Reworking CCIA Incident Reports

[OolongCow]

On 23/11/2024 at 11:17, N8-Toe said:

[...]IR's in my opinion are a chilling effect on roleplay, they inhibit petty conflict or disputes in the RP. It extends conflict in a boring, unfun, and opaque way that removes player agency.[...]

They have a chilling effect on IC bad behavior. If you remove CCIA, you would be FORCED to enact a process by which command players can fire people who are way out of line IC. If I play HoS, and an investigator who gets drunk because "that's my character" starts slurring over the channel EVERY round, what is the process to punish them without CCIA? Ahelping them so admins can argue with them about what a believable character is? The guy will just go "you're impeding on my roleplay, self-destructive and abusive people exist, deal with it" and then cry endlessly if the staff actually punish them for it. It forces admins to OOC state what is and isn't acceptable behavior, which already varies wildly between staff members. "Well [Staff member] didn't get upset about it" will become an excuse for setting yourself on fire or punching your coworker in the face. It would also MASSIVELY increase the workload of the staff team, by requiring them to actively police people's behaviors in-round since there would no longer be any way to actually address what someone did besides ahelping when it happens and screeching the round to a halt as everyone stands still and responds to ahelps.

What if Bava's smuggling had been handled by an admin? It almost WAS, and originally the handling admin was just going to tell them "no, retcon it, it never happened and don't do it again". That was EXPLICITLY what would have occurred before the parties involved insisted it should be handled by CCIA. Now it's an interesting bit of server and character history.

I think CCIA can definitely be made better (the total lack of transparency, seeing outcomes being limited to command WL holders, etc.) but I still think that the cost of doing away with it would be greater than improving it.

 

I'd also like to point out that the future people who dislike CCIA are suggesting is not the future that will actually exist. We are not going to remove CCIA and suddenly you'll be allowed to do whatever you want. Aurora will turn into "haha I am having good roleplay with this person and we got into a fistfight" only for

*BWOINK*

"Why did you punch that guy?"

Followed by five minutes of not playing the game to explain, with potentially twenty more minutes of arguing with admins afterwards over whether you were justified or not. With CCIA, you can just punch the guy and explain later, if it even gets to that point. You won't even be fired, and the charges only "stick" to that one character, instead of you potentially getting temporarily banned if you run out the admins' patience. Removing CCIA also makes admins responsible for handling RP standards in-round, with no way to go round to round with it. You'll be seeing a LOT more "An admin has delayed the round end" messages at 2:20.

Edited November 26 by OolongCow

[N8-Toe]

On 20/11/2024 at 08:17, Powder Miner said:

At the very least, if Carver is right and IRs really are a mechanism to curate the desired level of server believability, it really needs to be treated like it. If IRs are being promoted as a natural outcome for IC conflict, treated by many of the people filing and receiving IRs as a natural outcome for IC conflict, and even treated at least partially by CCIA as a natural outcome for conflict, then actually being a punitive mechanism means that a pipeline is created funneling natural and even beneficial conflict RP directly into a punishment mechanism. I really doubt that this is actually what ANYONE has in mind, especially given that IRs are a lot more onerous than quite a few more unambiguous forms of punishment. Would you rather receive an OOC note which is quick and directly communicative or an IC reprimand which is lengthy, takes a lot of effort, and is ambiguous about whether or not it’s even supposed to be a punishment?

I'm going to quote Powder yet again as they are just so on target here.

 

This is again being framed as the natural outcome of IC, is a funnel to a punishment mechanism. I want IC bad behavior, I want conflict, I want tension, and I want characters who may be abit rough around the edge. if player is playing a character that is consistently preventing the round from progressing. Make a character complaint. if your an HoS and got an alchoholic investigator? RP with them, suspend them maybe, maybe tell them they gotta talk to a doctor or psych, assign a sober buddy. RP with it and tell a story with it. if you IR them, it becomes... what? an interview, some opaque process, and a ruling. Thats not fun, and I come here for fun. And the hard drinking detective is a trope as old as detectives, play with it, sounds fun.

 

I want ex pirate characters who are hard drinking, hard swearing, rough around the edges but trying to fit into a new environment for a better life. I want characters who have strong convictions and will let you know them. I want characters who will bend the rules when they think their boss isn't looking. I want characters who are going to be abit more coarse, who may be rule breakers to a degree, perhaps even criminal sometimes! what do I keep seeing happen? they're here for like. a month or three before getting binned by CCIA. thats no fun, and I doubt their player enjoyed it. As again, we are funneling conflict RP, beneficial conflict RP, into a punishment funnel. you as a player are being penalized for not just playing a go with the flow type.

 

a few final points. was Bava's story fun because of Bava? or because of CCIA. did CCIA make these things fun? or did the characters actually doing the thing. and finally, the game admins are ALREADY responsible for RP standards in a round. this isn't some new thing on them

[Carver]

The people you want should perhaps be subtle then. IRs generally arise from overt misbehaviour, the sort of thing where corporate has to step in because Sec/Command aren’t doing enough to curtail the issue. This is an SCC vessel after all, if you want to break corporate rules you can’t be blatant about it.

Otherwise, it would be incredibly difficult to maintain the immersive atmosphere of an ostensibly professional working environment if people were freely crass and criminal. 

[OolongCow]

15 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

[..]I want IC bad behavior, I want conflict, I want tension, and I want characters who may be abit rough around the edge.[...]

Nobody says that shouldn't be allowed, and it explicitly IS even under the current system. You have to make mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake to get fired under the current system. People who do bad things over and over again should naturally face punishment if they refuse to be sneaky or underhanded about it. People who cause issues, will rack up IC charges. That is just a fact, and isn't something someone who wants to play those characters should try and "dodge", especially by implying that nobody should have any authority to do anything about it.

If I had to play command in a world where people are just immune to consequences of their actions, I wouldn't play command. It would turn into an incredibly ugly mess of OOC resentment and back-and-forth where being around those characters actively discourages me and multiple people I know from playing. It's hard enough dealing with unactionable apathy from your department's members, I can't imagine how hellish it would be to have to command a department when they can tell you to go fuck yourself and there's nothing anyone can do about it because the person refuses to roleplay wanting to keep their job.

15 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

[...]And the hard drinking detective is a trope as old as detectives, play with it, sounds fun.[...]

There's a difference between a detective with a five o' clock shadow that keeps a handle of liquor on his desk and is charismatic and coolheaded, and the reality HoS players face of "sprints to the bar, drinks until slurring, then vomits on the floor". Nobody plays the former, but I can't count the number of the latter I've seen on both hands.

15 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

[...]I want ex pirate characters who are hard drinking, hard swearing, rough around the edges but trying to fit into a new environment for a better life. I want characters who have strong convictions and will let you know them. I want characters who will bend the rules when they think their boss isn't looking. I want characters who are going to be abit more coarse, who may be rule breakers to a degree, perhaps even criminal sometimes![...]

Every single one of these exists and is currently actively played by server members.

15 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

[...]they're here for like. a month or three before getting binned by CCIA.[...]

The only people fired since Konyang started that weren't one-off characters played during events that honestly could've been slapped for OOC rule violations are Bava and Firetalon. Bava operated a hard drug smuggling operation in her workplace and is STILL able to come back in a few months after being released from prison if their player is interested. Firetalon was a literal pirate who got into multiple violent fights aboard the ship that resulted in serious injury. I don't understand how you can genuinely look at their cases and go "CCIA is too harsh..." You don't see those "hard" characters again, because they're usually played by newer players, or discarded as boring by existing ones. They aren't fired and it's incredibly misleading to state you see them "getting binned by CCIA".

People harassed the CEO of NanoTrasen's relative when she visited and they were barely slapped on the wrist. You are absolutely exaggerating an issue that does not exist.

Quote

[...]a few final points. was Bava's story fun because of Bava? or because of CCIA. did CCIA make these things fun? or did the characters actually doing the thing.[...]

It's not CCIA's job to "make it fun"? Without CCIA, an admin would've just pointed at Bava and said "you never did that, your RP is deleted" and that would be that. CCIA actively prevented admins from just telling people "no, you CANNOT do that". THAT is what CCIA's job is. Making it so the fun police don't show up and go "you RP'd wrong, don't do that again".

Quote

[...]and finally, the game admins are ALREADY responsible for RP standards in a round. this isn't some new thing on them[...]

Only insofar as actual server rule breaks are concerned. Admins have no obligation currently to bwoink people and go "why did you stab that guy?" unless they think it's someone griefing the server, because if you stab someone, CCIA will handle it. They don't have to micromanage everyone's RP and are allowed to actually play the game most of the time, only worrying about server rules. Which leads to fewer ahelps, bwoinks, and so on.

If there was no CCIA, suddenly it is their job to stop what they're doing and ask "why did you stab that guy?". Then instead of a slow review process like CCIA uses, the admin is forced to either ban you or ban/delete your character before the round ends. If you think CCIA makes bad calls, just wait until admins have to delay round end for forty minutes to ask the Guwan chef why they stabbed the Biesellite security officer, check logs, and then make a judgement on what to do under a time constraint. Because that is what will happen in a HRP environment. That already happens in LRP with much lower standards.

Edited November 26 by OolongCow

[Fyni]

1 hour ago, OolongCow said:

If there was no CCIA, suddenly it is their job to stop what they're doing and ask "why did you stab that guy?". Then instead of a slow review process like CCIA uses, the admin is forced to either ban you or ban/delete your character before the round ends. If you think CCIA makes bad calls, just wait until admins have to delay round end for forty minutes to ask the Guwan chef why they stabbed the Biesellite security officer, check logs, and then make a judgement on what to do under a time constraint. Because that is what will happen in a HRP environment. That already happens in LRP with much lower standards.

This is the biggest fact I think - all the character who bend on what is acceptable in the roleplay workplace enviroment of the Horizon only work because there is the CCIA. Without it, more drastic and none IC actions must be taken - unless attacking people, been caught with illicit substances etc. is meant to be acceptable in character, at which point the Horizon setting breaks. Lower stakes punishments which are less of an OOC punishment might be better but the facade of accountability IC allows these things to continue.

Other HRP servers I played on in the past did not have anything close to the canon conflicts and (in universe) law breaking as Aurora does, and that's because on those other servers you get a character deleted, a temp ban or noted for breaking the setting too much.

[Fluffy]

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

They have a chilling effect on IC bad behavior.

"Bad" IC behavior has no bearing on this, we are talking about OOC enjoyment, antags do "bad" IC behavior all around the clock, and we like them to do it. I'm afraid this step relies on the duality of the meaning of "bad", aka the ambiguous context, because otherwise it wouldn't have made sense to point this out, "They do things that are ICly bad but give us OOC fun and make the game fun" wouldn't work swapped here. This passage relies on the equivocation of the two contexts to work.

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

If you remove CCIA, you would be FORCED to enact a process by which command players can fire people who are way out of line IC.

I think very few people want to completely remove CCIA here, there's an entire sea of options between "it's essentially perfect as is" and "we need to remove it", with noone advocating for the later as far as I can tell, at least here. This is a slippery slope. Ontop of that, that we'd need to be forced to enact said process is in itself ungrounded, an easy counterexample (that was also already presented in this very thread) is the moderation team handling cases that fall too much out of line, something they already do to some extent.

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

If I play HoS, and an investigator who gets drunk because "that's my character" starts slurring over the channel EVERY round, what is the process to punish them without CCIA? Ahelping them so admins can argue with them about what a believable character is? The guy will just go "you're impeding on my roleplay, self-destructive and abusive people exist, deal with it" and then cry endlessly if the staff actually punish them for it.

Suspend him, say that he needs therapy, mandatory medical treatment and similar are options. Depending on the specifics this could be something that CCIA could actually look into if it is just annoying, I don't think anyone here has a problem with that.

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

It forces admins to OOC state what is and isn't acceptable behavior, which already varies wildly between staff members.

So... clearly stating what the rules mean... Is in your idea a bad thing? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to interpret this otherwise? Usually, being clear with the rules is what you want to do when you want people to follow them, being unclear is what you want to do when you want to have free reign and be as little accountable as possible because noone can really be sure what exactly the thing means, so noone can really show that you did or didn't apply it correctly.

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

It would also MASSIVELY increase the workload of the staff team, by requiring them to actively police people's behaviors in-round since there would no longer be any way to actually address what someone did besides ahelping when it happens and screeching the round to a halt as everyone stands still and responds to ahelps.

Responding to an ahelp or similar overall takes less workload than reading an IR, making up a response, scheduling interview(s), and so on, in total man-hours, I believe. Also, as above, noone seems to be advocating for the complete eradication of any possible form of CCIA.

21 hours ago, OolongCow said:

What if Bava's smuggling had been handled by an admin? It almost WAS, and originally the handling admin was just going to tell them "no, retcon it, it never happened and don't do it again". That was EXPLICITLY what would have occurred before the parties involved insisted it should be handled by CCIA. Now it's an interesting bit of server and character history.

This is something I don't think anyone here would have an issue with? Again, I don't believe the point is the complete eradication of CCIA, but a reworking of it. It is also the name of the thread.

 

The rest of that answer seems to keep going off the assumption the request is to completely remove it, which it isn't, so I don't think I need to address it further (?), with the exception of:

31 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

Nobody says that shouldn't be allowed, and it explicitly IS even under the current system. You have to make mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake to get fired under the current system. People who do bad things over and over again should naturally face punishment if they refuse to be sneaky or underhanded about it. People who cause issues, will rack up IC charges. That is just a fact, and isn't something someone who wants to play those characters should try and "dodge", especially by implying that nobody should have any authority to do anything about it.

So, does it have a chilling effect, or do we want that behaviors from the characters? Both cannot be true at the same time, if we're chill-effecting it, we are discouraging those behaviors

 

 

-----------

Aside from that, riddle me this: We have a megacorporations conglomerate that spans most of the known universe, with control over entire governments, planets, arguably entire species; their long arms can fuel and stop wars, their untold number of vessels move people and resources across the entire galaxy at superluminal speeds. To be employed by the conglomerate is to be part of untold billions of employees from hundreds if not thousands of planets, most of which corporate controlled to some extent; The conglomerate sends thousands of civilians to battle to secure their corporate interests, commits crimes against humanity, the mere SCC flag on a ship is sufficient for any vessel of any faction to not want to as much as interfere with it (I still feel sorry for 3rd party ships), the conglomerate can field armies of people and has the headquarter permanently stationed with two frigades to protect it, an entire defense system comparable to a battle cruiser, and an entire paramilitary ERT as a third defense system; ontop of that, the conglomerate has an entire paramilitary contractor group as part of it, which is used by "[...] those who quickly need an expendable force to do their bidding" and are "[...] always holding at least some influence in any war-torn region of space"; the SCC has also little to no regard against the risk of losing entire vessels, as seen eg. when we battled alongside the Icarus and all available vessels that managed to arrive in time against the Southern Fleet Administration to defend the Odin against the equivalent of an in-universe Tzar nuclear bomb. How am I supposed to believe that they would care about John Tajara being called a stupid cat by John Sol and given a slap, and they wouldn't just shrug, say it never happened, and that if you don't like it you can resign as there's a million more people ready to take your job, that they would send someone all the way from the Odin (Biesel) to wherever this particular vessel (the Horizon) is, burning phoron that literally costs more than your life, for anything short of something that would either compromise the mission or the ship? Do you want me to believe that they would so much care about John Investigator, one of the untold billions of employees in one of the untold millions of facilities, that got drunk and slurred some lizards on comms? Meanwhile, in reality, far less powerful corporations don't care about far worse things? That Blizzard is supposedly still trying to find out who steals breast milk from the company fridge, that EA hid far worse allegations I won't list here against some of their employees, but the SCC, with all the power and scale, practically unbound by laws, in corporate dystopian capitalism simulator 2466, would investigate those?

[OolongCow]

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

"Bad" IC behavior has no bearing on this, we are talking about OOC enjoyment, antags do "bad" IC behavior all around the clock, and we like them to do it. I'm afraid this step relies on the duality of the meaning of "bad", aka the ambiguous context, because otherwise it wouldn't have made sense to point this out, "They do things that are ICly bad but give us OOC fun and make the game fun" wouldn't work swapped here. This passage relies on the equivocation of the two contexts to work.

You know what I mean by "bad". I am not being unclear when I say that. People who break laws are, IC, doing wrong. And they would be fired in the setting we have. If this was a pirate ship it wouldn't matter because of course it's understandable they'd do those things. But they're on a flying office building.

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

Suspend him, say that he needs therapy, mandatory medical treatment and similar are options. Depending on the specifics this could be something that CCIA could actually look into if it is just annoying, I don't think anyone here has a problem with that.

I said that under the presumption the people I was speaking to (mostly N8) wanted CCIA gone, as that was an entirely reasonable takeaway from how he was speaking.

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

So... clearly stating what the rules mean... Is in your idea a bad thing? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to interpret this otherwise? Usually, being clear with the rules is what you want to do when you want people to follow them, being unclear is what you want to do when you want to have free reign and be as little accountable as possible because noone can really be sure what exactly the thing means, so noone can really show that you did or didn't apply it correctly.

Except that in this context, it's not dictating the rules, it's dictating what people are allowed to roleplay, which is bad. Under the current system, admins only care about rule breaks, which two Unathi getting into a knife fight for understandable reasons is not. Without CCIA, it would be turned into a potential breach of the rules, which is basically up to the admins to decide on the spot, with no time to think it over or speak to people outside of ahelps.

CCIA prevents admins from having to treat everything like it might be a rule break. It stops them from having to constantly tell everyone "okay stop playing the game and respond to my questions". That is a net positive that outweighs its current negatives, in my opinion. I already stated that I think CCIA can definitely be improved (which was the ORIGINAL point of this thread, before people started replying with how much they think it's a bad thing while not submitting any actually helpful suggestions).

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

Responding to an ahelp or similar overall takes less workload than reading an IR, making up a response, scheduling interview(s), and so on, in total man-hours, I believe.

The problem, Fluffy, is that IRs take place outside of the round. They take longer, but they don't stop the round or anyone in it from playing the game while it's happening. Ahelps HAVE to happen and be resolved in the SAME round the currently IR'able event occurred. If someone does something that would get them IR'd at 2:00, admins have to be online, take the ahelp, then delay the round end until the issue is closed, because the in-game moderation tools just do not support long-term solutions besides a ban. If they let it slide so they can "get to it later", they just have to perform an OOC IR equivalent anyway. If a Guwan stabs someone at 2:00 and their player logs out when the round ends, the process of dealing with the issue becomes unbelievably messy and stops saving any effort at that point.

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

So, does it have a chilling effect, or do we want that behaviors from the characters?

I personally don't mind that behavior at all. I mind when it happens and the character destroys the setting by just getting away with it forever. If you play a criminal character, you're behaving no differently from playing an untagged shell or IPC-loving Dominian. If you do bad things, you are agreeing that it could go south and that character could be lost. And that's okay. 

 

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

How am I supposed to believe that they would care about John Tajara being called a stupid cat by John Sol and given a slap, and they wouldn't just shrug, say it never happened,

They explicitly do this. Every punishment for similar IRs is literally just a slap on the wrist that affects you in no way whatsoever except character records.

 

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

Do you want me to believe that they would so much care about John Investigator, one of the untold billions of employees in one of the untold millions of facilities, that got drunk and slurred some lizards on comms?

They would, because people being shitty and drunk loses them money. By your own logic, why would they ever give anyone even the slightest hint of clemency? More than being uncaring, why wouldn't they be firing people on the spot for the tiniest of infractions?

Because that sucks for the players and nobody wants to deal with that.

They care, because it makes the most number of players happy for things to be that way.

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

That Blizzard is supposedly still trying to find out who steals breast milk from the company fridge, that EA hid far worse allegations I won't list here against some of their employees, but the SCC, with all the power and scale, practically unbound by laws, in corporate dystopian capitalism simulator 2466, would investigate those?

Your comparison is backwards. They aren't apathetic, those companies actively protect those people, because getting rid of them would collapse their structure. Just like firing a captain for calling a Tajara "cat" would be stupid, so CCIA doesn't even bother doing anything but putting a token footnote on his file.

[Butterrobber202]

21 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

text

For the record, I think the big thing here with Bava is that the admin should've never been tempted to go, "No, retcon this. You should never do this." Characters should be allowed to make stupid decisions ICly, because our rules absolutely allow that. In the exact same vein, straight up canon murder is allowed by the letter of the rules so long as it was escalated correctly.

But the CCIA serve as an OOC buffer so that drastic IC actions like that can be filtered ICly rather than admins stepping going "nuh uh."

[Fluffy]

4 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

I am not being unclear when I say that.

You are, as we're talking about OOC enjoyment, that passage only makes sense by playing into the equivocation, try to substitute the sentence with what I wrote and you'll see that it doesn't work.

7 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

I said that under the presumption the people I was speaking to (mostly N8) wanted CCIA gone, as that was an entirely reasonable takeaway from how he was speaking.

Fair.

8 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

Except that in this context, it's not dictating the rules, it's dictating what people are allowed to roleplay, which is bad.

We already do this, try to roleplay someone that is crazy, or an SRF member, and you'll see.

9 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

Under the current system, admins only care about rule breaks, which two Unathi getting into a knife fight for understandable reasons is not. Without CCIA, it would be turned into a potential breach of the rules, which is basically up to the admins to decide on the spot, with no time to think it over or speak to people outside of ahelps.

13 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

CCIA prevents admins from having to treat everything like it might be a rule break. It stops them from having to constantly tell everyone "okay stop playing the game and respond to my questions".

This is a slippery slope, nothing says it would be turned into a breach of the rule, CCIA does not prevent rules from being broken, nor intervenes when actual rules are broken, we can say the SCC doesn't care and it's not against the server rules.

14 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

The problem, Fluffy, is that IRs take place outside of the round. They take longer, but they don't stop the round or anyone in it from playing the game while it's happening. Ahelps HAVE to happen and be resolved in the SAME round the currently IR'able event occurred. If someone does something that would get them IR'd at 2:00, admins have to be online, take the ahelp, then delay the round end until the issue is closed, because the in-game moderation tools just do not support long-term solutions besides a ban. If they let it slide so they can "get to it later", they just have to perform an OOC IR equivalent anyway. If a Guwan stabs someone at 2:00 and their player logs out when the round ends, the process of dealing with the issue becomes unbelievably messy and stops saving any effort at that point.

Ontop of still being a slippery slope, none of this prevents someone from pressing F1 and saying "uhgm acktually I think this person is breaching the rule about self preservation", at which point you have to handle both an ahelp (with all that you said) and an IR.

15 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

They explicitly do this. Every punishment for similar IRs is literally just a slap on the wrist that affects you in no way whatsoever except character records.

No, you'd get increasingly harsh punishments, up to being fired (your character deleted), on repeated offenses, which indeed affects you; Also you have to pick one, either it has a chilling effect, or it does not affect you in any way whatsoever. It cannot be both.

20 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

They would, because people being shitty and drunk loses them money. By your own logic, why would they ever give anyone even the slightest hint of clemency? More than being uncaring, why wouldn't they be firing people on the spot for the tiniest of infractions?

Because that sucks for the players and nobody wants to deal with that.

They care, because it makes the most number of players happy for things to be that way.

An investigator canonically do little to nothing, it's just there, how is it losing them money (more than it's already)? If it was not investigating cases canonically, now that'd be losing them money, but canonical cases are few and far between (and that supposes the SCC would care besides the mere appearance that they care if anything bad happens to you, which clearly they do not). If you are drunk in a canon event / investigation and fuck it up, that is entirely on you and that's when I can absolutely see the CCIA hammer come down swinging, same if you fail to perform your duty of generating them money or risk the vessel or similar, but being drunk and calling the Vaurca a stupid bug and otherwise not failing anything? They should do the "yea we'll look into it... sometimes this century".

25 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

Your comparison is backwards. They aren't apathetic, those companies actively protect those people, because getting rid of them would collapse their structure. Just like firing a captain for calling a Tajara "cat" would be stupid, so CCIA doesn't even bother doing anything but putting a token footnote on his file.

No, it's exactly correct: They are protecting the company (not those people, though it could be a side effect), because they would be liable to pay hefty fines in court if they would admit fault, few things are better than a confession. Vice versa, in corporate dystopia simulator 2466 where Biesel is for all intents and purposes a puppet state and they can just make the issue disappear, they would just shrug their shoulders and tell you they'll look into it (sometimes in this century) and if you don't like it you can resign for anything but bombastic issues or things that would cut their bottom line, which an alien being racism'd isn't. They would tell you to let Security know when it happens until they can look into it. Which is never.

[OolongCow]

53 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

We already do this, try to roleplay someone that is crazy, or an SRF member, and you'll see.

Yes. Because those are OOC rules made to stop CCIA from tearing their hair out over constant, stupid, and frivolous IRs.

55 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

Also you have to pick one, either it has a chilling effect, or it does not affect you in any way whatsoever. It cannot be both.

People being terrified of "punishments" that literally don't mean anything is not CCIA's fault. It's the fault of people who perpetuate the idea of "OH MY GOD YOU MADE SOMEONE MAD YOU'RE GONNA GET FIRED!!!" Like the people I was replying to. You can literally just ask Bear how many people CCIA has actually fired for reasons that aren't actual crimes after multiple offenses. It's not a lot.

57 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

they would just shrug their shoulders and tell you they'll look into it (sometimes in this century) and if you don't like it you can resign for anything but bombastic issues or things that would cut their bottom line, which an alien being racism'd isn't. They would tell you to let Security know when it happens until they can look into it. Which is never.

Except I'm not disagreeing with you on that. CCIA only actually does anything meaningful when it's an actual issue for the SCC. They LITERALLY don't care about workplace arguments unless they have a reason to think it'll affect productivity. "We'll look into it never" is pretty much exactly what "a warning was given" means in the DO notice section of the WI. It's literally just there for posterity.

[Fluffy]

4 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

Yes. Because those are OOC rules made to stop CCIA from tearing their hair out over constant, stupid, and frivolous IRs.

I don't think that's the reason you can't play an ex-SRF, or a primary aposthat of dominia, or one of those investigation religious police dominia use, etc. The headmin can correct me if I'm wrong.

7 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

People being terrified of "punishments" that literally don't mean anything

7 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

They LITERALLY don't care about workplace arguments unless they have a reason to think it'll affect productivity. "We'll look into it never" is pretty much exactly what "a warning was given" means in the DO notice section of the WI. It's literally just there for posterity.

This argument works better for my position than yours; if they don't mean anything, and the majority of people who replied either doesn't like them or consider them an active detrimental factor of their enjoyment of the server, we can aswell save ourself the trouble of writing them, doing interviews and whatever else, and just not do them unless it's something actually severe.

Also again, you have to choose, either they don't care and the punishment is inconsequential etc., at which point there's no reason to keep them, or they have a chilling effect and do something, at which point you can scroll back and see that that "something" is negative, and we should not do them. You cannot keep both stances at the same time, they are actively contraddicting each other.

[N8-Toe]

Punishment Punishment Punishment Punishment why is it about punishment. Why does everything need a punishment? It is again creation a funnel to channel RP into punishment. What is this giving us? It is as we have previously said putting a chill on RP, even those supporting IR's in its current form have said it may be a chilling effect. So how does this make this game more fun. because it is a game, a roleplay game. We have this massive setting of frictional, conflicting groups and movements. We have dregs and all of this wonderful lore and slang, we have sinta pirates, mictlani rebels, dominia hardliners, creven gangsters, and other interesting concepts. Yet we're here saying if you make one of these, and you make them abit coarse... well you deserve that punishment. Thank you for embracing the lore and the setting, thank you for creating a character and creating conflict and RP content in a round. We're in return going to subject you to an opaque court and punishment that has an OOC element too it. As this is being presented as CCIA punishment in leiu of administrative punishment. Making this a, atleast partially, OOC enforcement mechanism.

 

but do we need that mechanism?

 

Martin the Martian miner gets in a fight with Charlie the Creven in the bar over not important. Do you know what Martin's punishment is? John Sol security officer and his three friends show up and beat martin his rights, put him in the brig or fine him. The Captain, XO, or OM come tell him off. they say the damage is coming out of his check, and if his next ore load isn't bursting? well his ass is going to be scrubbing the hull. Martin has received an IC punishment. There has been an action and a reaction. This has added to the round, created conflict, created RP, created fun. So why do they need punishment? why do they need to get subject to an OOC penalty for roleplaying.

 

Detective Callahan is drinking, slipping bourbon into his coffee as he monologues about some Dame in kongyang that did him dirty. Maybe he drinks abit too much. the HoS can pull him into his office, tell him to clean up his act, make him go see Doctor Denise in medical, perhaps he sits down and talks about this dame, helps him move on from drinking. And if she shows up to a case or an incident drunk? Well its his gun and his badge. Action, reaction. There was consequence in round and in roleplay. Why does this demand punishment? what fun is gained from that?

 

Jay the Janitor calls Carla the Cook a lizard. So they wont serve Jay, and people in the kitchen eating who saw this were murmuring, or getting mad. Jay's action had consequence, no hot food fro him, people think he's a jerk. and the Captain or XO may pull him aside and tell him those are inside thoughts. Again, action, reaction. Why is punishment needed?

 

Why do these actions scream out for punishment? have they made the game worse? have they harmed the game and story? forget for a moment the lore and setting, forget the SCC's scale yet seeming interest in the most minor issues. Why do any of these deserve OOC punishment?

 

@OolongCowyou keep posting about how this isn't how IR's work. but go give the archive a look? also IR/CCIA policy on what is or isn't deserving of punishment is not on the wiki, it isn't written anywhere. And if it is not somewhere a new player could see and know it. it does not for all intents and purpose exist. so it is irrelevant to this discussion.

 

Conflict is acceptable, even if you are not an antag, but it needs to be believable, and meet roleplay standards. The average Joe will not simply decide to blow up their workplace one day. Keep in mind, the more drastic the action, the more motivated your character has to be to commit to it, and the consequences it brings. Unless you’re an antagonist, this motivation has to be developed through roleplay on the server: backstory cannot legitimize drastic things, such as trying to assault security staff because of a bad childhood, for example. It is also very much encouraged that you roleplay out the consequences to such conflict where possible.

Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact, but you would not realistically go berserk or attempt to kill someone if they stole your prized pen, for instance. Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it.

Killing in self-defense in NOT preferred. If possible, always try to flee, or disable your opponent. If your character does commit a murder in a canon setting, please roleplay out the effects it would have on your character as well.

All events of conflict will be considered canon unless otherwise agreed upon by both parties or spurred by a round antagonist-related action. Duty Officer involvement may result in a specific conflict being made canon regardless of player agreement, as seen fit. This still does not exempt you from rules on metagaming - your character does not acquire knowledge of syndicate items, xenos, etc. simply because they have interacted with them in previous rounds.

 

above is the rules for conflict that are relevant to this conversation. These are already governed by the server moderators and game admins. The enforcement already exists, the window of acceptibility is already set. a hanger tech who guts the captain because he got told to stop smoking is F1 worthy. we dont need CCIA as this snail mail pace moderation team atop the one we have. and if you think a character is CONSISTENTLY making the round lesser and just inhibiting others from RP'ing? file a character complaint.

 

So N8, you may ask? what should we do with CCIA and IR's I hear you asking? I dont think I'd loose sleep if it just full on went away. but also I can see some merit to the idea.

idea 1: We just drastically raise the threshold for an IR. Perhaps only Command or the Captain/XO can file them. perhaps they can only be filed for long term ongoing grievences of critical hampering to ship operations. IE an embezzlement ring

idea 2: we make IR's more in round. perhaps command carries out the investigation and turns in their report to CCIA. Or if CCIA needs to interview or show up, we allow lying again, we do group intrviews, we do meetings with command, meetings in the workplace ect ect. Make a mini event out of it all in round. let me burn evidence, let me get my friend to swearsies for realsies I'm clean. Perhaps they show up unannounced, poke around, put people on edge.

 

The concept of corporate occasionally giving its baleful eye a glance horizons way can be neat, can be used to be fun and reinforce the setting. but it should imo be only for worthwhile things that harm the ship or its mission, and things that CCIA being involved in itself makes it more fun. Not just the sudden end to something that is fun

Edited November 27 by N8-Toe

[Carver]

Those proposed changes to CCIA would utterly ruin the point of CCIA. The value of CCIA is that, as it were, they are without bias and every matter is seen to. Even the smallest IR is at least read no matter who reports it, and the investigations are carried out by an ostensibly neutral party who can’t be bribed and is held to a significantly higher standard than any command member due to being a member of server staff.

Without that guarantee of equal and fair investigation, of what value is CCIA? Nothing at all. Those proposed changes effectively delete it.

[N8-Toe]

43 minutes ago, Carver said:

Those proposed changes to CCIA would utterly ruin the point of CCIA. The value of CCIA is that, as it were, they are without bias and every matter is seen to. Even the smallest IR is at least read no matter who reports it, and the investigations are carried out by an ostensibly neutral party who can’t be bribed and is held to a significantly higher standard than any command member due to being a member of server staff.

Without that guarantee of equal and fair investigation, of what value is CCIA? Nothing at all. Those proposed changes effectively delete it.

it'd be more fun. I am here for fun. if a player is inhibiting the round, I can ask a neutral mod to do something. go back again and read over. If CCIA should have any functon it should be in the pursuit of making things fun. adding to the RP than being the death of it

Edited November 27 by N8-Toe

[NothingNew]

I think another thing to factor into this discussion is the effect IRs have on the application of in-round Corporate Regulations (Space Law) - Whenever there's a disagreement on the application of law it's become rather stock and standard for the officers to push for an IR as opposed to seeking solutions to such disagreements in-round via the HoS or possibly Captain. It ends up feeling quite stonewalled and dilutes the application of it as officers have no inclination to seek evidence in cases where there might need to be, or on the subjectivity of what regulations were broken and to what severity - There ought to be wiggle room here, but usually it's whatever ends in the highest detention time that gets sought, and since there's no need for security to really prove they have the right person it is disincentive to detective players since you don't really need any evidence to apply maximum charges.

 

In that sense, issues that could be resolved in-round are instead pushed to be resolved out-of-round. I think some sort of intermediary role to in-round conflict (possibly whitelisted, if need be) could help to alleviate this, such as a lawyer Human Resource role or something similar. Maybe conflicts between characters that might escalate to breaches of Regulation can also be met by the ship's psychologist?

Edited November 27 by NothingNew

[Dreamix]

  A lot of the discussion above is arguing in circles of "CCIAA bad" and "no actually CCIAA good", that is entirely off-topic to the suggestion of actually improving IRs or CCIAA.

 

 

On 25/11/2024 at 00:54, Bear said:

(...)

As for the matter of transparency, I will say, the IR process has been in the process of being transcribed to an easy to read breakdown for the wiki for some time before this discussion began. You can also DM me at any point with questions related to the CCIA. That said, our punishments are often situational, proportional, and discussed by the agents before final resolution. They are not easy to codify as no two situations are typically alike instead they follow previous precedents/examples and the spirit of the CCIA. I also want to say now the team's discussions/debates/ and what was considered or not considered will never be public, just like your ooc tickets are not either. The oversight for the CCIA agents (Myself, Admin liaisons, and finally the Headmin) are the ones who moderate the team's actions from the OOC standpoint. If you want to make sure about something after your IR is closed you can DM me or an admin liaison (currently Campin as well as the headmin Mel) with any concerns/questions. I want everyone to remember you have 3 avenues to pursue if you do not agree or like your outcome. First and foremost is a staff complaint. Myself and the headmin will look at the records and see if all the steps were taken by the agent, if all appropriate parties were interviewed, and if the outcome is logical. The Headmin/Liaison reviewing this has the only/final say on the outcome of the ruling. You do not need to feel bad about staff complaining an IR, if you think it was not handled well, I actively encourage you to.

(...)

A big part of this should be put on the wiki or something, cause it's not written down anywhere. I don't see it anywhere stating that Mel and Campin are CCIAA admin liaisons. DMing random staff should never be the solution to players not being sure about some staff process, for a lot of reasons.

As for transparency and oversight. I'm not proposing that CCIAA discussions should be made public, but at least the decisions and actions taken should be, written down in the IR threads for everyone to plainly see. They shouldn't be left in the old and unmaintained web-interface, requiring a command whitelist, still named "DO Actions"... I doubt half of our players even know the webinterface is a thing.

I think this would greatly help with transparency, but it wouldn't require a lot of effort at all, and it wouldn't really make any staff secrets or discussions public.

 

As for OOC ahelps, they are not public, no. But there is much more communication between player and admin/mod staff, than there is between player and CCIAA. I can ahelp at any time in the round if I'm not sure about something, and an admin or mod will answer soon. If I ahelp someone doing bad, it will be resolved in the round it happened. Or I can ask in #serious_discussion about rules, if the matter isn't happening right now in game. And if someone says "admins bad", I can look up their staff complaint where they contest that decision, and see that they're not telling the full picture and I agree with the staff ruling, as well as see their reasoning and arguments.

There isn't anything like that for CCIAA/IRs, and their process is entirely opaque, and that's bad. I cannot ahelp about an IR that wasn't opened up yet, I cannot ask in #serious_discussion about something I will maybe one day be IRd about (or maybe not). And if someone does open up that IR, I will only know if that is valid a week or two later, after at least one interview. If an IR is taking a long time, I've no idea if it's a scheduling problem, or if there's 20 people to interview, or if everyone just forgot about the IR. I do not know how CCIAA operate, what do they do in the investigations they pick up, if they are a neutral party and operate without bias. I just have to blindly trust that CCIAA are doing all of this, with no way to check it.

Edited November 27 by Dreamix

[OolongCow]

2 hours ago, NothingNew said:

I think another thing to factor into this discussion is the effect IRs have on the application of in-round Corporate Regulations (Space Law) - Whenever there's a disagreement on the application of law it's become rather stock and standard for the officers to push for an IR as opposed to seeking solutions to such disagreements in-round via the HoS or possibly Captain. It ends up feeling quite stonewalled and dilutes the application of it as officers have no inclination to seek evidence in cases where there might need to be, or on the subjectivity of what regulations were broken and to what severity

The overwhelming majority of charges filed are due to antags, which aren't canon and can't be IR'd. So that only leaves canonical charges against someone who committed a crime, which rarely happens because people don't generally play criminals on the flagship of a megacorporation. And when that does happen, as someone who plays HoS, either it gets handled by the normal procedure of charging someone, or it's IR'd because it's too close to the end of the round / an investigation couldn't be performed / it's a serious enough crime to require an IR regardless. I've genuinely never seen an officer get upset about a canon charge filed and IR to argue about it, even when the quality of security was significantly lower than it is now. Can you give an example of what you're claiming happening? I genuinely can't think of a single one.

[Melariara]

Hello. As a CCIA Liaison and Headmin that also overwatches CCIA, I figured I'd better chime in with my two cents on this.

CCIA exists in the same regard that you, in your real life job, would have HR exist. You go to HR when you have issues with someone. Someone picking on you? Bullying you? Report it, get a paperwork trail. Minor things such at this, people will likely get told off, with the possibility of something going on their character record [i]that that person can see on the web interface and will show up ICly on that characters security records/command notes and there is nothing the player can do about that[/i]. Its up to security and command to ICly make note of these actions and plan accordingly.

Characters never get deleted just for one thing. People have to actively fuck around and find out to have that happen, such in the case, as mentioned above, with Bava. As stated, Bava had a drug ring running that was actively selling cocaine on the ship. CCIA hates canning characters so much that they get to come back after some time. The only big time that a character will get canned is if they perform a mutiny on a canon event round, as a semi-recent reference.

CCIA is not being removed. Bear and I have come to an agreement that a few new wiki pages will come about from this so we can further help players understand what CCIA is, and what it is for. CCIA is not a boogeyman out to get you. CCIA is here to moderate on an IC level.

 

I will be dismissing this, and the team will be working together to create new pages to ensure the player base understands what CCIA is and its purpose on the server. If you have any questions regarding this, my DMs are open, as are Bear's.

Locking and archiving.