[DENIED]Goldfish with cool glasses (1138/Delta) - Moderator App

[Guest]

Server Moderator Application

 

Basic Information

Byond Account: OneOneThreeEight

Character Name(s): Vira Taryk (formerly known as De Santos), Talia Varick, Artem Orzolov, several unnamed bald characters

AI Name(s): ADVENTI

Preferred means of contact: Skype, discord, BYOND, in-game, Steam, whichever.

Age: 20

Timezone: EST.

When are you on Aurora?: When I'm not at work, normally during primetime. More prominently on the weekends.

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Experience

How long have you played SS13?: Near 2 years.

How long have you played on Aurora: Over a year.

How much do you know about SS13 (Baystation build) game mechanics?: A fair deal.

Do you have any experience moderating for an SS13 server?: Yes. I moderated on Colonial Marines before I lost interest, had RL shenanigans come up and decided to leave.

Have you ever been banned, and if so, how long and why?: Yes. EOR grief for misinterpreting my laws and nonlethally tasing a DO.

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Personality

Why do you play SS13?: Escapism, my other hobbies are not as engaging/fun.

Why do you play on Aurora?: Because HRP is serious business and I like a little depth even in profoundly silly video games.

What do moderators do?: They provide for close support with the administration, uphold the necessary rules and overall ensure the best possible experience is given to the playerbase at large.

What does it mean to be a moderator for our server?: The reality of it is that it does not take much to fulfill the status quo. It's easy to pretend to be something that you're not and be considered good at your job. I don't intend to limit myself only to banning the odd griefer, muting OOC when Tytos talks about his unrequited love for the Nazi regime and his fetish for qt 3.14 blonde-blue-eyed Aryan ladies wearing nothing but jackboots, and any other assumed duty of a moderator. I plan to go above and beyond in that respect, and unironically Make Aurora Great Again.

Why do you want to be a moderator?: Because I've a certain level of investment in the server and I believe myself capable of changing up the OOC atmosphere of how we deal with OOC server-side issues and challenging assumed norms of the server climate. I believe I can provide as a representative voice of what the majority and minority opinions of the server think. I fully intend to engage with people regarding their issues and come to common ground as to regards to disagreements, provided that I am elected. I will try my best to not go full redpill in this endeavor, of course.

What qualities do you possess that would make you a good moderator?: I'm capable of having a reasonable, logical and civil discussion with folks. When I'm not ironically shitposting about the things I love/hate/have no strong feelings about whatsoever, I'm pretty chill when I get down to brass tacks and serious about things.

How well do you handle stress, anger, or insults?: I am capable of maintaining the flow of banter and otherwise not losing my shit, but I admit I can get extremely passionate over things that might not deserve such effort. Ask Hive regarding my ability to bantz, we once wrote really insulting songs about each other for like a couple hours before I went to bed because tired. However, I do flame Jackboot on a daily basis over Skype in regards to sexual advances he keeps making on my cousin, but those are isolated personal cases and not actually indicative of my ability to be a professional.

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Anything Else You Want to Add: words

no

[SierraKomodo]

Tweaked the thread title just to make it more clear who the app is for

[Guest]

Thank you.

[Jboy2000000]

I want to say yes to this, but I also want to say no to this. I know you're a good player, I know you do good, and I know this app is well filled out. But I also remember how you got when you were the gamemaster and things didn't turn out how you wanted with Albyrek and Sue. So, Im going to abstain any major vote at this time.

[Guest]

Event host. Close. GM would be like giving me the key to the entire castle. I would literally be able to de-admin Skull.

Yes, I admit I got quite pissy in regards to that. That entire round was just GREY TIDE WORLDWIDE ASS BLAST USA with some HRP drama elements mixed in to top off the shit sundae that round was. I was quite frustrated in regards to people not being able to control themselves and try to bear with my speed as much as possible. I was a bit too obsessed with ensuring the shuttle was mapped and sprited correctly to standards of the average server mapper. I flamed a little, since the round going to shit was not my fault and the same people that were self-antagonizing and generally being shit were accusing me of running a bad event.

Oh well, though. I learned that even with God-like server powers, you still can't control how people act or think. You can only push them in the right direction, or perhaps off the island that everyone else is inhabiting.

[Skull132]

Here's my question. And do pardon this being blunt. Why is it their fault for you losing your shit over the situation? You got a taste, a very real taste of being a member of staff. You got the hardcore version, as it also involved something relatively close to your heart. In standard moderator duties, this would be akin to handling a situation that involved your character while no one else is able to. Ever since we abolished FFrances' policy of, "The staff take no shit from anyone, and will mute or ban you for giving even a slight amount back to you," the staff are expected to remain cool in certain situations. A situation like that is a perfect example of where a member of staff would need to cut themselves off for a moment, off-load to another staff member, and let them deal with the situation.

Instead it kind of ended in a complaint post that consisted 4 or so paragraphs of off-topic filler, and the rest was just attacking the subjects of the complaint.

Your previous application was on point, and good to go, minus the notes that we brought up. This one comes off as arrogant and dismissive, if anything. Why apply for an organization that has as low standards as you feel? How are you even capable of representing as many ideas as you claim you can, when it is visible from the forums that there exist disagreements between you and other community members?

[Guest]

Why is it their fault for you losing your shit over the situation?

Isn't. As I mentioned, they acted, I reacted in the way I did. Was it justifiable? No. It was a mistake to make to even bother venting or discussing how I felt about it, given I was quite obviously frustrated in that one instance due to the conditions I bore witness to. There were a lot of factors that led to my frustration, and not all of them were voiced in that complaint as I was not willing to make everyone (even if I was right) the perpetrator. And I was probably just irrationally angry to begin with and wasn't identifying any issues properly because everyone was complaining about how the round was going and they all had a different reason for it. So I went out and said, "You folks were butts, I think you folks could've done better than that. Thanks for the round."

 

Instead it kind of ended in a complaint post that consisted 4 or so paragraphs of off-topic filler, and the rest was just attacking the subjects of the complaint.

 

The "off-topic filler" was establishing everything that, from my point of view, was going on, and what I managed to piece together after the fact. I just know that accusing people of things without first having context for it is no bueno. My complaints as of whenever, are normally long-winded and appear rant-ish because I attempt to establish context. Don't always do it right since it's sometimes tempting to elaborate on certain points a bit too much in comparison to what I actually mean to emphasize the most. I should probably write novels for that reason, but I suppose I should still continue.

 

Your previous application was on point, and good to go, minus the notes that we brought up. This one comes off as arrogant and dismissive, if anything. Why apply for an organization that has as low standards as you feel? How are you even capable of representing as many ideas as you claim you can, when it is visible from the forums that there exist disagreements between you and other community members?

 

Because there are several things that need improvement, including but not limited to how staff deals with and treats players, discussing and attempting to improve/modify upon existing rules to be more clear-cut and specific on what constitutes as acceptable behavior in IC/OOC and what does not. You cannot improve anything without first acknowledging there are problems with the system/organization itself.

I'm representative of my own ideas, but many of the influences from others in the community change (in some more apparent ways than others) how I act, react, talk or deal with issues. I would not have been the player I am today without influence from several long-standing or even not-so-longstanding folks that exist here. It is wise to be flexible and adaptive based on the environment and everyone else in that environment. It's really easy to get caught up in these semantics, but the point I want to address is that I catch on very quickly to trends due to consistent exposure to this sort of change, and I believe myself to be a good fit nonetheless. I will adjust, because that is what I have done since day one here, several times over the course of a year and a half.

So if you view my confidence as arrogance, then I won't fault you, but I don't believe that to be the case in the slightest.

Thanks.

[hivefleetchicken]

Let's not get too unrealistic here. Delta loses his shit. He gets mad at (imo) many petty things and lets it get to his head.

He then expresses his frustration verbally - aaaaaand then that's about where it ends. He gets mad, he talks about it, he calms down, and he returns to doing a great job.

I don't know if I've ever seen Delta take a problem like IC drama or shittery and let it influence how he acts in further rounds, so I think it's testament enough that if I've have never heard of delta acting to metagrudge others as a player, you won't see him metagrudging as a moderator to make people's rounds hard, or throwing the book at them for wrong reasons.

He makes lots of complaints, yes, but I'd say that's a helluva' lot better than trying to take the matter into his own hands, since he's putting his reasoning on ice and letting others weigh in.

TL;DR - he has the capacity to be salty, but I've never seen it get in the way of him doing his duties.

[Killerhurtz]

I mirror everyone's thought. Voth Vira and Talia are great characters, and Delta is often a fun player. But when shit goes bad, shit goes bad.

Delta definitely has a tendency to get salty, and I could be wrong but wasn't it him that threatened/did leave the server a few times after an episode of anger?

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he could at least go through a trial.

[Garnascus]

Delta's interview and responses.

 

Garnascus: Yo, interested in answering a few mod related questions? We like to give interviews to prospective moderators.

Delta: Yes.

Garnascus: Sweet, oki doki first question is fairly straight forward. You see a player join with the name "Adolf Hitler". How you respond?

Delta: PM them, ask/refer them to the rules. Offer an explanation as to why the rule is in place, and then ask what they would like their name changed to.

Garnascus: Excellent. Also excuse any awful grammar mistakes I make. Im typing on a tablet

Delta: all good.

Garnascus: Next question! You receive an ahelp from a player claiming they have been permabrigged for no reason. How do you respond?

Delta: Dibs the PM, ask the person who they were arrested by, or whoever had them put in the brig. PM the person they point out, ask them why they permabrigged the person who ahelped. Follow the trail from there and attempt to come to a conclusion as to what happened. If they were permabrigged wrongfully, I would tell the arresting officer to release them and issue a warning. If the person that was p-brigged did something wrong but nothing that deserved a perma sentence, tell the officer to set the time correctly. If the permabrigged fellow did something violent, I wouldn't interfere and I would defer to the judgement of sec and allow it to be resolved ICly. If there is a HoS, I would SM them regarding something possibly happening at the brig.

Garnascus: Nice amount of detail. Next question will be in ten minutes, sorry for the delay. Sorry for the wait, here comes the next question

Lets say you're the only one on during deadhour. You're alt-tabbed or something and aren't really paying attention to the round. Suddenly you see attack logs of lethal weapon fire being exchanged between two players. One of them is a server regular and the other appears to be someone you don't recognize. You see that neither of them are antags. What do you do?

Delta: Floor both, ask each one to explain their side of the story and what happened. If one of the other did something clearly wrong and I felt one of them was reasonable in their escalation of force, call it an IC issue but hint at the surviving party to try and clone the other. If it's a mixed bag or I receive accounts that don't seem to connect without additional log context, I'd look for whomever instigated the logs first. Ask, inquire, specify, then ask for an admin to review the incident later on if they manage to get on-deck, or call for a backup if possible. If the escalation of force was stupid and it ended in death of either/both parties, warn both for acting way out of line for escalation of force. If either have a record for such behavior, penalize accordingly.

Garnascus: Alright, lets assume that after PMing each player you find they both have had a longstanding grudge between each other over several rounds. How do you proceed? Also I should note that while you can ALWAYS call for backup or advice from other staff its generally accepted the final decision is whoever dibbsed the issue. Unless of course you're making an irrational judgment Oh I forgot to mention that they IC agreed to a duel to the death.

Delta: If the testimonies make it seem like it was a metagrudge that was carried out against each other or they were attempting to validkill one another, then it'd be a 3 day ban for metagrudging, though I'd make sure I have at least one staff member available to watch and agree with it. If not, I report what happened fully-- Oh, in that case, it'd be a ban for general stupidity and breaking RP. Specifically, the rules about ignoring pain/death and willingly murdering another co-worker.

I'd make it 2 days in regards to that if it was the first real instance of them acting out against each other.

Garnascus: You would ban them for escalating to a duel to the death IC?

Delta: Depends on the circumstances.

If they stroll up to each other and say, "Hey, wanna duel with pistols at the crack of dawn?" with little evident lead-up to it, it'd be a ban if they were regulars who knew the rules.

If it had circumstances leading up to it that made sense, such as two Unathi with serious honor-bound grudges, that would be another thing.

If either of them have been not so friendly the entire shift and it led up to a duel to the death, it would be excusable, provided it had practical and believable leadup to it.

The ends have to justify the means.

Garnascus: Ahh ok, that clarifies it nicely. Alrighty one last question coming in ten

Alright so, lets say you once again dibs an ahelp. This time its a player claiming someone is powergaming. You jump over to the player in question and find he has kitted himself out in the strongest weapon legitimately available to his job. So a laser cannon for a scientist or a riot shotgun and armor for a QM. You find he has gone after a nuke team and chased them to their ship, he appears to be winning the firefight. What do you do?

The player in question is NOT a security member

Delta: Wait until he's actually won/lost the firefight before questioning them. Interrupting even in the midst of combat that is generally dumb is not something a mod should do, they should wait until the conflict has subsided before discussing anything with them. Once the situation is ICly resolved, question as to why the QM/scientist was hunting after the nuke team in the way they did. Either way, if I (and several others) had witnessed the fight and had seen them chase the nuke ops all the way to their ship with a shotgun, a job-ban from that particular job would be put in place. From what I've seen, ignoring the RP standards and rules placed to prevent situations like that are usually grounds for an immediate job-ban, provided enough evidence and testimony is collected to place such a disciplinary action on their account.

Garnascus: If I understood your earlier response, you said you would have floored the two dueling but you wouldnt floor this person? I assume you are referring to the "wind" verb when you say floor them.

Delta: I honestly reserve flooring for grief/unexplained sudden happenings that appear to be grief. If I see logs of a guy shooting a nuke op and the nuke ops are valid, then I will not immediately floor. Or 'wind'.

Garnascus: But you would floor two non-antags firing lethals at each other? Which falls under your "unexplained happenings"?

Delta: If I witness two non-antags shooting at each other with lethals, it'll look rather suspicious and unnatural in terms of gameplay. If it's an ongoing round with action occurring, I won't floor if it's QM vs antag unless the former is ganking the latter. I mostly cannot stop a QM already shooting their way into the shuttle, it's better off to let it play out from there and then take action. In terms of two people shooting each other for what looks like no reason, I can very easily stop that as it has minimal people involved in the RP/progression of the round.

But yeah, basically it does fall underneath something so sudden and out of the ordinary unlike two folks shooting at each other because the conflict was escalated. It's still just as bad for a QM to chase the nuke team all the way to their shuttle to murder them.

In addition, the QM in particular would have a choice to not pursue if the nuke ops were falling back into their ship, which would be close quarters. The person wanting to live would pass it up in favor of surviving rather than being John Rambo to be a gloryhound. Folk should know better than that, especially if they have read the rules. And if they haven't, the fault is still on them for not reading them.

It's a heavy roleplay server and a lot of the expectations are unspoken and are normally considered just as courtesy, but they are still very much important and still part of the rules

Garnascus: Excellent, that clarifies your reasoning. Do you have any closing comments to make?

Delta: Don't think so, no. Besides being off to bed now.

oh, and. don't forget to vote trump.

...is that being put in the thread?

Garnascus: Of course!

[Alberyk]

Hello, in the last saturday, ooc had a small discussion about the pros and cons of the vaurca race existing, and then you had such behavior in the dicussion, starting to bring such subject without any kind of provocation from any parties;

 

OneOneThreeEight: they say Tajaran is just a race, Unathi is just a race, etc. Yet we find it acceptable within the lore to allow for inter-species relationships to exist. The two cultures clash immensely, they would find themselves with nothing in common.

OneOneThreeEight: They begin to affect the overall quality of roleplay.

Alberyk: Still, why should it be not possible.

Alberyk: Conflict, and rp, can do happen to it.

Alberyk: I can pretty much quote jackboot in this situation, anyway

OneOneThreeEight: Unathi think of all other races as inferior degenerates. Esp. the Tajaran.

Alberyk: Unathi aren't a hivemind, however.

OneOneThreeEight: They believe the other races by default to have little honor due to their political or cultural structures.

Alberyk: "Unathi are, as of writing, not a hivemind. They are capable of having thoughts, ideas, or passions that are deviant to the cultural norms. The condition of them having these deviant aspects to the unathi are that the player accepts that their character would be considered a degenerate."

Alberyk: So, yes, people are free to have their own "snowflakness"

Dreamixpl: But, these snowflakes should suffer consequences.

Alberyk: They do.

Alberyk: And I agree they should.

OneOneThreeEight: I don't mean to attack you or anything but I did see a fair deal of logs from someone who was watching Yinzr and Ana pursue their romantic relationship story on Polaris.

Alberyk: Anyway, the point is; aliens are free to go stray from their traditions, still, ic consequences are fine.

OneOneThreeEight: And if those IC consequences don't actually exist?

Alberyk: Blame the players

Alberyk: They do exist, in fact.

OneOneThreeEight: Blame everyone else for your inter-xeno slashfic?

OneOneThreeEight: But alternatively you're also oocly okay with ic consequences not existing as a result of the slashfic relationship.

 

Take in mind that those are logs mostly related to the discussion and your behavior in question and probably mostly incomplete with other people's reply and some of mine and yours, but if any admin wish, we could provide the entire conversation, I believe that Tenenza was around and had to tell people to calm down over ooc. So, could you explain how such behavior, in the ooc way, is appropriate of someone that aims to be part of the moderation team? I mean, people were just talking about ic consequences due to alien relationships and then out of nowhere; "I don't mean to attack you or anything..."

[Guest]

Take in mind that those are logs mostly related to the discussion and your behavior in question, but if any admin wish, we could provide the entire conversation, I believe that Tenenza was around and had to tell people to calm down over ooc. So, could you explain how such behavior, in the ooc way, is appropriate of someone that aims to be part of the moderation team? I mean, people were just talking about ic consequences due to alien relationships and then out of nowhere; "I don't mean to attack you or anything..."

 

Indeed, I presented the most applicable, obvious and clear-cut example of these inter-species alien relationships. I chose the Yinzr x Ana one because it was the most identifiable and it greatly succeeded in calling your attention to it and potentially giving some additional thought to it.

I'm curious as to how you think this discussion was wrong in any sort of way unless me bringing that up seemingly offended you. It's okay to misinterpret what people say in a fashion that suits your own viewpoint on the matter, everyone does it.

One snippet, though, I believe I said in-between

 

OneOneThreeEight: I don't mean to attack you or anything but I did see a fair deal of logs from someone who was watching Yinzr and Ana pursue their romantic relationship story on Polaris.

 

and

 

OneOneThreeEight: And if those IC consequences don't actually exist?

 

I had quoted along the lines of, "I am not sure if you should really talk about this given you're one of the major proponents defending the crusade of chasing lovey-dovey interspecies relationships", but it didn't paste into OOC on my end and I assumed it was just a bug and that it was read. I did intend to drive that particular point home, but I guess we cannot all be winners here.

I take issue with the consistency of your actions, and not you as a person, do note. While I can muse all day about hunting not only for valids, but also for romance RP, I will not, because I once made that line of judgement myself.

Consequence doesn't seem happen to people in the obvious established majority, because they never want to discipline each other for anything for fear of backlash and/or criticism by each other. I mean, God, can you imagine if everyone were to end up eating each other alive just for that? It'd be monstrous and server-changing. And since you have actually, taken action against others trying to instill consequence by way of nearly murdered a CMO who refused to clone your 2d spacecat lover and the only person that arrested you was someone that actually sympathized with the victim, I do often wonder about the consistency of your actions mixed in with your words.

 

So, could you explain how such behavior, in the ooc way, is appropriate of someone that aims to be part of the moderation team?

 

No, I will not, because I will not concede in any way that I was wrong for having this discussion. Were my points wrong? Maybe, perhaps I'm totally wrong about whatever I brought up, but you will have to understand that I express great doubt when someone comes up to me and says that discussing things is unbecoming behavior of some sort.

Take it as you will from there, but hey: I don't think I was wrong. I just don't share your opinion and nor do I think it is right, either.

[LordRaven001]

Sadly I cannot offer my support too you one ai round your ai not only insulted harassed and broke its laws without being malfunction or subverted but targeted skrellian crew calling them dumbasses and refusing to state your laws you also locked your core so we could not check them then lied to administrators afterwards when I Ahelped it Skull was the admin who handled this incident I am sorry -1

[Guest]

Sadly I cannot offer my support too you one ai round your ai not only insulted harassed and broke its laws without being malfunction or subverted but targeted skrellian crew calling them dumbasses and refusing to state your laws you also locked your core so we could not check them then lied to administrators afterwards when I Ahelped it Skull was the admin who handled this incident I am sorry -1

 

Uh, no, I didn't. Logs pls.

[LordRaven001]

Sadly I cannot offer my support too you one ai round your ai not only insulted harassed and broke its laws without being malfunction or subverted but targeted skrellian crew calling them dumbasses and refusing to state your laws you also locked your core so we could not check them then lied to administrators afterwards when I Ahelped it Skull was the admin who handled this incident I am sorry -1

 

Uh, no, I didn't. Logs pls.

 

Sadly this happened two too three weeks ago and I am still in the process of moving, as such do not have them they are on my main computer, Skull or IJ may remember as this is the ahelp they both dealt with it, I also apologize for any spelling mistakes as I am typing this on my phone

[SierraKomodo]

Sadly I cannot offer my support too you one ai round your ai not only insulted harassed and broke its laws without being malfunction or subverted but targeted skrellian crew calling them dumbasses and refusing to state your laws you also locked your core so we could not check them then lied to administrators afterwards when I Ahelped it Skull was the admin who handled this incident I am sorry -1

 

Uh, no, I didn't. Logs pls.

 

Sadly this happened two too three weeks ago and I am still in the process of moving, as such do not have them they are on my main computer, Skull or IJ may remember as this is the ahelp they both dealt with it, I also apologize for any spelling mistakes as I am typing this on my phone

 

Was this the round with the Glorsh-Omega? Iirc, that was XanderDox, not Delta (I might be wrong about who it actually was, but I'm certain it wasn't Delta). I don't think I've seen Delta play AI, actually.

[LordRaven001]

Maybe on Wednesday of next week I will be done moving and can check the logs saved then it is unfair of me to -1 without evidence so I will be returning my -1 into neutrality until I get the logs, good luck on your app I am sorry for causing this big debacle with no basis to back it up.

[Guest]

Sadly I cannot offer my support too you one ai round your ai not only insulted harassed and broke its laws without being malfunction or subverted but targeted skrellian crew calling them dumbasses and refusing to state your laws you also locked your core so we could not check them then lied to administrators afterwards when I Ahelped it Skull was the admin who handled this incident I am sorry -1

 

Uh, no, I didn't. Logs pls.

 

Sadly this happened two too three weeks ago and I am still in the process of moving, as such do not have them they are on my main computer, Skull or IJ may remember as this is the ahelp they both dealt with it, I also apologize for any spelling mistakes as I am typing this on my phone

 

That sounds like Xander's AI. The only time I've snarked back at Skrell as an AI is when they decided to mention the Glorsh tragedy offhandedly and I referred to them as being irrational over it, and I did my best to drop the subject regarding it and remind everyone of more important things regarding that round. My AI is NT-bound even though it's reasonably sophisticated to be self-aware of that note.

I have not called command staff idiots as an AI. I've never broken my laws nor have I ever refused a law check as a non-antagonist AI. It's cool though, I take zero offense and it's easy to mistake things.

[Skull132]

I don't remember handling Delta as an AI recently. I'll browse the logs in a bit, see what can be found.

[Serveris]

Following review from administration and moderation staff, it has been decided that your application has been denied for the reasons for which were privately discussed with you. Please do not let this discourage you from re-applying in the future - preferrably after a month's time from now. Best of luck in your future endeavors, and my apologies.