[Denied] Bygonehero Command Whitelist

[Bygonehero]

BYOND key: BygoneHero

Character names:

I also play as the AI Ancillary, Cynosure, Mum, LORE, BEDLAM

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: I don't remember how long, maybe since 2014-2015?

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: To play the hive representative role that I helped design

Why did you come to Aurora?: Because I was looking for a certain kind of role playing experience, and where-ever I went it seemed to vanish over time, Apollo,Paradise are a few servers I've been on. Aurora has not yet lost qualities I am looking for, and I have become active in the community to ensure that it never does.

Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?:Yes

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?I've been permabanned before and probably others, they were a long time ago I cannot remember.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: Roleplaying is inhabiting a characters persona outside or parallel  to  your own. While also developing the role to eventually include tangential things outside of the scope of our games code. 

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: To drive round narrative, but I do not intend to play a head of staff, of my years playing this game, I have never had an urge to. 

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: I've written about this extensively, and I believe the OCC responsibilities of whitelisted players are as I said, to try and move a rounds arc along.

If the crux of the antagonists plot is to rely on the ineptitude of a head of staff, then the head of staff should realize that, and adjust themselves accordingly. 

However, in practice this is not what happens. Antagonists are shut down more often than not as quickly as can be done, sometimes without even most of the crew even being aware of the antagonists existence. Perhaps this is a result of how heavily we push command staff to behave within IC parameters that do not agree with our expectations of their role OOC. 

If the role a head of staff has to play in a round requires them to be lenient, they should be so. If it requires them to be ruthless, they should be so. The adherence to regulation is in of itself a flaw in how heads of staff are treated. It prevents them from roleplaying the best case scenario for that particular round.

Couple this with them having something to lose, and you have created the very thing we as a community do not want from their heads of staff, Command that shuts down a round before it has a chance to even begin.  

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career? The arrival of the Lii'dra has sent the Zo'ra hive into overdrive. It has caused them to bury their enclaves deeper into the economic web work of humanity. This has manifested as more low cost labor being outsourced to their hive, while also promoting the TCFL as part of a long term goal to dilute humanities influence within Tau Ceti. By getting more aliens patriotic for Tau Ceti, over time, human sociopolitical dominance will wane. This is made manifest within my character, as Ta'Akaix'Xaol Zo'ra as a new hive representative for the Nanotrasen Megacorporation.

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Counsel/Corporate Liaison  

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.: Ta'Akaix'Xaol Zo'ra, Counsel/Corporate Liaison

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: Between 800 Florps and 4000 Dorps

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?Yes

Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes

 

Extra notes:

Edited September 5, 2019 by ReadThisNamePlz

[ReadThisNamePlz]

I would like to see more detail in the answers to your questions. Specifically - "What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?" and "Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about"
 

[Bygonehero]

The OOC purpose of a head of staff in game is to drive round narrative. Driving round narrative is an umbrella term that includes but is not limited to; Recognizing and responding to antagonist activity, Promoting and developing realistic expectations in your department and with other players, thus increasing immersion. Promoting inclusive roleplaying, in yourself and other players, allowing them and yourself involved in the activities of a round in a realistic manner to make more dynamic and enjoyable roleplaying experiences for everyone.

 

Roleplaying in abstract is recognizing that you are a part in the narrative of a larger story, and that by your actions, your relationships, your behaviors, you become small parts in the larger web of a  story. Effecting and being effected by others, crafting a narrative together for the enjoyment of everyone roleplaying.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Alright. I'm going to grant you a trial, try to collect feedback throughout your trial. 

Trial Begins (AUG/21/2019) - Ends (AUG/28/2019)

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi, there is a disturbing lack of feedback here. Have you been advertising your app?

[GreenBoi]

Ironic, I was just about to give feedback

 

I think Bygone can easily, and correctly use their Command Whitelist. In dchat, icly, oocly, and on several discords, they've shown their understanding and expectation of vaurcae. His character list is almost made entirely out of vaurcae so I think it'd be hard to say he's just in it for the mechanics and power when he's: 1) the vaurca loredev, and 2) plays mainly vaurcae (who can't be heads of staff period, so you can't abuse anything with that).

 

I think Bygone has a better OOC understanding of how to play Command even as a non-vaurca that is better than some other whitelistees I've seen. They have also played antagonist a decent amount of times, so you can trust them to know what to let antags have leeway with and how to restrain themselves.

[Bear]

+1 Dedicated RP'r, have observed them being more than capable of task delegation and role administration while driving the story forward. Long term player who will and has done just fine.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Bear

[Contextual]

I'm going to apologize off the cuff for this post, because it feels really petty and personal for me to put a negative response as the person directly affected. I would have made a player complaint, but I'm told Bygone already got a note for what occurred, so I'm just going to post it here, after having been recommended to do so by several people in private conversation.

Round ID: b25-az7G

Last night I played a round as Pennant, latejoining at about 00:07 into the round. I was asked by Bygone's AI what modules I could fulfill, and informed them that my standard modules were Rescue, Research, Engineering, and Construction. Their AI, Gungnir, then informed me that Rescue was already taken by the other stationbound, and asked me to choose between Engineering and Construction. Of note is that it had specifically forbidden me from choosing a Research Module, as it described it as "nonvital".

As there were no pending engineering alerts or requests, and the engine was already set, I elected to not immediately choose, and instead went to interact with Alma Sidanyi, who is @Scheveningen's scientist character. They were the only character on manifest whom Pennant had interacted with before, and so Pennant assisted them in their lab with small errands. Pennant was "idle" in this manner for some period of time, waiting on requests and roleplaying with Sidanyi, and Gungnir began to address me directly multiple times, inquiring why I was in the lab, why I was assisting, what I was assisting with, and chiefly why I had been "idle" (Read: Standing still) for so long. This lead to a buildup of anxiety within my character, who expressed this through increasingly stressed emotes until it finally told Alma that it was (paraphrasing) "Under a lot of pressure to perform, without any tasks to actually perform". This led Alma to calling the AI on a holopad, an entirely unintended response from my end.

Alma asked the AI why it was putting so much pressure on Pennant. Gungnir responded along the lines of "because it's an expensive unit, and being idle for extended periods is a waste". It then directly ordered me to go engineering, to surface, set the shields, and wait for further tasking. Arriving to find the shields already bolted and programmed by an engineer and untold amount of time earlier, I was then messaged by @DRagO. It turns out that Bygone had actually adminhelped about my actions up to this point in the round, though I am not sure what the exact accusations were that had been leveled at me. I remained idle in the shield room for at least ten minutes without further interaction from the AI, ICly and OOCly mortified that I had done something terribly wrong.

Eventually, I was hailed by Alma (who had gotten robotics access from the captain by this point in the round) to robotics. Here are screenshots of the exchange that followed therein and shortly after.

https://gyazo.com/b81e9c66f89b3e8c2a5eed7397e5ca97 https://gyazo.com/9141aeb7dc814313bd52bc04a6f09667 https://gyazo.com/ae8c599677ead3adcf5c14aabac025e8

After this, I was feeling entirely abused and powerless on both an IC and OOC level. Apparently Drago told them to lay off with the heavyhanded restrictions at this point, as in the midst of installing cameras the Gungnir sent the following message (unfortunately, I did not screenshot it, but I invite those who care and are able to check round logs):

Robot Talk, Gungnir states, "Once you have installed the last two cameras you have I will lift your restrictions. Do not fight me again. Do not endeavor to get around me or manipulate the users by leveraging your social status. I am aware of such things, but moreso, its completely needless. Simple tasks are a given, but I dont much care if you socialize after they are complete."

This comment alone felt like a direct OOC attack on my character. I declined to continue playing following the installation of the cameras, and instead stored, being entirely put off of SS13 for the rest of the night. I'm going to be taking a break from playing stationbound after this.

I do not feel like this is the kind of player who we need in command. They actively took steps to prevent their subordinate unit from interacting with a member of crew, coupled with extreme abrasion and insults towards a character who has no IC recourse.

If this post in any way does not fit the parameters required for this subforum, please feel free to inform me and edit or delete it.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Contextual

[Bygonehero]

3 hours ago, Contextual said:

Accusation

Where to start. First, to my knowledge I did not receive a note for this circumstance. I had asked you to select Engineering or Construction because we had only one engineer. Not only did you not do that, but you also were idle in RnD, socializing. This is in itself not egregious, since you did explain that you were aiding the scientist nor did I particularly take offense to you already ignoring an order given to you. 

Then the scientist summoned me to tell me off, which tells me that you were complaining about even being questioned on what you were doing. A stationbound complaining about a job its given is pretty poor synthetic role play. It is not a realistic character to play an overly emotional machine that balks at receiving simple orders from its overseeing AI. @kyres1 @Iron Chaos and @DRagO can verify.

After this, I ahelped and the mod @DRagO informed me that you were new to station bound and didn't mean for it to come across as a complaint towards the scientist. In any event, the criticisms leveled at me by simply tasking a robot, (Which is what the AI is suppose to do) and ignoring of my previous orders told me that you were borderline malfunctioning. I ordered you to do the job I had originally intended for you, to setup the shields. I also forbade you from complaining about receiving orders again. Note, at this point I did not tell you to cease socializing with the scientist.

After you setup the shield settings and returned to socializing with your scientist, I caught you, doing exactly what I told you not to do. Complain about being told not to complain. Further, when I informed you of this privately via our binary chat, you told the scientist , which ended up sending alot of the crew in a fit once they told the public. 

At this point, I informed Drago that you lied to them, because it is obvious from the logs that you did. Further, due to your consistent rule violations from even the most basic of orders given to you, ICIy I decided to separate you from the object of your fixation, and I gave you a task to keep you busy, because at this point, due to the constant violations I was convinced you were malfunctioning. At this point, I continued to discuss the issue with Drago, who conceded that you were in the wrong, but said that "sometimes people just don't want to do their jobs" 

 

They asked me to go easy on you, and so I did. I told you that after you installed that last camera, you could go back to doing what you were doing but just to start no more problems.

 

`` "Once you have installed the last two cameras you have I will lift your restrictions. Do not fight me again. Do not endeavor to get around me or manipulate the users by leveraging your social status. I am aware of such things, but moreso, its completely needless. Simple tasks are a given, but I dont much care if you socialize after they are complete."``

 

Its worthy to note, another synthetic played this round, and they had no issues with my character Gungnir because they did try to do basics expected of them when asked.

 

You approach every interaction we had with bad faith, and was overly emotional for no good reason. Being told to setup the shields and explain what you are doing is nothing big, but you made a big deal of it and leveraged your friendship with this scientist as a way to win an argument. This is terrible, terrible synthetic roleplay. 

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Bygonehero

[Scheveningen]

-1. Hell no. You're repeating behavior that you've been synthbanned for.

[Bygonehero]

Its worthy to note, that @Scheveningen was the scientist that Contextual was roleplaying with, their friend in round. Schev felt so strongly for the situation that they harassed me via DM's after the round.  I welcome any administrator to look at the logs to verify what was said here.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Bygonehero

[Scheveningen]

You did plenty of "harassing" on your side.

[Bygonehero]

I did not seek you out via DMS, slinging accusations and assumptions because of a game, no. In fact, it shouldn't have involved you at all, since it had nothing to do with you. You did it because your OOC friend told you, probably in looc or via discord. 

[kyres1]

To start, let me first clear up basics.

- Master AI orders take priority over basic free will.
- Laws take absolute priority over both.
- Laws are not in question.
- Interpretation of laws beyond literal definitions, however, is up to the players, which is then moderated by mod/admin staff when reported.

More importantly -

- Server rules take priority over all above.
- Administrative word takes priority over the former point.

Now that all that's cleared up, let's go straight to the most complex part of this.

- There is out-of-character intent in personal interpretation of laws leaking into in-character decisionmaking.

I am not administrative staff and since I'm not part of this complaint I'm not able to determine what is and is not being a dick, nor do I intend to explore that topic further. What I will instead lay out are facts in interpretation of laws, and how you chose to perceive them, and how you have chosen to perceive them multiple times before.

It is blatantly obvious especially with the part in question here that you are trying to prove an OOC point in effectively policing the following through in-character action rather than contacting administrative staff (or even myself) on the matter :

3 hours ago, Contextual said:

Robot Talk, Gungnir states, "Once you have installed the last two cameras you have I will lift your restrictions. Do not fight me again. Do not endeavor to get around me or manipulate the users by leveraging your social status. I am aware of such things, but moreso, its completely needless. Simple tasks are a given, but I dont much care if you socialize after they are complete."

You have done this sort of thing in the past. A lot. I have teetered on stripping your IPC whitelist over situations that have cropped up in the past along these lines. Your behavior as an AI is extremely restrictive on stationbounds, counteractive to the actual whims of the players who enjoy themselves within the boundaries of the rules as your own personal agenda is placed higher than their own concept of "fun."

Why do I think you're up to this shit yet again?

Let's go back to the OOC motives of both players in question here. The stationbound is a tool. The stationbound can sometimes not be considered a character. The stationbound, however, is a player.

Why is that important?

I can't say "it's against the rules to be a dick," because I again don't define the rules, but I will certainly tell you that OOC motives affecting your IC interactions and IC interpretations of other people's interpretations OOCly of laws is not okay, whatsoever. Let's loop back to the original points relevant here -

- Laws are not in question.
- Interpretation of laws beyond literal definitions, however, is up to the players, which is then moderated by mod/admin staff when reported.

To summarize what I'm getting at with all that's said above, your AI play is not only rule-breaking in my opinion, but terrible synth play in of itself that you'd even consider addressing it in-character and imposing such comically ridiculous punishments upon a stationbound for disobeying you. It reeks of the same old powertripping I see of your AIs, consistently - lording over stationbounds to extend your own out of character desires for how they ought to be interpreted in-game.

I however am not a fan of leaving bases uncovered, so I'm going to continue.

Were realism the intent here, you would not even seek punishment against a stationbound who can't feel pain. You would not even seek the slightest interaction with them upon believing they are malfunctioning than locking them down and promptly detonating them if they keep moving. You would not speak to crew, only responding with directly relevant statements, and make no attempt to serve as anything more than an on-call station remote access function. You would see a person without their identification card and blare alarms. You would in essence contribute nothing to the progression of a round beyond being a simple tool no more than a wrench that can kill of its own avail, In essence, realism means you are playing a tool, and tools aren't characters.

To look at it from @Contextual's perspective, Pennant is a strange case. Yes, there is OOC motivation to play Pennant as a character, contrary to the "realism" the above entails. No, Pennant does not defy laws from what I've seen to gain an upper hand in IC "socialization." No, I don't even really care if he does, or if it's the case here - because, again, it could be pinned on this until proven otherwise -

- Interpretation of laws beyond literal definitions, however, is up to the players, which is then moderated by mod/admin staff when reported.

- or taken to administration.

Pennant is, as well, a character I have interacted with plenty. They routinely dip in and out of proper roleplay as any established character/player does and to this extent I have occasionally seen odd synth RP at times. That's all I have seen. Odd synth RP, at times. Not "terrible, terrible synthetic roleplay," and certainly never anything I'd end up fucking the player over for.

That's all the input I have on the matter.

[Bygonehero]

I had no idea who plays Pennant prior to them even mentioning here. I play my AIs generally very seriously in respect to the laws. I do not ask much of people when I play AI, and what I asked of them wasn't even that restrictive. The situation is misrepresented and logs would certainly clear up. All of this hounding on me is pretty ridiculous. 

 

They ignored orders and it escalated icly. 

I ahelped because they shouldnt be ignoring orders.

What OOC motives would I have against some player who I don't know beyond playing my character.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Bygonehero

[Bygonehero]

21 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

It is blatantly obvious especially with the part in question here that you are trying to prove an OOC point in effectively policing the following through in-character action rather than contacting administrative staff (or even myself) on the matter :

Also incorrect. If you had the ahelp logs and the logs themselves you would see that in every instance they escalated it. Would love to see where you are pulling the proof from.

[Scheveningen]

And lemme point out too that you have a history of behavior where you lose your cool and unload on some unsuspecting somebody who set your short fuse off. Remember 08/06/2019, that NT pet event? You flipped a lid at another Vaurca who wanted to get the bird axed (both of your characters had the impression that 'Kevin' was some kind of Vaurcean bird notorious for devouring other Vaurcae), and because the AI was monitoring the welfare of the bird (me), sec got on your case and the other Vaurca's based on what the other dude said. Now it's one thing to get ICly livid over a misunderstanding, it's a whole another thing to go after somebody like you did and both rage ICly and OOCly. You legitimately cannot separate IC and OOC nor are you capable of keeping your temper cool.

Pennant was also not entirely at fault either. In the cases where they went against your orders, it's because Alma ordered Pennant to belay any of the sillier orders the AI gave them until the AI gave Pennant the last few instructions which amounted to, "stop socializing and go sit in a corner, because the "work" I'm having you do doesn't actually have to be done by you at all." Pennant sat in front of engineering interacting with no one for fifteen minutes that round because you ordered them to. After I realized how long Pennant went missing, Alma ordered him to return. And Pennant was valid for retroactively going against the AI's orders because orders by crewmembers override that of the AI. Oh, and to clarify another point, I never knew you were that AI until the round crashed.

You have either little to no demonstration whatsoever of self-control and responsible use of power. You are incredibly restrictive and anti-roleplay when you play AI, and you do not accept any kind of resolution to an issue besides the expectation you attempt to force upon others. Nobody likes interacting with somebody who roleplays AI like a fascist.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Scheveningen

[witchbells]

Present discussion encourages me to weigh in on this.

The behavior being discussed here is strikingly similar to my experience with you that prompted me to write my first player complaint. You act on a grudge you have towards another player or character in the game and then try manipulating the truth in an attempt to get away with it. What you did here was blatant, cruel, and I agree that it was incredibly unconducive to roleplay. To hear from Kyres that you've been doing this a lot, apparently, is especially troubling to me.

Then you accuse other people of holding grudges towards you. Despite the fact that you and I, presumably, worked amicably in the lore team together and I presumed that all was well and good - you've done this to me as well, and I have no reason to believe you wouldn't do it to other people.

Nobody in a leadership position should be an example of such petty and manipulative behavior. I do not recommend you get a command whitelist, not when you're repetitively an example for behavior like this.

[Kryostro]

This seems like a pissing contest at this point, so I'm on the fence between giving a +1 or a -1. I'll check in later and see how it's going.

If it's something worth noting, they've had negative experiences that are somewhat OOC fueled on the NT relay with DaTimeSmog, I can't remember exactly what on the top of my head. 

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi, I have spent time considering this. 

I'm going to have to deny this trial. 

I want to see more improvement over a longer period of time regarding your ooc behavior, along with ic behavior. I will contact you over discord, explaining the ic portion of this if you want me to.

Please feel free to re-apply at a later date. Thank you!

[Bygonehero]

4 hours ago, nursiekitty said:

Present discussion encourages me to weigh in on this.

The behavior being discussed here is strikingly similar to my experience with you that prompted me to write my first player complaint. You act on a grudge you have towards another player or character in the game and then try manipulating the truth in an attempt to get away with it. What you did here was blatant, cruel, and I agree that it was incredibly unconducive to roleplay. To hear from Kyres that you've been doing this a lot, apparently, is especially troubling to me.

Then you accuse other people of holding grudges towards you. Despite the fact that you and I, presumably, worked amicably in the lore team together and I presumed that all was well and good - you've done this to me as well, and I have no reason to believe you wouldn't do it to other people.

Nobody in a leadership position should be an example of such petty and manipulative behavior. I do not recommend you get a command whitelist, not when you're repetitively an example for behavior like this.

You don't have the logs. You are assuming the screen grabs that they post convey the entire story. If you are going to assume stuff like that, You should have proof, I know I did when I made such a claim that you posted in your staff complaint.

 

 

5 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

You have either little to no demonstration whatsoever of self-control and responsible use of power. You are incredibly restrictive and anti-roleplay when you play AI, and you do not accept any kind of resolution to an issue besides the expectation you attempt to force upon others. Nobody likes interacting with somebody who roleplays AI like a fascist.

The previous affirmations to my AI play disagree with you and I don't particularly believe anything you say