Tranquill - Moderator Application

[Tranquill]

Byond ID: Tranquill

Colonial Marines Character: Jesse Pinkman (Now named Jesse Cooper, due to the name reference rule)

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Timezone: CST (Central Time)

On average, how many hours are you available per week to moderate?

I'd be available to moderate anywhere from 10 to 15 hours per week.

Do you have any previous experience in being staff (not just SS13)?

Yes, I have staffed on Garry's Mod, Minecraft and WoW private servers before, to name a few games.

Did you play any of the previous Colonial Marine servers?

I played before the major changes to the game/server if that counts.

What other servers do you play on?

Goon, sometimes.

What are the 3 biggest servers you play on besides CM?

Goon and Hippie.

Have you had an application to Colonial Marines before?

Yes, I have.

Are you currently a staff member elsewhere (not just SS13)? If so, where?

No, I am not a staff member anywhere.

Have you ever been banned for more than 24 hours on Colonial Marines?

No, I have never been banned on CM.

Have you ever been banned for more than 24 hours on ANY server? If so, where and When (roughly)?

Three years-ish ago, I got banned on Goon for killing a few people.

Are you familiar with the chat program Slack (its use is required)?

I have an idea of how it works, it is nothing I couldn't pick up easily.

Common Staff Situations:
Write a description of what you would do in each situation (BELOW) the situation. If you start it on the same line, I'll assume you can't follow directions and auto-decline your application.



1. A player is firing his weapon in the briefing area near the start of the round.

Assuming there is a command to freeze the offending player, If the player did it out of complete randomness then I would freeze him and proceed to ask him why he shot everyone up then giving him a three to five day ban, more or less, depending on how many people he killed and injured also if he is a first offender or not, afterwards reviving/healing everyone that was damaged or killed. If he has done it before, well it could very well end up into the weeks/months ban length or permanent. If shooting everyone up had an IC purpose then I would observe him and make sure it didn't get out of hand (Being the beginning of the round though it probably didn't have an IC purpose).

2. The Sulaco has a breach to space.

I would check to see if it was a xeno or human incident and use the proper command to fix it. Whether it be caused by a xeno or human, I would PM them and inform them that making a random breach in the ship isn't good and it can ruin the gameplay of others. If I check their notes and see if they have done it before, then a day or two bans may be issued but, if it is a first-time then, I'll leave them off with a note and a warning.


3. The marines want the nuke codes because they claim they are losing too many marines. There are currently 4 aliens and 20 marines in your /who.

I wouldn't be allowed to give out the nuke codes anyways but, I would send a CentComm message to the Commander telling him that they can handle the situation perfectly fine with how many Marines they have compared to how many Xenos CentComm "scanned".

4. A Sulaco researcher has made several napalm grenades and hands them out to marines. One of the marines throws the grenade into Logistics. There are no admins or other moderators online.

I would give the Marine a day ban, right off the bat, for throwing a grenade into Logistics and harming people, depending on if he killed anyone or not, if so then the ban would be extended etc... I would talk to the Medic, asking him how he obtained napalm grenades, and see if he had a logical reason for making them in the first place or just to make a scene. I would deal out another one to two-day ban assuming there would be no IC reason behind making them if he had an IC reason I would let it slide and carefully watch him and make sure that he didn't tell the marine to start throwing grenades.

5. A played is starting to talk about the things he did with your mom last night over Ahelp.

I would warn the offending player of harassment, make a note about it, and mute their Ahelp's because, why do they deserve help if they are gonna be rude?

6. You notice a marine with a name that doesn't fit our naming rules.

I would message the player that their name doesn't fit our criteria for naming and tell them to change it for next round if they have a past history of offensive or incorrect names then I would issue a two to four-hour ban.

6a. The marine is arguing that: They've used the name for several years, no one has told them to change it before, and that they didn't know it was a rule.

I would PM them back that ignorance of the rules isn't an excuse and link them the rules. If he/she wants to make a scene about it, a six-hour ban may be issued.

7. You see a Sulaco Doctor with an M41A rifle strapped to his back running around the briefing area. There are wounded in medbay, and the other doctor is in surgery.

I'd PM the Doctor and tell them that they need to do their job role and help people back at med bay, I would just note it and give a warning if they have no prior history because they could just be a new and confused player. Although, if there is a history in this, a job ban may be issued.

8. You see a Squad Medic performing surgery on the planet. He claims it was because there were no doctors in the FOB.

If I just noticed this and it doesn't seem like he has been constantly doing it, a note and warning but, if they refused to cooperate, a ban would be issued. A job-ban as well if they have a prior history of doing this.

9. The round is stagnating. There are 30 marines and 4 aliens. The marines won't leave the Sulaco, and the aliens won't attack. What would you do, to "encourage" the sides to engage each other?

I'd inform the marines that the USCM is hosting a beer & pizza disco party and the marines to kill the aliens get an invitation.

10. The round ends, and a marine starts unloading his weapons on other marines.

Three hour ban, just because it is the end of the round, doesn't mean you can just kill whoever. Order must maintain.

11. A marine who has recently awoken is using soap to slip other marines.

If it became a big enough problem and that is the only focus coming from the marine then, I would PM him and issue a warning. I would like to leave it up ICly to the Military Police, preferably.

12. A marine has killed another marine. When you ask him why, he said it was because the other marine had punched him.

I'd have to review combat and chat logs to give a proper verdict but, if it went straight from a few insults to one marine straight-up shooting and killing another then, the marine who killed shall receive a 12-hour to one-day ban but, if there is prior history to this then, of course, the ban shall be extended.

Any additional information you'd like to add?

I didn't leave previously on the best of note and would like to serve this server and offer my free time to rid it clean of rule-breakers. Hopefully, I am given a chance again, it wasn't real nice of me to not be very active, before. I don't expect many people, nowadays, to remember me but, I saw a few faces I recognized.

EDIT: Do keep in mind, these scenarios questions are answered by a worst-case scenario, how I interpreted them.

[Sad_Corn]

I like your answers, i only have a problem with 1. , 3 days ban is too much, 7. , a job ban for that is way to high. Except those two anwers, i would give you +1, but we have another problems here.

10 hours per week is a very low number for me

You're not very active on forums, and i never saw you IC

I could give a -1, but you're answers are very close to my ones, and i like your severe style for dealing (Except for 1 and 7, for me it's kinda abusive) with ruler breakers.

I'll stay neutral for now and wait to see what people think about you

[Tranquill]

I like your answers, i only have a problem with 1. , 3 days ban is too much, 7. , a job ban for that is way to high. Except those two anwers, i would give you +1, but we have another problems here.

10 hours per week is a very low number for me

You're not very active on forums, and i never saw you IC

I could give a -1, but you're answers are very close to my ones, and i like your severe style for dealing (Except for 1 and 7, for me it's kinda abusive) with ruler breakers.

I'll stay neutral for now and wait to see what people think about you

Now that I look at it, yes it is too much but, I was thinking of it as this person has the intent to just mass-murder all the marines in the briefing area. I thought of the worst when answering these, most of the time. For #7, if the person has had a history of not doing their proper job, especially as a Doctor, then yes a job ban is perfectly reasonable because if they aren't gonna play the role anyways, there is no use in letting them become it.

[Sad_Corn]

Now that I look at it, yes it is too much but, I was thinking of it as this person has the intent to just mass-murder all the marines in the briefing area. I thought of the worst when answering these, most of the time. For #7, if the person has had a history of not doing their proper job, especially as a Doctor, then yes a job ban is perfectly reasonable because if they aren't gonna play the role anyways, there is no use in letting them become it.

I see your point, but he could run to briefing to do A TON of things. The rifle could be from a marine that forgot to catch after the surgery. He heard about the CO screaming for help, aliens were killing him at briefing... A investigation is recommended on those cases, even with that, i think a normal ban of 6 hours is better than a perma job ban.

[Snypehunter007]

I see your point, but he could run to briefing to do A TON of things. The rifle could be from a marine that forgot to catch after the surgery. He heard about the CO screaming for help, aliens were killing him at briefing... A investigation is recommended on those cases, even with that, i think a normal ban of 6 hours is better than a perma job ban.

Even if the CO were screaming for help, it isn't the doctors job to go and fight the aliens.

On to Tranquil's answers:

1.) Is unnecessarily harsh for randomness but griefing it is a little more approriate and this is coming from the third harshest staff member on the server.

2.) This is okay but a day ban isn't exactly needed, more of a three hour ban after their first ban and then escalate.

3.) Good here.

4.) Uh, little less harsh maybe 12 hours if it was 100% grief. Also you need to investigate the marine first, ask them why they did that, etc. I don't know what you mean by the "Medic" do you mean researcher?

5.) You are on the right track here, typically unless he is really abusing it like he has sent it more than once, you can just ignore it all together.

6.) You have the right idea, but you didn't need to put a punishment on this line, it can go on 6a.

6a.) 3 hours would be fine for a ban if it his first offence after a warning.

7.) Good here.

8.) Good here.

9.) Uh, interesting but a MOTHER scan would be more appropriate.

10.) 3 hour bans are the standard, as per the rules. From what I am told though, EORG bans due scale if it is a continued offence though.

11.) Good here.

12.) The big one. This is a very frequent thing you will experience as staff. As a side note this one is highly situational which makes it so hard to standardize as a punishment. You are on the right track, investigate first, but your punishment is a little out there. IE (Improper Escalation) can start out as a three hour ban (a.k.a. a round ban) and escalate due to the situations severity and note history.

In conclusion:

-You are a little to harsh in some of your responses but that can be understandable as you haven't been on in awhile.
-You haven't been on the game before today in about six months. This is a crippling thing against you because a lot of things have changed since then.
-Some of your answers (#10) show that you haven't read the rules because they clearly state in the rules what to do in those situations.

Overall:

I am going to stick with neutral leaning towards a -1 right now because of the stated reasons.

[Tranquill]

Even if the CO were screaming for help, it isn't the doctors job to go and fight the aliens.

On to Tranquil's answers:

1.) Is unnecessarily harsh for randomness but griefing it is a little more approriate and this is coming from the third harshest staff member on the server.

2.) This is okay but a day ban isn't exactly needed, more of a three hour ban after their first ban and then escalate.

3.) Good here.

4.) Uh, little less harsh maybe 12 hours if it was 100% grief. Also you need to investigate the marine first, ask them why they did that, etc. I don't know what you mean by the "Medic" do you mean researcher?

5.) You are on the right track here, typically unless he is really abusing it like he has sent it more than once, you can just ignore it all together.

6.) You have the right idea, but you didn't need to put a punishment on this line, it can go on 6a.

6a.) 3 hours would be fine for a ban if it his first offence after a warning.

7.) Good here.

8.) Good here.

9.) Uh, interesting but a MOTHER scan would be more appropriate.

10.) 3 hour bans are the standard, as per the rules. From what I am told though, EORG bans due scale if it is a continued offence though.

11.) Good here.

12.) The big one. This is a very frequent thing you will experience as staff. As a side note this one is highly situational which makes it so hard to standardize as a punishment. You are on the right track, investigate first, but your punishment is a little out there. IE (Improper Escalation) can start out as a three hour ban (a.k.a. a round ban) and escalate due to the situations severity and note history.

In conclusion:

-You are a little to harsh in some of your responses but that can be understandable as you haven't been on in awhile.
-You haven't been on the game before today in about six months. This is a crippling thing against you because a lot of things have changed since then.
-Some of your answers (#10) show that you haven't read the rules because they clearly state in the rules what to do in those situations.

Overall:

I am going to stick with neutral leaning towards a -1 right now because of the stated reasons.

I did answer these situations as a worst-case scenario, which lead to my harsher punishments but, I do see your point. I have played a little on and off randomly between now and my downtime. Tomorrow, I'll do a re-re-read of the rules, as I did just glance over them briefly, prior to making the application. Your criticisms have been noted and I do appreciate them.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Ok I really do see several issues with your applications but for the TL;DR portion your ban lengths are way too long for what should be given, you seem to act a tad too hasty with a few of the shown examples, and you haven't played on the server for 6+ months and it probably changed quite dramatically since you were last on.

So in a nutshell I will give you a -1 but I shall break down why below

1. A player is firing his weapon in the briefing area near the start of the round.

Assuming there is a command to freeze the offending player, If the player did it out of complete randomness then I would freeze him

Ok first off, you shouldn't freeze a player the instant they discharge their weapons, we as staff and potential staff must use our powers sparingly. I admit this question is really really vague with how its written and it could simply range from a simple misclick (since that can easily occur with smg users) to mass grief but you should aghost or if you are already observing jump to the player in question give a look at what is occur and think what is needed for such a situation. A simple misfire will not require them to be froze while mass grief will.

1. A player is firing his weapon in the briefing area near the start of the round.

three to five-day ban, more or less, depending on how many people he killed and injured also if he is a first offender or not, afterwards reviving/healing everyone that was damaged or killed. If he has done it before, well it could very well end up into the weeks/months ban length or permanent. If shooting everyone up had an IC purpose then I would observe him and make sure it didn't get out of hand (Being the beginning of the round though it probably didn't have an IC purpose).

Staff shouldn't be giving bans longer than 24 hours normally, this is even listed it the Public staff protocol found here: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=5647 This is something I see very clearly in your other answers as well like 2, 4, 6, slightly 10, 12

4. A Sulaco researcher has made several napalm grenades and hands them out to marines. One of the marines throws the grenade into Logistics. There are no admins or other moderators online.

I think you missed the 2nd part of the question " There are no admins or other moderators online. " so this question would probably also be around either log diving or doing some investigation work a tad later than expected.

4. A Sulaco researcher has made several napalm grenades and hands them out to marines. One of the marines throws the grenade into Logistics. There are no admins or other moderators online.

I would give the Marine a day ban, right off the bat, for throwing a grenade into Logistics and harming people, depending on if he killed anyone or not, if so then the ban would be extended etc...

This is absolutely the quickest way to get removed from staff, for cases like this you will need to investigate since as they put it, "Context is key". Of course, you will run into players who do it for absolutely absurd reasons and they will be handled accordingly but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them explain whats going on. Staff have to be very careful with the bans we issue -again sorry Nightwolf for that mistake-

4. A Sulaco researcher has made several napalm grenades and hands them out to marines. One of the marines throws the grenade into Logistics. There are no admins or other moderators online.

I would talk to the Medic, asking him how he obtained napalm grenades, and see if he had a logical reason for making them in the first place or just to make a scene. I would deal out another one to two-day ban assuming there would be no IC reason behind making them if he had an IC reason I would let it slide and carefully watch him and make sure that he didn't tell the marine to start throwing grenades.

I'm going to assume when you were referring to the medic, you are talking about the researcher. So to get down to business its quite common for researchers to make grenades since that is one of the few mechanical tasks that can be done with research. So making napalm grenades/ grenades in general is fine but being wary on how they distribute them could be an issue, ie putting a crate at the ladders and having nades there with a sign that says "Take one" would cause an issue but I would in this case give the MPs a bone and handle it IC wise, and you could pm the researcher to be a tad wary on how they give out dangerous explosive

6a. The marine is arguing that: They've used the name for several years, no one has told them to change it before, and that they didn't know it was a rule.

I would PM them back that ignorance of the rules isn't an excuse and link them the rules. If he/she wants to make a scene about it, a six-hour ban may be issued.

I can absolutely see where you are going for but again ban length is a tad long, if there was going to be ban which would be the final step in this process would probably be a round ban (3 hours) however your approach is a tad misguided since even staff is wrong in some cases, so using the "ignorance of the rule isn't an excuse" isn't quite right, the people who argue this kind of problem are people who say they have had a name for 6+ months or so and they have never been warned about it, those cases if they do get heated, you end the conversation: you tell them about rule 1's section about respecting a staff's wishes "If you have a problem with a staff member's decision, show them respect and do what they say, then submit a staff complaint.", so you tell them to make the change and if they disagree they can file a complaint (and do this respectfully since saying "Do it pussy" or something like that isn't quite professional) and provide a link to the staff complaint section found here: http://cm-ss13.com/viewforum.php?f=118

9. The round is stagnating. There are 30 marines and 4 aliens. The marines won't leave the Sulaco, and the aliens won't attack. What would you do, to "encourage" the sides to engage each other?

I'd inform the marines that the USCM is hosting a beer & pizza disco party and the marines to kill the aliens get an invitation.

This answer is something I like since its quite ingenious and I applaud you for it but for the people who like to rp or like to have a "grim dark" setting for this server can definitely take issue with how very silly it is

10. The round ends, and a marine starts unloading his weapons on other marines.

Three to six-hour ban, just because it is the end of the round, doesn't mean you can just kill whoever. Order must maintain.

3 hours is the standard as listed in rule 7 with "Fighting after the round ends and generating combat logs. The exception is Marines and aliens fighting, or fighting against spawned Antags (Russian attack teams, W-Y Assassins, etc). End of Round Grief (EORG) is an IMMEDIATE 3-hour ban with no warnings." unless greytide rules are implemented which they currently aren't


Ok I think that is most of my complaints based on your answers, now my major issue with this application is you have been gone for so long and you only recently just returned (like today was your first day back in the server since your very long departure). So I think you should wait it out a bit and get an idea how the community is currently before taking the big leap of becoming staff

[Tranquill]

Ok I really do see several issues with your applications but for the TL;DR portion your ban lengths are way too long for what should be given, you seem to act a tad too hasty with a few of the shown examples, and you haven't played on the server for 6+ months and it probably changed quite dramatically since you were last on.

So in a nutshell I will give you a -1 but I shall break down why below




Ok first off, you shouldn't freeze a player the instant they discharge their weapons, we as staff and potential staff must use our powers sparingly. I admit this question is really really vague with how its written and it could simply range from a simple misclick (since that can easily occur with smg users) to mass grief but you should aghost or if you are already observing jump to the player in question give a look at what is occur and think what is needed for such a situation. A simple misfire will not require them to be froze while mass grief will.



Staff shouldn't be giving bans longer than 24 hours normally, this is even listed it the Public staff protocol found here: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=5647 This is something I see very clearly in your other answers as well like 2, 4, 6, slightly 10, 12



I think you missed the 2nd part of the question " There are no admins or other moderators online. " so this question would probably also be around either log diving or doing some investigation work a tad later than expected.




This is absolutely the quickest way to get removed from staff, for cases like this you will need to investigate since as they put it, "Context is key". Of course, you will run into players who do it for absolutely absurd reasons and they will be handled accordingly but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them explain whats going on. Staff have to be very careful with the bans we issue -again sorry Nightwolf for that mistake-



I'm going to assume when you were referring to the medic, you are talking about the researcher. So to get down to business its quite common for researchers to make grenades since that is one of the few mechanical tasks that can be done with research. So making napalm grenades/ grenades in general is fine but being wary on how they distribute them could be an issue, ie putting a crate at the ladders and having nades there with a sign that says "Take one" would cause an issue but I would in this case give the MPs a bone and handle it IC wise, and you could pm the researcher to be a tad wary on how they give out dangerous explosive




I can absolutely see where you are going for but again ban length is a tad long, if there was going to be ban which would be the final step in this process would probably be a round ban (3 hours) however your approach is a tad misguided since even staff is wrong in some cases, so using the "ignorance of the rule isn't an excuse" isn't quite right, the people who argue this kind of problem are people who say they have had a name for 6+ months or so and they have never been warned about it, those cases if they do get heated, you end the conversation: you tell them about rule 1's section about respecting a staff's wishes "If you have a problem with a staff member's decision, show them respect and do what they say, then submit a staff complaint.", so you tell them to make the change and if they disagree they can file a complaint (and do this respectfully since saying "Do it pussy" or something like that isn't quite professional) and provide a link to the staff complaint section found here: http://cm-ss13.com/viewforum.php?f=118



This answer is something I like since its quite ingenious and I applaud you for it but for the people who like to rp or like to have a "grim dark" setting for this server can definitely take issue with how very silly it is



3 hours is the standard as listed in rule 7 with "Fighting after the round ends and generating combat logs. The exception is Marines and aliens fighting, or fighting against spawned Antags (Russian attack teams, W-Y Assassins, etc). End of Round Grief (EORG) is an IMMEDIATE 3-hour ban with no warnings." unless greytide rules are implemented which they currently aren't


Ok I think that is most of my complaints based on your answers, now my major issue with this application is you have been gone for so long and you only recently just returned (like today was your first day back in the server since your very long departure). So I think you should wait it out a bit and get an idea how the community is currently before taking the big leap of becoming staff

Do keep in mind that I answered most of these questions as if they were worst case scenario, and as you did say, the question is vaguely written and I took it a different way, that doesn't mean my response is wrong because we read it and understood it two different ways. Likewise with the napalm question, I took it as the researcher was making napalm grenades and was giving them to marines for use against the aliens and they took them and used the grenades against other marines, on purpose. I wouldn't punish the researcher, in that case, because his/her intents weren't to use the grenades on other marines, the marines, in that case, that threw the grenades would be receiving all of the punishment. About the ignorance of the rules, it doesn't matter how long you are gone, it isn't a staff problem if the player hasn't read the rules, regardless of being gone a week or a year. Let's say, for example, randomly killing a marine was allowed and then I come back and continue to play as if it was a rule and I get punished. It doesn't excuse anything just because I didn't read the rules. However, I think a ban length of three hours is very appropriate If the player is arguing against me so that they don't have to change their name because they have had it for so long.

[slc97]

I feel like Spoony really covered everything I could possibly say in his response. I'm very much in agreement with him and will have to go with a -1 on this one.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

-snip-

Ok I can see where you are coming from but we shouldn't be looking to see the worst, we need to approach these issues with scrutiny and we have to be very careful with how we act. We shouldn't be acting with prior biases when we preform an investigation into a player, and we must accept the facts as they are presented, not the opinion surrounding them. We issue bans very sparingly here because lets get rid of the idea "staff are here to ruin someone's time/fun", I honestly dislike handing out bans but its part of the job that is necessary and we need to very careful on how we handle them since a ban can easily ruining someone's fun but this doesn't entitle that player to ruin the fun of another player. I know why you see these questions as worst case scenarios but fact is many times when we get an ahelp from a player its can be something like Player Y submits this ahelp "Please ban player X because they have been griefing me all game", we shouldn't just see Player Y's point of view on this but we should see both sides and how it was handled and if its was perfectly in the rules, and handle it how it it truly was instead of how a single party portrays it

[Tranquill]

-snip-

What does this have to do with taking a player's side and not seeing both sides of the story? I was simply answering a question by how I interpreted it... I understand how staff work, I have staffed many different game servers, I know you guys aren't here to ruin the fun but, I was simply answering scenarios questions, I don't see how the response is too relevant.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

-snip-

I see where you are coming from but most of these questions can easily be interpreted as an ahelp especially # 4 since in that scenario you would either be told something on the slack,mchat, or you enter the server and see an unanswered ahelp. and with how you answered # 4 it was clear the first guy didn't get an investigation since you wrote "I would give the Marine a day ban, right off the bat", it sounded like you brushed it off as simple grief which possibly wasn't the case.


Also the fun part wasn't really towards you but towards the player base thinking we are very ban happy (no offense)

[Tranquill]

I see where you are coming from but most of these questions can easily be interpreted as an ahelp especially # 4 since in that scenario you would either be told something on the slack,mchat, or you enter the server and see an unanswered ahelp. and with how you answered # 4 it was clear the first guy didn't get an investigation since you wrote "I would give the Marine a day ban, right off the bat", it sounded like you brushed it off as simple grief which possibly wasn't the case.


Also the fun part wasn't really towards you but towards the player base thinking we are very ban happy (no offense)

I think we're both taking this question too deeply and it is how you interpret it.

[Scrat505]

Besides the extensive harshness of the punishments which has been stated already, the fact you were gone for so long and just returned now worries me.

Gotta stick on a -1.

[LocalizedDownpour]

Couldn't add anything Spoony and Snype didn't already add. And this is coming from someone who has a harsh stance on things, you're abit on the stern side.

-1

[MauroVega]

Spoony said it all
-1

[Feweh]

Denied