Character Complaint - RP - Mayfox

[Merne23]

BYOND Name of complaint against: Mayfox

Your BYOND name: Merne23

Date of issue and round ID: 5/4/2019

Reason for complaint: Unacceptable behavior as a Head of Staff

This has been a growing issue for awhile now, and somewhat addressed insofar as I know. Yet the problems for some, including myself, remain.

Akram, a Security Commander on RP, consistently talks down to his staff, ignores requests to not be called 'darling' by other crew, and generally engenders a negative reaction from what he does. Personally I find the way he handles the department and situations that arise completely unsuited for a Head of Staff position. He will demand the service of other departments (particularly engineering) and ignore their response, and he has on one occasion neglected the power of his position to break into a scene without authority.

There are also more minor issues, such as using French to insult others or deliberately anger them, but I have less experience with this personally.

I hope to see less of this behavior, or less of Akram in a Head of Staff position.

[AWingedHussar]

I was actually planning on making a character complain aswell, glad to see somebody else is fed up with his actions too ^^ Overall I agree with what everything you've said and I can help vouch for you, I don't think they're a competent head at all.

To be honest, I've stopped playing security entirely when Akram is the commander, or if I'm already playing and he joins the round in progress as a commander I'll leave. The character is deliberately annoying and I was fine with it at first, keep IC as IC y'know? But I think they're going out of their way to be an asshole for the other players and I've noticed it's been deterring me from playing my favorite roles.

[mouseofthecake]

I don't have a detailed file on the guy, but I saw Akram overlook a crime in favor of lewding someone once, which is pretty bad form for a hoss.

[raiq]

I want to first state that Akram's behavior only really falls in the unacceptable category because of the fact they play the Head Of Security

If they were any other job that was not security, and not a head, then it would just be boiled down to their character being primarily annoying with the constant baby talking and french nonsense. However, that is not why there's a complaint right now.

Let me just add my two cents in by stating that I've had to deal with Akram in multiple instances where he straight out over-escalates the situation and causes crew members to outright despise his behavior when he does show his face. The crux of the issue is that he never knows when to stop when asked to ICly, and it's almost as the OOC player of Akram has specifically and meticulously designed Akram to be as much of a smug, passive aggressive person as possible.

Some examples are as follows:

When I was the HoS I had to deal with him constantly calling another officer darling, when they were warden. When expressed the desire to have them stop the baby talking, Akram only started slinging passive aggressive insults stating how the officer complaining had thin skin and was sensitive. This is a ongoing trend as you'll see.

Earlier today I was playing the Off-Duty CO and when I went in to get my mind backup, noticed an officer was sitting in the medbay lobby. I made a small statement to them about how they could get in trouble for privacy violations (literally just wanted to give them a heads up to like.. hey, be careful, someone got demoted for privacy violations earlier.) Akram was in the medbay lobby and immediately began insulting my character in french, and entirely over-escalated the situation. Even when I made the complaint up the chain, Akram, as the HoS, continued instigating on comms about how I was sensitive and "dearest coyote" something I've told him numerous times to quit.

Long story short these are only two incidents, but show the fact that Akram doesn't listen at all as a HoS. If you're on the list of people whom he's not befriended the outright dismissive nature of their personality is unacceptable as a HoS. The HoS is a job meant to deescalate situations, not aggravate them by pushing peoples buttons to get them to the point they're not wanting to even play security when being the commander.

[AWingedHussar]

Overall, while I don't think they've really broken any rules, Akram is a toxic character that leaves MANY players with a bad taste in their mouth, including me. Seeing his name on the crew manifest is a deterrent to me even playing the game, especially if I cannot avoid them because they're in the same department as me.

Playing a character that's an asshole is all fine and dandy (I do it!) But the way Akram is played just gets under my skin to the point where I find myself actually getting aggravated at the character OOCly. I've witnessed them disregard their job as Security Commander to go off and ERP or something, (Just assumed, because they abandoned post.), that was before stopped playing when they were commander though of course.

[StellarWolf]

Hi Merne!

I'd like to add my take on this complaint from what I've witnessed on a day to day basis with Akram. Typically what I get from him is one of two things depending on the department I play: Either he comes to Exploration without an arrest warrant and presses searches on folks when a pathfinders job is to do so, or he constantly uses french (A dead language in this IC setting). Personally I have not witnessed heavy duty security stuff with him besides the time he demanded every security official to come to his office to PDA check over an IC thing regarding broken cargo. I have witnessed him occasionally insult and belittle people (Ana is one victim) or in one instance I was observing to him constantly baby talking a suicidal prisoner (all other sec officer went along with it because of akrams history I presume). The one thing he needs to do is change his attitude in general and stop french talking. A head shouldn't belittle folks, or baby talk them.

- Local Slime Awoo, Stellar Wolf

[InfinitelyThinRectanges]

I'm really glad you bit the bullet on this Merne, I know a lot of people have been considering it for a while but have had their own reasons for holding off.

I'm going to echo a few sentiments I've seen here right off the bat, the first of which is how they seem to go out of their way to annoy people with their gimmick. I know the whole "snooty french jerk" thing is a trope that they may be trying to play straight, but shit the teacups I fully understand and sympathise with the people his behaviour makes actually, legitimately annoyed behind the screen, because it hits me the same way.

I sometimes think he perceives himself as the protagonist of a james bond film, some suave, classy, refined, elegant gentlemen gliding around the halls of his domain, flirting with all the "Cute ones" and "Shutting out those haters who can't handle my swag". In actuality, he comes off as an unbearably smug absolute prick who believes all else to be beneath his majesty, even when he's in the middle of yet another catastrophic fuck-up of entirely his own making that could have been avoided with the slightest shred of magnanimity, the faintest hint of humbleness, the barest touch of the class and sophistication he appears to believe, and act like, he actually has. He gives off the impression of thinking himself the king of the entire station and that all around him need to suck his ass, and by god it's one of the most infuriating things I've dealt with in my entire history with SS13.

I appreciate that "unpopular" isn't inherently a very good reason to give someone the donger, nor necessarily is even "being an asshole", but as with all things there's a limit, there's got to be an element of common sense involved somewhere along the line. When either you're such an asshole or you do such a convincing job of playing one that large chunks of the playerbase don't want to be around you, and in some cases even refuse to play when you're present, you need to reign it the hell in. And if they're going to refuse to do that, which they seem to be, I don't think it's unfair to say that it becomes staff's job to do it for them.

There's also the times that I'm aware of that I've seen them just be straight up incompetent in their role, even leaving aside the fact that they're more painfully abrasive than a pair of shark-skin underpants. I've got one incident in particular that really got stuck in my craw to which I was a direct witness and a number of others that I didn't see in person, so I'll cover the one I witnessed for myself and should I recall anything else, I'll post about it later.

There's a line in the SoP (Accessible from this link: https://wiki.vore-station.net/Standard_ ... _Procedure ) which reads as follows:


"The returning crew are not to leave the gateway room or shuttle hangar until allowed to do so by the Research Director, or if the research director is absent, then by the team leader, or next in command. During this time, participants should be screened for contraband, health, and mental well-being before returning to the rest of the station."


Ooooooooooor, if you're Akram, darrrrrrrrling, it instead reads:

"The HoS is well within their rights to storm the hangar bay, order the silcons to bolt down every exit from the hangar, and demand the explorers surrender to be searched or they'll be searched by force. The HoS is then permitted to execute the task of searching all of the explo team by force, and furthermore is actively encouraged to threaten to arrest anyone who takes umbridge with their enforcement of this policy. The HoS is also actively encouraged to totally and utterly ignore anyone, in character or out, who raises the slightest hint or suggestion that they may be acting improperly, and furthermore are required to then get taken down and handcuffed by a lone, unarmed explorer without making the slightest effort to defend themselves, as is expected from the Head of Security for the entire station. Finally, the HoS is then requred to wander off to their office and attempt to get his prick wet, and is then well within their rights to treat the resultant summoning to explain themselves as a minor inconvenience from all those other pesky command staff who "Just don't understand how cool and badass they are! rather than a serious breach of personal and professional ethics, a major abuse of their power, a disgusting showing of personal incompetence and unfitness for duty and a shockingly poor grasp of what Security as a department are actually for."

I'd also like to stop being sarcastic for long enough to note that Akram made absolutely no effort to check on the mental or physical health of the crew, ask about the mission, generally act like he gave a damn about any part of that reg aside from the bit he could misinterpret to pretend he was playing SWAT 4, at everyone else's expense.

There's one final note I'd like to raise. We've been promised dozens of times by staff that there'll be a crackdown on shitters, incompetent or malicious command will be dealt with, bad security will be regulated more tightly, that our frustrations are understood. We've also been told that no matter how much we complain in discord, no matter how much we call terrible behaviour out in deadchat or adminhelp, that our only real recourse is to make a player complaint on the forums. I've even had server staff agreeing with me some of the times I've grumped about him IC, which they oversaw through the magic of observing, for god's sake!

Here we are, doing exactly that, and Akram is the prime example of both of those things. He's a grotesquely incompetent commander who I'd accuse of going out of his way to make the shittest possible decisions if I believed for a second he had the brains to do it, and his sole contribution to the command staff of any given round is to act as ballast, and prevent them being an effective team by sucking up all their time, attention and blood pressure in dealing with him.

This is a player whose IC behaviour has pissed off so many people that he's running out of fresh people to piss off. What else would it take to have his ability to play HoS or CD removed, not even banned from the server itself, just removed from those roles? What more can he do short of stereotypical toxins abuse to bomb the place, or OOC racism, or strangling a prisoner to death?

C'mon, lads. You've proven you can handle toxic people/characters when you gave Xyel the boot, right in the fruit. What's stopping you here? I don't think anyone's looking for him to get thrown off the server, just for him to get busted down to mallcop or maybe out of sec altogether.

[Sylas]

There's one final note I'd like to raise. We've been promised dozens of times by staff that there'll be a crackdown on shitters, incompetent or malicious command will be dealt with, bad security will be regulated more tightly, that our frustrations are understood. We've also been told that no matter how much we complain in discord, no matter how much we call terrible behaviour out in deadchat or adminhelp, that our only real recourse is to make a player complaint on the forums. I've even had server staff agreeing with me some of the times I've grumped about him IC, which they oversaw through the magic of observing, for god's sake!

Cant crack down on an issue unless its brought to light like it was here.

Honestly wasnt aware Akram was such an issue, outside of the explorer stuff. He was told off about that before and has since stopped crusading the explorers, BUT, I joined as security a couple of days ago and he made it a point to order me to go out of my way to bug the explorers about potential contraband upon return.

Ill be telling him to cut the shit and stop validhunting. Security on RP is meant to maintain peace and stability, not bother literally anyone who has the potential of breaking a regulation.

[Allakai]

Right so I believe I can finally get around to this and really look into it.

More less if am to title this I shall do this as such:

A Critique on the Character of Akram and an Official Complaint

I shall begin this complaint of my own with stating that I do not in any shape, way, or form wish to see the character of Akram ousted from the community of Citadel or permanently banned at all. To call upon the head of someone on a silver platter like such makes us appear like a pack of wild dogs swooping down on roadkill. Looking through the other complaints I can with full realization say that the sentiment towards Akram certainly is felt by the community and myself included. I shall lay out several points from the community as well as include my own points and critiques.

Upon the first critique I am to say from one HoS to another, I am not very impressed. I know I am not the most respected HoS nor am I the most competent. Certainly it is an uphill battle to be appreciated as the Head of Security and to not give in to the stereotypical "Harm baton the badguys until they stop moving" mentality. Certainly being the HoS is one of the most alluring positions (excluding CD) to give in to your basic wants and desires to be the El Presidente NanoTrasen. Even I give in to such a lucrative prospect and am quick to ready my most likely bored security team with gear if the situation at all calls for anything more than Paul Blart to be on scene.

Akram has not shown an understanding of the position in which he holds. As stated by several other members here, he is inflammatory, passive aggressive, and does little to actually solve situations. In fact in my own experience Akram tends to make situations worse, even among his own members of security: inflammatory comments, purposely grinding the metaphorical cigar into wounds, and above else the absolute snugness one can imagine from someone playing a heavily French proposed character to the point of almost being offensively stereotypical in a universe where not even most humans would know what French was much less a TAJARA where in universe the system of Rarkajar is by no means close to the Sol system.

To further note upon issues regarding Akram and the character himself not exactly making much sense, the character not only knows French, but apparently ICly in his very records has written that not only was Akram apart of a mercenary group, but that he had his hand in the killing of an entire trading vessel. I know often we glance over records and shrug it off, but I have had several members of security tell my character (That being Sajiid Al-Shakoor) they found it disturbing that someone with such a record would not only be hired by NanoTrasen as a security guard but as HEAD OF STAFF.

By no means are these traits to point a finger and squeal "ban he!" but there are more negatives than positives and there has been no attempts by the player to rectify these quarrels and issues and in fact takes what is known to be 'bad traits' of their character and only amplify it. I would so far to say that the player knowingly uses the very traits that is despised towards their character to further upset and aggravate players.

I shall look upon something I preach quite a bit to other command players, specifically those of Security. You are not a soldier. You are not a peacekeeping force with an iron fist. You are a security officer meant to keep peace and to solve problems with the least amount of pain and suffering as possible and to only use force and acts of violence if it is an absolutely final straw and resort.

I can clearly state with entire honestly and vigorous annoyance that Akram is not someone that is to be sat down in the position of Head of Security. This is not a request for them to be banned, but certainly I feel as though he is to be restricted from a head position until he can otherwise prove himself to be a responsible character in a position where he holds a lot of power.

[InfinitelyThinRectanges]

Ill be telling him to cut the shit and stop validhunting. Security on RP is meant to maintain peace and stability, not bother literally anyone who has the potential of breaking a regulation.

As reassuring as it is to have gotten such a timely response, I worry that you're totally glossing over how his obnoxiousness has gotten to the point where people don't want to play when he's around. It's all very well telling him to stop validhunting, but that doesn't deal with the fact that he's utterly insufferable to the point where it's become an OOC issue.