Keep the discussion civil. This isn't the place to be throwing insults, it's for constructive criticism and bringing issues to admin attention.
Just wanna prefix this by saying I'm in no way trying to shit on you, Hazel.
So where does this leave us? Most of the staff who've weighed in here have expressed disapproval of Akram's behaviour to varying degrees, so it's definitely gotten to staff attention. Mayfox doesn't seem to be very interested in taking criticism on board from them or other players, even though they've definitely read it. They also don't seem inclined to try and take a less antagonistic tone in how they interact with people...
What is there left to do, here? Will this just stay open and be added to with each mis-step they make until it becomes a threadnaught? Will it be closed when replies peter out?
Keep the discussion civil. This isn't the place to be throwing insults, it's for constructive criticism and bringing issues to admin attention.
Just wanna prefix this by saying I'm in no way trying to shit on you, Hazel.
So where does this leave us? Most of the staff who've weighed in here have expressed disapproval of Akram's behaviour to varying degrees, so it's definitely gotten to staff attention. Mayfox doesn't seem to be very interested in taking criticism on board from them or other players, even though they've definitely read it. They also don't seem inclined to try and take a less antagonistic tone in how they interact with people...
What is there left to do, here? Will this just stay open and be added to with each mis-step they make until it becomes a threadnaught? Will it be closed when replies peter out?
Merely waiting on a head administrator to step in and lay down the final ruling. I'm not personally certain when any of them are going to get around to this complaint, but, rest assured it should be soon.
So I've fairly extensively talked one on one with Mayfox, and conversed with admins and players on the topic. I believe I can provide something of a middle ground that wouldn't have been able to be reached without some administration reassurance.
Mayfox has made a huge effort to convince me that he plays his characters for the sake of building a story, and that's the enjoyable part for them. However there's a disconnect on both sides. Mayfox focuses on the rules technically allowing such characters and stories to exist before he focuses on people's enjoyment of his characters, while the players affected by his characters don't take proper action in shutting down his characters and giving them the bad ends that Mayfox is willing to have for them.
I want to see two things come from this complaint. While I do see that our rules don't much cover the idea of having characters like this, I believe the effect on the player base is still important, and should end up with some ruling and changes to address this.
I want to see Mayfox prove that they're in it for the story, and care about other players enjoyment in their character's stories, specifically by playing a character that does not work towards a bad end. Meaning characters like Vellen and Akram - who are set up to fail by being either aggressive, unagreeable, or through other unpleasant to play with traits - should take the bench for a while (I would like at least a month) in favor of trying characters that can provide a similar level of story building without relying on these aggressive and unagreeable traits.
The second thing I want to see is players beginning/continuing to properly take the steps in character to deal with characters that have extremely negative traits, when applicable (actions like firing, demotions, complaint faxes, mutiny, and such). Know that action taken will not be forgotten, and will lead to in character consequences taking place.
This means there are a few expectations, from not only Mayfox and the players involved with their characters, for administration. Expect that in character actions done by characters and taken against characters - which do follow rules and are deemed fair out of character by administrators - will have a lasting effect. Expect that these effects can and will lead to permanent character ends (job bans, firings, executions, etc) when deemed reasonable out of character by administrators. players should expect administration to reasonably take action when theses cases come up, and administration should expect players to reasonably play their characters understanding that these risks do exist.
I'll be privately determining with the RP admins where these characters stand in regards to their employment (obviously their reputation will not restart from scratch), but no in character action will be taken immediately (other than the benching stated above). Additionally we will be determining in general if someone being only able to play/repeatedly playing undesirable, negative-trait based, overly-antagonizing characters, while not an antagonists, falls under the "don't be a dick" policy, which will find its place in the rules once decided.
There's something I would like some clarity on here, then.
You've mentioned there that you'd like to see characters handling situations more appropriately, and in that list of things that can happen, you've included "mutiny" as a possible response.
I'd very much like to clarify exactly what the deal with that is, because there seems to be a prevailing culture of "Take no action against bad sec/command, just fax and that's the end of it". While I'd absolutely welcome with open arms the ability to take action, to have agency and to tell a more intereting story, and to dispense this "SoP violations are an OOC problem" mentality, I can't help but feel that if there'd been an ouright mutiny against Akram or anyone else before now everyone involved would have been harshly punished for "Self-antagging" or "LRP conduct" or something like that.
Security seem to be seen as "The good guys" instead of "Another faction on the board", and to go against them seems to cast you as "The bad guy who deserves to lose" rather than just "Another character with their own story which in this case results in a scrape with the law".
Are you formally confirming that it's okay to break corp-regs to a serious degree under organically-developing circumstances if it'd be reasonable to at least consider doing so in a real-world environment, such as Security going totally of the rails, the CMO chopping people up against their will and with no anaesthetic, HoP embezzling corporate funds etc? And most importantly, are you formally confirming that there won't be a presumption of guilt and a seeking to have punishments handed out to those who DARED OPPOSE THE RULES!!!1!!!!11!
I'm going to point you to our rules in relation to mutiny. It quite clearly points out that if command is overly shit, ahelp first to clear it with admins, and then if they give you the go-ahead, mutiny is allowed. Starting a mutiny beforehand is more likely to get you hit with some form of punishment compared to nothing happening if you got the all clear.
1. Telling players to mutiny against a shitty head of security.
2. Responding to faxes complaining about said head of security and taking action to prevent everyone from screwing up a round.
Izzy, I am going to disagree on the way this is handled not because I do not think there was enough punishment, but the whole can of worms this opens up.
The RP server is in a interesting paradoxical state of a affairs. When asked if they wanted antagonists, they screamed "NO!". When asked if they wanted bad security and command to stay, they said, "NO!". When asked if they wanted to leave emote spammers and memers (by which I mean like Siloh Miller) they said, "NO!".
But at the same time, they refuse to fire people like Akram for being insufferable (which they were as I quote Izzy designed to be that way. Part of the fault lies with the fact none of us are particularly sure where the limit of IC demotions by admins end and where OOC punishments begin (because, remember you cannot job ban a specific character, rather it is a key BLANKET BAN).
Should we as a station in theory allow for ic mutinies to a degree? Yes. But does it work in practice? NO! Usually when the crew get up in arms over something happening they are jumping to conclusions at best or outright angry because of someone's meta-buddy getting demoted. I have seen multiple times where security/command was 100% justified for doing something, but the entire rest of the off duty crew takes it all up in arms for no discernible reason other than "security/command is abusing power!!!!!". We should not let mob mentality get the better of us.
You cannot seriously expect this to work out in the long term. A bad playerbase (admins included) causes bad security, it is not always reciprocal. The intent to change this is good natured, but as for the execution....
NO! NO! NO!
I know this isn't directly related to the complaint against Mayfox, but I feel very strongly about this. Please dm me on discord if you feel this discussion should be taken there.
Yeah, I'm going to have to take the opposite stance here.
There's been a lot of entitled screeching from bad Security and Command players who seem to think that picking a Com/Sec role and then absolutely beansing up their crisis PR and messaging should somehow entitle them to admin protection from the consequences of their mistake.
If you play Security, de-escalation, conflict resolution, mediation and generally being able to calm people and situations down is an absolutely critical part of your job, moreso than any amount of expertise at baton-swinging. If you find yourself making the "Right" calls and still being hunted down because you're incapable of communicating what happened, why, and how you've actually handled the situation correctly then in all but the most extreme of cases, you were not good security.
Just because you play a role with a certain level of IC authority does not entitle you to admin protection if you totally bungle it up and make the crew your enemies because you weren't able to explain the how and why, it is part of your job to handle your PR. If the price of defusing the fuckup is that you have to release someone early, or you need to compromise with the mob, or you or a colleague are pushed into handing in your resignation, or you have to call an IAA to the station as an impartial observer to review the situation, then that might be what you need to do to keep the peace.
If a consequence of taking this "I don't have to justify myself to these filthy peasents and I know I'm untouchable because the admins say so" stance is that despite doing everything technically correctly, youve been such an arse about it that there's a mob at your door, then you have fucked up your job and are going to have to deal with the consequences of that, just like a doctor who fails their patients will, just like a CT who ordered guns would, just like a pathfinder who got everyone killed would.
Shitty Com/Sec leads to riots if you do your job badly. If this upsets you, do your job properly instead of complaining that the big meanie-face crew won't let you beat the clown in peace for breathing your air and that they all need to listen to you or you're calling mummy admin to tell them all off.
Edits for typo fixes and formatting and all that stuff.
Quick final thought - If you're at the point where the crew are reacting to the slightest possible hint of shitsec with a mix between "Ah shit, here we go again" and outright aggression even without knowing all the facts, it might behoove you to stop and think how it got to the point where Security is a dirty word, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't ALL coming from salty griefers who you righteously arrested now, was it?
