Staff complaint - HouseOfSynth

[ZetaGundumb]

Bauser is making this player complaint through my account as a proxy. I am not involved, all writing is his, I am only posting it for him.

 

BYOND Key: Bauser
Staff BYOND Key: HouseOfSynth
Game ID: Detailed in https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/11095-resolved-player-complaint-lordraven001/
Reason for complaint: I'm contesting HouseOfSynth's decision on the complaint. I just found the ruling to fly in the face of reason, is all.

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A detective taking charge of an investigation isn't really an issue if there's no overruling authority, such as a HoS or at a stretch a Captain. It makes sense for them to do this.

My chief concern is here, for two reasons. First, characterizing the actions of the round as an investigation at all fails to properly describe that the detective was acting primarily in an enforcement role, not support or analysis. That's a problem on its own, because detectives are defined as a support & analysis job specifically to counteract their infamous history in SS13 as egotistic police-commandos. Saying that this behavior is not an issue makes a clear statement that detectives are both a physical role (I.E. carrying out direct action) and above officers in the security hierarchy. That would make sense in a real police force, where detectives are officers first, but on Aurora, detectives are inspectors - they don't have brig access and can't make actual arrests, by design. The wiki describes their duties as "an assistant to security," their most authoritative job being "coordinating" (not commanding) investigations. Furthermore, "investigation" is a word that's been used a lot in these proceedings to make it sound like detective Ming was investigating, when what he was doing was really (as obviously described in the logs provided) commanding troops. He did not have an investigation. He had a warpath.

Secondly, the premise of his judgement is that it wasn't an issue "if there's no overruling authority," but there clearly was an overruling authority. There was a head of staff. More than that, it was a head of staff whose wishes/goals were not aligned with Ming's. Chief Medical Officer Gonzales was the highest-ranking officer on the station, and as the only command member present, he was detective Ming's direct superior. It's true that a chief medical officer would not have much understanding of how to carry out security enforcement, but the expansive scope of Ming's actions is such that he would still need the approval of his command structure in order to carry it out (E.G. he should have asked the CMO if he could command security officers.) Instead, he actively went against the wishes of the CMO (as described in the previous thread) and hid his operation from him.

So, directly contrary to HouseOfSynth's ruling, a detective taking charge the way that LordRaven did is both 1) an issue and 2) it was done in spite of an overruling authority.
 

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But excluding someone because your characters haven't met is a little iffy if you ask me.

This wording displays a misunderstanding of the complaint that was made, on this point. The reason that Ming excluded Major was not "because they hadn't met." It could make sense for a security member to be skeptical of someone they don't know. But the reason that Ming excluded Major was that LordRaven (as a player) found Major to be untrustworthy, despite the fact that Ming and Major had never met. Therefore, whatever previous experience LordRaven may have had in mind was not the experience of his character, Ming. And the word for that isn't "iffy," it's "prohibited." It's specifically against the rules to use meta knowledge in the way LordRaven said he did, and even worse, he did it for the purpose of getting a supposed in-game advantage (making sure he caught the antags, above all else).

And... not that this is really the salient issue, but I find it worth noting for the general reputation of my character: There was also no legitimate reason for him, as a player, to think Major would be detrimental to his team (since, as was testified by CampinKiller in the previous thread, the character does not make a habit of alerting security suspects that they are being pursued). So even the theoretical basis for LordRaven's defense (of the actions that HouseOfSynth described as "a dick move") was untruthful.

Additional remarks: In summary, LordRaven admitted doing things that are against the rules (1. validhunting behavior as a detective and 2. metagaming), and he justified doing so by lying about my character. That's why I think the complaint should be revisited. I don't have any problem with HouseOfSynth at all, I just think his decision failed to enforce the server rules. It is my opinion that he was nice but, in being so, neglected to carry out the job that he was tasked with doing. The fact that the complaint sat without comment for two weeks further suggests to me that it probably was not given a lot of thought/attention.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hello, @ShameOnTurtles and I will be taking this complaint. Please allow us time to look over the complaint.

@HouseOfSynth If you have anything to add to this complaint, please do so. 

Thank you for your patience!

 

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Thank you for your patience, still waiting for @HouseOfSynth

 

[HouseOfSynth]

Hi! Sorry for taking a while to get around to this. Let's get straight into it shall we?

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

First, characterizing the actions of the round as an investigation at all fails to properly describe that the detective was acting primarily in an enforcement role, not support or analysis.

Looking through the logs for the round I didn't really see this. Sure they were often responding to potential cases but I see no issue with that. In fact the logs show raven did infact analyse a lot of data. There was a constant back-and-forth between him and the forensic technician. He took multiple interviews and went to different departments to carry out interviews. I didn't see any logs regarding him attempting arrests or anything. There was a lot of RP generated by Raven this round, what with the interviews and such. 

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

Saying that this behavior is not an issue makes a clear statement that detectives are both a physical role (I.E. carrying out direct action) and above officers in the security hierarchy. That would make sense in a real police force, where detectives are officers first, but on Aurora, detectives are inspectors

As I said above, I didn't really see Raven engage in any physical action. There's also no evidence to suggest this within the logs you showed in terms of "physicality." I saw no arrests. You state they're inspectors, well inspectors are in charge of their own case. I see no issue with a detective stepping up and taking charge of an investigation like this so long as they do not overstep the chain of command. I'll get onto where the CMO plays into this in a moment. As for a heirarchy within security itself, Officers and detectives are not above eachother. So technically neither has the authority to give out orders. But in terms of an investigation the detective is able to call on security for their help and vice versa. They're part of the same department and have the same end goal. Therefore coorperation is the best way to get things done.

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

He did not have an investigation. He had a warpath.

As stated I disagree. The logs show a structured investigation.

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

Secondly, the premise of his judgement is that it wasn't an issue "if there's no overruling authority," but there clearly was an overruling authority. There was a head of staff. More than that, it was a head of staff whose wishes/goals were not aligned with Ming's. Chief Medical Officer Gonzales was the highest-ranking officer on the station, and as the only command member present, he was detective Ming's direct superior.

A CMO doesn't really have the qualification to command a security team, so he wasn't really your direct superior at all. Unless they took captainship which would make things a little different. But they do have the authority to tell someone to stop overstepping their boundaries. Gonzales did not do this. It is not like Raven ordered arrests that did not relate to his investigations and the like, or told you to patrol. His requests were only to do with his investigations. Resi, the player of the CMO said this in the original complaint:

     "I don't take issue with raven not telling me things.  He said that he kept a lot from me that round and while, sure, ICly, that's not very by the books, it was entirely IC and made sense." 

I agree here, it is IC behaviour. Such behaviour would have been more IR worthy than complaint worthy. So I see no issue I can deal with here. 

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

This wording displays a misunderstanding of the complaint that was made, on this point. The reason that Ming excluded Major was not "because they hadn't met." It could make sense for a security member to be skeptical of someone they don't know. But the reason that Ming excluded Major was that LordRaven (as a player) found Major to be untrustworthy, despite the fact that Ming and Major had never met.

So.. He excluded your character because they had not met before, right? He found your character untrustworthy as you hadn't met. Which is what I said; it's not explicitly against the rules, but it's not great to do either. Now in my response on the original complaint, I outlined this and said that Cadets would be trusted members of the team unless proven otherwise. So I'd say this fact is resolved.

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

And the word for that isn't "iffy," it's "prohibited." It's specifically against the rules to use meta knowledge in the way LordRaven said he did

Perhaps my wording was a little off here. I wouldn't say it's prohibited to exclude people based on the fact you haven't really met them before. It's not technically against the rules, but it cuts off someone's RP. I told Raven that this wasn't ok in my response in the original post. As for him using meta knowledge, this may be the first time they met and interacted, but he may have been around in other rounds as the same character, and simply heard you. I can't really say for sure whether he's metagaming or not here. 

 

On 26/12/2018 at 06:59, ZetaGundumb said:

And... not that this is really the salient issue, but I find it worth noting for the general reputation of my character: There was also no legitimate reason for him, as a player, to think Major would be detrimental to his team (since, as was testified by CampinKiller in the previous thread, the character does not make a habit of alerting security suspects that they are being pursued). So even the theoretical basis for LordRaven's defense (of the actions that HouseOfSynth described as "a dick move") was untruthful.

Again, covered in my response. A cadet should be deemed trustworthy enough, and Raven was told to keep that in mind for the future when dealing with investigations. So in truth, his defence in the context of keeping you out of the loop wasn't good enough, which is why I told him that he should not exclude cadets simply because they are cadets. In my opinion, keeping someone out of the loop in this case is... Well a dick move. It's not against the rules OOCly, nor is it against regulations. But it's just not a nice thing to do. 

 

So in conclusion I found Raven's detective-play to be fine. He only gave orders relevant to his investigation, he did not overstep the chain of command as the CMO didn't tell him to stop at any time. And he carried out a well structured investigation that generated RP for many players. My only issue was his exclusion of the cadets, which I resolved in the previous complaint. 

 

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hey there, sorry for the super long delay. @ShameOnTurtles was dead or something but we cloned him.

After some long consideration, we've decided that Synth isn't wrong with his ruling, the detective showed no signs of validhunting or metagaming. We've concluded that the detective was well within his powers and did not really overstep- Something that Synth also came to the conclusion of. We've decided to leave Synths conclusion to the last app alone, meaning it's the decision that will stick, no one will be punished.


This will be Locked and Archived 24 hours.

 

[ZetaGundumb]

(Bauser's response)

10 hours ago, HouseOfSynth said:

So.. He excluded your character because they had not met before, right? He found your character untrustworthy as you hadn't met. Which is what I said; it's not explicitly against the rules, but it's not great to do either. Now in my response on the original complaint, I outlined this and said that Cadets would be trusted members of the team unless proven otherwise. So I'd say this fact is resolved.

I don't know how many other ways I can possibly say this, but AGAIN... no. He did not exclude my character because they hadn't met. He excluded my character on the basis that they HAD met and he determined Major to be untrustworthy - and my complaint is (still) that this is impossible, because they had not met, and instead it was LordRaven's OOC knowledge which informed his decision. That was the basis of my complaint of metagaming. This was made apparent in the player complaint, and again in the original post here, so... we're up to attempt #3, for those counting.

 

Without insulting your intelligence by playing ping-pong anymore with your entire text, I will point out that Directive 2 states, in the absence of a Captain, if there's only one head of staff, that head of staff wields the authority of acting captain. Just because the CMO wouldn't be experienced in security matters, strategic authority is still his. So even if the CMO didn't give Ming any orders to disobey, Ming's abject willingness to go around him is entirely disagreeable. And I will rhetorically ask "What kind of investigation requires the tactical command of officers for any reason but information-gathering?" Maybe we just have different thoughts about what investigate means.

 

EDIT: OK, we have arrived at a conclusion before accurately determining the complaint, but alright. I guess I just won't bother anymore.

Edited January 2, 2019 by ZetaGundumb

[ShameOnTurtles]

14 minutes ago, ZetaGundumb said:

I don't know how many other ways I can possibly say this, but AGAIN... no. He did not exclude my character because they hadn't met. He excluded my character on the basis that they HAD met and he determined Major to be untrustworthy - and my complaint is (still) that this is impossible, because they had not met, and instead it was LordRaven's OOC knowledge which informed his decision. That was the basis of my complaint of metagaming. This was made apparent in the player complaint, and again in the original post here, so... we're up to attempt #3, for those counting.

Without insulting your intelligence by playing ping-pong anymore with your entire text, I will point out that Directive 2 states, in the absence of a Captain, if there's only one head of staff, that head of staff wields the authority of acting captain. Just because the CMO wouldn't be experienced in security matters, strategic authority is still his. So even if the CMO didn't give Ming any orders to disobey, Ming's abject willingness to go around him is entirely disagreeable. And I will rhetorically ask "What kind of investigation requires the tactical command of officers for any reason but information-gathering?" Maybe we just have different thoughts about what investigate means.

In our review we did not see any evidence of metagaming/metagrudging. Some actions taken by the detective could be seen as objectionable ICly, but they are not OOC issues that need to be punished.