EvilBrage

I know there are sprites out there for it in oldcode - but we need this in newcode.

Every time? You did read what I typed, right? Because if that's the case, you just told me I'm not allowed to disagree with someone - and that's a problem. I have you quite literally screenshotted and quoted as saying "just because it's not a rule doesn't mean we won't punish someone for it." There's upholding the spirit of the rules, and then there's simply dishing out punishment for things you think should be against the rules. The latter is gross negligence, and seems to be what you continually imply whenever I see you talk about this, ergo why you've probably noticed that I disagree with you on most decisions you've made ever since you were a trial moderator. The others with more experience in the role can tell you otherwise. For the ideal amount of impartiality, administrators and moderators wouldn't be allowed to play, but that would be extremely boring and unfair to them, so that's not exactly feasible. That's why it's important to enforce the letter of the rules as well. You can claim to be impartial all you want (and you may very well be, that's not what my argument is designed to question,) but until you can strictly enforce the letter of the rule, there will always be room for someone to fairly interpret that perhaps you are not. Again I'll ask the question: if the only rule in your community was "don't be a dick," who would you want deciding what dickery is? And I'll go ahead an answer it - no one. There is no one you could trust with that kind of authority to both execute and define the law, ergo why we have the rules expanded as widely as possible so that when the time comes to enforce a ruling, the moderator in question doesn't have to ask everyone else what they think, because the rule itself will be black and white. Which is precisely what I'm doing, on the grounds that the rule is entirely too subjective and, therefore, cannot be enforced with any semblance of consistency until it's revised.

AIM? Facebook? I'm not sure what you're implying, but you're setting a dangerous precedent. So since we've established that shit-slinging in and of itself isn't against the rules, what's the infraction? What constitutes a personal attack along this sliding scale? I disagree with what you did there. I dislike what you did there. I dislike you. What you did was dumb. You're dumb. You shouldn't have won the sperm race to your mother's womb. Were you born on a highway? Because that's where most accidents happen. Did your mother have any children who lived? Because they're all different ways of saying something very similar, and if you're serious about enforcing this across the board, you'll have every moderator pouring through chat logs for weeks if you get a report every time someone throws out a 'personal attack' as you seem to define it. Hypersensitivity is a very real threat to online communities. The point I'm trying to make with all of this is that enforcing the rules subjectively, as the more recent moderators and administrators seem to be doing lately, is ultimately a losing battle. Favoritism will inevitably come into play through unconscious bias unless you enforce the letter of the rule along with the spirit, rather than simply "winging it." The forum rules pertaining to complaints deters others from posting here, but I guarantee you that if someone who worked as a moderator like Chaz notices it, many others do too. You've mentioned the (very extreme) example of Rusty, but you can't treat every case like a Rusty case because you've individually decided that it's a personal attack. If you want to warn and/or punish someone for behavior, outline in the rules what that behavior is and the resulting punitive action. Imagine if "don't be a dick" were the only law in your city - who do you want deciding what constitutes being a dick? I've been fairly consistent in stating over and over again to various head administrators (Baka, Doomberg, Skull, and now you) that the rules should not be as static as they are, but they should constantly shift and adapt to new patterns of bad behavior we find unacceptable. Agreement happens, and then the rules never change. What is it about the server that makes it so difficult to change the rules?

I understand where you're coming from in regards to where the line is. What I don't understand is how it negatively impacts gameplay when the option to turn off OOC is ever-present. The rules (and by extension, punishments) enforce a fair playing field and a minimum standard of conduct in order to keep the game rolling in a manner that's enjoyable for everyone. When you kill someone with no RP, they don't have a button to undo what you did on a whim, and you're therefore ruining their fun and disrupting the game for them. When you broadcast IC knowledge in OOC, you're disrupting the game by eliminating the fair playing field. When you make a 17 year-old captain, you destroy the atmosphere of the game, thereby reducing the enjoyment others derive from it. When you insult someone in OOC chat, they're entirely capable of turning OOC off and ignoring it. Whether or not they can see the message broadcast is utterly and completely in their control and has no negative impact on the game itself whatsoever - what the "spirit of the rules" is meant to protect, as you tend to outline. Would it have been acceptable had I sent him the same message in BYOND chat instead? What if I told him in real life? You're right about the fact that moderating OOC can get tricky - mostly because it shouldn't be moderated, apart from extremely blatant, deliberate examples (spam, etc.)

BYOND Key: EvilBrage Staff BYOND Key: Juani2400 Game ID: bUlkZf Reason for complaint: Not so much a complaint against Juani in particular, but an invitation for expanded discussion as to what exactly constitutes a rule breach. People say things all the time, and these things are not necessarily nice, but they don't impact the game whatsoever. I was warned for "being aggressive in OOC" over the OOC logs that took place here. "Don't be a dick" is almost negligently subjective as a rule to issue warnings/punishments over. Am I to understand that all chat interactions that may potentially "offend" someone are subject to warnings and punitive actions? Help me understand this.

Along with rolling sleeves up please please please Neato, thanks!

This is all starting to make far more sense. You jumped into something you didn't fully understand - the entirety of which could have been avoided, I suspect. Let me recount things from my perspective in the most concise form I can, so you can see where my irritation stems from. I arrive on the shuttle after saving the detective from a gun battle with an engineer. The detective places a single round into his revolver, spins the cylinder, and pulls the trigger while the gun is against his head. It clicks. He throws the gun at me and demands I put it to my head and pull the trigger. I only ever had a weapon because he tossed it at me (and even if I did, IC law is not server law.) I begin ahelping - that's when he pulls a second gun out and targets me. I tell him that's probably not a good idea on the shuttle, to which he opens fire (and probably gets all six shots off.) At this point, I'm still buckled into my chair and have done nothing in response. I suspect he's going to attempt to reload, so I keep clicking him until the last bullet from the gun I have hits him (or not, I don't even remember if it actually hit him.) You enter at this point and shot him a few times, at which point I got out of my seat and began to disarm him. I see the gun fall on the ground. In retrospect, this could have been because he was now in critical, or because of my disarm. I couldn't tell, so I tried to pick up the gun as quickly as I could. I realize I'd misclicked and done so with the wrong hand, so I switch to my empty hand and pick up the gun. You begin shooting me. I resist the urge to retaliate, and I die (or at least go into critical condition) as a result. It was my assumption that you fully understood the situation, ergo my statements about a severe lack of intelligence. You never stated you weren't paying attention until just now, which is something I completely understand (as I've done it plenty of times myself.) Can you see why I might be a bit miffed that you'd gun me down on the shuttle?

I was trying to click around his sprite at the ground, but failed to notice that I hadn't switched to my empty hand. I'd accidentally hit him once, maybe twice before you elected to begin spraying me with bullets - and I attempted to run away without retaliating once I had custody of both weapons. No disarm attempt, no less-lethal attempt (despite the fact I was not wearing sunglasses - and not attacking you to boot) You went immediately for a lethal option against a series of low-damage accidental butts with the end of a gun. As a whitelisted player, you should be familiar with how force should be escalated in situations like that - and you failed to escalate even remotely appropriately. Ergo, my complaint, and my assertion that you're unfit for the role. To be absolutely clear - this complaint is not because you shot me. This complaint is because you thought it was a completely okay thing to happen, even after reviewing it after the fact. What you did afterwards is irrelevant; the fact remains that you overreacted - severely - and you're still unwilling to admit it, and even after you've could have used time to cool off, you're still tossing around insults. If you see end-of-round grief by a non-traitor on the shuttle because I refused to play Russian roulette as legitimate roleplay that I should act scared of, rather than ahelping it immediately, then you're only supporting my earlier assertions that you really don't understand the type of roleplay the server is trying to foster at all - and by extension, don't understand the responsibilities of being a whitelisted player. While we're on the topic of dicks - what I find particularly offensive is that you seem to think replacing an N with an L means that repeating "ligger" over and over again is perfectly alright. You can include racial bias in your roleplay without using slurs that are very close to those you'd find in real life - hell, human supremacy tends to be part of my thing because of how much conflict of the good kind it tends to create - but you can be more creative than that, if that's truly your intent. You're certainly welcome to try - if we took action against people for calling each other names, though, I predict our player count wouldn't reach double digits. But, you know, good luck with that.

BYOND Key: EvilBrage Game ID: bimWYf Player Byond Key: LordRaven001 Staff involved: Alberyk, ShameOnTurtles Reason for complaint: Intentionally attacked me on the escape shuttle after round-end without being an antagonist (or having a reason at all.) Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes; was told to wait, followed by instruction to type up a complaint. Approximate Date/Time: 11/22/2016, approx. 1am. Additional: In a nutshell, on the escape shuttle, the detective (not an antagonist) threw a revolver at me and demanded I play russian roulette with them - and promptly threatened me with another gun if I did not comply. I, of course, did nothing - and was rewarded for my patience by the entire clip being emptied into me. Due to the gun I had being empty all except for one round, my attempt at self-defense was limited to a pitiful clicking - and when the detective dropped the gun they were holding because the head of security (LordRaven001) fired on them repeatedly, I moved to pick it up so they couldn't use it any more. LordRaven001 then decided it was appropriate to empty an entire clip into me and send me into critical. ShameOnTurtles believed that my being fired upon was an accident, but the following lines from LordRaven in OOC after a brief confrontation lead me to believe otherwise: Unbecoming of any player, much less a whitelisted one.

Simple concept - if an item can be put into the autolathe and converted into metal (or for the coders, if it has metal in its materials list over a certain amount) then it would set off a metal detector. Much more "corporate security-esque" than a stop-and-frisk, and it makes checkpoints actually somewhat helpful.

All explosions are subject to the bomb cap; the supermatter is no exception. The only effects it has that a bomb does not are that it creates ambient heat and causes a surge of nonlethal radiation when it explodes. The spawn point isn't even visible from where the supermatter exploded; if the gateway was compromised for any reason, I guarantee it was a moron overriding the shutter and opening the door. At that point, it's hardly my fault what happens to it. Not to mention - if we allow each (possibly trial) moderator to determine what's catastrophic, we'll eventually have a taboo on welder bombs because it vents a room too quickly, which "technically" messes with atmos, which is technically against the rules. Mostly because we have a fundamental disagreement on how rules should be applied; we discussed this exact topic when you were a trial moderator too, and this is precisely why I took the positions that I did. If we warn someone for every infraction that may subjectively seem wrong to an individual staff member, we'll end up with long-time players with huge sheets of warnings that any incoming administrator will look at and say "wow, this person is a real shitter." To ShameOnTurtles' credit, I do appreciate the lengthy explanation under the warning, though.

I'd almost entirely forgotten about the turrets (that I almost killed myself with, that'll be a good story to toss into OOC at some point) - thanks for the reminder. Those may have actually done more damage than the supermatter detonation itself, come to think of it. Don't get me wrong - if we want to revise the rules to include ahelping before the detonation of any supermatter core along with the aforementioned things stated within the rules, that's fine and dandy. We live and we learn. I only have a handful of points: We should not apply rules retroactively. We should apply rules as closely to the language of the actual rule as possible, making corrections to the rules list as necessary. Subjective interpretation of the rules should be left to those revising it, not those taking punitive action. The rules should (not unlike most countries' laws) be an ever-changing document in line with what we've found acceptable and unacceptable over the years - something I've brought up time and again, and I'm actually very happy that the rules were changed. I just think it needs to happen far more often, and that we have no justification in any sort of punitive action unless they've broken the rule as it's written.

Should we be issuing warnings and simply changing the wording later, though? Is bombing several separate locations not enough of an escalation to detonate a supermatter core? Must I boldly announce my name and the fact that I intend to blow up a supermatter core and there's nothing anyone could possibly do to stop me? Regardless of escalation or the idea of the supermatter itself, I've broken rules on neither front, and so a warning should not be there to begin with. As for my reasoning, it was right next to my department (I blew it up right next to the cargo warehouse, mind), and because it was something loud and noisy that freaks people out that only cargo could possibly order. The plan was to get the heat on, kidnap someone (maybe someone wounded by the blast,) then bring them to the mining outpost before fortifying it. Then since the only person capable of causing the cataclysm should be me, security would show up and negotiations could ensue. This didn't happen because I was PMing Turtles back and forth. High-traffic implies that there are multiple people walking through the area. A low-population server doesn't have as many of these locations as a high-population server - so it really does matter, and as aforementioned, it was escalated properly.

This took place was prior to the rules update, ergo my statement about retroactively applying subjective interpretations. Both of us copied and pasted the rule itself into the logs many times, if someone wants to check. In any case, I could also argue from a purely logical standpoint that even under the most recent revision, I still didn't break any rules. I ordered a new supermatter core and left the station's primary power source, the engine's supermatter core, untouched. So if I didn't break the letter of the rule, then what about the spirit of the rule? The revision is a good step in the right direction, but I'm still of the strong opinion that a supermatter delamanation is hardly the end of a round, and it didn't cause undue damage without escalation. The hall may have been damaged beyond repair, but the gateway could have easily been sealed back up and made safe - we had the engineers to make that happen. As far as collateral damage goes, I'd already taken that into account - the server population was low, I'd already set off a bomb in the area previously (so they knew that area could be dangerous,) and I did not unlock the supermatter crate (that is, I allowed the crate to be busted open by the emitter itself. That crate in particular takes a few shots to open, which allows players more time to hear the emitter going off, etc etc.) Am I to understand, then, that a single lost life, some radiation sickness, and a hallway are tantamount to "catastrophic sabotage?" I think not. The only situation that should have been prevented was my relative inability to use the explosion as forward momentum, due to having to PM a trial moderator back and forth for the remainder of the round because of a subjective interpretation of the rules as they were written at the time this was done. There could have been hostage-taking and outpost-fortifying, but instead I was dragged into a discussion about the nuances of certain rules. You can't claim that the round was fresh by any stretch of the imagination - it'd been nigh on three hours since the round start, and it's hardly as if this was my opening move. It was never my goal to remain undetected, and I didn't even bother with forensic countermeasures or disguises for any of my actions. The security team didn't even consider forensics; they simply chalked it up to a guessing game, shrugged their shoulders, and 'kept their eye out.'

BYOND Key: EvilBrage Staff BYOND Key: ShameOnTurtles Game ID: b9NyVf Reason For Complaint: ShameOnTurtles has elected to enforce his own subjective version of the rules and toss a warning on my account. Here is, verbatim, what the warning said: He's copied and pasted the rule into the warning and saved me some time trying to find it, but you'll notice that the singularity and atmospherics are mentioned, but a supermatter core is not. Those items listed in the rules (the singularity and atmospherics) can indeed have a devastating effect on the round, as the singularity drags everything towards it and obliterates whatever it touches - while atmospherics is extremely deadly if it's used to pump plasma throughout the station, since that eventually leads to walls melting and other zones going ablaze. Both end the round very quickly. ShameOnTurtles unduly expanded this definition to include a supermatter core, (not the supermatter core in the engine room, I ordered a new one via cargo.) While I'm not aware if a spawn point (another subjective interpretation) was destroyed or not, I do know that the round continued on for a good thirty to fourty-five minutes after the detonation and only a single person died as a result of the blast. This was, of course, after escalating through a series of smaller blasts that were more or less ignored and repaired, ergo my need to send a more solid message (I had a security radio, so I could listen in on their reaction and gauge accordingly.) The crux of my issue is this: no administrator or moderator should be enforcing a version of the rules that is entirely subjective; if a rule needs to be changed, then change it. His primary argument is that's what the author of the rules meant when he wrote it and further that we simply haven't updated the rules to match the server. Those of you who know me also know how many times I've brought up how badly we need to update the rules - even back when Baka was headmin - because a failure to do so will bring us back here time and again.

You will. I mean what?

"FUCK YOU" This is actually a solid tactic to provoke people into attacking you - but usually results in you killing them. This typically doesn't lead anywhere. "BOMB IN RESEARCH, ENGINEERING GO FIX IT" and twenty minutes later, all is normal because you can literally fix/repair anything that doesn't make people call the shuttle (the supermatter comes to mind) and there's very little forensic evidence. Industrial sabotage is usually just a distraction, and only after the alert level has been raised (because doing so beforehand is much more trouble than it's worth.) Debatably effective, but this only applies to a select few characters - and even so, it's wonderful in the moment, but what happens next? You have to either kill them or let them go. Death will only become more meaningful by giving characters reason to fear it. How? Hell if I know - but if we ever put in a persistent economy, having your funds drop to a basic level after you die would be a neat motivator. Other than that, the only thing we can really do is try to come up with something inventive as an antagonist, because if you're creative, I guarantee that a majority of the server will play along. If they don't, well: And also feel free to point out in LOOC that they'd have had far more fun if they'd played along. People always take that really well. But in all seriousness, the cheap nature of death means most people are okay with dying if they have some fun to go along with it. Anyways, here's some things I've tried that are very fun: Be an organ harvester who takes everyone's kidneys/appendix/etc when they go into surgery; I did this once and simply explained that they died in surgery. Force another crewmember into a game of russian roulette. Create a little makeshift cell with a pair of windoors and a table and you're all set. Obvs requires admin intervention - I'd probably buy a revolver and ask to trade it for a russian revolver. Murder, cook, and feed a crewmember to the crew - then say that there's a 'little piece of him/her inside all of us' when you dramatically reveal their decapitated head. Don a balaclava, break the legs of some crewmembers and take all their money out of their account. Kidnap a crewmember. Leave them alone in a dark room and remove your undershirt. Wait for them to wake up, then walk in with a wrestling mask and your jumpsuit rolled down. Then wrestle them to death. Rob the safe in the vault. Always a favorite. Plant bombs in several locations. Tell the crew to kill a person of your choosing or you'll detonate all the bombs. Add proxy sensors for extra fun. As a wizard, pretend to be the captain after you've modified ID's and records accordingly. Emag the holodeck and announce a tournament. Watch people scream in horror as they murder the opposition on accident.

Loudly announcing that you're sending in the cavalry is actually a sound tactic to reduce further damage to the station and get the assaulting force to - as we've described it - "fuck off." I don't see anything wrong with the way things work as-is. The goal of the ERT is not to hunt down antagonists, it's to ensure the safety of the crew and the station (though maybe not necessarily in that order) so if an antag runs away when the ERT gets there, who cares? I'll tell you what will happen if this becomes a thing, though: every time a head says "let's call for an ERT," despite whether or not one was called for, you're going to get blitzkrieged by the antags in an attempt to stop them from being called, and they will be completely justified in doing so. It's a lose-lose scenario. Nobody's experience is enriched or enhanced whatsoever.

No. He's really just the warden of cargo, plus he doesn't (and shouldn't) have access to all of the things that the other heads of staff do. Shuttle calls, the bridge, etc. The only way you're going to command respect in-game is to earn it (or force it, depending on the character) out of people - and an arbitrary switch on the manifest isn't going to do anything to change that.

It works way too fast with no sign of infection until you're fifteen seconds away from getting your insides turned upside down. Considering the inherently chaotic nature of alien rounds to begin with (and the fact that they can literally tie you to a bed of resin to keep you from surgically removing the parasite) I'd say we could stand to have the timer increased significantly with more warning signs. After all, you're literally incubating an alien larva.

Arranging the submissions alphabetically should help weed out some misspellings (Uaekis, Uakaeis, and Ualalakis should all show up right next to each other.) I fail to see how limiting the categories to whitelisted players alleviates the workload at all, however. Some of the most memorable characters I've interacted with haven't been heads of staff at all.

I love it when people suggest things that are already in the game. Just wait until they're in a sleeper and spam any of the drugs on the list except inaprovaline. An overdose of soporific + bicardine usually has most doctors at a loss for what to do. Bam. Murder accomplish.

In no particular order here, so we can get a better perspective on this. False. A single gunshot to the head with most calibers of weapon won't kill an individual instantly; about 10% of people shot in the head actually survive. The question is whether or not one can obtain medical treatment quick enough. What it WILL do is incapacitate you instantly (that is, you'll be down on the ground quicker than you can say "sec to bar.") A rubber bullet plugged into your head at point blank will indeed render you incapacitated, as stated earlier, so I guess that's kind of suicide-y. I've used lethal rounds with the pistol every chance I've had, and the results aren't particularly spectacular - they still only do about 25 damage. Needless to say, the nuke op hardsuit was unimpressed. Never mind that the probability of actually shooting someone in the hand in real life is phenomenally low. I don't understand why target zone even matters outside of point blank shots, because unless your character is a level 50 sniper, you're going to be hitting whatever you can in an actual firefight.

Reporting Personnel: Jaylor Rameau Rank of Reporting Personnel: Engine Technician Personnel Involved: Thtithik Pakseech (QM), Rin Fukuimoto (Chef), Ka'Akaix'Zah Zo'ra (Maintenance Technician), Marc Price (HoS), Jared Clarkson (Security Officer), Szilvia Kaekel (Engineering Apprentice), Jager Wolfe (Captain) Time of Incident: Approx 2200 hrs Real time: As above Location of Incident: Nature of Incident: []Workplace Hazard [X]Accident/Injury [X]Destruction of Property []Neglect of Duty [X]Harassment [X]Assault [X]Misconduct []Other _____ (Place an x in the box that applies. If other, replace line and specify.) Overview of the Incident: On the aforementioned date, I heard an airlock's electronics close to the engine being smashed, so I went investigate. When I opened the door that seemed to be making the noise, quartermaster Pakseech charged me with the fire extinguisher. I pushed him down to the ground and held him in a jointlock and called for security; he shouted and cursed and threatened to claw my eyes out. Later, we learn he had a guest pass from the chief engineer, but was not to wander alone out of another engineer's company (which he did.) After he hurls insults and I tell him to leave with the assistance of security, he finally does so, but not before destroying an engineering door with an RCD built into his hardsuit in an attempt to assault me again. Later on, head of security Marc Price tells me that he and chef Rin Fukuimoto were conspiring to ambush me and break my legs, which he was later arrested for after having been discovered trespassing in engineering again. I head to security to give a statement and Rin assaults me with a wooden rolling pin in the lobby, which prompts security to arrest her as well. I was injured as a result of her assault but did not require medical attention. Fast forward to the crew transfer shuttle, I narrowly evaded their ambush (they were released after Pakseech was implanted with a tracking beacon for suspicious activity) and called for security assistance. I was provided with a protective detail (Jared Clarkson) while we headed to the shuttle; both of my assailants arrived after their friend (Zo'ra) sent them a PDA message as to my whereabouts, and they made it very clear that they were going to try something - until Price and the varuca warden showed up. I was then informed by Szilvia that Rin was offering 2500 credits to anyone who would gouge my eyes out. The three of them (Pakseech, Zo'ra, Fukuimoto) continually attempted to bring bodily harm to me (indirectly in Zo'ra's case) and I fear another confrontation is inevitable if something isn't done. Did you report it to a Head of Staff or IAA? If so, who?: Mark Price, Head of Security. Jager Wolfe, Captain. Additional notes: N/A

Simple - add sounds to the playback function. We already have an alternative text for people who can't see the action - for example: user.visible_message("[user] inserts [src] into a data port on [M].", "You insert [src] into a data port on [M].", "You hear the satisfying click of a wire jack fastening into place.") It's that last line we can pull and place into the translator's output - so instead of something like this: We get a bit more of an idea of what's going on. The sounds are all taken from game files that are already present, mind you.