Headmin rulings cleanup

[Vekter]

There's a couple of things that IMO should be cleaned up in the headmin rulings.

Right now, we have two headmin rulings that effectively say and do the same thing:

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset (like killing Ian) I will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you.

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset (like chopping down the Christmas trees while they’re enabled) I will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you.

I'd prefer if we just kinda collapsed those into a single one removing the example from them.

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset, we will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you.

This also lets us use it for things like people stealing wheelchairs or job-critical equipment like the Janitor's cart.

Additionally, while we're here, the following ruling should probably be removed:

Lynching for reading smut and spamming, especially on comms, is always okay. It also makes the reader nonhuman in silicon eyes.

This was from a different time when we were okay with people reading smut over comms because it'd result in them getting their shit kicked in. We banned that wholesale a few years ago - now doing it just gets you noted/banned. I'm not against keeping it if we want to continue to enable people to handle the situation themselves, but we should ideally be encouraging people reporting smut/copypasta spam to admins instead of just killing them.

[Turbonerd]

Is this meant to be posted in tbe ban appeals subforum?

[Vekter]

Is this meant to be posted in tbe ban appeals subforum?

I posted it there by accident and moved it like 10 minutes ago, how are you still seeing it there?

[sinfulbliss]

-snip-

These are substantively different rulings because they’re on two separate issues.

Validity when killing pets

vs.

Cutting down christmas trees/general asshole behavior for no reason

Notice they do not encompass all actions that “make someone upset with zero benefit to you,” as this would include a MASSIVE array of things. Does shoving FNR count? How about shoe theft? Shaving someone’s head? Even the second ruling that’s more broad in saying “general asshole behavior for no reason” sets the baseline of what this is with the example of “cutting down a Christmas tree.”

There is a reason these headmin rulings are on specific, discrete issues and aren’t broad sweeping statements that leave it up to the individual admins to determine. That said if you really wanted to unify them you could add “killing pets” as an example into the second ruling.

[GPeckman]

I think the distinction to make is "general asshole behavior with no benefits and major consequences." If you chop down a Christmas tree, then its gone unless an admin decides to make a new one. At the time the pet ruling was made, there was no way to revive pets without a lazarus injector (but I think you can use revival surgery now? I don't quite recall). If you steal a wheelchair from someone who needs one, then they'll have to crawl all the way to medbay to get a new one.

This is of course somewhat context dependent. Just stealing shoes from someone generally isn't that bad, because you don't need shoes most of the time and its easy to get a replacement. I think every departmental clothes vendor and the dorms clothes vendor all sell shoes of some sort for very cheap. However stealing shoes from someone FNR while the station is covered in shards of glass would possibly be bwoinkable.

[Vekter]

I think the distinction to make is "general asshole behavior with no benefits and major consequences." If you chop down a Christmas tree, then its gone unless an admin decides to make a new one. At the time the pet ruling was made, there was no way to revive pets without a lazarus injector (but I think you can use revival surgery now? I don't quite recall). If you steal a wheelchair from someone who needs one, then they'll have to crawl all the way to medbay to get a new one.

This is of course somewhat context dependent. Just stealing shoes from someone generally isn't that bad, because you don't need shoes most of the time and its easy to get a replacement. I think every departmental clothes vendor and the dorms clothes vendor all sell shoes of some sort for very cheap. However stealing shoes from someone FNR while the station is covered in shards of glass would possibly be bwoinkable.

Yeah, I think we can adjust it to something like this:

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset that has significant consequences to them, you run the risk of being banned if you adminhelp when that person kills you. An example would be stealing someone's wheelchair or killing their department pet.

[TheBibleMelts]

i've been looking at these recently for rule rewrites that can bake some of the spirit of the rulings into the new wording. having to memorize and cross reference this stuff as either an admin or player is absolute balls for everyone, and an admin shouldn't be looking to point at some thread made 6 years ago to justify banning you.

[sinfulbliss]

Yeah, I think we can adjust it to something like this:

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset that has significant consequences to them, you run the risk of being banned if you adminhelp when that person kills you. An example would be stealing someone's wheelchair or killing their department pet.

"Making others upset" and "general asshole behavior" are two different standards. Lots of things can make people upset. It's also getting to the point where it sounds like word salad, it's not phrased succinctly anymore. I'd prefer two precise rulings than one overarching ruling that encompasses things the two initial rulings never set out to encompass.

Also as a general opinion, it's really not necessary to rework and revise every single ruling (and rule) made ever. Some degree of deference should be given to previous headmin decisions. If it ain't broken don't fix it.

[Vekter]

i've been looking at these recently for rule rewrites that can bake some of the spirit of the rulings into the new wording. having to memorize and cross reference this stuff as either an admin or player is absolute balls for everyone, and an admin shouldn't be looking to point at some thread made 6 years ago to justify banning you.

I would kill for some way to roll the headmin rulings into the base rules because, as much as admins shouldn't have to point to those, players also shouldn't be expected to memorize all that shit so they don't get bonked for something that's not technically in the rules.

[BeeSting12]

I originally created the headmin rulings page so players who don't spend their whole life reading policy discussions can use headmin rulings in ban appeals easily. It was meant for niche situations where the ruling wouldn't be necessarily intuitive to the average person.

For example, miners and the gluttony syringe vs miners and the lesser ash drake ability, holoparasites and asimov, etc. Most of the stuff on that page is shit that should be common sense if you keep rule 1 in mind, but I could see how some of it could have a valid argument made in either direction.

It's also partially my fault the page is that way because I went a little overboard when I first started codifying policy discussions. I sincerely hope the headmins don't start writing rules to codify that stuff because it will add to our already ridiculous rule bloat.

[Vekter]

I originally created the headmin rulings page so players who don't spend their whole life reading policy discussions can use headmin rulings in ban appeals easily. It was meant for niche situations where the ruling wouldn't be necessarily intuitive to the average person.

For example, miners and the gluttony syringe vs miners and the lesser ash drake ability, holoparasites and asimov, etc. Most of the stuff on that page is shit that should be common sense if you keep rule 1 in mind, but I could see how some of it could have a valid argument made in either direction.

It's also partially my fault the page is that way because I went a little overboard when I first started codifying policy discussions. I sincerely hope the headmins don't start writing rules to codify that stuff because it will add to our already ridiculous rule bloat.

I think there's value to it existing for the kinds of things you specified, but I also think we've been using it as a catch-all "here's a slightly weird situation that we could just very easily point at rule 1 for" thing, which I don't like.

[Shellton(Mario)]

Yeah, I think we can adjust it to something like this:

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset that has significant consequences to them, you run the risk of being banned if you adminhelp when that person kills you. An example would be stealing someone's wheelchair or killing their department pet.

Nah this one is better

If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset that has significant consequences to them and you ahelp when they kill you the admin has the god given right to ban you for being a cry baby. Some examples of these actions are stealing someone's wheelchair, killing their department pet or chopping down the Christmas Tree. STOP BEING A SHIT HEAD IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE.

Keep the hostility while not limiting it to certain events

[Vekter]

Keep the hostility while not limiting it to certain events

I'm trying to explicitly remove the hostility because I don't think it's helpful and I feel like rules should be neutral in tone. A good chunk of players already have an adversarial opinion of admins and it's not setting a good tone to have one of the first things players read sound like we're pissy at them.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I agree that these are saying the same thing and I feel like the loss of the examples loses somewhat of the clarification because there is an awful lot of "action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset" that someone is actually also being a shitter if they kill you for. But these ARE clearly not just rulings on those two specific cases and the example is mostly illustrative at that point.

But likewise I dont think EXPANDING the examples to a general case works very well either because it quickly turns a snappy, memorable, and quotable response into a wordy mess.

on the subject of "Translating this headmin ruling" to a rule: I agree that most headmin rulings are niche enough to not need codifying to players but this one's been used as a guideline by admins reacting to banbaiting for years at this point so it kinda stands out of the pack. The ruling pretty neatly meshes with Rule 7s second half. ("Baiting people into situations where you can report them to admins will be dealt with harshly"), and could be as simple as adding "Extremely provocative behaviour for little IC benefit may be considered baiting in this way" or something.

[TheBibleMelts]

here's some cleanups i just did.

Roundstart suicide Don't do it as an important role, and if it happens too often, you can be banned. May 04, 2015 KorPhaeron

baked into rule 1 and 5 rewrites.

Lynching for erotica on comms Lynching for reading smut and spamming, especially on comms, is always okay. It also makes the reader nonhuman in silicon eyes. Aug 16, 2017 PKPenguin321

we end up banning for being overtly sexual with things these days anyway, and i don't think we'll ever run into a case of an admin banning somebody for killing someone for doing it.

Forcing team antags to betray their team Can't do it. Jul 06, 2017 Ausops

covered by the rule 4 rewrite.

The "MMI test" for changelings Killing someone, removing their brain, and placing it in an MMI for the explicit purpose of determining whether or not someone is a changeling is considered an exploit. Dec 05, 2021 Dragomagol

fixed by code, lings can speak through their mmi'd brain while also being in their body now

Pile on ick ock Pile on ick ock is defined as a bunch of people teasing someone for IC in OOCing. It's okay until it crosses the line into being spam. Admins can mute OOC/individual players if it gets to that point. Sep 24, 2017 Ausops

bullying people like this is funny and a good way to have people police/reinforce not to ic in ooc without an admin needing to step in for minor cases.

Are spiders bound to the mother? Unless there's a message saying you are, the answer is no. Sep 11, 2017 Armhulenn

spiders are now bound to their broodmothers both by the new code allowing broodmothers to set objectives, and by the rule 4 rewrite.

Fortifying security roundstart Barriers roundstart are not allowed, flashers are allowed, giving out guns/armor roundstart is allowed. Sep 02, 2014 HornyGranny

this felt outdated from when the crew didn't have a million means to break into places. i think there was only a single RCD on the station, period, when this ruling was made. now you can print them at lathes, so even a bunch of r-walls won't completely shut counterplay down if someone fortifies an area.

Gulagging should not be equivalent to a regular brig sentence. We have agreed that gulagging is fine as it is, and anything you can complain about is probably an issue with them as a security player rather than something we can act on. You are free to ahelp if you think the punishment is harsher than it should be, but it's difficult to pinpoint whether or not it's fair without an actual case, which should probably be handled by admins in-game instead of policy. Aug 25, 2019 Wubli

this ruling is just "adminhelp if you think you're being abused", which should be done, but isn't really worth an entire ruling on the page to have.

Silicons and harm in situations where you can't tell if they're being harmed or not. Use common sense to decide if harm is going on. Jan 22, 2015

ruling: "use common sense", there is nothing to work with here for reference, we should be asking people if common sense applied anyway during a ticket.

AIs asking for law changes An Asimov silicon cannot ask their laws to be changed. Jun 06, 2015 HotelBravoLima

this is going to just move to silicon policy for visibility.

Do caks remember past lives? Yes. Not really silicon policy but it's related to MMIs/borging. Jan 13, 2017 KorPhaeron

we don't need an entire ruling on caks. we already enforce that you don't remember anything after your death, which includes being killed and having your brain put into a cat. if it's still your characters physical brain, it has your memories.

Validity when killing pets If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset (like killing Ian) I will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you. Dec 30, 2017 KorPhaeron

baked into rule 1 rewrite.

Cutting down christmas trees/general asshole behavior for no reason If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset (like chopping down the Christmas trees while they’re enabled) I will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you. Dec 26, 2018 Nervere

baked into rule 1 rewrite.

[Vekter]

The "MMI test" for changelings Killing someone, removing their brain, and placing it in an MMI for the explicit purpose of determining whether or not someone is a changeling is considered an exploit. Dec 05, 2021 Dragomagol

fixed by code, lings can speak through their mmi'd brain while also being in their body now

I feel like this one needed to be replaced, but we might need another one or something in the rules codifying that there's not meant to be explicit in-game tests like this and that they're considered exploits. A recent example would be people asking potential paradox clones for their ID to check for a bank account.

That's all I've got, everything else is fine.