Notes: The nuclear option. If notes are punishments the alternative option that nobody wants.

[NamelessFairy]

Bottom post of the previous page:

There appears to be a growing misjudgment that notes are a punishment rather than a recordkeeping tool so I think a discussion needs to be held about how we're going to handle them in the future. Notes are visible to players as a gesture of transparency, admins have the option to hide notes from players but we are asked not to do this. I'm going to bring up the possibility of repealing that request and standardizing players not being able to see their notes to allow admins to maintain their record-keeping tools.

To start I'd like to be clear this is an awful idea that I dislike, I don't like inaccurate notes being placed so I fully support players being able to read their own so they can ensure any missed details that the admin didn't catch can be pointed out. However if notes start being treated as punishments by headmins as at least one headmin has made it clear they think then we run the risk of critical data for admins being erased, this is not the primary concern, the concern is admins being forced to keep personal or shared documents tracking notes with players and admins not being able to judge if notes are accurate or not. This is the worst case scenario that I fear we are marching towards.

So, what do we do if admins can't maintain their documentation due to their records being treated as punishments do we move those records out of the public eye with little or no scrutiny, do we keep admin note keeping the same as it has been for years and live with the occasional batch of complaints that "they're punishments", or do we restrict admin note keeping entirely and risk serial rulebreakers getting away with rulebreaks consistently and repeatedly.

I'm not happy I've had to make this thread but we're at risk of going in blind to a very dangerous era of adminning which could really harm the quality of administration TG is known to have. So if headmins are going to travel this path then this path needs to be discussed and charted so travelling it is done smoothly.

[Farquaar]

The second note would warrant some sort of additional justifying context, e.g. Had a death-syringe made at roundstart for no good reason, or shot it while scuffling with a traitor who hadn't done anything openly traitorous but they found antag gear while looting the body, etc.

Okay, but neither of those are against the rules, so once again, why are they a note in the first place?

Rule 12.

[Pandarsenic]

As mentioned, Rule 12 for the no-reason death syringe

Rule 4 explicitly does not apply if you go out of your way to kill someone and it turns out, completely coincidentally, that they were an antag, but you had no way to know it until after the fact.

[iamgoofball]

The second note would warrant some sort of additional justifying context, e.g. Had a death-syringe made at roundstart for no good reason, or shot it while scuffling with a traitor who hadn't done anything openly traitorous but they found antag gear while looting the body, etc.

Okay, but neither of those are against the rules, so once again, why are they a note in the first place?

Rule 12.

I'll believe it when I see admins actually enforce that in a manner that isn't designed to gotcha people they personally dislike.

[BeeSting12]

Notes are a punishment because admins continuously use a player's long note history as justification to note instead of verbally warn, ban instead of note, and give a longer ban instead of a shorter ban. There's nothing wrong with this. There's also nothing wrong with players being able to see records kept about them and appeal inaccurate or unfair records. The argument about these records needing to be kept at the beginning of the thread doesn't make sense because these records shouldn't have existed in the first place. There is no "critical data for admins being erased" because that data is invalid - the note was either unfair or inaccurate.

Serial rule breakers won't get away with it because they will be noted, appeal the note, and find out that it was a valid note and get the appeal denied. If the note was invalid then you fucked up and noted the wrong thing. Don't be too trigger happy on a so called serial rule breaker, wait for them to actually fuck up to note them. It's worrying that you think admins will make a shared Google Doc or similar to note players. If that's actually the case then they're circumventing the due process that we've been giving players to view and contest notes, and the headmins should look into that.

[vect0r]

As mentioned, Rule 12 for the no-reason death syringe

Rule 4 explicitly does not apply if you go out of your way to kill someone and it turns out, completely coincidentally, that they were an antag, but you had no way to know it until after the fact.

At least on Lrp, I don’t think rule 12 covers just making a death syringe, right? Isn’t it something about doing that+validhunting to get rid of all the antags for muh valids?

[Archie700]

Also how does the player even know if they're noted for a rule they broke.
They won't learn if they don't know they have a note for it.

[Domitius]

It's impossible to separate record-keeping notes and notes that are placed in lieu of a ban or as a warning. Notes that are relevant, even recordkeeping ones, will always be considered if somebodies actions continue to be detrimental to the server.

For my two cents the system works as is and requires no change but the meta-conversations about notes need to be addressed which I believe Nameless brings up well.

There is probably a beautifully worded way to address this problem but I believe the end game is championing transparency at every step and to ensure any appeals continue to be addressed promptly in good faith from all sides.

[Archie700]

Your right with your third point, unappealable inaccurate notes are a huge danger but I trust that the admin team wont place notes out of malice at least... Its still a bad idea but there are worse ideas on the horizon so we're kinda choosing between bad and badder...

I'm going to put an example because this is a very good example of why admins should not keep notes secret unless they have a very good reason for it.

Jortymorty's notes by Admiral_awesome

Given that, we move onto the flashbang part of the note. This is dickish, and in the spirit of griefy actions that don't benefit anyone, but it's so small fry that it's a fairly weak note in and of itself. This bit can be a bit contentious, it's okay to note small slightly-griefy things after all, but surrounding events with this admin will put this decision in better context.

To put a sensitive matter short, we had discovered that Admiral_awesome130 had, partially unbeknownst to Jortymorty, involved himself with a matter that had directly involved him as a player, leading to the admin placing a secret note on Jortymorty, which would've been impossible for them to appeal. Because of this, we do not feel comfortable leaving the residue on the player. This investigation lead to the admin being removed for misconduct.

This is exactly the sort of situation that makes people lose trust in admins. You cannot just "trust" that admins won't be malicious without setting safeguards, not only among the admins, but among the players.

[Pandarsenic]

As mentioned, Rule 12 for the no-reason death syringe

Rule 4 explicitly does not apply if you go out of your way to kill someone and it turns out, completely coincidentally, that they were an antag, but you had no way to know it until after the fact.

At least on Lrp, I don’t think rule 12 covers just making a death syringe, right? Isn’t it something about doing that+validhunting to get rid of all the antags for muh valids?

In isolation, having a death syringe is not a problem, but
- If you broke it out (esp. if it was for a bad reason) and then accidentally killed your boss, that's a problem because you're now fucking up unrelated people by being too cavalier with it
- If you have a bunch of other validhunting gear, that's a problem, and the syringe would likely be used as an example of the kind of gear you're accumulating

[Fatal]

If it ain't broke don't fix it

What we have now, it works, it might not be perfect, but it works, and in place of anyone suggesting any serious alternatives to improve it, I don't see why notes being a punishment or not is even relevant

Notes are notes, they do NOT stop you doing anything in game, or acting in a certain way, or prevent you doing absolutely anything (they might mean the consequences for doing something change however, but all our players are supposedly adults and consequences are a part of life). What they do, is make it so the admin team knows if something happened, and sometimes these are in the form of warnings, but most of these are "did x, don't do x again" and if you do x again, you get an actual punishment in the form of a ban (or a roleban)

[Misdoubtful]

The other headmins have agreed with me on this one.

The reality of the situation here is that with our current noting system people will always end up looking at notes and end up in one of both camps, or even on the fence about it as to whether notes are in fact recordkeeping, punishment, or a bit of both.

That is the tax associated with our system. One where notes only fade out for admins viewing them after six months.

One where for players notes never expire and fade out in their viewing portal.

One where web platforms for viewing history fail to fade notes as well.

A system where that auto expiration of notes is both an unfortunately coded in issue, and one where that system unfairly depicts notes to those that may feel the most persecuted by them.

A system where noting practices will never be 100% set in stone, and a system where there is no standard operating procedure. A system where every admin and every player had their own notions of notes, and a system where admin trainers will impart their own stances on noting to new admins.

Just look at the system for note severity. It is nonsense. It means NOTHING. There was never a system put in place for it to define any of it, and there may never be unless ban/note reasons somehow had a value attached to them. We are TOO big for it happen, unless we spend an incredible amount of time training new people and current people on note severity. Even then slip ups would happen and things would end up getting missed. Something like that can’t even be feasible for whether notes are punishment or not, because its opinion and experience based, not something based on undeniably objective facts.

There is no convincing the other side on this one and saying that one side is objectively and morally correct and there never will be as things are. The only tangible solution to this is producing a system that best facilitates and empowers both sides. Even then there will STILL be friction.

Even looking at myself, with every note I place I make sure it is a positive experience and ensure I leave the note as a learning experience and a reminder for the future. That does not mean someone would not consider it punishment even if it were the most positive experience they have ever had!

This is the culture of things; this is the way of things.

This will always be bouncing back and forth like a metronome even if it takes years to happen again. As a result, this headmin term can NOT set something in stone about this, nor can the next, or the one after that.

What can happen instead is improvements to our noting system, and all I can do is urge people that have issues with notes as they are to consider that and what would make it better, because the system itself it riddled with flaws and potential improvements.