About Heads of Staff's access.

[Juani2400]

Everyone who is whitelisted for Command roles is supposed to know that all heads of staff are equal in rank. This, however, does not reflect on the access privileges that each Head of Staff enjoys individually. As an example, Heads of Personnel get access to all hallway areas of every department, plus AI Upload access and even cells and Security's locker room access. This has to do with the second-in-command past of the role which is not what we do nowadays, as the Head of Personnel is not an elevated rank above other heads of staff. The situation with the Head of Security is pretty similar, with them being able to access pretty much every department's basic areas and even some of the areas which are a bit more restricted, like Mining or the Sorting Office in Cargo.

While all other heads of staff enjoy access to the basic areas of Security (as they are supposed to, given their Command position and their ability to act as arbiters), they do not enjoy the privileges of access their colleagues do, holding the same rank. And you could argue that the Head of Security requires basic departmental access because he's supposed to catch criminals. But the Chief Medical Officer is supposed to treat injured people, and the Chief Engineer is supposed to fix explosions, so that point is relevant for most Heads of Staff, with the exception of the Research Director and the Head of Personnel.

Now, what can we do about this? We have several options:

• Remove all extra-departmental access from Heads, leave the only with their department's and Security: We could remove the extra access the Head of Security and the Head of Personnel enjoy, to put it to the same level as the other heads of staff.
• Give all the heads basic departmental access: We can give all heads of staff basic access to a department, similarly as how the Head of Security currently does, being able to open the front doors into the interior hallway areas, but not being able to access the other rooms.
  
• Form a different hierarchy: Now this is more of a tricky thing, but we can just establish a different chain of Command, in which the HoP is indeed the second-in-command and the HoS is the third-in-command. I am not a fan of this idea, but I think it may be worth of discussion, anyways.
  
• Other ideas you may suggest: This is why I'm opening this thread for, to gather the general opinion of the community on this matter and to listen for ideas that may work better than those described above.

 

DISCUSS.

PS: It would be cool if we reached a consensus soon, given that the new map is being released in the day this was written, and we expect a development meeting very soon.

PS2: Also. How do you feel about the janitor being stripped of their basic departmental access to all departments?

Thanks.

[coolbc2000]

Please, for all that is fucking holy.

GIVE THE CMO MAINT. ACCESS HOLY DONKEY BALLS IT MAKES NO SENSE

[Resilynn]

I think access should be determined by what's required of the job: I could see HoS and CE having higher access than the others, they frequently need to get through different areas to do their job. The CMO is almost never out of medical, and I can't see a reason for the research director to have access to security, you know? As for HoP, I dunno where they'd fit into that. They seem to travel around a lot, but *shrug*.

[Azande]

HoP is HR and should have access to every department hallway, Janitor has basic access, so should his supervisor.

Head of Security has access so he can let officers in to search when other heads arent around and such.

Other heads should get basic access to other departments as well.

[Juani2400]

(All heads will have maintenance access in newmap.)

[Fire and Glory]

I have always wondered why I end up seeing HoPs meandering through medical.

I am not big on the idea of making the HoP second in command, he manages personnel access, finances, and a ton of mostly independent jobs, none of that really befits elevating him above other heads of staff in my opinion.

Removing the access from certain individuals, or adding it to all the individuals is something I see benefits and negatives to on both sides and I'm on a coin flip of indifference to the matter.

Do we count cargo as a department in this context though? Just wondering.

I'd rather janitors keep their access, by the second half of the round where everything is dirtiest everyone is always dealing with some really fucking important thing or other. Having the access means they can just ghost around departments in a non-intrusive manner.

[Scheveningen]

I understand there's a concern about power creep, but with heads of staff, those folks are whitelisted to begin with. Heads of staff are trusted to not only stay in their lane and just do their assigned duties, but also to not abuse their access for ulterior reasons. I would prefer if head of staff access was put on the same level as the other heads (barring cappy, who overrides this concern entirely), but in the sense that they should be enabled a bit of default access for convenience sake. A CMO should be able to enter the basic levels of every single department in a pinch, as it's their job and their department's job to help out when necessary. The RD could do this as well, given the propensity of the RPED existing and being able to upgrade just about any machine lickity-split. The Chief Engineer needs this access to do station modifications, maintenance or repairs. Better yet, they can all easily (including the HoP, sometimes there is an absence of one however) use this access to simply enable other people to enter general access areas to do their job so they can focus their efforts elsewhere while their goons clean house for them.

No, I don't think head of staff access should be stripped down so it equalizes their power. Changes should be made for the sake of quality of life, and not necessarily adding more difficulty to being a head of staff that is not the HoP or captain, either of them are not always going to be there.

But yes, I do think head of staff access should be equalized, or rather, buff all of the head jobs to the relative same extent, all-access to their own department, general access to everywhere else.

Otherwise we'd have to nerf janitor access as well. Doesn't really make sense that a low priority job compared to other heads of staff gets more general access to each department than some of the heads of staff.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Head of Personnel's are explicitly told on the wiki that they have a very basic responsibility in making sure all departments are staffed and running smoothly. Their access is intended to let HoP's pop in and survey the department, ask anyone present what they need, or otherwise evaluate the department. The HoP is the human resources for the station.

I do not understand why there is such a territorial attitude towards other heads of staff poking around other departments. Unless that head is actively bossing people around, or there is a command staff member in that area already, then it is not that big of a deal to me.

Specifically on your suggestions, they seem contradictory. You want to remove all extra access... But then re-add basic access. That is already what they have. Non-RD Command can't barge into RnD or robotics. Non HoS- can barge into the cells, the armory, or offices. Non-CE's can't go into the engine.

The access for heads is already basic.

Forming a hierarchy is a bad idea. Command without a captain traditionally tends to operate democratically; you need support from the other heads before declaring yourself acting captain, and in the vast majority of cases command holds (in)formal votes about such decisions. The HoP is not second in command, second in command is the one with the most trust from other command staff to deal with the crisis.

[Juani2400]

Jackboot, those are not a single suggestion. They are ways we can solve this problem with. Three different options. Not complementary.

I personally agree with Schev. I think Heads of Staff should all have basic departmental access, as they are trusted, whitelisted players.

Also. The Head of Personnel may be the human resources person of the station, but they do not hold any authority over the staff that is under the command of other heads of staff, besides those of being Command itself. They can not demote, promote or suspend anyone that do not belong to their department without explicit request of the appropriate head of staff, Captain, or a vote of Command in case both of these fail. Thus, their access is not needed.

The reason HoPs enjoy this amount of access comes from the times HoPs were the defacto Acting Captain and second-in-Command.

[LordFowl]

Implemented in dev. Head of staff access has been equalized.