More Enforcement of Head of Staff Behavior. [Binned - Existing Policy]

The heads of staff are intended to be a command role that oversees their department and works with the other heads to facilitate the functioning of the station. They have authority over their department, and the captain has authority over them.

But for a long time I've been also seeing people who slot themselves into head positions just so they can act like a normal member of their department except with extra toys and authority. This takes the role away from people who actually wish to participate in being a command character, and want to have a direct hand in their whole department rather than just being a more snowflakey regular employee.

Examples of this include:

-Heads of Security who roam around on patrols, acting like an officer.

-CMOs who spend the whole round in chemistry or virology, playing around with machinery and chemicals.

-HoPs who decide to be a bartender/cook/miner.

-RDs who just sit in the R&D or xenobiology department all round, similarly playing with the things there.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean not performing vital functions for the round due to understaffing, like making medicines for medical when there is no one else to do it. I'm talking about heads that do this the whole round, rather than actually acting like a leader, checking on other parts of their department, etc.

Didn't we have a discussion once about job hopping? Is it okay to swap your normal staff characters to a head position and have them do exactly the same things they normally do? Why not leave the slot for people who actually want to be a head?

omg kaed I only had one officer and there were 4 parallel crimes at the same time. why you gotta put my hos play on blast like this?

but i can agree that in normal circumstances it's weird to see a HoS out on the beat, or a CMO hiding away in a room, or HoP's that stay in one room, etc.

I'm not even talking about you jb

To be honest, I don't see an issue with the Head of Security walking around. I'm not saying constantly patrol around, or go into maintenance, but there is absolutely nothing wrong (IMO) with a Head of Security going out and taking some laps around the halls, whether you've got 0 officers or 4 officers. In terms of the station, the HoS is like a police captain - there to direct and oversee his house (station) security's efforts, but also going out into the weeds. At least in the HoS's case, they are, 99% of the time, former officers, so it's not like they're putting themselves in harm's way.

I can say that at least personally, people that exhibit the behavior of just being a normal crew member with just additional access are generally dealt with. I however cannot comment if this is a new recent trend, but even so the enforcement is there.

Heads of Staff players have been warned at times and in other cases their whitelists removed, though I won't give out names, it has happened.

Just a question before I continue on. Have you raised any specific issues with Coalf, Alberyk or Matt? I haven't been around as much this month to witness any blatant examples but watching the discord group we have for command related discussions, they have been actively dealing with any complaints they receive or at times any trends they notice.

Have you raised the issue with Coalf, Alberyk or Matt? I haven't been around as much this month to witness any blatant examples but watching the discord group we have for command related discussions, they have been actively dealing with any complaints they receive or at times any trends they notice.

Not with any of those specific people, but my motivation for making this thread was ahelping this exact situation just yesterday on Sunday and being told by Nursiekitty that there's no specific rule against it.

I don't really have a way to contact a specific person in the game, the ahelp function is pretty open to takers. Should I be poking people on Discord instead?

You want to punish the Head of Security for walking around? The CMO for doing chemistry? The RD for doing RnD? Yeah, how about no. Aprils Fools is over, please stop suggesting blatantly dumb things.

The Heads should be cut some slack until they start breaking actual rules, as long as they are still making an effort to manage their department. And on that point; nobody is perfect, so address the behavior that's a problem when it arises so people can learn to be better. In fact being so completely hands off from your department that you sit in your office and don't actually do anything, is not only hellishly boring for a Head of Staff, but can actually be far more detrimental to the department because you're isolated and uninformed. Heads of Staff have department access, and are usually more knowledgable and experienced than their subordinates. We already discourage HoS on patrol when there's officers. We already discourage a CMO from sitting in on chemistry when there's chemists. We already discourage the RD from doing RnD when there are already dedicated scientists.

Have you raised the issue with Coalf, Alberyk or Matt? I haven't been around as much this month to witness any blatant examples but watching the discord group we have for command related discussions, they have been actively dealing with any complaints they receive or at times any trends they notice.

 

Not with any of those specific people, but my motivation for making this thread was ahelping this exact situation just yesterday on Sunday and being told by Nursiekitty that there's no specific rule against it.

I don't really have a way to contact a specific person in the game, the ahelp function is pretty open to takers. Should I be poking people on Discord instead?

If you see any of the three around, you can specifically request them by stating it's a command whitelist issue. Alternative both the forums and the discord cites them as your go to people for these issues.

The Heads should be cut some slack until they start breaking actual rules, as long as they are still making an effort to manage their department.

That's essentially what they're suggesting though, or at least what I gather from it. They're command positions, so some effort into leading is needed. We're not going to stop HoS's from walking about checking on things, the same for RD's who want to experiment. It becomes an issue when the HoS is just patrolling, not managing the team and simply using their access for extra help, or an RD who just pokes around his pet project without noting the fact his department is burning around him, again in this case simply using their access to make their personal goals easy, which is not a problem unless they're neglecting their job in their entirety.

Again, no one is perfect, and a brief discussion with some players and Alberyk/Coalf yields that this is not some major issue with the current command whitelistees, at least none that we've seen. Generally those new to the whitelist need some guidance considering they're new to the roles, so that's to be expected and not something we're going to be punish until it extremely repetitive and against what we're telling them.

It seemed like Kaed was suggesting a blanket policy of being harsher on Command characters who dare to interact with the station in any manner more personal than a message over comms. This seems like the sort of thing you should be handling on a case by case basis.

Voting for dismissal.

the only reason any head should be working a normal crew job is if

1) you are understaffed and there is no one to do that job

2) a crisis situation

3) personal oversight of something very specific which requires special attention

And even then, only if their skills are aligned. a HOP should rarely even touch mining. A HOS shouldn't even touch detective work unless he was originally a detective, and so on.

Otherwise, heads of staff should delegate to the normal staff.

it's simple.

I'll take it in stride when you say you don't want to see my HOS seen out in the hallways, ever.

Certain heads of staff are required to lead by example. Others are delegation-only roles in terms of expectations. The CMO, HOS, and CE are all 'lead by example' fellows. The expectations of the RD are not exactly clear-cut. The HOP and the captain are widely considered as delegation roles.

It's mostly taken under the consideration of, "Why would I hire someone that sits around ordering people what to do only as a head of staff when this other person is willing to risk life and limb to protect the company interests/personnel, and should act like the example everyone should strive to be", as I don't really consider grizzled-cripple-HOS as a concept that's practical.

I don't have an issue with heads of staff going above and beyond when it's in regards to their field but there is such a thing as "too much" but we shouldn't outright ban near-the-line behavior altogether. Given the overwhelming presence of antagonists and the underwhelming appearance of extended, the expectation should be that heads of staff should be more active in the round as soon as an antagonist shows their hand and causes trouble.

Because it's what they're trained to do.

Under normal circumstances, however, heads of staff should be heavily discouraged from seizing the bar to act as a stand-in for a low-pay employee. That's just downright ridiculous.

Okay, you guys are really fixating on the HoS thing here, but it's not the issue I'm talking about. HoS are a special case because the security department is a very active group. They aren't location based.

At no point in any of this did I indicate that any head of staff should be confined to their office and radio communication. At no point was I telling you to make your heads be cowards.

If we really must fixate on the HoS here, I'll elaborate:

A HoS who is frequently visible to his people, helps them out, and covers some of the slack they are leaving when they're having trouble - Good HoS

A HoS who spends the round validhunting the antags, is never around to sign off on warrants, check in on the brig, dispense weapons, must always be the first on the scene so they can be the Hero, and rabidly exploits his access to better starting equipment than the officers, performs arrests in person without even a cursory attempt to involve his team - Bad HoS.

Let's take another non Security example that has actual basis in reality:

Good RD: Is active in the workings of their department, checks in on their different scientists, offers them advice and shows them better ways to do things if they aren't being efficient, makes sure the important things in their department are running, and maybe tries to create group projects.

Bad RD: Runs into the chem lab at round start and spends the rest of the round trying to find more alchemy recipes because that's all their player really wants to do, find them all. Why not do this as a normal scientist?

This could really apply to a lot of heads in other departments - the head of a department should not be involving themselves in a personal project that involves nothing but them figuring out and/or playing with the mechanics of something in their department. That's why you play a regular scientist, chemist, virologist, or whatever else. You're both taking the head slot from someone who actually wants to be a head, and monopolizing the equipment and resources that a regular player could be using.

The sole exception I can see to this is the Chief Engineer, because their department is weird and they don't have a whole lot of difference from a regular engineer other than some extra responsibilities, also their department's only important shit is done at round start and it's a little unfair to expect them to sit on their chair farting for the rest of the round.

-snip-

That's essentially more or less already enforced. Removal of whitelists aren't generally visible and are generally only known to others if the player in question informs others or during official matters which generally happen.

As it boils down, what I believe you're saying in short is people with this whitelist acting as "regular crew with extra access/kit" minus their leadership responsibilities. This is already covered by the rules and is enforced when seen/reported. Generally it's hard to spot unless a staff member personally witnesses it by either ghosting them for the round or directly playing with them for a good portion of round, to which they can report/deal with it. The issue with this is that we're by no means a majority of the community. The antag feedback survey at this time had 169 entries, and I highly doubt that's near the amount of people we see on the server over the week. So we're heavily reliant on people that witness behavior they feel is unbecoming of a command whitelistees where they neglect their duties to the extreme to actually report it to us.

To sum it up, we already enforce it, we just need more people to report it for us to investigate and it's something we deal with. If there's an issue, certain measures are taken, with best case scenario being the hope they are informed what's the issue and they learn from it. Worst case scenario administrative action and/or whitelist removal which is generally the case for extreme repeat offenders.

So beyond the fact that this thread has had the benefit of outlining the above, I don't feel it'll add more. I'm generally pleased with the work of [mention]Alberyk[/mention], [mention]Coalf[/mention] and [mention]Datamatt[/mention] when it comes to this.

when seen/reported.

report/deal with it

The issue with this is that we're by no means a majority of the community.

heavily reliant on people that witness behavior they feel is unbecoming of a command whitelistees

to actually report it to us.

need more people to report it for us to investigate and it's something we deal with.

Imagine I said that and you already got my opinion, policies are useless if nobody reports their violations.

The heart is not hurt for which the eye does not see.

Like I said, I've ahelped this before and been told 'there is no rule against' it, which is why I'm here.

What do you want me to do, guys. You say ahelp it and I do, and get brushed off.

Discussed the matter with Kaed a bit.

To reiterate here. When it comes to command whitelists, you're free to just jump to [mention]Alberyk[/mention], [mention]Coalf[/mention], [mention]Datamatt[/mention] or even myself. It's similar to how issues with species whitelists are.

The enforcement is there, though I suppose it's rather quiet due to the nature of how we generally deal with administrative actions. I do encourage people to raise issues with people holding command whitelists to the above so they can deal with it.

Though we're going to add a few guidelines to the rules tab as there's already an existing tab for whitelists. Keep both the players/staff better aware.

Going to lock this now as an existing policy.