Frances

Was your stern and authoritative attitude more effective?

While this isn't the worst case of preemptive intervention, you did more or less treat the users involved like criminals and express marked disdain for them. I don't understand why you couldn't moderate OOC by waiting for the arguments to actually devolve before calling out specific users (or OOC as a whole), but if your decision was to put an early stop to potential problems, taking an authoritative tone and trying to belittle the people involved was not the way to do it, in my opinion. Why couldn't you simply give OOC a friendly warning to remain mindful of their behavior during the debate, or briefly explained why you wished for the debate to cease? (Instead of making an entry with a message of "the species bullshit has to stop".)

While this isn't the worst case of preemptive intervention, you did more or less treat the users involved like criminals and express marked disdain for them. I don't understand why you couldn't moderate OOC by waiting for the arguments to actually devolve before calling out specific users (or OOC as a whole), but if your decision was to put an early stop to potential problems, taking an authoritative tone and trying to belittle the people involved was not the way to do it, in my opinion. Why couldn't you simply give OOC a friendly warning to remain mindful of their behavior during the debate, or briefly explained why you wished for the debate to cease? (Instead of making an entry with a message of "the species bullshit has to stop".)

Nothing wrong with simply being honest if that's what you believe in. However, were the actions of the people involved in this specific debate enough to warrant harsh intervention followed by a mute? I believe the very most that had happened was that someone jokingly called someone else a "pleb".

Nothing wrong with simply being honest if that's what you believe in. However, were the actions of the people involved in this specific debate enough to warrant harsh intervention followed by a mute? I believe the very most that had happened was that someone jokingly called someone else a "pleb".

What does that change?

What does that change?

That is indeed the story I was given, a month or two ago. I don't want to discredit the possibility that I might've misunderstood it (I don't want to accuse Covert of anything bad when it might be my fault), but I'm tempted to say that at the very least there's been some miscommunication happening somewhere. Hope nobody will mind me quoting these things here, but according to Covert That does seem contradictory to what Skull is presenting here, so maybe we've got some more things to clear up.

That is indeed the story I was given, a month or two ago. I don't want to discredit the possibility that I might've misunderstood it (I don't want to accuse Covert of anything bad when it might be my fault), but I'm tempted to say that at the very least there's been some miscommunication happening somewhere. Hope nobody will mind me quoting these things here, but according to Covert That does seem contradictory to what Skull is presenting here, so maybe we've got some more things to clear up.

I don't know what I was expecting, but the debate was going to be a lot more trolly in my mind than it ended up being. While Gamegod was definitely being cheeky at the beginning, that whole conversation was overall... decent? That is, until Doomberg came in and I don't understand why you'd want to interrupt a conversation that had been relatively civil up to that point, but if you were really intent on it this is probably not the way to do so if you expect to get compliance out of people. also >wanting to mute OOC because someone called someone else a pleb and used a curse word

I don't know what I was expecting, but the debate was going to be a lot more trolly in my mind than it ended up being. While Gamegod was definitely being cheeky at the beginning, that whole conversation was overall... decent? That is, until Doomberg came in and I don't understand why you'd want to interrupt a conversation that had been relatively civil up to that point, but if you were really intent on it this is probably not the way to do so if you expect to get compliance out of people. also >wanting to mute OOC because someone called someone else a pleb and used a curse word

Just a suggestion, but it might be nice to see what was said in OOC before the logs that were posted. Hopefully that might shed some light on this.

Just a suggestion, but it might be nice to see what was said in OOC before the logs that were posted. Hopefully that might shed some light on this.

There's actually one thing which always bugged me a bit. I guess it'd be for Skull to clarify, but surrounding the exact circumstances of your perma. Basically, the incidents that happened as I know consisted of a few cases of adminabuse (releasing the singulo) along with throwing brains at Hivefleetchicken and trying to mock him for ERP he didn't engage in. At the time, I opted to first demote you from adminship, then kick you out of the staff (with everybody's agreement) because the problems continued. I believe the stuff with Hive happened around the time of your demotion to a normal user. Unless I'm wrong, there was a noticeable gap in time between you doing those things/being booted from the staff, and being permabanned, despite no further incidents occurring (that I know of). What you later told me on skype was that the staff in power (after I left/went on hiatus) asked you to post a public apology for your actions under coercion of a perma, and then decided to perma you anyway, I'm not really sure why. I've always wondered what happened around that because I find it very puzzling. That aside, I think you were banned for issues of character, and considering it's been nearly a year since all this, I do believe you could've had the time to reform your behavior and sort out whatever faults caused you to run into conflict with other people here. (Plus I don't think what you did was even perma-worthy, the abuse of admin/mod powers was already punished with the loss of your rank.) I don't know if many members of the current staff were even around back in the time you were active here, but for those who weren't, I give my recommendation to grant you a second chance.

There's actually one thing which always bugged me a bit. I guess it'd be for Skull to clarify, but surrounding the exact circumstances of your perma. Basically, the incidents that happened as I know consisted of a few cases of adminabuse (releasing the singulo) along with throwing brains at Hivefleetchicken and trying to mock him for ERP he didn't engage in. At the time, I opted to first demote you from adminship, then kick you out of the staff (with everybody's agreement) because the problems continued. I believe the stuff with Hive happened around the time of your demotion to a normal user. Unless I'm wrong, there was a noticeable gap in time between you doing those things/being booted from the staff, and being permabanned, despite no further incidents occurring (that I know of). What you later told me on skype was that the staff in power (after I left/went on hiatus) asked you to post a public apology for your actions under coercion of a perma, and then decided to perma you anyway, I'm not really sure why. I've always wondered what happened around that because I find it very puzzling. That aside, I think you were banned for issues of character, and considering it's been nearly a year since all this, I do believe you could've had the time to reform your behavior and sort out whatever faults caused you to run into conflict with other people here. (Plus I don't think what you did was even perma-worthy, the abuse of admin/mod powers was already punished with the loss of your rank.) I don't know if many members of the current staff were even around back in the time you were active here, but for those who weren't, I give my recommendation to grant you a second chance.

That's where I believe the problem is here. Some members of staff are toeing the line of politeness by doing the bare minimum needed to not pass as a douche, and it leads to situations where it's way too easy for then to go overboard without realizing it. (Such as when a person makes a staff complaint and various admins remind them of how they've broken the rules instead of addressing said complaint, or when admins come off as very intimidating in PMs simply because they're used to act like Agent Smith.) This actually seems to be drilled in the mind of some admins, perhaps best exemplified when some actively go out of their way to avoid apologizing to users or admitting they've made mistakes. (And the fact that I'm surprised when I have a reasonable conversation with an admin isn't a good sign). Furthermore, I don't understand why it can't be easy for staff to be friendly. It's surely not impossible for volunteer moderators of an online game to enjoy their time moderating and act cordially towards others, no? Anyway, simply stating why I'm disagreeing with you on this one. Other people are free to pick it up if they want, but I won't be posting again until some discussion gets made because this specific point could result in a lot of back and forth and it's not really the main focus of the complaint (just Doomberg is).

That's where I believe the problem is here. Some members of staff are toeing the line of politeness by doing the bare minimum needed to not pass as a douche, and it leads to situations where it's way too easy for then to go overboard without realizing it. (Such as when a person makes a staff complaint and various admins remind them of how they've broken the rules instead of addressing said complaint, or when admins come off as very intimidating in PMs simply because they're used to act like Agent Smith.) This actually seems to be drilled in the mind of some admins, perhaps best exemplified when some actively go out of their way to avoid apologizing to users or admitting they've made mistakes. (And the fact that I'm surprised when I have a reasonable conversation with an admin isn't a good sign). Furthermore, I don't understand why it can't be easy for staff to be friendly. It's surely not impossible for volunteer moderators of an online game to enjoy their time moderating and act cordially towards others, no? Anyway, simply stating why I'm disagreeing with you on this one. Other people are free to pick it up if they want, but I won't be posting again until some discussion gets made because this specific point could result in a lot of back and forth and it's not really the main focus of the complaint (just Doomberg is).

It's easy to dismiss criticism by making it so that people can't post. That way you don't even have to think of a reply to it. Anyway, I do want to participate in this thread by providing testimony. Logs here, here, and here. From what I've witnessed I think Doomberg is much too aggressive as an admin. I don't know if I can consider him upset or "riled up" (it might just be the way he does business rather than anything emotional), but whenever any sort of debate concerning sensitive topics is brought up he goes all out in protecting his viewpoints with a marked disregard for reason or dialogue. I remember that during the incident of Cassie's ban, several people were asking for a proper explanation of why she was banned, and Doomberg's response was limited to a "look at her post history" without further explanation (besides him deeming her toxic but not expanding on why he believed that.) I also made a complaint about another staffmember recently, and Doomberg effectively tried to derail it by bringing up some of my own actions which had little to do with the concerned staff's behavior. This was done in an unmistakably confrontational and clearly spiteful way. I believe Doomberg's behavior both as described in this complaint and as presented in this very thread is a continuation of this mindset. I am not sure how he's expecting the OP to take his justifications seriously when one of the very first things he says is that he believes this complaint against him has no grounds to exist.

It's easy to dismiss criticism by making it so that people can't post. That way you don't even have to think of a reply to it. Anyway, I do want to participate in this thread by providing testimony. Logs here, here, and here. From what I've witnessed I think Doomberg is much too aggressive as an admin. I don't know if I can consider him upset or "riled up" (it might just be the way he does business rather than anything emotional), but whenever any sort of debate concerning sensitive topics is brought up he goes all out in protecting his viewpoints with a marked disregard for reason or dialogue. I remember that during the incident of Cassie's ban, several people were asking for a proper explanation of why she was banned, and Doomberg's response was limited to a "look at her post history" without further explanation (besides him deeming her toxic but not expanding on why he believed that.) I also made a complaint about another staffmember recently, and Doomberg effectively tried to derail it by bringing up some of my own actions which had little to do with the concerned staff's behavior. This was done in an unmistakably confrontational and clearly spiteful way. I believe Doomberg's behavior both as described in this complaint and as presented in this very thread is a continuation of this mindset. I am not sure how he's expecting the OP to take his justifications seriously when one of the very first things he says is that he believes this complaint against him has no grounds to exist.

"We have investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing."

"We have investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing."

That's actually something else to note, I guess? I dunno. But I feel like IPCs being possibly exempt from fearRP/self-preservation if they so wish (mostly in heroic cases) should be counted as another advantage. I get that IPCs should consider their chassis expensive and all that, but in cases of extreme threat to the station they will be a lot more willing to sacrifice themselves and play hero to save living beings. It's not a /gameplay/ advantage but I think it should be considered when balancing the race. (And you can say that not all IPCs are like that but what matters is that more than a few will be.)

That's actually something else to note, I guess? I dunno. But I feel like IPCs being possibly exempt from fearRP/self-preservation if they so wish (mostly in heroic cases) should be counted as another advantage. I get that IPCs should consider their chassis expensive and all that, but in cases of extreme threat to the station they will be a lot more willing to sacrifice themselves and play hero to save living beings. It's not a /gameplay/ advantage but I think it should be considered when balancing the race. (And you can say that not all IPCs are like that but what matters is that more than a few will be.)

The problem is that you have to plan for them at all. It used to be that if you had some way to fuck up people, it was relatively guaranteed to work, with varying but reliable degrees of effectiveness (flashes were good against non-sec, melee for people without armor/hardsuits, stuns for people you could get in melee range to.) You knew the strengths and weaknesses to your plan, and things were relatively straightforward from there as long as you executed it well. IPCs changed that because you need two plans. Unless you're carrying out an assassination or kidnapping against a specific person, the "optimal" way of being robust is to always pack something against IPCs on top of your regular battle solutions. Chemists would have to make EMP nades as well as chloral, traitors would need to spend TCs on EMPs as well as their regular gear, and so on. Yes, different situations call for different countermeasures, but do note that all of these situations come with dead giveaways. The station as a whole has time to identify antag types and adapt to them, whether they be cultists, nuke ops, malf AIs or wizards. Antags, in comparison, would have to plan both for IPCs and organic crew. That's just a lot more than what they originally needed to do, and keep in mind the metagame didn't significantly change much otherwise. And it's not like IPCs are slow borgs, or immobile AIs. Anyway, that's just for the antagging side of things. I think it's also worth considering anyone who isn't an antag (and thus generally doesn't have access to EMPs or lasers, or simply doesn't want to completely destroy an IPC) is prone to getting fucked by one in a fight. And I don't really understand why that's a requirement - it doesn't seem to serve lore or realism (they're made up robots), and it certainly doesn't serve gameplay.

The problem is that you have to plan for them at all. It used to be that if you had some way to fuck up people, it was relatively guaranteed to work, with varying but reliable degrees of effectiveness (flashes were good against non-sec, melee for people without armor/hardsuits, stuns for people you could get in melee range to.) You knew the strengths and weaknesses to your plan, and things were relatively straightforward from there as long as you executed it well. IPCs changed that because you need two plans. Unless you're carrying out an assassination or kidnapping against a specific person, the "optimal" way of being robust is to always pack something against IPCs on top of your regular battle solutions. Chemists would have to make EMP nades as well as chloral, traitors would need to spend TCs on EMPs as well as their regular gear, and so on. Yes, different situations call for different countermeasures, but do note that all of these situations come with dead giveaways. The station as a whole has time to identify antag types and adapt to them, whether they be cultists, nuke ops, malf AIs or wizards. Antags, in comparison, would have to plan both for IPCs and organic crew. That's just a lot more than what they originally needed to do, and keep in mind the metagame didn't significantly change much otherwise. And it's not like IPCs are slow borgs, or immobile AIs. Anyway, that's just for the antagging side of things. I think it's also worth considering anyone who isn't an antag (and thus generally doesn't have access to EMPs or lasers, or simply doesn't want to completely destroy an IPC) is prone to getting fucked by one in a fight. And I don't really understand why that's a requirement - it doesn't seem to serve lore or realism (they're made up robots), and it certainly doesn't serve gameplay.