[MAIN] Due Diligence

[Cygnet]

BYOND Name of complaint against: Available upon request.
Your BYOND name: Lord Cygnet
Date of Issue and Round ID: September 8, 2019, Rounds 19025 and 19027
Reason for complaint: Due diligence was not done before were judgements carried out, resulting in losing a good player.


I would like first and foremost state that, this piece is not an effort to disrespect or discredit the Citadel Administration team. There are those who do and would much like to continue to protect and make a positive impact on the community as a whole. We salute you and appreciate your time and energy, and it is my hope that your voices and that can-do/will-do spirit will not fade into silence. That said, as we're human, sometimes mistakes are made, some small.. some large, and sometimes we forget what our purpose is/was when we took up our high positions within the community.

I have written this piece to show what happens when due diligence is not taken before dealing out erroneous judgements on players who are a credit to the community. From my point of view, and that of others as well, what has occurred is unacceptable and just one example of an authority figure not following server rules as a player, and another overlooking this whilst erroneously passing judgement upon another. Whether this was done purposefully or by mistake, it would lead to something further, all of which I will be explaining in detail to the best of my ability.

1) I'll share an example of what I witnessed myself recently, within the past few days actually. As part of the round which sparked me to take action and speak out, I was witness to a certain participant in the round, a non-antag in the role of Assistant decide it would be a good idea to loot a dead head of staff and take it upon themselves to don their role.. a clear case of breaking Section 6 and possibly Section 8, yet nothing was said or done by the active administrators nor command or security players, due to the ooc status of said Assistant would be my best guess. Now given the rule that prohibits non-antags pulling such actions, and knowing that this particular Assistant is someone of high authority OOCly, is it not perhaps reasonable to believe that this individual could possibly be an EoC in disguise, that this self-appointed head of staff could be a possible threat? The dead head of staff finally clones and returns, and roles get back to normal, the self-appointed head of staff returns the lifted items and returns to their original job role. End of shift comes and most board the shuttle, Command, Sec, and the other crew members, including our Assistant. A minute or less toward the end of the round, one of the shuttle doors is opened and won't close on its own. The Captain Gloria Redwood (r0-adic), being in their hardsuit, makes to investigate the matter as they've noticed crew members gasping and dying. From their perspective, a reasonable one mind you all, they see this Assistant, who'd done questionable things earlier in the round.. holding a welder, which can easily be used as an effective weapon, with people gasping and dying around them. The Captain takes action and disposes of the perceived threat and is then engaged by a member of administration, for powergaming and valid hunting. Everything that had occurred before in that round concerning this Assistant is completely ignored by the Administrator. This Administrator then begins to make accusations about the actions of this Captain, making up valid-hunting incidents about needlessly hunting multiple dangerous antags.. which simply was not true.
Again, I myself was present in the round with Security Communications, and had witnessed r0-adic's actions myself. In fact, I had witnessed the Captain forego a chance to commit the acts they were accused of when a Clown who was a suspected Changeling at the time (actually was a Changeling) and armed with a stunprod, simply requiring this Changeling to return a stolen PDA and ID.. the Changeling complied and the Captain left them be without incident, and Security was left to do exactly what their job entails. Guidance and support was what the Captain had offered during that round, not the unnecessary valid-hunting as the Administrator had cited from thin-air. A powergaming charge was also brought up due to the contents of the Captain's bag: Magrifle, security belt, medical belt, and tool belt. None of these items being unreasonable with confirmed multiple Changeling threats. The Administrator leaves this player with a "very stern warning" as a note. There was nothing done about the actual rule-breaking and perhaps powergaming on part of the Assistant mentioned in this block of text and likely nothing said about it either.. until it was brought to the attention of the Player Representative whom had actually been observing. The actions of the Administrator who'd failed to enforce the rules against one, and made up accusations against another.. would carry on into another round's decision-making which I will be reporting here in the next paragraph.

2) And so begins another round, a round for which the seeming lack of integrity and accountability would affect the player (r0-adic) mentioned before. In this round, r0-adic is now playing the role of an Assistant. So it goes, and what the Administrator no doubt left out in this next incident occurs after an antag has been identified and confirmed. It was asked over the radio if it was time to take down said antag, the motion was greenlighted and publicly supported by the Captain of the round, encouraged the crew even to get after this antag. This antag had killed the lone Security Officer at the time and before that, had taken HoS locker. With the Captain giving the okay for this lethal and dangerous antag to be disposed of, the Assistant in question goes and makes preparations to assist in this effort (Again, the Captain gave the greenlight). This Assistant crafted an improvised sawn-off shotgun and ammo for it in response to this greenlight, gained a method of tracking, this antag had suit sensors active and was found this way and killed. Again, this effort had been cleared by the Captain before the Assistant in question crafted any weapon or ammo. Assistants have no workstation unless assigned to one or given a command to provide assistance, so they've got no job to abandon. Naturally, the Administrator (not the same one from the first numbered paragraph) takes the chance to act on an Ahelp and teach this individual a lesson about rules that weren't broken. This Administrator too either ignores the details surrounding what transpired or simply didn't care to look into it. They proceed to tell the Assistant, who'd acted under the clearance given by the Captain over the radio.. for everyone who had communications active to see, that the decision they would make to place the temp-ban would come off of the coat-tails of the factually incorrect accusations from the previous Adminstrator, cited in the numbered paragraph above. The Administrator would next add to their banning statement that the person being banned has been, and I quote.. "Well past due for the level of powergaming and validhunting displayed as of late." and also refered them to sections 6 and 7 of the rules.

In short, Section 6: Do not Powergame and Section 8: Do not Self-Antag were broken by a Head-Administrator as an Assistant, and this was ignored by another Administrator who chose instead to warn another player about sections 6 and 7 which they hadn't broken. And this misinformation, mistake, or deliberate lie lead to the decision to punish a player who, along with anyone else who could read the message in the chat window, had been ICLY cleared over the radio by the highest authority on the station, to take down the threat mentioned in the second incident.

It is unacceptable not to take in all factors before taking disciplinary actions against players, especially those who are not disruptive and cancerous members of the community, those who make a genuine effort to play within the rules as best they can. One oversight, be it by design or by accident can have a negative impact on the wrongfully accused. In this instance, this player has decided to quit and likely for good thanks to the results of the cases detailed in this piece.


Thank you for your time and patience, I do sincerely hope that the ordeal can be rectified swiftly and fairly.

[Izzy]

As I thought we had resolved in direct messages, there is a significant amount of information not present here. Much of it is also straight factually wrong, but I don't have the time nor reason to point out everything. You are not the player directly involved, and do not have the exact history of the player or knowledge of communications with them.
They received a short temporary ban (which has been served fully for a while now), which I would have given to any player who carried out the actions that I saw in the round in which it was placed. Regardless of past history. My decision, was made independently, unlike you claim.
If that player has an issue with admin communication, and would like to bring up specifics or appeal things like notes, then I urge them to do so. Otherwise we're both held back by your specific lack of full perspective on the topics, and our inability to fully discuss hidden information about the player.
I understand that you want to make sure admins are acting consistently and correctly, but I'm going to be harsh here compared to DMs when I say this whole thing reads like a massive overly-legalese post about an issue you barely heard one side of the story about through the grapevine. We perform the "due diligence" by allowing players to appeal any wrongs, and that's where we correct our admins.
If they have an actual issue, and it's not just a perceived issue from your incomplete perspective, encourage them to bring it up to admins themself. I am almost convinced that the reason that they left instead of bringing up the issue to admins is that they don't disagree. I stand to be corrected by them - not by a third party.

[Cygnet]

Unfortunately, there was no resolution. As such, I did as I was advised to do and post here in the forums. Whatever information there is to complete my lack of full perspective would be appreciated in answering this complaint. You know full well that the player affected by the described actions in my original post is no longer a part of Citadel. This does not mean that what happened simply disappears and isn’t to be addressed and resolved properly with wrong-doings admitted and handled appropriately. You have been corrected by this third party in place of the player no longer here to file the complaint. Certainly you could understand and appreciate that given your high position and desire to keep accountability a priority. Please excuse any sharpness in this reply, I do not mean to insult.

[HazelBailey]

Without knowledge of who or what this involves, I cant really give any input because I cant do my own research on the matter. That being said, I trust Izzy's judgement well enough to say they're probably in the right. The whole complaint does indeed read like a case where someone only got half the story and then decided the story from the person punished (Fun fact, people love playing the victim and weaving things to make them look better) was good enough to complain about how admins handle an entire situation.

[Cygnet]

I’d be willing to show and inform you and anyone else who’s interested in seeing this whole matter resolved properly. I got the go ahead from quite a few others, staff included to see this through before I posted. I don’t want to talk down to you or anything Hazel Bailey, but assuming someone to be in the right without trying to learn the situation first is exactly the issue here. Doing so leads to bad decisions. I’ll give the round numbers if you wish to check and names of the involved upon request as stated in the original post.