Scheveningen - Command Whitelist Reapp

[Scheveningen]

Extra notes: I decided to put this at the top to clarify a few things. Up until fairly recently (2 weeks ago, ish), I had a decent administrative history of conduct for at least two years without a whitelist strip or administrative action in the form of a ban. My whitelist was automatically stripped as a result of a 3 day ban that was doled out, rightfully, because I lost my cool and made some rather ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about another player. I do, however, believe that awhile my demonstrated toxicity and refusal to just cool my head for more than two seconds rightfully earned the tempban, I don't think it had anything to do with how I play command, since the tempban was not disciplining for behavior while playing command. In hindsight, I would've probably not received that ban if I had simply stopped holding my ground for the things I had said, which inevitably led to the escalation of the 3 day ban because the banning admin was clearly seeing that I wasn't seeing where I was going wrong with my behavior. This is not a justification of that behavior, or anything like that, I definitely regret that conduct because even the fact that almost everyone has heated gamer moments doesn't mean that behavior is acceptable nor forgivable.

BYOND key: Scheveningen
Character names:

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Over five years.
Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I am attempting to improve my OOC attitude while also holding the belief that I should still be whitelisted for command. I understand where I went wrong, but I also still want to actually play the characters I had specifically designed to be heads of staff. And unfortunately those characters on my roster are the ones the most established and the ones I enjoy playing the most as a head of staff, since I enjoy that interconnectivity that playing those characters inevitably brought on. And likewise I wasn't really tempbanned for a failure to act well within a majority of the IC or OOC expectations of a head of staff, but for being a dick. I'm not thinking this will come so easily, however.
Why did you come to Aurora?: I didn't feel as strongly playing on the other servers over an eternity ago. Aurora has changed in very substantial ways since I had initially joined up, so my reasons have also likewise developed over time, as well. I particularly care for a fun, character-driven experience, but recent events have definitely soured my opinion as to the role of antagonists and the actual value they contribute to the game, lately.
Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: I'm quite familiar with what the jobs, the in-game chain of command and the pecking order for various situations. I'm aware of what each head role is supposed to have authority over.
Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: If we mean recently, yes. The admin issuing the 3-day (Alberyk, specifically) could probably speak more as to the situation's severity better than I can. On a scale of actual 1-10, I'd consider the situation in question a 5. In my very distant past when I was far more childish, toxic and petulant, it took a very concerted effort on my own end to recognize where I went wrong before moving to improve on several fronts. I have no illusions that I will ever reach an angelic status of reputation or conduct, however, I think not being a terrible person is a lot easier than being a good person. And that's where my goalpost is set, for the most part.

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: The simplest way to describe it, in my view, is that it is an endeavor to make up a person who believably exists in the setting, and pretty much acting within specific constraints and personality types to make them their own person. The most important aspect of having characters with values is that they should probably clash in varying degrees with other characters that have opposite values. Because that happens a lot in real life, for one, and secondly that sort of conflict actually makes the game fairly fun. If everyone in-character gets along it's not always going to be fun. The core aspect of making a character and roleplaying as them is really just to have an interesting fictional personality. "Just be interesting" really should be the core aspect of roleplaying, especially as an antagonist, too. Equally important as a head of staff, as well.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: Antagonists can very often destabilize rounds, and the heads of staff exist to hopefully bring structure to specific essential departments that otherwise have no real unified direction on how to solve a specific situation. Because every character is different, they all have different ideas on how to resolve a situation. The head of staff exists to break the stalemates and put forward their decision in order to contribute to immediately resolving the situation as well as damage controlling the chaos that usually results from antagonist action or random events. Understanding of responsibility is the reason why the whitelist exists, however. I can imagine the chaos of letting a day 0 player play HOS on a heavy roleplay server. It's not a good image, mind you.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: I think it's genuinely overestimated how much impact heads of staff have/should have in-game - and likewise I think the expectations of head of staff players can be unrealistically high, but on the other hand it's a bad thing to not try to set the bar for what a head of staff character should behave like. And I personally have tried to set that bar in my own fashion to demonstrate to other people that playing a character out that is interesting, etc., is totally attainable, and it can be done in a variety of ways, but quality of execution is important to that success, I find. I think it's very explicit that there is a bare minimum expectation of IC conduct that is expected, but on the OOC side there's a list of things not to do rather than to do. Don't act like a terrible person OOCly, try to play an interesting character ICly. The purpose of this server, really, is just to play a character in an interesting manner. Ascertaining specific goals beyond that point will often border on the ideological, and more often than not will lead to disappointment and burnout.

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your characters and their careers?: With the SCC pretty much revealing itself as a legitimate power network, Rockefeller is rolling in his grave in laughter because the attempts by various governmental authorities to control the monopolies have clearly failed in this alternative future. The reveal of the current corporate alliance is pretty much the unveiling of Capitalism Two, which has its own implications that have made themselves immediately obvious in multitudes. The SCC represents similar tones from the Eridani Corporate Federation but perhaps in a much more powerful degree than was initially thought. Where in real life, corporate entities have implied, yet equally immense power through lobbyism and bribery, the power of the SCC is rather blatant, and the SCC doesn't care if you think so or not. A strong majority of my characters, in any case, have been forced to cope with the situation in their own ways. Some of them keep their heads down to avoid being thrown out of an airlock, the others are outright revolutionary types and a few others exploit the current situation for their own purposes.

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?: Captain, HoS, CMO, CE, RD.

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Vira Bolivar, Captain. Etilka Strelitz is my fairly recent HOS character, I plan at some foreseeable (but pretty far off) point to get Lara Lyuricheva-Serikov into a CMO position. Strotdrec Bjani-flatari is my CE that I play on dead hour, and Jun is my RD who I play whenever I feel like roleplaying an absolutely terrible person. Well, who's pretending, I guess.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: I don't personally like answering this question, as I'd rather have other people answer on their own account whether they think I am a good/interesting roleplayer or not. I certainly try to be both?

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?: I understand this and will take additional, personal measures to avoid further administrative action. More specifically, I will endeavor to not continue being a bad person to others, regardless of my own confidence in being technically capable as a head of staff or a decent roleplayer, being a jerk is one of those end-all be-all things that can lead to a permanent ban, and I will avoid that path.

Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?: I am quite familiar with the wiki pages in question.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Scheveningen

[ShesTrying]

I’ll be handling this application. Please gather some feedback and I will touch base with you shortly. 

[Scheveningen]

I have genuinely tried to get feedback, unfortunately. There seems to be quite a bit of ambivalence on this application.

[dinobubba7]

I have interacted with Scheveningen on multiple occasions for a fairly long time ICLY and OOCLY. While our OOC interactions have had a checkered history of us being against one another for various different reasons on occasion, overall they are a caring and compassionate person especially when it comes to the server. Considering the fact they are owning up to what got them stripped of their WL and are self-aware as to what happened and seek to improve and have a second chance shows this. 

More so our interactions have been based ICLY in which they provide a stellar job with the characters that they play which has been demonstrated multiple times throughout the years. When I first joined Aurora I looked up to the various characters Schev portrayed and attempted to incorporate some of their ideas (awfully on my part mind you) into my overall gameplay and RP. They play very grounded characters given the source material and lore established, while also making their characters noticeably unique in terms of mannerisms, style and general attitude that makes them stand out. I have been around for when Schev was previously command whitelisted, specifically when they played as Vira Bolivar which for a fairly long time was considered by most to be one of the best Heads of Security for a good while. Albeit my absence for a while could be me looking through rose-tinted glasses on the matter, I still stand with this claim and possibly those who were around a few years ago would say the same. 

Overall Scheveningen has shown themselves to be a very exceptional role-player, and OOCLY while they might have some issues, overall is putting the effort to improve themselves to avoid situations like what happened occurring once more, so I give their reapplication a +1 and hope to see them back with their whitelist soon.

[Arrow768]

On 14/04/2021 at 02:34, Scheveningen said:

I decided to put this at the top to clarify a few things. Up until fairly recently (2 weeks ago, ish), I had a decent administrative history of conduct for at least two years without a whitelist strip or administrative action in the form of a ban

You have received a 24h posting restriction on the forum (basically what we use as a forum ban for "soft" cases) for abusive behavior on March 20, 2021.
Over the last 2 years you have received a relatively large number of notes and warnings for abusive behavior (both in the game and on the forum)
In the head of staff whitelist rules we have the following requirement:

Quote

Head of Staff applications must show player responsibility and meet community standards to be accepted.

I do not believe that you should receive a head of staff whitelist at this time because you continuously fail to meet community standards. (Be that our ingame rules or forum rules)

[CampinKiller]

Schev plays very good characters, and very interesting characters, that some people would be afraid to play due to the characters, from an IC standpoint, being off-putting or something outside of the normal "nice guy" that some are more comfortable playing. I do not doubt Schev's command ability or roleplaying ability, because I believe it to be very good, from having been a part of this server for about the same amount of time as Schev.

My main concern is the OOC behavior. I do not expect anyone with a whitelist to be an angel OOCly, I am definitely not. However, I do not appreciate being ripped, so to speak, by Schev on the server, on multiple occasions, to include the one that led to this ban (a fact I was not aware of until a couple days ago, as I had believed the ban was due to an in-round event). I have always said that if people have an issue with my characters, me, or my characters actions, to DM me, because I would rather be aware of it, even if I may not agree with it. Considering that, to my knowledge, these instances were based upon my characters and their IC behavior, I find it disconcerting that Schev elected to publicly bash me and my characters over IC behavior, essentially muddling the line between IC and OOC, which is not something that a player with a command whitelist should be doing. I'm neither supporting or opposing this application (right now), but I feel that these concerns and thoughts on my end should be stated.

[Scheveningen]

Essay/editorial response alert of rantsona proportions, sorry.

Arrow:

I don't really know what notes you're calling into question in relation to the actual game, because I don't possess that ability to pull all of them up myself like I do for my warnings (I do not pride myself on having a photograph memory, since I don't have one, either). I have a pretty low ratio of warnings-per-year in relation to the actual game, at any rate, with the forums that ratio is ever so slightly higher. Likewise, the function of notes is as a utility to staff members and not as a utility to the player on what to improve on, because that is what warnings are for, from what I've been told by numerous staff members as being policy. I get it, some players - outstanding and amazing examples as they are - receive zero of those, because they play it safe and try not to come into conflict with others - but how common are those people? One might come around out of a hundred different people that log on to play, one that also tries to engage with the community and embed themselves as hard as they can without causing trouble. It's very unrealistic to expect that same ideal standard from every player. And I think the most crucial aspect of the whitelist existing to is not granting it to people who will take the power and abuse it for their own selfish purposes to make other people miserable. And aside from my prior attempts to reapply during my very first year in this community, I have not seriously abused the command whitelist in such a fashion since, knowing the importance of being responsible in-game perhaps above much else.

I am definitely not comparable to those with the whitelists who otherwise have immaculate history, bless them, I applaud that they are better at conducting themselves than I am, it is inspiring yet really difficult to reach their standard for someone with a history like me. But if that's the bar expectation, that's really bad for many reasons.

So, what's my excuse for being irresponsible and rude from an OOC perspective? None, really. There isn't an excuse. There was some gross personal nonsense on my part going on lately but I am not about to let that be everyone's business ever again. I expect no pity or sympathy for I conducted myself regardless of how hard-hitting events have been for me. What I've resolved for myself is that it will not come to affect anyone such as it already did ever again.

In relation to the forum warnings, however, I will say this. There was spacing of almost a half year between my recent warning (a month ago almost exactly), to the warning before that. And another half year between that incident and the one before that in January 2020. And if we want to go even further back, in 2019 and prior was a string of shitty behavior I've otherwise improved from. I'm not excusing any of my past behavior, instead I'm adamant in that I have been doing better in that my attitude slip-ups are even rarer, which at least should be evidence of improvement. And I am aiming to continue doing better.

But, I believe you are wrong, if there really was any evidence for the severe accusation that I 'continuously fail(ed) to meet community standards', I would've historically received a hell of a lot more administrative action in relation to the actual server. The keyword being continuously, because I don't think I can be compared to instances where certain individuals have led very orchestrated harassment campaigns against others, or have otherwise repeatedly received tempban after tempban for consistently bad gameplay behavior and then one to two permanent bans once they exhaust the collective staff's patience. I regret each and every one of my failures, even the ones I wasn't punished for, yet I aim to recognize when I do fail and not be a stubborn ass about it when I do inevitably mess up in a particular instance and keep striving to avoid prior mistakes from repeating themselves and causing more harm.

Campin:

Hollow as it might sound since I can honestly understand why it might be perceived that this is pretty bad-timed for a 'sorry', I am genuinely and utterly apologetic for how I conducted myself in the incident(s) in question. I was quite frankly bitter for absolutely no reason, for specific scenarios that I did not have 360 degree variety of perspectives on, most importantly not having yours on what went on for those specific incidents. I really should've known better than to fall into the trap of absolutism and believing everything I've heard in terms of venting/criticism as fact rather than understanding that when people vent their frustrations in private, it's probably best to take it as a grain of salt except in the most severe cases (that which you are not even close to categorically falling into, frankly). Obviously I did the wrong thing and let that colour my perception of you, and it was very much lacking in grace and dignity for me to actually voice that view that didn't even have the full story in the first place. I would spend another paragraph pedantically analyzing exactly how hurtful it must've been but I'm sure anyone and everyone reading this will be satisfied with "it was wrong for me to act that way, end of story". Knowing that 'sorry' is not enough, I vow not to do that or any of my above mentioned offenses again, and I fully expect to bear the consequence of not keeping a promise like that if I should fail to keep it. I especially understand better to not act in such a hurtful fashion towards others, and it is not just for my own sake. 

I fully recognize your thoughts and concerns, and consider them all valid. I will not only take them into consideration, I will right those wrongs by not repeating that toxic behavior. I don't expect this long and droning essay to change your mind and I understand if it does not.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Scheveningen

[Scheveningen]

Oh, one more thing;

>However, I do not appreciate being ripped, so to speak, by Schev on the server, on multiple occasions, to include the one that led to this ban (a fact I was not aware of until a couple days ago, as I had believed the ban was due to an in-round event).

Actually, the ban was technically for an in-round event, but not for the gross AOOC comments I made. I believe I received the earlier mentioned warning for that specific faux pas. The ban was, I believe, unrelated to that incident, it was a separate case where I lost my cool for a completely different reason. Extremely minor clarification but the social telephone game is just really weird with passing along the correct details along sometimes.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Scheveningen

[SatinsPristOTD]

This is a really touchy one. I like Schev's roleplaying, like, I enjoy them most of the time. The only problem I have is sometimes you witness the character break and Schev come out instead of the ballin' beast character they've created.

I also know they (just like me) can be a little abrasive OOCly. I don't think it's enough to not grant them a whitelist, but I would like a confirmation that this trait is being worked on.

Facts:
Schev's a good command player, and they're a good one to rely on motivating a round.
Schev can, occasionally have an attitude problem.

I won't fault them for being human, and I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

So it's a hesitant +1 from me.

Edited April 21, 2021 by SatinsPristOTD
GRAMMAR HATES ME

[WickedCybs]

From my experiences, Schev is a competent and nice enough command member when it comes to a round and driving it as a head of staff.

I have little to say personally on the OOC front because I mostly ignore it. Hopefully that aspect is improved, as the OOC peanut gallery is always annoying and the reason my eyes glaze over when I see blue text most of the time.

[ShesTrying]

After conversations with the rest of the team, we have decided to deny this application. 

Feel free to apply at a later date.