What makes these policies official?

[LdShade]

I am curious as to what happens to these policies.
Are these just a general agreement or does someone jot these down or become common knowledge?
After a while a lot of these policies that have been agreed on just get forgotten or changed unnoticeably.
Or am I missing the point and this sub forum is just to clarify existing policies?

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Headmins make final decision. It's just our headmins aren't very active.

[damiac]

Policies become official when they are enforced by an admin. They also become official when used to decide FNR cases.

Yes, that means 'official policy' only exists in the minds of each admin, and that there are as many sets of 'official policy' as there are admins.
What theoretically makes this work is that there is a hierarchy of admins, and FNR should sort out any conflicting policy.
Unfortunately, it means you need to be able to read the minds of all the admins to know what policy actually is.

[NikNakFlak]

That is not even remotely close to true Damiac. You litterly have no basis for your statements and to put this simply, you are spreading misinformation. The recent policy change of silicon policy by pandarsenic had NUMEROUS public votes AND admin votes. When it passed multiple times, it was elected official. Only after countless votes and debates was it made official so stating that policy is randomly selected by admins is dumb. Not all administrators are the same so of course some heads may collide but simply stating that admins pick and choose is just simply not true. Don't spread minsinformation.

[peoplearestrange]

From what I've gathered it normally goes like this (please correct me if I'm wrong, because this is just piecing things together, not fact):

Policies are debated here.
A vote thread is created on here and occasionally, (depending on the policy) in game.
A vote is held by the game admins.
If everything is positive reaction and headmins seem it to be legit, it becomes "law".

[Ikarrus]

There's usually no admin vote. We're not that organized. It usually comes with a consensus before a headmin comes in and says "make it done".

Without headmin approval there's going to be confusion and lingering differences in policy between admins.

[damiac]

That is not even remotely close to true Damiac. You litterly have no basis for your statements and to put this simply, you are spreading misinformation. The recent policy change of silicon policy by pandarsenic had NUMEROUS public votes AND admin votes. When it passed multiple times, it was elected official. Only after countless votes and debates was it made official so stating that policy is randomly selected by admins is dumb. Not all administrators are the same so of course some heads may collide but simply stating that admins pick and choose is just simply not true. Don't spread minsinformation.

There's usually no admin vote. We're not that organized. It usually comes with a consensus before a headmin comes in and says "make it done".

Without headmin approval there's going to be confusion and lingering differences in policy between admins.

Uh oh, looks like Ikarrus is spreading 'misinformation' too.

I wasn't saying that as an insult, by the way. Look at FNR, you see admins with very different interpretations of policy, and when they conflict, then they get resolved, and the resolution becomes 'official'. But, if you want to know what policy to follow to not get in trouble in the first place, you need to be able to read the minds of all admins.

See: Pandarsenic changing characters names because of his personal 'you must have a good name' policy.
See: pretty much any silicon related FNR (Although Pandar really improved this a lot with his silicon policy)

The system isn't perfect, but it's actually pretty good for a bunch of volunteer admins. Because with most servers, policy ends at "Whatever the admin you talked to said it is"

[Cipher3]

See: Pandarsenic changing characters names because of his personal 'you must have a good name' policy.

Avoid using non character names. If you have a very offensive name or an obviously immersion breaking moniker like 'xenohunter360' you will be asked to change it.

[Pandarsenic]

That is not even remotely close to true Damiac. You litterly have no basis for your statements and to put this simply, you are spreading misinformation. The recent policy change of silicon policy by pandarsenic had NUMEROUS public votes AND admin votes. When it passed multiple times, it was elected official. Only after countless votes and debates was it made official so stating that policy is randomly selected by admins is dumb. Not all administrators are the same so of course some heads may collide but simply stating that admins pick and choose is just simply not true. Don't spread minsinformation.

There's usually no admin vote. We're not that organized. It usually comes with a consensus before a headmin comes in and says "make it done".

Without headmin approval there's going to be confusion and lingering differences in policy between admins.

Uh oh, looks like Ikarrus is spreading 'misinformation' too.

Not so much, really. The complexity here is... well, they're both right. Some things, like the Silicon Policy codification, go through about 5 threads of votes and discussions. Some a little less. Nothing I can think of that went through more. But the average policy (What constitutes powergaming at the brig, what crosses the line of an immersion-breaking name for Nanotrasen to put on your IDs, when negligence of a job becomes jobbannable, how bad you have to fuck your team over for a team antag ban, etc.) doesn't go through nearly as much - it happens as on-the-fly admin rulings, and eventually is brought to FNR where it is overturned and upheld and becomes a precedent.

[damiac]

Yes, exactly. That's what I meant, 'official' policy largely doesn't exist until it is enforced, and appealed. Each admin only goes off their interpretation of what policy even exists, for the rest of it, it's just their interpretation of 'don't be a dick'.

When an admin punishes someone for being a dick, and they come here to FNR and say 'But I wasn't being dick!', an official decision has to be made about whether or not that thing counts as being a dick. Then, it's policy. But to avoid the 'being a dick' punishment in the first place, you would need access to the admin's mind.

Of course, admins are people with varying degrees of common sense, so usually everyone's interpretation is close enough. But sometimes, something isn't a policy until someone gets banned for it, then everyone agrees it should have been a policy in the first place. Meaning the person got a punishment for something that wasn't really against the rules when they did it.

[NikNakFlak]

Just....no. Did you even read pandarsenic's post?

[damiac]

But the average policy (What constitutes powergaming at the brig, what crosses the line of an immersion-breaking name for Nanotrasen to put on your IDs, when negligence of a job becomes jobbannable, how bad you have to fuck your team over for a team antag ban, etc.) doesn't go through nearly as much - it happens as on-the-fly admin rulings, and eventually is brought to FNR where it is overturned and upheld and becomes a precedent.

Yeah... I did read Pandarsenic's post. Did you NikNak? Because we're saying the exact same thing.

Yes, exactly. That's what I meant, 'official' policy largely doesn't exist until it is enforced, and appealed.

it happens as on-the-fly admin rulings, and eventually is brought to FNR where it is overturned and upheld and becomes a precedent.

For emphasis:

on-the-fly admin rulings

So yeah, it's exactly what I said. Stop spreading misinformation Niknak. Also, it's spelled "literally"

You litterly have no basis for your statements and to put this simply, you are spreading misinformation.

[Hibbles]

The issue is that it is literally not possible to write comprehensive rules for a game as complex as SS13. If you want to contest me saying that, go try it sometime. I don't mean things like 'don't be a jerk man', I mean make a rulebook that encompasses every situation, job, and event that's even likely to happen in the game, much less the wider range of what can possibly happen.

I mean, look at what was needed for silicons alone and how long it took because making that probably really sucked to do.

And even if you did manage to codify a set of ironclad laws about every situation, the line-towing would be inevitable, swift, and sure. People are always looking for ways to do that. Is it cool that somebody can get an 'ok' from one admin and a ban from another? Not really. But it's easily fixed and the worst that can happen to you, a ban, still means life goes on, and if it's really out of phase with what other admins feel, it's easily lifted too in FNR. Is there any alternative that isn't way, way worse to how it works now?

[damiac]

The issue is that it is literally not possible to write comprehensive rules for a game as complex as SS13. If you want to contest me saying that, go try it sometime. I don't mean things like 'don't be a jerk man', I mean make a rulebook that encompasses every situation, job, and event that's even likely to happen in the game, much less the wider range of what can possibly happen.

I mean, look at what was needed for silicons alone and how long it took because making that probably really sucked to do.

And even if you did manage to codify a set of ironclad laws about every situation, the line-towing would be inevitable, swift, and sure. People are always looking for ways to do that. Is it cool that somebody can get an 'ok' from one admin and a ban from another? Not really. But it's easily fixed and the worst that can happen to you, a ban, still means life goes on, and if it's really out of phase with what other admins feel, it's easily lifted too in FNR. Is there any alternative that isn't way, way worse to how it works now?

Oh, clearly it's quite impossible. I think TG station has the best possible way to do it, and the system largely works. I have had issues with how some admins assume the absolute worst intentions, and how rules sometimes get twisted to support admin rulings in FNR complaints, but that's an inherent problem with letting humans be involved.
The system isn't perfect, obviously, but I can't think of a better one.