untitled reapplication

Izzy
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untitled reapplication

Post by Izzy »

BYOND ckey: IzzyInBox
Discord username (+user id): Izzy#4444
How long have you played on Citadel?: Got my first note in May of 2017.
How long have you played SS13?: http://www.byond.com/members/IzzyInBox
What is your timezone/general hours of activity?: US highpop-ish and some moonlighting
Experience with Github: git rebase --root -i; git commit -m "legacy code"; git push --force
Previous SS13 related admin experience: I should check the logs to see how long it actually was.
Previous non-SS13 related admin experience: I (somewhat successfully) can get my dogs to stop barking at the TV.
Current administrators who have agreed to support your application: Remove this question from the template.
I'll likely be on both servers, not just one, from time to time. Just Main at this point.

I'm a fair bit dissatisfied with some of the admin staff, so I'd like to help fix things by assisting from the inside.
I've read ban appeals and heard from players (multiple of each) with a running theme of players not knowing why they're being punished.
I think you guys could really use someone who's experienced in interpreting/applying rules and generally talking to people in a way they can understand, especially when it comes to dispelling the de-facto "unwritten" policies that are results of individual admins' actions.

Let me know if you want the classic format added on.
Last edited by Izzy on Mon Jan 18, 2021 9:53 pm, edited 6 times in total.

MrJWhit
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Re: [WIP] Admin

Post by MrJWhit »

I am posting here explicitly as a combo breaker of Izzy's posts, so I can give a +1.

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NicoDeimos
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Re: untitled

Post by NicoDeimos »

I'm against this reapplication for a handful of reasons.

Firstly, I found your general attitude and behavior toward the community at large disagreeable. Things like seemingly bragging about having sociopathic tendencies and being well-learned in psychology and communication that you declared you could manipulate players into saying or doing whatever you wanted them to with a bit of nudging didn't quite sit well with me. Another issue that I'm surprised never seemed to get brought up being the frequent shitposting about your kinks in the discord chat and OOC. Kinks that you are well aware would make the general community uncomfortable. I found it ironic when I noticed you briefly complained passive-aggressively about zack's kinkposting making people uncomfortable. Though to be fair he has more of a gatekeeping mentality behind it that comes off as much more toxic.

Secondly I'll refer to an incident that occurred on virgo station that I believe puts something else into better perspective. I recall a player on virgo getting permabanned because said player was using a script while observing to record other players' scenes. Something not too unlike yourself back when you were a head admin using your access to the server box and bulk logs to scrape emotes to make a random erp script. A lot of people thought that was funny at the time, but after reflecting on the virgo incident I personally see it as a bit more invasive of player privacy.

Finally there was an allegation recently that you might have been the person who was leaking admin chat which is a very serious accusation and should be taken seriously. It may or may not be true, but some of the circumstances and what little evidence seems to support the claim enough for me to lean toward it being a possibility. In which case I can't personally support your trustworthiness as staff.

Someone also voiced concern that you've been using the community manager role as just a stepping stone to easing your way back into staff and possibly higher up on the chain of command so to speak. Jokes about being brought back on directly as a headmin or intentions for the community manager role to have been more of a host-lite, that started to sound more insistent. It feels too much like a power grab in my opinion.

I certainly believe there are issues among the staff that can be ironed out, but I don't think you are the solution.

MrJWhit
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Re: untitled

Post by MrJWhit »

Just for the record "being well-learned in psychology and communication that you declared you could manipulate players into saying or doing whatever you wanted them to with a bit of nudging didn't quite sit well with me."
That's literally what persuasion and what making an argument is, it's a sword, it works for both good and bad things and it entirely depends on how you aim it.
You can help fight against being manipulated, and, the first step is actually acknowledging that you're being manipulated.

If you think someone's using social prowess to make things actively worse for you or the server as a whole, that's a COMPLETELY different situation than "this person is good at getting people to agree with them".

Hell, I've talked about how important it is to help persuade people to do something, because we're in a mostly social role, and having the social skills to make someone not leave the server forever, or help out someone depressed, or try and coarse someone to explain more in why the feel way they do, or many of the other extremely useful things to help literally everyone.

Izzy
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Re: untitled

Post by Izzy »

Communication/Attitude:
I don't think I brag about it being "sociopathic tendencies". Literally all I do is actively listen and ask good questions to dig deep into peoples' thought processes, and I try not to make myself sound hostile. I can go into more detail if you're specifically referencing something in particular.

Kinks:
I strictly follow a set of personal filters when talking about those topics.
One, I don't bring them up unless the topic is already active - sometimes I redirect a joke at myself for absurdity humor, but I don't bring up anything out of the blue, especially not to make other people uncomfortable.
Second is that I never imply/relate anyone else in those topics, unless they're specifically wanting me to.
I don't like it when essentially other people don't have the same personal filters, e.g. Zack's past kink hazing on new players.

Logs:
When I was head admin, yes I did have access to the bulk server logs, which I often used to pattern search through to verify various claims and data when dealing with server issues. For privacy sake and integrity of being a head admin in the past, I don't go through anyone's logs other than my own messages. Even those programmatically scraped for the AI training haven't touched human eyes. I will comply if you guys ask me to not use the AI generation stuff anymore.
Even though any messages used were sent in the public server, and half the logs anyway were publicly hosted in a zip file before I had head admin access, I've maintained privacy of all the data that hasn't been AI generated. And all text generated by the algorithm has been filtered through me as to not let other people snoop at generated texts not relevant to them.

Leaks:
Not much to say about this, I haven't leaked any admin chat. I've demoted staff for leaks when I was head admin. I know how horrible it feels.

Roles:
I do not intend to become head admin again. I don't even have the time. I do still think that the server needs some sort of leadership structure that doesn't overstress head admins with far more responsibilities than any one can reasonably manage and still have a life. But I don't want to fill any of those roles.
I put my name in for community manager because I believed it was a role meant to help collect a single source of truth for server development direction through communicating with devs, players, and admins. I felt this was a rather doable task for a single person for each server and wasn't a power grab due to it compiling information instead of creating the direction - not having the final say on anything. Given that I like to ask people questions in ways that can define such direction, I thought I could help.
Because the expectations for the role became more defined after accepting it, I toned down any plans I had for that high level server direction compilation, and instead decided to focus on roughly gauging player interest on events and future role engagement instead of the above.


I'm applying for admin because I believe I can still carry out polls for the CM stuff I decided to take on, I want to help run small events, and I want to help other admins make sure no players get burned by not understanding punishments or policy - to help communicate better between players and staff.

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Jaybirdnerd
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Re: untitled reapplication

Post by Jaybirdnerd »

Hello,

I'm here to state and mention several things I have queries and issues with, and maybe at the end give a score on how I feel about your admin application as per the typical -/+1 ordeal, so please read through all of this to ensure you know my stance on the following and your application.

Part One: I'm unsure what exactly you meant by this.
I'm a fair bit dissatisfied with some of the admin staff, so I'd like to help fix things by assisting from the inside.
I've read ban appeals and heard from players (multiple of each) with a running theme of players not knowing why they're being punished.
If a player has had action taken against them, they are likely told why exactly the case was and what exactly the issue at hand was to lead to this. We don't dole out bans, kicks, bwoinks or etc. for lack of a better reason than we see an issue and wish to resolve it. Most cases do go "I was banned for no reason!!!". There usually is solid reasoning behind why we take action towards players. Personally I've had to ban and get onto several players for simply breaking the rules or causing issue with other players wherein if I hadn't the situation would never have been resolved peacefully, if at all really. So, to reiterate, there usually IS solid enough reasoning towards taking action, we seldom (if, really, ever) leave players in the dark about their behavior or actions that lead to the actions taken against them. I believe personally most person(s) having said actions taken against them seek respite in the "I'm not the issue, the admins are." sentiment that I've seen quite a fair bit of here in the past few that I've been active enough to bear witness to notes, player comments, etc. towards. If someone HAS had action taken against them without their sentiment, it's likely a QC/Toxicity ban that was warranted by their actions within the community, and as with that we do not have to dole out a bwoink if they have been warned for similar events stated prior. This is almost seldom the case, even still, and we still likely give them a moment to reconcile their ill acts towards the community before taking administrative measures. Again, we do not cast someone out just do do so, if that is what you are implying with what you've said in your application.

Part Two: The status of you returning to power as an admin.

Personally, I'm not too unkind towards former staff. Retiree staff are always welcome to reclaim their place as long as they haven't caused issue in the past. I'm not saying this is all of our sentiments put together, however, as perhaps there's other alternative outlooks separate from my own that can vouch negatively on your half of the case, or maybe there's admins here that can say 'Izzy once leapt over ten burning buildings and saved a baby by bwoinking it out a window and letting it land on an ahelp cloud'. Those people would be, undoubtedly, insane for saying something that strange but maybe someone out there has that outlook. I'm not them, though. However, I'm here to tell you that personally I'm true neutral about what I've seen of you, what others have seen of you, your stance in the community and any feedback regarding you. I've never been under your adminship as a player, and I haven't bore witness to you personally keeping up with all the players, so on that note, I'm impartial. What I'm seeing, however, from your re-admin application is a change of pace.

Part Three: Another thing I saw that I feel needs to be touched on.
I do not intend to become head admin again. I don't even have the time. I do still think that the server needs some sort of leadership structure that doesn't overstress head admins with far more responsibilities than any one can reasonably manage and still have a life. But I don't want to fill any of those roles.
I put my name in for community manager because I believed it was a role meant to help collect a single source of truth for server development direction through communicating with devs, players, and admins. I felt this was a rather doable task for a single person for each server and wasn't a power grab due to it compiling information instead of creating the direction - not having the final say on anything. Given that I like to ask people questions in ways that can define such direction, I thought I could help.
Because the expectations for the role became more defined after accepting it, I toned down any plans I had for that high level server direction compilation, and instead decided to focus on roughly gauging player interest on events and future role engagement instead of the above.


I'm applying for admin because I believe I can still carry out polls for the CM stuff I decided to take on, I want to help run small events, and I want to help other admins make sure no players get burned by not understanding punishments or policy - to help communicate better between players and staff.
On this note, I'm personally fine if you wanted to take up running as an Event Manager over you being an admin. I'm well aware that you were (and possibly still are, I haven't checked in on the Community Managers in a good bit due to personal reasons for not doing so), a CM and with that, I still strongly believe you should turn to being an Event Manager as opposed to an administrator or higher. Event Manager roles are the least stressful roles in the administrative/community aside from the CM or Player rank. Event Managers may have to handle a great deal of stress towards Events, but, Events are unprompted unless directed. You can still gauge player interest on events and future role engagement from this position, just not as an administrator. Being an admin is time-constraining, just as much as being a head administrator really, and if you do not have a superb amount of time to spend towards checking in on the players and the like then you won't fare well in this position for too long as it can be stressful. We have had people quit or retire due to such stress and time-constraints, actually, and I do not feel this would be a good field for you to go into if you are with a full schedule and aren't willing to deal with a great deal of stress. Event Manager would be a perfect role, however, for you in this case.

Part Four: In summation, closing and final statements.

I know of you as being the person to host the rules website for the server, I know of you as a former admin, and I know of you as someone that likes to post funny dog memes in the RP chat on occasion. I've never seen you as an admin (or head admin for that matter) and have no experience with how you were then vs how you are at current. You say you would like not to spend eons of time dedicated towards the server and that the job prior when you were an admin was stressful. To this, I say, if you cannot dedicate enough time towards being an admin you should not be one, nor should you force the stress of it upon yourself by re-applying for the role that you know to be a stressful one. I highly suggest seeking out the Event Manager application, applying for that, and doing that instead as it's less stressful and time-intensive. I still do not understand what you meant by 'We take action and do not give reasoning behind why', maybe I'm missing something key here, but I would like to reiterate that I personally do not do that nor have I seen it happen sans a very very valid state of reasoning.

Judgement: Personally, from me (and in the nicest way I can give this), a strong -1. I'm sorry, but no, I don't think you should be an admin again. Event Manager, sure, but not an admin. I apologize for my negative jurisdiction, but perhaps try again another time or take on another role that isn't this.


See you next post,

-Jay

Izzy
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Re: untitled reapplication

Post by Izzy »

Again, we do not cast someone out just do do so, if that is what you are implying with what you've said in your application.
Not at all implying that, I'm not referencing anything in specific. I'm not applying to overturn any bans or anything. I know why you guys make bans, you guys know why you make bans, but often players don't.
The main reasons I put up my app though is because the CM chat stuff happened, and because I've had quite off-color interactions with admins myself.

And I'm not sure know how the topic turned to admin stress - I only mentioned that I don't have time to be a head admin. I'm quite aware of admin expectations and responsibilities from the over two years of experience, so when I apply here, I know what I'm getting into. You calling it a change of pace is about right though. I know what my current availabilities are, and how to manage that.

I honestly just think I'd be a decent help. I know I'm already kinda fucked because this thread isn't just a bunch of wordless "+1"s, but I still think it's worth consideration.

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Jaybirdnerd
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Re: untitled reapplication

Post by Jaybirdnerd »

Hello,

I'm sorry, this doesn't really change my take on things. I appreciate you coming to me with a response and explaining things, but, still. I'm sorry if the response or vote wasn't what you wanted or expected. As for the quote and what exactly you meant, players should know full well why someone makes a ban based on their actions and us getting up with them prior as I've stated.

As for your status of your admin application: I'm still not in key for you to gain a plus one as I have no experience with you still outside of interactions in the chatroom. I have seen you play, however, and do say that you're pretty good as a player and that i've not seen really any issue out of you so far.

That said, I still think you should reconsider and become an Event Manager instead. I understood what you meant, but still, this applies to pretty much all of admin-based work or at least it has in my experience. However, that noted, you said you have had prior experience. Maybe another admin will come along and give a +1 in my stead rather than myself. This said, again, I'm still sticking to a firm -1.

Sorry for not giving you the answers or replies you wanted here, but that's just how I see things at the very least. Could always be wrong, again, other admins are probably more versed with you than myself.

With that, thank you for your response.

See you next post,

-Jay

Silicons
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Re: untitled reapplication

Post by Silicons »

wordless +1's aren't particularly needed but i'll be leaving my thoughts on this and others uhh tomorrow at the latest sorta busy rn
tl;dr is yes but with some concerns i'd like to chat about, not regarding admin style but regarding general things esp on discord, i have no issue with your admin style it's actually pretty good all things considered

DeltaFire
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Re: untitled reapplication

Post by DeltaFire »

Don't have much to say that hasn't been said already; Due to previously mentioned concerns aswell as a rather problematic attitude, this is gonna be a -1 from me.
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