Specifically define the term "Low population round"

[Vekter]

As much as I appreciate the ruling on my last policy thread, it didn't actually do what I wanted it to do - we removed "murderbone" from the wordings, which is good, but we didn't actually get around to defining what is and isn't a low population round.

As it is right now, I intend on enforcing this ruling based on whether or not extended access was given at roundstart. If it was, it's lowpop. If it wasn't, it's not. I stand by the idea that we need to be explicitly telling people when it is and isn't okay to kill a bunch of people or they aren't going to know when that is.

I propose that we set the number at 25 players. This gives a specific line for people to know exactly when they can or can't kill people.

[Itseasytosee2me]

I think dynamic uses 20 as a number for its lowpop scaling

[warbluke]

I've been on Bagil so long that I consider 25 players to be highpop, and less than 10 to be lowpop

[Ryusenshu]

25 seems to be a good number to call it lowpop for most rounds (and servers), though i dont think we should put a hard number on this

We have to keep in mind map size and department staffing (especially security)
Northstar with 30 pop would still feel very lowpop, while on meta it would feel like a normal round

Also antags cant really know current pop, biggest indicators are:
- Comms chatter (Can give an inaccurate estimate)
- PDA list (Best way to check pop, pretty out of the way)
- General Encounters (Busy Halls?)
- Crew Manifest (Command and Silicon Only)
- who in ooc (worst one: counts connections, not pop )

In my opinion, i think it would be better to leave it to admin discretion since they (maybe) have the better view of the round
Antags shouldnt be expected to go through pop checks just to get to murdering in the first place

BUT, if this will have to happen, i would say a codechange would be a better idea
Something to give antags a "notice" once the murderpop has been reached and which cant be "recalled"

[conrad]

I'll parrot what I said on the previous thread. ~25 is better than 25. I don't like a number set in stone.

[BeeSting12]

what metric are we going by? OOC tab who, crew manifest, or what? players shouldnt have to manually count how many ppl are on the manifest.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I think the easiest solution here is "If you get skeleton crew access at the start of the shift or when you arrived on the shuttle, you can't indiscriminately murder people.". Will probably suck in that 1/100k shift where 30 people late join and it goes from lowpop to normal or even highpop, but it removes all ambiguity and is by far the easiest policy to enforce.

[Misdoubtful]

We decided on 'blatant and noticeable depopulation of the station' due to the flexibility it provides.

The figuring is that any real definition here could backfire, and that we wanted to target a specific behavior of choosing to turn servers into ghost towns.

Killing four people on a seven person round being different then killing four on a twenty-five pop round.

We're obviously open to another way of doing it, but strayed from having a hard and fast number or percentage attached to things.

I hope that clears up our reasoning on this as the thread progresses.

[Richie9999]

I may only be a simple bagilmin, but my rule of thumb regarding what is lowpop is generally 20 or fewer, and for the most part I bwoink folks if I see 'em doing the ol' murderbone at 20 or lower pop. Of course that can also be situational. 21 pop and someone is trying to plasmaflood the whole station or walk around murdering everyone they can? They might pick up a bwoink.

Mind you the 21 player threshold to put you out of lowpop means 21 actual players in the station's crew. Not counting observers, not counting off station ghost roles

[Vekter]

We decided on 'blatant and noticeable depopulation of the station' due to the flexibility it provides.

The figuring is that any real definition here could backfire, and that we wanted to target a specific behavior of choosing to turn servers into ghost towns.

Killing four people on a seven person round being different then killing four on a twenty-five pop round.

We're obviously open to another way of doing it, but strayed from having a hard and fast number or percentage attached to things.

I hope that clears up our reasoning on this as the thread progresses.

This has nothing to do with defining how many people constitutes a break of the rules, it has to do with how many people need to be on the server and playing before the indiscriminate murder rules kick in.

[Timberpoes]

I don't really want to set a hard and fast number.

The only numbers that matter are the number of living players, numbers of living sec-likes and the duration of the shift. I'm hesitant to set a number that only admins will be able to see (like living players/number of sec/ratio of player to sec). It feels like setting up players for failure by taking something incredibly subjective and carving one single and rigid interpretation into stone.

It's best just being a discretionary thing admins can do if their combined experience leads them to believe that the fish squad is reporting to barrel.

[Pandarsenic]

Doing a hard and fast number is a huge mistake - lowpop is wiggly depending not just on how many people are connected, but how many are alive, how many of those living people are still connected, how many are on station (vs. mining or in space bases, for example), how many are actually doing their jobs vs. jacking off, how many are real jobs vs. assistants, etc.

[Vekter]

I don't really want to set a hard and fast number.

The only numbers that matter are the number of living players, numbers of living sec-likes and the duration of the shift. I'm hesitant to set a number that only admins will be able to see (like living players/number of sec/ratio of player to sec). It feels like setting up players for failure by taking something incredibly subjective and carving one single and rigid interpretation into stone.

It's best just being a discretionary thing admins can do if their combined experience leads them to believe that the fish squad is reporting to barrel.

I'm okay with this, but you guys need to know that there's going to come a time someone will cop a ban for this and appeal on the grounds that it wasn't actually a lop population round.

[Timberpoes]

Yes, that's fine.

An alternative is us overturning a ban because the admin applied the rules by rote when, despite the pop being under the arbitrary limit, the murderbone was fine and should not have been noted.

Another alternative is having admins complaining they can't do anything because the pop number we set is too low.

The only winning move is to check with other admins before dropping lowpop bone notes and bans, which is probably the best general approach.

[sinfulbliss]

Wasn't it already known that admins could note lowpop bone? Checking in with other admins before noting/banning doesn't solve the issue of players not knowing what constitutes a lowpop bone precisely.

We decided on 'blatant and noticeable depopulation of the station' due to the flexibility it provides.

This issue with this is it's so flexible that it also includes medpop and highpop.

I guess I don't understand the hesitance to use a hard and fixed number like <25. Sure, maybe someone bones at 26pop, and that's seen as quite lame and an admin wants to note it. Maybe someone bones at 35pop and it's seen as blatant and noticeable depopulation of the station and an admin wants to note it. Maybe half the server is dead on 50pop, making it 25pop, and someone bones, which an admin then wants to note because it's blatant and noticeable depopulation of the station. It's way too flexible.

It really doesn't tell players anything about what is and what isn't lowpop bone IMO. A hard number would be good, but maybe it could be a soft number like "around 25pop" so that it could potentially include up to 30~ pop for some flexibility.

[Vekter]

Yes, that's fine.

An alternative is us overturning a ban because the admin applied the rules by rote when, despite the pop being under the arbitrary limit, the murderbone was fine and should not have been noted.

Another alternative is having admins complaining they can't do anything because the pop number we set is too low.

The only winning move is to check with other admins before dropping lowpop bone notes and bans, which is probably the best general approach.

I still don't like this because I'd rather players be able to know if what they're doing is going to get them noted before doing it, but I can't exactly force you three to do something, so I'm just going to lock this.