're not running for headmin this election so they're irrelevant to this post) made their rejection, and it became a proper shitshow when Rave began to remove posts and take potshots at Doom. I fear that this might also be implying that any part of his is Dreary's fault, implying they should also try to avoid situations like that. I sincerely hope that is not what he meant to imply.

It's hard to accept the blame for a shitshow, his straight-forward apology in this first sentence was likely the hardest for Rave to type out in that whole thing, and it should be taken as it is, a true apology. But an apology isn't enough, in my eyes, to make the rest of this shitshow go away. Anyways, one last sentence:

RaveRadbury wrote:We were also mistaken in asserting that it was in bad faith to write for headmin review. Admin discretion can only be handled by headmins and the only place to handle that are in appeals.

The fact the headmin team was mistaken in the first place is bad. This wasn't an apology for their mistaken belief, it was an acknowledgement that they were wrong. Frankly though, even if it was an apology, it would still be bad. Expecting players to appeal to an admin for a decision the admin made wrong is reminiscent of an old MSO quote:

MrStonedOne wrote:Players should not be expected to bite their tongue towards admins who fuck up, even in minor ways. They are allowed to express their frustration, and all of our admins are capable of handling it.

• Listening, or a lack thereof:

As you can likely tell from my signature, the idea of an admin acknowledging that players just want to have a voice is an idea I like. Everyone wants a voice, removing their voice is akin to spiting them as a person.
From the Dreary thread: "I'm locking this, we don't want to read another essay from you."
Banning of Sinful for asking "Why is drama stirring against the rules"
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33099

I'm not going to say that Rave is going to go around banning everyone that disagrees with him full 1984, because he really isn't. But as stated in my previous point he is more than willing to cut people out of the community, and remove their voice if he believes that their voice might cause a mess.

For the rest of this I'd like to preface that I do not like Sinfulbliss. Just like Sans I admit I am biased against him, hence why I never posted any defense for him in the peanut thread. That being said, this is not a defense of sinfulbliss as a person, but more evidence for why I'm not voting for RaveRadbury.

RaveRadbury wrote:It may have been a bit rash for me to delete both of your posts and lock the thread - I was afraid of it becoming a bit of a mess, and wanted to sort everything out as best as I could, as the sudden turn was a bit of a shock. In light of this, I've undeleted both of them and unlocked the thread to rectify this.

This next paragraph is going to be a bit of a tangent, but it's necessary for my next point.
Breaking the rules isn't the same as breaking the laws, there are inherent philosophical differences in each, but I believe they are similar enough that we can draw a line between what's right and wrong IRL and what's right and wrong on the forum in this specific case. If you've ever taken a criminal law course in college, or studied it at all, you've likely heard of something called "Actus Reus" or the "Criminal Act." The basis of all law is that we shouldn't punish someone for what they are, but rather, what they do. The criminal mind can be relevant to a court case, or the "Mens Rea" in law philosophy, but you cannot hold someone criminally accountable for mere thoughts, or who they are as a person.

With this in mind, what did Sinfulbliss do that was the "Actus Reus" or the criminal act? He asked a good-faith question. and stated "who cares man the world isn't gonna blow up. everythings gonna be just fine just close the forum and in a week the issue will have resolved itself"

I believe the best counterargument to this is "The ban wasn't placed because of that post, but because of all of his previous drama-stirring posts. This is just the straw that broke the camel's back"
To which I would respond with RaveRadbury's argument itself:

RaveRadbury wrote:This ban was made for a trend of posting that was diffuse enough to not warrant immediate action over any one post

There was no single incident that was enough to be worth banning Sinfulbliss. Case closed, he shouldn't have been banned in the first place. Or, RaveRadbury should have taken one specific post that was diffuse enough to warrant immediate action.

But the most disrespectful thing RaveRadbury has likely added to this case was:

RaveRadbury wrote:Future teams should consider carefully whether they would like to re-introduce this content into the community

This flips the requirements to unban someone on their head. In a natural appeal Sinful would just need to prove that his content didn't break the rules. Here RaveRadbury is trying to convince any future headmin teams into keeping Sinful banned regardless of any rulebreaks by implying that the content he brings with him is inherently bad for the community. He, of course, immediately locked the thread after posting this, preventing Sinful from giving any form of defense.

The only grace that can be given to him in this case, I believe, is in his apology.
viewtopic.php?p=661681#p661681

• Drama:

RaveRadbury hates drama. That's fair, I hate drama, lots of people do. Drama is icky. But it will happen regardless, no matter how much control you have, because mistakes happen, and drama will occur. Therefor when voting for a headmin, with the topic of "drama" in mind, you should ask yourself who deals with drama the best.
Is it Timberpoes, who rationally lays out all of his thoughts and beliefs while attempting to argue with passion for what he believes in?
Keith4, who believes the most important thing to do in drama situations is to engage with the community?
Goofball, who has once said "this obsession with avoiding drama is what's causing serious problems with the tgstation administrative teams and accountability"?
Or RaveRadbury, someone who, in the examples previously given, prefers to quiet any drama, make decisions he knows the other headmins will back him up on, and then only after handing out bans, listens to the community, realized he fucked up, and apologizes?

This further ties into the hypocrisy section. RaveRadbury hates drama, bans people for drama stirring, deletes messages he believes will cause drama, all the while causing more drama than any user could hope to equal. Or, as CPTANT puts it:

CPTANT wrote: ↑Ban RaveRadbury, he is literally the only one creating drama here.

• Platform:

Headmin Election Threads viewforum.php?f=38

Finally lets look at Rave's platform, and his goals for tgstation.

RaveRadbury wrote:

• Draw content creators to the community

• Get our SS14 presence established

• Make improvements in response to the Satisfaction Survey

Things are looking good overall, but we have room to improve!

These are all good goals, and all 3 focus on expanding the community, and increasing community satisfaction. But I'd like you to read the other headmin candidate's threads as well, for example...

Keith4 wrote:1- KEEP LRP TIDING ALIVE AND WELL. (LRP ONLY) KEEP TIDING DEAD AND BURIED(MRP ONLY)
2- AN ATTEMPT FOR A NON-BIASED LOOK AT ALL APPEALS.
3- CLAMP DOWN ON INACTIVE ADMINS.
4- STRIVING FOR THE FUTURE
5- SUPPORT FOR MENTORS
6- CAMPBELL- THE MARATHON COMPROMISE

Notice the glaring differences? Keith4's goals are specific, and invite disagreement. They're honest and upfront about exactly what he wants to do. And it's not just Keith4, take Striders for example:

Striders wrote: Silicons are NOT CREW ALIGNED
Defanging the tiders
Admins and events (from admins)

These goals confront controversial topics to their face, and again, invite disagreement. Almost all of the headmin candidates have these controversial goals. Controversial goals are not inherently a good thing, but it shows that these headmin candidates want to solve controversial problems. Regardless of how you like the solution they offer, at least they offer a solution.

In conclusion,
Matched with the previous section of "Drama" it altogether paints a picture that RaveRadbury is afraid to talk about controversial topics up until he solves them. An "Act first, apologize later" mentality to headministration. If this is the case, it shows a severe distrust of the community. In my opinion, it is exactly this mentality which drives a wedge into the already widening valley of administrator's faith in players, and player's trust in admins. This opinion is why I hold Timberpoes in such high esteem as an admin, because he has addressed this exact point in one of his previous posts, and I'll leave that post as the final remark in this "short"essay.

Timberpoes wrote: ↑When an admin handles a ticket poorly, they risk creating a guarded player that doesn't trust admins. That will negatively impact dozens of future ahelps such a player may have with admins. And those negative player interactions entrench more negative admin attitudes. It's a negative cycle that feeds back into itself.

Edit:
Fixing the links

For all the public-facing "drama" Rave might've made, I think internally he's improved since the last time(s) we've had him as headmin. From an admin PoV, having a stable and good internal headmin's what I'm looking for. Clamping down on dumpster fire drama always gets your hand burned, but I think it was better than letting it smolder more, even if there was a better way of handling how exactly it was done.

Drag's a MRP admin and for MRP they seem like they've got a good head on their shoulders. I don't exactly trust all their LRP views but that's what other headmins are there for. Pretty reasonable person, would be excited to see what they can do in the position.

I've said before that I don't like Timberpoes, and then immediately worked with him in various peanut threads to help explain stuff to players. I also think he's a great admin.
It's a love/hate relationship. (IMO, he's great for public-facing work and a really, really good admin - but I don't like him too much as a headmin? I value super high levels of stability and a mainly admin-facing pov for headmins, while timber seems to be focused more on the player-facing part of adminning. Makes him a good admin, but makes me a little antsy when it comes to him wanting to flip his Mover and Shaker switch on)
Despite all this complaining that I have about him, he's managed it well before, so I'm happy to swallow a bit of my pride and accept someone who I might not approve of as much given that they've shown themselves capable already.

Stereo needs to accept my money for art

Striders is great but I think he needs to wait a little bit more in the microwave before he's ready. Silicon policy changes are all well and great, but changing policy to make them significantly easier to manipulate into antagonizing crew will result in silicons just being hated more by the general populace - there's not enough enforcement of silicon policy, and not enough people skilled at enforcing it, to support those sorts of changes. Plus their platform as a whole seems sparse when you look past that one silicon component.

I don't like Goofball. Unlike my "I don't like Timberpoes" where that's "I don't like timberpoes as a headmin and think they're great otherwise" I just don't like Goofball.
His platform's stupid.

Kieth seems like he consistently tries to divide the community into players vs admins or servers vs other servers. All his claims sound nice on paper, but he's never come up with a decent method for mentor implementation (which will never work) and the fact that I think he's wholly incapable of managing the administrative team in any positive regard make me put him less than goofball.

As an extra point on Kieth, I notice that a lot of people on the forums share a fairly positive view of Timberpoes as an admin.
Kieth writes that he wants to remove admins who haven't been active - with stricter policies on active playtime, or else you're out.
https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/ckey/timberpoes (or my own scrubby, if you like me) and check the last time he's played (or the last time I've played, ffs)

There's plenty of admins who put in work for the community and servers in methods other than being directly on the servers - and the reason there's many """"inactive"""" gamemasters is because they're expected to be contributing their experience, knowledge, and time in ways other than direct administration. Removal of them would be removing many people who still provide large benefits to the community.