Make IC reports known to IAAs

[Frances]

Simple enough.

The way things currently are, IC reports are confidential, and strictly kept between the involved parties and the DOs. This prevents people from complaining or gossiping about reports, among other things.

Could it be interesting to allow IAAs to get involved in incident reports, purely on an observational basis? Basically, a report is filed, IAAs become aware of it, and they could observe the reported crew, take notes, and evaluate. Interview friends, coworkers, the complainant. They couldn't inform any uninvolved people of the complaint, naturally.

This could help lighten the workload of DOs, as it's rather difficult and formal to get one specific DO to meet one specific character, while IAAs can drop in and out of cases much more casually.

Thoughts?

[Killerhurtz]

Sounds like a perfectly acceptable idea to me. IAAs being technically agents from Central to handle issues, it would make sense that they would have access to all precedents of a person.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

What, and give IAAs something to do besides pretend they're part of security? Blasphemy!

XD

[MagnificentMelkior]

I would like this, as an occasional IAA player.

[EvilBrage]

I never understood why we needed DO's since apparently IAA's are supposed to fill that role (dealing with complaints and mediating conflict,) but uhh.

Yeah. Sure.

[Frances]

I never understood why we needed DO's since apparently IAA's are supposed to fill that role (dealing with complaints and mediating conflict,) but uhh.

Yeah. Sure.

Well, IAAs can't fire people or take permanent action, because they're literally random players (and some of them are really shitty).

DOs are able to do more, but it's a more difficult process (you gotta take a case, then meet with the person - I sort of wonder if DOs shouldn't simply handle cases on a whim and talk to each other as needed). What's neat about IAAs is that they can actually do a lot of data collection that could help with DOs.

Say someone is targeted by a sexual harassment complaint. Pretty much all a DO can do is meet with that person, meet with the complaint's originator, and that's it. If the character is a huge pervert, there's not gonna be any way for the DO to know (unless other people make complaints) because the DO doesn't have a constant station presence. They come in a round, interview involved parties, and leave. An IAA that was intent on keeping an eye on this character, however, could write notes of further incidents, without people even needing to report them (say the character keeps hitting on people over comms. That's super easy to monitor). And then bam, IA report, adjoined to the IC case, and used to deal judgement.

Of course this requires IAAs to actually remain objective in their reports (looking at you, Terrence Frank.)

[jackfractal]

Hmm... ok, so what if we give the IAA role a badge.

If you're a random greyshirt and you roll IAA, you get a badge that says "Nanotransen Official Internal Affairs Agent - Class 1".

If you're someone on the DO team, you get a badge that says "Nanotransen Official Internal Affairs Agent - Class 2".

If you have a Class 2 license, you're allowed to do Duty Officer stuff on station. We could even put it on a poster in the IAA's office explaining the difference between Class 1 and Class 2 investigators.

[Frances]

If you have a Class 2 license, you're allowed to do Duty Officer stuff on station. We could even put it on a poster in the IAA's office explaining the difference between Class 1 and Class 2 investigators.

What do you define as Duty Officer stuff? Having on-station Duty Officers could be a pretty big gamechanger. It might go against the "one person per case" modus that DOs currently operate under, though.

[jackfractal]

I was thinking mostly of doing the interviews, that they'd be able to drop into the 'official case file' (read: the forum thread) so the other DO's don't necessarily have to do all the interviews themselves if the people they're trying to interview are only on during weird hours.

That being said, I'm not a DO and I don't really know how they work, so it's possible that the idea is complete bunk.

[Frances]

I'd just be happy if normal IAAs could get a bit involved with incident reports.

Though honestly, your suggestion depends on how hard it is for a DO to solve the average case - I'd assume most of them are just one or two interviews in sequence, followed by OOC deliberation with the other DOs. That could pretty easily be translated to IAAs if wanted, and if a specific DO wants a case because they have a special idea of what to do with it they could always call dibs in advance.

[Gollee]

This is... Interesting. The main reason DOs have to do interviews, however, is for accountability; our recorders save directly into the server; can be retrieved at any time, and so on. It'd be remarkably easy for someone using a normal one to edit the logs. Observation could be useful; if the IAA could be trusted OOCly not to lie; to cause more issues for a disliked character.

The DOs were set up with the intention that their every interaction and action was tracked and recorded; to ensure that afyer an investigation; a player can't try and poke holes in a legitimate case to get a character off; and to make sure that every investigation is completed properly.

Thosr regulations are what make DOs so slow. We can't do anything on Nuke, Revs, Mutiny; we can't interview antags or when antags are reasonably active. The interviews can take an hour or more of on-station time; during which, any number of factors could interrupt the interview, or cause the DOs to have to flee to Odin. Every person related to a case needs to be interviewed, regardless of timezone related to the DO.

These are what need sorting; if you want the DO corps to work better; which I am in the process of doing, and I would appreciate any assistance; and for IAAs not to add more and more people to be interviewed for now.

[Guest]

This is... Interesting. The main reason DOs have to do interviews, however, is for accountability; our recorders save directly into the server; can be retrieved at any time, and so on. It'd be remarkably easy for someone using a normal one to edit the logs. Observation could be useful; if the IAA could be trusted OOCly not to lie; to cause more issues for a disliked character.

The DOs were set up with the intention that their every interaction and action was tracked and recorded; to ensure that afyer an investigation; a player can't try and poke holes in a legitimate case to get a character off; and to make sure that every investigation is completed properly.

Thosr regulations are what make DOs so slow. We can't do anything on Nuke, Revs, Mutiny; we can't interview antags or when antags are reasonably active. The interviews can take an hour or more of on-station time; during which, any number of factors could interrupt the interview, or cause the DOs to have to flee to Odin. Every person related to a case needs to be interviewed, regardless of timezone related to the DO.

These are what need sorting; if you want the DO corps to work better; which I am in the process of doing, and I would appreciate any assistance; and for IAAs not to add more and more people to be interviewed for now.

Aside from the fact that I never understood why DOs do IAA work in the first place, I think that OOC accountability shouldn't be a massive issue. If IAA are given a proper protocol to work with, any deviations from that protocol can be basis to dismiss it. It's the same thing, except DOs are magically considered capable of self-moderation while the other are not.

[Gollee]

DOs have a tonne of mechanical things that mean they are moderated, their recorders can be accessed by any other DO or admin, at any time, even in different rounds; they generally have an admin escort in the interview itself too.

[Frances]

Well, my line of reasoning is this:

Not a lot of people play IAA. The very few people who both play IAA and pay attention to the forums (specifically incident reports) should have a generally good sense of what conducting an investigation entails. All in all, there's little risk for tampering or chucklefuckery, unless you run into a terrible IAA a la Plahunter, but that's easily dealt with (or simply, don't give them Rank 2.)

Honestly, as long as the evidence gathered is solid and the investigation is done matter-of-factly, there's not much ground for complaint. Have you actually had to invoke the nature of your logs after handing out a contested punishment?

[Gollee]

Not yet. The accountability things have been a part of the DO procedure since they started, and I have never seen them used.