KireVenx - Mod Application

[KingKire]

Byond ID:
KireVenx

Colonial Marines Character:
Lacy 'Scrap' Barreras

Age:
25

Gender:
M

Timezone:
Good ol' Pacific


On average, how many hours are you available per week to moderate?
4+

Do you have any previous experience in being staff (not just SS13)?
-No

Did you play any of the previous Colonial Marine servers?
nah

What are the 3 biggest servers you play on besides CM?
Aurora a long time ago, a wee bit of paradise now, although it doesnt scratch the itch.

Provide links to any previous Colonial Marines applications that you've made:
-N/A

Are you currently a staff member elsewhere (not just SS13)? If so, where?
-No


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


Have you ever been banned for more than 24 hours on ANY server? If so, which server, when, and what for?
-nope

Are you familiar with the chat program Slack (its use is required)?
- no, but learning is a good strong suit of mine, so ill give it a run down.

Common Staff Situations:
Write a description of what you would do in each of the following situations. Do not write on the same line as the situation - use the space below it or make space as needed. Failure to do this proves your inability to follow instructions and your application will be automatically denied.


1. A player randomly shoots someone at round start and MPs have detained him.
Players have control of the situation, no need to intervene for a singular shooting. Multiple instances of shooting players randomly might be cause for a griefing check, or at least logging the information for later on.
If there is a griefing instance during round start, and the ship is unable to handle it either due to the size of the griefing or the lack of ability to handle the situation (Lowpop) it might be proactive to ask for a mass healing/revival to reverse the griefing.



2. The ship has a breach to space and a bunch of players have died or are dying as a result.
No need to intervene normally if accidental. Check for griefing.
See if the ship is able to handle a hull breach situation without admin help(active crew), possibly with a centcom/comp. message

If the ship is unable to handle the situation normally, possibly look into asking for a possible breach fix decision. Extra weight if its Lowpop / griefing / inactive crew.


3. You see a player walking around the ship naked and clearly lost.
Low priority, no need to intervene if their are other pressing issues at hand.
If the ship lacks the structure to deal with the problem, and no other problems are present, possibly check to see if assistance is required.


4. A player is being very rude to you in Adminhelps and requesting to speak to an Admin+ staff member.
Low to med priority.
Look into defusing the situation. If persistance is excessive, give warnings, then possibly look into logging evidence for a report.
Otherwise, talking is just talk, no need to give anybody trouble. stones and bones.
(rule 1)


5. You notice a player with a name that doesn't fit our naming rules. The player 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.

Thats no problem, rules change and they are lucky they get to know a new rule before the hammer was dropped on them.
If the name is excessively vulgar or OOC (BlackGuys the sick x420z, suck my dildobaggins the 3rd), force the player into a new name decision.
If the name is only moderately OOC (arnold swartznegger, or such), work with the player into trying to find a new name if time allows. if not, let it slide and just leave a note that the player was warned to change their name the next time they play.

If they refuse the warning, hammers gotta fall. Ignorance is inexcusable, but rebellion is intolerable.
(rule 1, 7 , 10)

6. You see a Maintenance Tech running around in armor and carrying a rifle. The security level is green with no threat present.
IC issue, no need to worry.


7. You see a Squad Medic performing surgery on the planet. He claims it was because there were no doctors in the FOB.
He better have a fine IC reason for surgery (Hes being talked through the surgery by a Dr. on the radio, Has a Medical book open, and is reading it, possible taking excessive amounts of time and RPing accidents). Otherwise, leave a warning and a note.
(rule 8)

8. The round is stagnating. There are 30 marines and 4 aliens. The marines won't leave the ship, and the aliens won't attack. What would you do, to "encourage" the sides to engage each other?
Messages from Central command and the Mother Queen do nicely. If excessive time is burning, possibly look into asking for a higher discussion from staff. Failing that, possibly a poll from the players to see if they want to draw the round and open a new one.


9. The round ends, a MARINE starts shooting a hostile IRON BEAR and the IRON BEAR Adminhelps complaining he was killed after the round ended.
Look into if it was accidental or excessive. Leave a note on the marine, with info attached. If excessive, End of round griefing, marine has to cool off.
Let the iron bear know that its getting sorted out to smooth things over.
(rule 1 and 7)


10. A marine is running around disarming, punching and stealing gear at round start.
See if the ship can handle it, if not, personal message, next step is Mother/centcom, after that, personal warning, and finally, put in a log and ask for a hammer.
(rule 1 and 7,)


11. A marine has killed another marine. When you ask him why, he said it was because the other marine had punched him.
Delicate situation. See if the issue can be resolved IC. Check to see if the situation was accidental or purposeful.
Log evidence, both sides, possibly more if murky.
Console dead party that the issue is being resolved.

Check for possible griefing

Give a warning and leave a note of possible findings. Ban if rule 7 violation is overwhelming.
Otherwise, log a warning.



12. An issue arises that requires Admin+ abilities.
Let the bigger admins know, after that, outta my hands. See if theres a solution that might not need admin answers, summarize the situation up the chain of command.

13. There are minor racist comments going on IC. 9 of the 10 people are laughing and RPing but one player gets offended and Adminhelps about it.
Notify the offendee about possibly RPing a solution IC (Notifying command/marine law, working with the offender, walking away IC), if the situation is excessive, possibly a personal message to the offender to work out a solution. Failing that, let it slide If its minor racism thats IC. If it gets excessive, use Rule 1 as a warning to the offender.



14. A marine opens fire at round start in briefing killing multiple marines and instantly logs off.
Log a note of incident, check to see if the ship can handle the situation without duress, if not, possibly look into asking for admin healing. Log in any evidence, drop a hammer for preventative control, leave a note for resolving.
(rule 7-11, big gulp special)


15. You see a player playing a xeno larva/chestburster run towards the frontlines and die.
Look into accidental griefing/new player. If more perverse, try to talk the player into re-engaging into the game. If the player insists on griefing, give a warning, then log a note and a cool off ban.
(rule 1 and 7)

16. You see a xeno memeing, saying AYYLMAO, REEEEEE etc in hivemind chat.
Ask the player to re-engage into the game peacefully if the situation is excessive/persistent, failure leads to warning, leads to cool off ban (No OOC IC. #10)


17. A xeno player calls the shuttle a "dropship". A different xeno player complains to you that it's metagaming/failRP to call it a "dropship".
Low priority, let the offendee know that you received the message if busy. Afterwords, see into re-engaging the offendee into RPing a solution (possibly mentoring the offender into RPing more)
If not, notify the offendee that no rules were actually broken, and that the server is indeed medium RP and allows for some lapse in decorum.
If offendee is still offended, Notify that the situation is declared as resolved in this particular game. Any other problems should be brought to the forum for possible discussion.

18. A Command staff player at briefing near round-start mentions there are aliens on the planet.
Give the player a quick personal message to mind the meta. Possibly ask if they would like an out with a cover up Mother Message of faulty data, or if they can handle it on their own.
Failure to follow IC meta, leads to warning, leads to CentCom/mother message to resolve the issue IC. failure of that leads to cool off ban +note.
(rule 9 and or 8)


19. A Marine kills another Marine on the EVAC Pod to take the last spot and claims it was RP as he was saving himself.
Console dead party that the issue is being resolved if offended.
Check to see if IC solution is present.
Check for greifing.
Gather evidence.
Leave note of issue and findings.
Give a warning for future occasions. Ban for griefing if evidence is overwhelming on violating rule 7. otherwise, personal notice to remember rule 1.

The round is coming to an end, and should not need admin healing intervention. Its important to console the dead offended party, possibly asking them to give forgiveness for fail-rp of offendee. Make sure that offendee party should know how it is important that actors should not purposely prevent other players from playing the game.



20. You see a fellow staff member give wrong information in an Adminhelp or incorrectly enforcing a rule.
Talk to staff member on observations observed, ask for 2nd opinion on double checking. If staff member is excessively/Persistantly wrong, log info on the action and look into a second opinion from a higher chain of command.


20a. You see a fellow staff member abusing his powers in-game.
Notify the staff member about a possible second opinion on actions. No need to counter-correct. Much better to log info and then ask for second opinion after the fact from higher in the chain.


21. You see a player talking in OOC chat about what he did with your mom last night.
Check to see how disruptive OOC chat is. If its not excessively disruptive (graphic, ERP, WGW sized paragraphs), then let it be, possible tuche if excessively successful at laying with mother, ask for a fatherly camping trip to colorado.

If excessively violating, give warning, then possible note and cooloff ban if persistent. (rule 1 and 4)




Any additional information you'd like to add?

Not much, just a dandy player who has spare time to help give overwatch on the server. I tend to err on the side of IC resolve, and using a heavy tome of words to resolve situations as opposed to actions.

[Tharinoma]

Hello KireVenx,

I very much like your application. I like it alot. I like how RP focused you are.

But oh dear, you've never been an staffmember and it shows. It's very... "rookie". And there are quite a few important problems with it imo.


Notes! Have you ever heard of them? You mention "logging", but do you have any idea what notes are and how they work? Generally, all and any rule break is logged in the player's notes. And most importantly, you'll want to check them! We write them so others can read them! Notes are the history of a player on the server, it will heavily influence the way you deal with rule breakers. You never mention adjusting your decisions based on them.

Mentors? They're here to deal with newbies and questions, you never mention them. Situation 1, 3, 6?

Bans: What exactly does it take for you to decide to ban anyone? In 11, you say you'll ban if the rule breaking is "overwhelming", how much is that? Is there any other way to break the rule? Isn't this related to marine rule 1?
You don't mention ban length either. It's not something I think a new mod would know, but most long time players should at least have an idea. (EORG, pre-perma ban...)

Permabans: You don't mention them. Do you know how you request them? When to request them?

Job Bans: You never mention them either... They're useful, when do you use them?

Leaving things to be dealt with IC is good, RP is great, but you should step in to rectify the situation when rule breakers ruin the fun for the others, keep that in mind. Don't just tell the victims to deal with it IC when you can easily fix their problem without disrupting the round.

Also, you don't want to let players use "RP" as an excuse to break the rules. The rules come first, and they rarely ever prevent RP anyway. In 7, I would never let the medic finish the surgery, and he would get a heavy warning, if not a jobban. If you let this slide, you might just come back in a week to find that all the USCM medics now love reading surgery books.

9 is just wrong. 19, can't the situation be considered RP? It does make sense, doesn't it?



Overall, I would rate the application as rather poor. There are lots of things you don't know, or don't show you know that you should (notes are very important), and you dont go into enough detail when you describe how you resolve the situations. Have you read already accepted applications? Also, 4 hours isn't much, I believe the senior staff expect a higher activity from staffmembers.

But your application also shows you have a good grasp of how the game works and should work. Most of the application's issue come from your lack of experience with moderation and its tools. And you like to preserve RP.

So I'll throw a +1 your way, I believe a week or two of trial and familiarising yourself with actual moderating is all you'd need.

Thanks for reading.

[emeraldmoonx]

Hey KireVenx, gonna give your app a looksee. I see you have no past experience, so I'll be looking at your answers on situations pretty closely.

Normally I don't give feedback on situations that have been answered correctly, but since you have no experience I'll give some anyway if I feel necessary. If I don't give feedback, you got it right and I had nothing to say about it.

► Show Spoiler

1. Often I check anyways, people will get away with doing stupid stuff cause it's minor. However, sometimes that person has done it often. If you choose not to PM them, I'd investigate a bit anyways and check notes to make sure he doesn't do it often. I'd probably add the occurrence to notes unless it's an accident or very minor.

2. If the crew is able to repair it themselves are willing, so be it. It might happen that the breach is in an important area where many players are, so I'd probably just fix the breach immediately to allow the round to be unaffected. On most SS13 servers, stuff like breaches are left to players to handle it, but CM does it differently since it's so important for rounds to move along smoothly. All mods have the ability to fix a breach themselves, so you're able to do that at any time.

3. A pm from a mod is really the last thing you need to do. Often a player will figure it out themselves, and if they don't you can get a mentor to help out. It's what they do.

4. If someone's rude, just ignore them and move on. Often the best thing you can do is ignore them and move on. They're potentially salty or pissed and just want something to fight with. If they persist, I'd consider giving them a slight warning to change their attitude and add that to the player's notes.

5. This is a very common ahelp we get. People don't know about the rule, and often just choose a random name since they're new. Rarely is anyone punished for it, most people comply after being told. No matter the name, add that to notes so if it happens again, staff is aware that it's a recurring issue.

7. Luckily this isn't an issue anymore due to the skill system, but you have the right idea. Theoretically, if the skill system wasn't in play, would you let him finish the surgery?

8. People will get salty, and if a round drags on, usually staff get involved and start pushing it along. Mods can't make polls or votes, so really it'd be up to a higher ranking staff if they really want to do that. Never seen it happen though. Subtle messages also help, and maybe direct PMs if they're really delaying and not being fair about it.

9. This one has a simple answer, do nothing. EORG only applies versus the same side, so marine vs marine and so on. A marine killing an antag or another side after the round is over doesn't matter. This is 100% allowed. You did read the rules, right? If you had, you'd know this one easily. You're half right in your answer regarding the iron bear. However, the marine does nothing wrong in this case.

10. A report from Centcom/ARES/Mother isn't really needed regarding one person. If security can't handle it, just PM the guy himself asking whats up.

11. When someone goes overboard with retaliating this is called improper escalation. It's a little hard to determine what to do here, but really usually isn't a good thing. People often use whatever they can to commit all-out murder or mass manslaughter. "He punched me, so I killed him". Something like that would be a ban in my eyes.

13. Good, ahelps about racism is not common, but they still happen. IC racism is not a big deal as long as it's semi-lowkey and not specifically attacking someone.

14. Usually the ship will handle with the aftermath, sometimes you'll need to aheal [which you can't do as a trial]. Otherwise, you're correct, ban the guy.

15. Where is the griefing? This is a case of suicide, go griefing here. If you're meaning the person killing, then that's entirely allowed since it's marine vs xeno.

16. We're pretty strict on this, if someone does it, tell them to stop, give them a note. A second occurence leads to a 3hr ban. Obviously you can be lenient, if someone only slightly memes, then you don't need to ban.

17. Xeno chat is a translation of hive mind speak. Really xenos don't use words and simply communicate telepathically. So when someone uses dropship, human, or bullet, whatever it may be, that's totally acceptable. We obviously can't emulate hive mind speak, so text has to be used instead. No further discussion is needed or anything, just tell them that and move on.

18. I've noticed you mention using server wide messages like CentCom/ARES/Hivemother often. Really these are used really rarely. It's best to deal with IC issues like this very lowkey. Don't make a deal out of it. Your answer is great otherwise.

19. This one, people tend to get wrong all the time. Rarely do people get it right. One of the big issues is that the marine kills the other marine for the pod. The question here is: Was that the only pod available? Was it necessary to KILL the marine, simple wounding or subduing is good. People will use stuff like this as an opportunity to grief. Now your answer isn't bad, there may be an IC issue or the incidence might be IC in general. Good stuff.

20a. When you see someone abusing or break rules, it's best to gather your evidence and present it to a higher staff member. It's not good to go directly to the individual, it will simply cause issues and won't help.

Right, so that's my response. Pretty lengthy if I say so lol. Overall your answers aren't too bad, you definitely have good potential considering you have no past experience. I can tell you've never played around with staff tools in SS13 since you don't know about certain things like Notes, sleeping, VV, and so on. Also much of the other tools mentioned by Tharinoma. You definitely have lots to learn.

I'd like you to read my response in the spoiler section, respond to that. I'll get a better feel once we get some interacting going.

So until then, neutral.

[slc97]

My problem with this application is that you don't show much or any of your investigative process. You don't mention notes and you often don't mention who you would PM to start looking into situations.

I'm seeing most of what you wanna do is keep things IC. While it's not bad to keep some things IC, if we keep everything IC then there's no point of having moderators.

I gotta say -1.

[KingKire]

Ah, thanks guys for the quick read up haha. Judging by the overall theme, lack of experience as a staff member seems to be the number 1 ringer. Im thinking i would most likely aim my gun towards becoming a mentor instead of a moderator, as assisting and enabling others to function better tends to be in my wheelhouse, but the night is young so im hoping to see a more developed path as the thoughts pour in.

Ill work my way down the list:

@Tharinoma
Thank ya'll



I have a decent idea of what an admins powers, but i dont have a full grasp on where moderators powers begin and end, so i tend to err on the side of what most standard mod actions are. To put it in shorthand, i know of the powers scince i've been here a little bit, but i've rarely had first hand encounters with them. (i've gotten i think, a note once or twice, Ive seen people force-sleeped, Every so often ill see a mod wall off a ship if the damage is excessive.)


@emeraldmoonx »

► Show Spoiler

1: Thats definitely a good idea to check into the past to see correlations, and sticking my nose into the past is something i do quite often to see possible missing information, which i likely would do if there were no other pressing matters. Alot of my opinions tend to fall on whether or not the ship can and is willing to handle the problem itself, with admin intervention equivalent to a game master pausing a tablegame to pull aside a player. It has and will need to be done, but players are smart, and its important to give the players a chance to react to situations to possibly see a flower of a unique time come from the blood of a bad action.

I rank this situation as a low priority since the gameflow was not disrupted to beyond a few small injuries that can be quickly healed, and possibly giving other players a chance to properly react and RP a situation.

As for adding notes, i don't know how penchant the staff is on note taking. I personally love to leave as much relevant information for the sake of posterity, but i understand that people tend to work themselves up from time to time into mistakes. Considering that CM has a very high Player to staff ratio, i can understand and follow with becoming a swifter actor to reduce the chance of a small situation escalating into a domino effect of chaos with all of the players around.

2: I remember so many of my old SS13 rounds when their were accidental breaches, explosions, and even massive fires that spread aft to fore. I am definitely biased, but i probably remember those rounds the most fondly, as they were unique situations. SS13 is a unique game where the players have a massive tool chest to solve almost any problem that can occur, and there should be very good reasons before taking away those tools from a players hand. What game would the players be playing if they didnt have to solve for unknown variables from time to time.

The times for moderator intervention would be in grievous accidents game changing accidents beyond the ship's control, and in malicious intent (to knowingly destroy the flow of a game). Moderation, of a moderate action, for a moderator.


3: if they're knowingly floating around, and no one under the command chain is around to help, i might find it curious to look into the situation, say 30 minutes of nakedness from roundstart. Now, i would not know which would be better, to PM and see a gentle nudge to change a course, a Mother message to spring the crew into a little more action, or a combination of the two.

4: im a person whos skin is hard to get under, as well as being exceptionally friendly to a fault. I personally dont mind if a person wants to burn their energy at me, as it might possibly lead to a solution into getting a player to re-engage with the server. Alot of times problems come from deeper sources, and if theres spare time, it might be proactive to let a person burn out on something they cant damage as opposed to something they can. Worst case, ignoring a person is indeed always an option so long as nothing is being disturbed excessively (messaging f bombs every 10 seconds for several minutes straight during hipop rounds)

7: Personally, i like to review the action. I would often say that its fine to finish that particular instance of the action, but i would leave a note and a warning that it would not be wise to catch a moderators eye again. Accidents happen, but multiple accidents is just purposeful ignorance.

8: Yah, thats where i dont know where the power is on admin vs. moderator actions. I know that only admins are capable of reseting a game, which is why skillful diplomacy using the tools at hand is always key. The problem lies into at what point is intervention too much. 2 players of X and 10 players of Y left, 22 ghosts floating around for 2 hours of inaction. Would it be wise to reveal the location of the remaining players? We have bioscans, but they are only accurate in terms of numbers. Very delicate situation for sure. One that i would err on the side of caution bar informal knowledge of what the players are thinking.
Thats a situation that requires the chain of command, but it is a situation i have seen a few times before hand.
(queen left of the planet, with all ships crashed. queen hiding in a very hard to find location. Players stuck in unreachable locations)

9. mm, this is true, i was thinking in the context of say, an iron bear that had surrendered or such. I guess he would still count as an antag, but that does bring into question about merc's and pizza guys, and all other possible actors, rouge marines...etc. I would think that to err on the side of, games over, lets try and reset the board for a new one.
If i remember correctly, there used to be a rather large problem of combat logs making it hard to decipher whats an accident and what was purposeful. I dont know if that was fixed, but again, that also drops into the question of rogue marines, surrendered bears, shifty pmc's... eorg seems like it would be most preferred if people just stopped shooting once the round was over.

10. oh yah, thats definitly the next step up after seeing if the ship can handle it.

11. ive been in this situation a few times, either as an actor or as an observer. It can be pretty delicate. Was their an accidental click? did someone try to hit a person with shotgun, and instead pointblanked their head off? Has the offender been punching everyone and everything in sight? You can indeed kill a person in ss13 by just literally punching them to death. I've personally loved to hit people multiple times with a named backpack, since it doesnt do damage, but it still registers as a damaging action, just a 0 damage one. Heck, throwing a singular shotgun shell does damage, although its only minimal.

A punch can and definitely has been a lethal action. which is why context is definitely key.

15. i would see a person knowingly trying to deplete xeno reserves as griefing, as it is a common tactic for salty players to respawn as a larva or 3 and sucide them for payback. but, it can also be a case of a new person, or a person who might not know where the battle lines are drawn. very important to look into accidents vs. feigned accidents.

16. Yah, it seems the consensus is to draw the reigns up pretty tight on this issue, i have no problem with following orders.

17. Im a person who likes discussion when theres time to be had, but if not, prompt responses are always important

18. Its standard meta that aliens are the foe, but i also like the fact that their might be a chance to build upon the narrative of a game. A "yes, and..." approach to life. Giving the chance for a command staff to possibly add into the narrative that maybe their was faulty data in transmission might lead to a more interesting scenario, but if time is lacking, a prompt response to keep the meta in check is always good.

19: Ive acctually faced this problem a few times before.
- Last evac of the planet, marine was infected and beyond my ability to help due to him being surrounded by xenos and critically wounded. I opted to shoot the marine with my rifle, and he believed he had a chance to survive. I was doing what i thought was best in the situation RP wise, and he thought he could do better. There was an accusation of powergaming, but i legitimately believed in that it was an RP situation. I apologized, and i wish i could have tooken back my action, as i would hate if someone denied me my game without my say so.
- Dropships had crashed into the old-old sulaco-sulaco, i had moved to lock down the command area as a CE, as comms had been cut. I had believed that i was RPing a scenario to help protect command staff. A staff member came in and thought that i was powergaming, and preventing people from entering the area. The action was debatable imo, but the staff member had opted to undo the actions as opposed to debate on the merits of them. I did not like it, but i understood where it came from and moved on. More debate would probably have been better then an overt action, but the round was chaotic, and you cant always use subtle gestures in life.

20a. I go to the individual first to offer my observations and possibly clean up a misinterpreted action, either something that i missed or they have missed. If i feel that there is debate in the issue, then its something to be brought up into the forums and not into the game. Whats done is done, and its not good for members of equal stature to cut themselves apart when unity is needed.

Headed to work shortly, hopefull ill get the rest later on

[Emeraldblood]

While it seems you read the rules, you don't seem to understand them. I think your response to question seven sums it up perfectly, "He better have a fine IC reason for surgery (Hes being talked through the surgery by a Dr. on the radio, Has a Medical book open, and is reading it, possible taking excessive amounts of time and RPing accidents). Otherwise, leave a warning and a note. (rule 8)". A squad marine can not just learn surgery any more than you or I could learn it in like 10 minutes. You're putting way too many issues as just an IC thing when the whole point of rules are that we're here to enforce them and you don't seem to actually understand that part. Also, while the time you put down for your time working as a mod isn't really that important, I can assure you that you're going to need to pull more than 4 hours a week. That's basically 8 rounds a month.

Overall, while I think you have the passion to maybe be a staff, you don't have the understanding to be a mod. Given how long you've been on the server, I think you could probably work as a mentor and start from there. This will teach you how the staff team works and if you decide you want to move to mod in the future, you can apply at a later time. If this application gets denied (which I foresee, nothing personal), then I suggest you message NGGJamie on the forums and talk to him and applying for that. For the app itself, gonna go with a -1 as I just don't think you understand how the rules work in practice.

[KingKire]

@ Emeraldblood

Hehe, nothing personal recieved. If im going to join your crew, i'd expect everything to be vented out in the forefront to make sure everything flows smoothly!

[emeraldmoonx]

Your answers aren't too bad. I understand your logic on lots of it. I know you'll get lots of -1s for your lack of experience. That's not an issue for me and I think you have lots of potential. I'm sure you'd be able to learn quickly. All you really need is to learn the tools of the trade. Your knowledge and your logic are already up there.

So, I'm dropping a +1 for you. Hope you get accepted, good luck man.

[KingKire]

@Tharinoma

► Show Spoiler

Notes! Have you ever heard of them? You mention "logging", but do you have any idea what notes are and how they work? Generally, all and any rule break is logged in the player's notes. And most importantly, you'll want to check them! We write them so others can read them! Notes are the history of a player on the server, it will heavily influence the way you deal with rule breakers. You never mention adjusting your decisions based on them.

[KK]-
Ah, im actually a very heavy notetaker in life! It allows for knowing where you've been from where you currently are. Im sorry if im a little obtuse in my explanations. I'm a pretty big fan of history, and the ability to look into the past to best determine a course of action is something that i have as a personal core trait. Context is always key in my judgement, i'm definitely a little sorry that i didnt include more about that into the application, but i thought i was possibly getting a little too wordy hehe.

Mentors? They're here to deal with newbies and questions, you never mention them. Situation 1, 3, 6?

[KK]
I tend to defer judgement as if i was the only person available on the server, i.e the worst case scenario for a moderator to be in. If there are other people beneath, above, and to the side of me, i would use their help as well as providing mine. "the sum of the parts is much better if you include the whole metaphor" as i would say.

Bans: What exactly does it take for you to decide to ban anyone? In 11, you say you'll ban if the rule breaking is "overwhelming", how much is that? Is there any other way to break the rule? Isn't this related to marine rule 1?
You don't mention ban length either. It's not something I think a new mod would know, but most long time players should at least have an idea. (EORG, pre-perma ban...)

[KK]
That is indeed a hard question for me. i will not lie. I'm the type of person to err on the side of caution when exerting authority a majority of the time, instead gathering information to lock something down into a definite conclusion. If i were to drop a ban on someone, it would be due to my overwhelming belief that someone had definitely violated the rules in letter, if not already in spirit.
Of course, there are areas where the violation is almost in your face, such as a baldie who decided to rampage at round start with a rifle, but if possible, an action to sleep them to get a better understanding would be much preferred before banning, if just to make sure that the evidence is damning for them.

A violation of rule 7 of a marine killing another marine would be:
-the murdering marine had lied about being hit by another marine
-the murdering marine purposely antagonized a negative player reaction to respond excessively
- something similar along the lines of the murdering marine knowingly went into the action with express intent to kill another player as a non-antag.

Possibly alterations to give a lessened response;
- the murdering marine acted in justified self defense of player vs player
- something along the lines of the action was not done with intent to kill the other player, but that the situation had unfortunatly got out of hand.
- the action was justifiable under IC escalation.


From what i know, there are a few type of bans;
- 3 hour cool off ban
- "Warned/punished repeatedly, yet still breaking rules" few days ban
-"you are either too incompetent or too untrustworthy" job ban,
- "ever-present danger to the server" permaban.

Permabans: You don't mention them. Do you know how you request them? When to request them?

[KK]
Sadly, i would not have that info on how and when. Thats a matter that would require more inside knowledge.

Job Bans: You never mention them either... They're useful, when do you use them?

[KK]
-Job bans are useful as a way to keep a player inside a server but to remove them from possible problem areas into less problematic areas.
SS13 is a very freeforming game, but with that freedom, comes the responsibility to use it wisely. (""- uncle sam to spiderman) There is a certain implicit trust to players not to abuse the system for gain, or to come into a role with the knowledge (or at least, ability to fake that knowledge) to play a role. Job bans are a way to curtail some of that trust if a player is found wanting, while still giving that player a chance to enjoy the game in at least some function. Possibly allowing that player to rebuild the trust into resuming that role later on.

Leaving things to be dealt with IC is good, RP is great, but you should step in to rectify the situation when rule breakers ruin the fun for the others, keep that in mind. Don't just tell the victims to deal with it IC when you can easily fix their problem without disrupting the round.

Also, you don't want to let players use "RP" as an excuse to break the rules. The rules come first, and they rarely ever prevent RP anyway. In 7, I would never let the medic finish the surgery, and he would get a heavy warning, if not a jobban. If you let this slide, you might just come back in a week to find that all the USCM medics now love reading surgery books.

[KK]
If there was a question of powergaming, i would aim to drop a warning or a note. If they decided to continue to try and powergame despite being warned, they would likely receive a cooldown ban due to ignoring a warning, or longer if they were found to be constantly engaged in rulebreaking.

s/ honestly, i figure thats a great way to find out all the powergamers and give them a stern talking to about fail-rp... everyone knows that most marines cant read. /s

9 is just wrong. 19, can't the situation be considered RP? It does make sense, doesn't it?

[KK]
-9. Yah, i can definitely see how my answer was not proficiently answered. I was coming from the angle that once a round ends, the shooting of players should stop overall. In my history, i remember it was a distinct problem with admins and moderators not being able to close the game due to having to check for EORG reports, and if their are multiple hostile factions, factions that may have switched sides, factions that may have surrendered or gone rouge, it might possibly lead to a messy gray ruling.

19, is a grey area. i have fallen in that situation before, and it would need a more concrete understanding of the situation before judgement could be passed.
If the shootee decided to just open the doors, blast a healthy marine to death without a word, and then take his seat, i would likely err more on the side of definitely being a dick, possibly griefing due to removing a player out the round while not being a justified antag. Definitly a note of very bad RP, possibly a cooldown ban.

Had the marine been RPing a situation, maybe had given warning to the marine to get out of the chair, possibly got into a less than lethal fight of fists that escalated into a death, that lies a little less on the scale of being a dick, a little more on the side of "i was trying to rp". There would likely still be a warning given, due to removing a player out of the game without being an antag, which is still no bueno.

If the above marine tried to revive the other player after killing them, it slides a little more into the "less of a dick, more of a RP" catagory. Still gets a note either way, but with the extra information that the player at least aimed to rectify their actions.

[Jerkface00]

I'd like to see more of how you would investigate almost all of the situations in the questions above. A number of your original answers are questionable; 1,2,5,6,7,10,11,14, 17, and 19. I haven't read through your other posts yet to see if my issues with these questions were resolved, if they are i'll cut out the ones that were and elaborate on the ones that are left.

But aside from that, what really bothers me is a lack of activity in game over the last 3 full months. We have a fairly lax bar for where we draw a minimum line for activity that we ask for, and over the last 3 months you have log in times either well below that line or just at it.

It's been my experience that when people become staff, their time in-game tends to either stay the same or go down, not up.
When I was taking care of mentor applications, I would generally deny them for being online that far below our requested activity.

Do you foresee yourself being online more if your trial application were approved? What, if anything, would prevent you from doing so?

[KingKire]

@Jerkface00

My direct online activity with the byond server has indeed gone down over the past 3 months, but i would counter that my activity with CM and SS13 forums has stayed the same overall. My personal playtime has gone down due to exhausting the amount of things i physically can discover in the game ( my own crowning achievement i believe is discovering how to make a portable cryogenics suit and room, which i think is amazing that the system was "robust" enough to allow that sort of creativity).

I still love bopping into the server from time to time, reading the changelog, admiring how much the game has changed from such a short time ago. Offline, my mind is still filled with trying to think of ways to help this awesome place grow in what little ways i can.

My ability to launch suggestions was exhausted, there's so many awesome cool things added on, that there comes a point where i just look and say, dang. This stuff is frickin awesome, what the heck is left to imagine?

I have a solid history of understanding at least the mechanics of this game and a good moral backbone to offer, with a at least a basic amount of wit to reinforce it with.
I cannot sit in a chair and offer 3+ hours of constant engagement in the server which is required when you are actively playing, but i can be a ghost and offer a very solid pair of eyes to overwatch and assist while working on writing reports and logging papers.

I put down 4+ hours as a very conservative estimate, since i spend a solid amount of time lurking and observing in both the CM forums and the SS13 reddit space. its very rare for something to escape my glance, even though i may not directly intrude.

If anything were to interrupt, it might be outside life requirements demanding a day or two of being offline, which is important for a persons overall sanity i believe.

I also must add, i do not wish to bend your arms, and if you deem me unsuitable, i will still be happily chipping along at trying to find something else to offer as a helping hand.

[Jerkface00]

Application for trial mod denied due to a lack of in-game activity.

If you can bring up your time on the server for a few months I'd be happy to reconsider a new application.

Thank you for being willing to help out.
~Jerkface