Frances

Two days ago, Skull replied to the mod app I made at the beginning of April, turning it down. After a short exchange, I took it upon myself to contact him and try to figure out exactly what caused my app to be thrown out; whether inefficiency in the selection process was at the cause, or if the staff themselves had issues with my candidacy. This is the result of this conversation, and I would like to share it with others. There's no tl;dr, here. If you're interested in the way online communities are run, or in my case in particular, I would encourage you to simply read the whole log. However, there is one part in particular that I think I'd wish to highlight. [31/05/2015 2:59:22 PM] Frances: honestly, all I've ever done is follow people [31/05/2015 2:59:44 PM] Frances: I adapt to others, that's what I do best, I even have a habit of matching the speech patterns and general mood of people I'm talking to [31/05/2015 3:00:18 PM] Frances: what I tried to do as a headmin was to follow and amplify an already undergoing current [31/05/2015 3:00:31 PM] Frances: people wanted to do certain things, so I encouraged them, pushed their ideas, built upon them [31/05/2015 3:00:53 PM] Frances: I'm a terribly unimaginative person, what I excel at doing is building upon the work of others, not laying down the groundwork myself [31/05/2015 3:01:05 PM] Frances: -so- [31/05/2015 3:01:45 PM] Frances: I believe the reason why this happened is because people already had a certain disposition towards being "srs bsns" with aurora [31/05/2015 3:02:31 PM] Frances: at first things were too lax - you had geneticists hulking themselves for shits and giggles, bald psychiatrists leaving notes with the sole content of "DICK FART" to their friends, basically a whole ton of chucklefucking that wasn't particularly funny or clever [31/05/2015 3:03:13 PM] Frances: the administration started cracking down on that, and I saw what I believe to be a reactionary current, which ended up pushing too far [31/05/2015 3:03:50 PM] Frances: I didn't leave at the height of it, but I started becoming inactive at the height of it, because I wasn't too sure what to do with what happened and I felt like there was no "right" solution, only what people wanted and people couldn't agree on what they wanted [31/05/2015 3:04:00 PM] Frances: it was an impass for me and the server pretty much needed to sort this out [31/05/2015 3:04:20 PM] Frances: I was also planning on leaving for personal reasons [31/05/2015 3:04:35 PM] Frances: and that was the /main/ reason why I left, I would've probably stayed and tried to see things through otherwise [31/05/2015 3:05:05 PM] Frances: -anyway- [31/05/2015 3:05:17 PM] Frances: I guess I understand why this is happening, then [31/05/2015 3:05:28 PM] Frances: I was the figurehead and the scapegoat for that movement [31/05/2015 3:05:45 PM] Frances: even if I've said myself that I want the staff to be friendlier, more open, and more lax [31/05/2015 3:05:50 PM] Frances: I can't expect people to really care [31/05/2015 3:06:11 PM] Frances: I would've liked them to, a lot of people on staff were people who I saw as level-headed and reasonable [31/05/2015 3:06:34 PM] Frances: and I'm sorta sad if their impression of me is that I want to come back and be the headmin that'll bring the server back to something they don't want it to be [31/05/2015 3:06:43 PM] Frances: even if all I wanted to do was /enable/ people's ideas [31/05/2015 3:06:49 PM] Frances: but others never saw that [31/05/2015 3:06:53 PM] Frances: I don't blame them [31/05/2015 3:07:04 PM] Frances: I really don't I'm not really sharing this with any particular intent or agenda. The one request I have is to not throw Skull under the bus (please), because he's been very busy, and I don't think he can be held at fault for much of what happened. That's about it, I guess. I'll do my best to stick around and reply to people in this thread, participate in conversation if there's any to be had.

Really glad to see a lot of these issues addressed! As for the lockdowns, no departments that I know of had shutters on maintenance doors until recently (where engineering was given some). I can't speak for science, but medbay, security, and engineering didn't. Honestly, though, I'm curious about the implications/uses of a lockdown. Since they happen so rarely, I might actually be okay with maintenance being locked as well, because otherwise it makes them very spotty to anyone with maintenance access.

One thing I will bring up is that players rarely roleplay weaknesses in their characters' skills. Either a character knows how to do something perfectly/as well as their player, or they don't know how to do it at all. I'm saying that from an entirely neutral standpoint, so take it as you will.

Lemme try. What I like: -Warden's office has view of three of the four cells, /but/ I would move the warden's chair one tile towards port (make the desks windoor desks) so that the view extends to the back end of the cells, and not just the front end. (Max viewdistance is 7 tiles) -Love the floor pattern in the briefing room -Internal armory is interesting (could be broken into via maintenance without alerting anyone?) What I don't like/suggestions: -The lobby is way too small. Considering the amount of action that happens in it (multiple people coming to see sec at once, prisoners being taken in/into holding, basically every non-sec member talking to sec in this area), having it be a 1 tile-wide corridor with chairs on either side won't work. -Lockdowns shouldn't lock down maintenance. That's OP. -No insanity ward -Infirmary access hall breaks the maintenance around the bathrooms. Given that the infirmary is right by the lobby, having an instant access hall is probably not that important. -I don't understand the point of the 1 tile-wide corridor under processing/evidence storage - since you already have multiple ways to go around these two rooms, it only takes up space from them -The entrance to the interrogation room should be moved to the aft wall, so you don't have to walk through a chair (and the person sitting in it) to get in. -I'm not sure what the computer in the equipment storage room is, but I doubt anyone will ever use it. It could be replaced by two tables holding some essential equipment. That's pretty much all I can think of for now. The biggest issues as a whole (imo) are the size of the lobby, and the fact that the lockdown shouldn't lock down maintenance. Also, simply a question for now, but why are there 8 lockers in the equipment storage room? For new officers arriving after cryo/SSD officers didn't return their gear?

I don't think the break room is really needed (most players seem to have an aversion for break rooms that aren't in a central point of their department), and it could be replaced by a smaller equipment room. However, most of the larger areas of the brig are at the very back of it, and constitute of less-accessed rooms (firing range, briefing) that aren't as critical. You'll probably go to the briefing room once or twice in a round, and almost never to the firing range unless you're testing weapons (or roleplaying), so it doesn't matter if they take a bit longer to walk to. Keep in mind the communal brig being at the front of the brig is a large contributor to its size.

This is actually really clever. Like, it oversteps the bounds of acceptable non-antag shenanigans (unless NanoTrasen as a whole pissed you off or something), but it's definitely something I'd like to see more from antags. I didn't realize how much confusion telecomms sabotage could cause. And also, as a player, I really appreciate you trying to be mature and coming forth in admitting your mistake.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm pretty sure the irl military can hold meetings wherever on their bases because they aren't filled with civilians. There's a lot of reasons why I wouldn't want my security meetings to be interrupted by onlookers. From random assistants disturbing the meeting by fucking around, to people overhearing (and blabbing about) confidential issues - such as how to deal with a particularly troublesome crewmembers. This is why I think your suggestion of meeting in the lobby doesn't really solve this.

My issue wasn't with numbers but with the presence of security at all. It doesn't really matter how many members of sec there are - the moment one of them encounters unknown hardsuits that aren't engineering (and tend to have a bunch of weapons out), they'll inform the rest of security on comms and the station goes on full alert. The counter to this is that these EVA security officers become very vulnerable to capture, which I see as a decent trade-off.

I can agree with Delta. DOs are not visible active parties, but invisible ones. They deal with individual characters, and from an OOC perspective, either offer tips for said characters, or provide them with an IC incentive/justification to curb certain types of behavior. From my limited dealings with them, I've noticed that they're not the type to address the station as a whole or make big announcements, but much prefer to handle people on an individual basis. The reason for that, if I had to guess, is that it's a bit unfair to have the DM of a game come in and make a godlike intervention ICly to tell everyone else how to play the game. (DOs pretty much have supreme power - they just don't abuse it). If you want large-scale change, you'll probably have to bring it yourself, by playing head roles or by trying to set a precedent in general as a player. For example, the recent troubles with sec. There's a few major outliers the DOs have been looking at (well, a few of them aren't even big outliers or directly related to the problem), but if you're looking for someone to try to discipline and watch sec as a whole, you'll have to wait for a HoS to step up to the task.

Right, that's a threadkiller as far as I'm concerned. These spots can easily be ambushed, which would counter the security EVA sweep (and put ops at an advantage). I guess I just didn't think much since I don't have a lot of experience playing as an op. Complaint withdrawn, unless anyone else has something to add.

I dislike how the briefing room was removed. Security was the one department that needed (and that I regulary saw making usage of) a briefing room the most. It would be extremely hard to hold meetings anywhere else, as there's few other open spaces. I tried to have a short talk with Sue, and even though she continues to maintain security doesn't need a briefing room, I can't agree that it was completely useless. I don't understand what we gain from removing it either. A briefing room is certainly more useful than showers or an arcade machine.

If you send people to explore the surroundings of the station when you OOCly know that nuke ops will be roaming about at the same time, you're pretty much asking for a fight, or at least for the two groups to meet.

Half of my team ran off. I don't understand why. I also believe they're responsible for making the round the terrible mess that it was. As a whole, this complaint still centers on the idea of sending security on EVA carp-hunting at the beginning of a nuke round.

I'm not sure I understand the tone of your post. Do you recognize it as metagame, or do you still disagree?

My first contact with security was walking up to them as they were coming out of AI upload (after a sec officer reset the AI - which they were talked to for). We were separated by the doors/windows in the bridge hallway. All I did was walked up to them, not really sure what to do, when Seto himself opened fire on me through the glass. There wasn't anything said either in person or through comms, as well. I understand the idea of shooting hostiles on sight, I do. I'm not sure why I'm even explaining this, because I know that it makes IC sense to shoot at people who broke into your bridge and try to neutralize them. But I'm still a bit irked that it happened without anyone from either side having a chance to RP out anything. It was over instantly. Like, break into bridge, get shot by angry sec, ops ded.

Wait, can you elaborate on this? I thought all an EVA sweep involved was to put two sec officers in hardsuits and give them lasers to patrol the station.

BYOND Key: FFrances Player Byond Key: Serveris Staff involved: TishinaStalker Reason for complaint: Powergaming during a Nuclear round Approximate Date/Time: 30-MAY-2015 What happened: During a (voted, non-secret) nuclear round, HoS Syrus Seto called for an EVA sweep of the station roughly 20 minutes into the round, so as to hunt for space carp (while elevating the security level of the station to blue). This led to immediate space confrontation between nuke ops and armed officers, and consequently a fully alerted security team. The security team was very quick to react, and engaged and killed most of the nuke ops on their own initiative by the 40 minute mark. The round was over in an hour, culminating in the (imo pretty dumb) suicide bombing of the bridge by the last remaining nuke op. What the issue is: Everyone knew the round was nuke. Thus, sending armed officers into EVA patrol was all but guaranteed to lead to a direct confrontation with nuke ops. And if engineering can't hunt for nuke ops without knowing they're hostile or are even present (refer to this complaint), I don't see why security should as an OOC-driven action. Nuke has the potential to get ugly right quick. I personally believe that any good player (ops or crew) should make an attempt to minimize meaningless confrontations as much as possible. Basically, the ops shouldn't get stormed right away, ops probably shouldn't storm people as well (especially when lethals are involved), because that tends to end with one side being completely killed of, and puts an end to the roleplay. That can be okay, for example, as the climax of a hostage situation. But I don't think it is as the opening to a round. Basically, what happened is: HoS sent armed officers to meet Ops in space > Ops and Sec fought in space as space is the worst place to /avoid/ fights > Sec had a reason to validkill Ops > Ops get hunted down with minimal chance for RP on either side > last Op bombs the bridge out of spite, killing even more people. Notes: -I ahelped the issue to TishinaStalker when the EVA sweep was announced - I was told that nothing could be done as the carps were triggered by a random event. -It is not the first time recently that security has gone EVA carp-hunting in the beginning of a nuke round (though I don't know who was HoS the other times). -I heard that some of the ops also fucked up (though I wasn't part of them, most of my involvement that round was literally walking into the bridge and getting shot on sight.) This complaint isn't about them, and I encourage anyone who knows more than me to write a separate complaint about anything else that might've happened. -I can say a lot more on the issue of Sec vs Ops confrontations, and would like to discuss the scenario in more depth if given the chance, but don't want to make this post too long.

I was hoping for communication to happen during the selection process, and not after. While you were busy and I want to hold you about 0% accountable for any of this, I'm disappointed that: 1. Nobody rose up to look at this issue despite me trying to inform several people about it, and several people (inside of staff) showing their support to bring me back to the active staff contingent 2. The reasons that I was previously given for the semi-refusal of my application were due to incidents I believe I was in the power to debate and explain, and the people who opposed my candidature because of it - whoever they are - spoke their mind and simply left instead of trying to confirm with me whether their gripes were founded or not. This makes me sad because it's the very kind of thing I always wanted to be a mod for, since a year ago. Outlier cases like this which get ignored or delayed because nobody has the time, energy or interest to look at them.

Put it behind a secure windoor?

I have seen Terrence Frank make snide remarks that toed on the limits of what would be ICly acceptable (as I have seen with many, many other characters), but I have never seen him outright insult the crew. Unless you have direct proof of that (not saying you don't, but we might be speaking about different things), that would be better suited as an addition to his IC complaint than here.

A few pointers -Fines exist in corporate regulations as alternatives to certain punishments. They're not used enough, in fact, and I'm glad to see people trying to use them. But an IAA shouldn't be doing it, as that's the equivalent of having the IAA brig someone. -IIRC (I might be wrong on all of this), it was decided some time ago that loyalty implants prevented the implanted from hindering NanoTrasen's interests. Implants rely on their holder's judgement - a loyalty-implanted person could break corporate regulations if, for example, they believed they would serve NanoTrasen's interests better by doing so than if they had observed the law. (It is expected players use common sense for that, and not go out of their way to sidestep rules.) -If the role of IAAs remains undefined and open to interpretation at the moment, then no one is technically "right" or "wrong" about how they should be played (short of what has already been established - that IAAs can meddle into people's affairs to a reasonable degree, but shouldn't be doing security's job.) Any further clarifications should probably be established by a combination of the lore team and server staff. I personally have no problem with Terrence Frank acting like, well, a hound. He's an excellent source of conflict that feels normal and believable, which is a refreshing change from the nonstop escape attempts of your average antagonist. And I want to give huge props to Bobbyswagger, because characters like Terrence are incredibly difficult to play. Terrence should not, however, be overstepping his bounds as an IAA, as his loyalty implant prevents him directly from doing that. Perhaps something I'd like to know, is, do people here have an issue with Terrence's actions as a whole, or simply with the fact that he engaged in acts that clearly disregard his loyalty implant?

I can definitely see what you mean. However, weren't most players fed up with Techno's actions at that point? While the idea of a chickensuit killer sounds hilarious, we're still looking at the case of a player who was just recently spoken to for acting in an overly aggressive manner ICly, creating situations that were more unpleasant than anything else, and said player once again acted with excessive force with very little lead-up. I do think it could've been a good climax to the round otherwise. But the execution (grab random sec officer in your escape, murder) was bad enough that I think this complaint deserves to stand.

We use PhpBB, right? Add this: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=2162699 Often, I'll find someone is going to post something I really agree with, and... there's just no way to really show support short of making another post. And sometimes, I can't really put what they said any better, and rephrasing their argument would be pointless, as I'd rather not spam up a thread with pointless noise. But there's times like these where being able to show support is still important, whether to show you agree with that person's stance, or just like an idea they submitted, or simply a post they made. So short of posting to only say "I like this", a "Like" button would be a pretty nifty feature to have. As critical endorsements (for whitelists as well as suggestions) are now reviewed by staff, this shouldn't create a new problem of "+1s" either. I find that in general people are pretty good at submitting their criticism and ideas, and if someone has to say something, they'll tend to make the effort to write it. Thoughts?

-Agreed on your first point, that it can be quite hard to tell if a target is incapacitated. However, shouldn't the combat messages (damage such as disfiguration is announced to all) as well as Ana's repeated screaming and the knowledge that slamming someone's face into a wall with force gloves is relatively damaging prove enough of an indication that the player is in crit? It's serious damage we're speaking of here, like 8-10 shoves. Additionally, while I don't want to make assumptions, due to Lauren's multiple previous killings (as well as Techno's gloating in LOOC, though it doesn't necessarily indicate intent but merely results), I really wouldn't be surprised if the intention here was to kill and not merely incapacitate. -Running away from security while shoving someone you're dragging along into walls is incredibly silly. I've got no issue with it for it simply being a possible mechanic (sometimes, when you have to fight you need to use what you're given), but under the presented circumstances, this was not a case where everybody was going all out, nor where there was a clear gain for Techno to keep slamming his victim into walls as he made his escape. -About the end of round part, I'm simply looking to bar off any other possible justifications for Techno's actions which can be ignored. Being violent and trying to kill a member of sec could paint you as an extremely dangerous and unscrupulous character, but doing so five minutes before the end of a round doesn't help you establish your character (it's a bit late for that) and doesn't justify killing someone alone. (Which is why I'm saying it can't have been because of that.) -Everyone should be held to a higher standard relative to the job they're expected to perform. Security players and antagonists should be evaluated on different things, as their roles in the round are different. They're both there to partake in roleplay (like everyone else), but the tools and responsibilities they're given to create roleplay are not the same. I hope this clarifies a bit what I meant, as I realize it wasn't terribly obvious which "standards" I was referring to (I don't mean they need to be plain better.)

The age thing was mostly a joke because everyone on the staff already knows me (besides, I'm not actually 14, I'm hundreds of years old.) Age tends to only be used as a general hint of someone's possible behavior when the applicant isn't already known - I wouldn't particularly care if Skull was a hyper-intelligent 9-year old, as I already know he's a good host. But yeah, it's super minor, I don't think staff particularly cares. I've always taken moderation (and players as a whole) seriously but I do like to joke around otherwise. If it actually ends up causing any confusion over my intentions I'm willing to take the blame (though I'd rather people just let me know, so I can clear up whatever is bothering them.) What Crescentise highlights is important. I'm not looking to blame anyone here (though maybe I want to out the fact that there seems to be a general lack of direction and I find staff can be slow to act at times). But no one did anything terrible, it's just that... no one was willing to step up and actually look at my case. It's difficult to blame that on everybody, but it simply kinda sucks that it happened.