Mitchs98- Moderator Application.

[apophis775]

Again, what we will take into account, is that I made contact with both Ut and Alpheion(sp) staff.

Both said that he was mostly a good staff member.

I have a high opinion of staff from both servers, as UT was the main place I played when I wasn't on CM, and Alpherion (sp?) will probably be my new place.

But, we do have to take reputations into account. I'm going to discuss with with the heads.

[oops_ur_dead]

As a Phoenix player and occasional CM player, I wanted to throw in my two cents:

Mitchs98 isn't a really great admin and I would be disappointed to see him on CM's admin team. Ill detail the reasons, but the TL;DR is that while he usually catches and stops griefers, he does it in a way that pretty much messes up the round for people who weren't griefing or were victims, and he catches a lot of false positives.

The first problem I have with his admin technique is his HEAVY realiance on freezing people. Mitchs begins literally every single one of his admin interventions by freezing everyone he thinks was involved. In my experience, he has never messaged someone first to see what they're doing or if freezing is even necessary, nor does he figure out if a fight is legitimate or not before he busts out freezes on everyone involved. He also takes little effort, if any at all, to make sure that people don't mess with frozen players. This becomes even more of an issue when you consider that mitchs usually takes a very long time between him freezing you and him talking to you, even if you message him first. In the log that Belleraphone posted, for instance, it took at least 5 minutes for mitchs to talk to me despite me ahelping several times, and that's on the low end, from my experiences. This isn't only limited to people who were involved, by the way. People often get frozen by mitchs just for being next to a fight, and then they have to explain that they had nothing to do with it while mitchs unravels the logs and figures out what actually happened, all the time interrogating them even if they weren't directly involved.

Which brings me to my next point: mitchs always takes a guilty before innocent approach, and exaggerates details (or misreads the logs, Im not sure which it is to be honest) to make you look worse. As you saw in the aforementioned log, mitchs accused me of many things that I hadn't done or I had already explained. He doesn't take any effort to make sure that the person he's talking to actually did any of the things he sees in the logs, he just attributes everything to you and then takes a, frankly rude, approach in interrogating you as if you're responsible for everything. It's extremely offputting, especially since he makes you wait 5 minutes or more for the privilege of talking to him.

Lastly, mitchs plays favourites quite clearly. I looked through the leaked phoenix logs just to see how that earlier mentioned event went down internally, and I found that mitchs completely let Latif (a fairly regular phoenix player) off the hook, after asking him just one question. Latif even admitted later that the entire event was handled very badly, that he was completely in the wrong, and should have been punished. This is a regular pattern with mitchs. Regular players are pretty much exempt from any of the aforementioned bullshit, such as the mass-freezing and the interrogation. Mitchs has also upheld retarded IC decisions, such as letting an assistant be promoted to captain, simply because said assistant was a regular player. Unless a regular is involved in overt mass grief, mitchs won't so much as put a note on their record, let alone take any real action against them. In addition, I've often seen him hand out rejuvs quite liberally to regulars, often before he figures out what happened, while rarely giving them out to other people unless you call him out on it.

Other respected phoenix admins, such as Jtdrow and Yithani, have openly admitted that they constantly worked to stop mitchs from moving up the phoenix ranks, and it was only after both of them had left the staff team that he was finally promoted to admin (in fact, he was promoted the day after jtdrow left). While I understand that the current Phoenix administration may think he's a good admin, his reputation heavily shows otherwise.

[Lostmixup]

I'm leaning towards a -1 now.

[Biolock]

I was also former staff on UT, though I left before Mitch did.
Did Mitch make some poor decisions at times? Yes, he did. He had several habits that were probably unfavorable, but he didn't do it to ruin other people's rounds, he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. On top of that, no management ever really reprimanded him for it, so why would he ever think to change it? If the heads of staff talked behind Mitch's back about what he was doing wrong, then you can't blame Mitch for not changing.

While I'm probably forced to stay nutral because of past affiliations, I would like to speak to Mitch's defense. The management on UT was 100% garbage, Mitch was a moderator 2 or 3, can't remember which, when I made the decision to resign, and was an admin 2 the next month... Of course he didn't know what he was doing. Management shot Mitch is both knee caps and then asked him to walk, the only difference between myself and Mitch is that he actually tried to walk. I'd say that the fact Mitch stuck around speaks highly to his character, we all knew that server was going down, I refused to stick it out because I knew that the people I was working for were the people killing the server. I warned Mitch and many others to stop supporting an abusive upper management, but many had too much love for the server to let it die, he was one of them. I don't think he should be punished for his loyalty to the community, even if he made poor decisions. They were made not because he's a malicious person, but because he was trying to fill a position he hadn't been trained for.

[Belleraphone]

Intentions are only part of determining what constitutes a good action. I don't think Mitch wanted to be a mod so he could abuse his power, I believe him when he says he cares about the communities he volunteers all this time for. The problem is, that isn't enough.

You are basically saying Mitch was inexperienced so that offers a partial excuse for his actions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was a mod for quite some before that incident with Latif happened. He became a mentor in October of 2014, when best RP died and Phoenix replaced it. He was a mod by Decenber if not November. The incident with Latif happened at least four months after Mitch became a mod. Keep in mind that this was during Phoenix's peak as well in early 2015 when sshado ran the server before Jamie taking over and its subsequent decline, so he would've had a lot of chances to interact with misbehaving players.

Yet he still handled that situation, and so many others like it, very poorly. There are some things that you can chalk up to inexperience, but others to a bad mindset, which is much harder to change. Not only has Mitch shown he is slow at learning and adapting by misreading the logs, he just straight up has the wrong attitude for modding on SS13. He freezes people while he sorts the mess out without even making sure the people he freezes are the supposed suspects. I understand that, as a mod, he contributes much more to the community than me. I am only playing for fun, he is actually working. The players still play for fun though, and getting frozen while your enemies take the opportunity to either run away or get the advantage on you. When you express your frustration about this, he gets all indignant about it and says he's just doing his job. Even worse, inexperienced people should know when they are inexperienced. This is something Mitch should've taken into account, but he didn't. Like oops pointed out, he basically thinks he's a prosecutor and not a judge. He tries to throw every argument at you to explain why you are guilty. Honestly, I don't even know why he does this. If you think someone is guilty, you just need to explain your reasoning and then apply the ban. It's almost like he has some awareness that he's clueless so he makes sure he's making the right decision by arguing with the supposed griefer to make sure they don't have any possible reason to explain their actions.

Mitch is not "ban happpy." After awhile, he usually comes around and finds out that he's wrong and unfreezes you. This is admirable, but the difference is he does it SO MUCH and doesn't learn from his mistakes. I've literally been frozen for more than 30 minutes multiple times by Mitch while he tries to make sure everything is okay. He is not in a position to mod for colonial marines when a minute is the difference between life and getting your face eaten by an alien.

[Biolock]

I don't know, I think that if properly taught by SAS and the mods around him, he could make a good staff member. The UT mindset revolved around freezing players, I'm not saying that it was the right thing to do, but he was taught that freezing players was the proper administrative step to solve any problem, not just someone being uncooperative or generally griefing. Mitch just needs to be taught the values, responsibilities, and procedures to being a CM mod and I think he'd fit the bill.

[Mitchs98]

Up until very, very recently as in a 1-2 months before Phoenix's death, the freeze verb was your goto verb before starting an investigation of any kind. It eventually changed to PM first, freeze if they don't stop. Unless of course they're dragging the SM around or something similar. I adapted to that, and did just that. As far as the fact of taking 30 minutes to do something, I was gathering clear and concise details on whatever I was investigating, either that or investigating numerous things at once. Oftentimes I was the only staff member online or actually doing anything/not afk, not to bash the rest of the staff team that stuck around they were great.

Some of them didn't even know what to do or were threatened by management for doing something that was within their role, as stated by staff duties. Leaving me to do it. I was taught very basic things to do, I didn't know how to use half my verbs. I figured most of it out by myself, save for Isratosh, Tysonix, and Yithani who helped me out when I needed it or had questions. I'd happily conform to the way CM handles things if taught how, I adapt easily. I also believe I wasn't a mod until January, I could be wrong. At either rate, all I had to go off of was example, the staff guidelines, and what the staff duties thing said. Management rarely, if ever, told me anything except for Jtdrow and the aforementioned trio.

I did my best to stick around and learn from my mistakes and from example of how the rest of the team was doing things, I probably should have taken my leave sooner as Bio did, but I couldn't. The staff and the community were my bros, I did my best to stick it out and help out where I could. I constantly asked management what I could do to help or what I could do better, rarely if ever did I get a response. It was a hassal to contact anyone outside of JT,Tys, Isra, and Yithani, I'm not blaming them for my mistakes. I made my own mistakes, but lack of training or guidance very well did attribute to it.

[apophis775]

I'm not going to say who, but one of the people i talked to, was from the new aphelion (sp?) server.

They said that he did improve alot in the time they saw.

However, I'm going to hold off on this for now and get more feedback, as this is a bit of a difficult decision.

[Belleraphone]

Mitch- Even if you were overloaded, you were the only person who took that long to figure out the entire situation. I dealt with other admins before, they handled it much better than you did. Even if you have no mentor you should still learn from experience. Freezing as soon as the situation started is acceptable since that's what the rest of the staff did, but only you dragged it on forever. Even the newer mods were quicker and better at handling situations like this than you. You also say that you didn't have strong guidance even though you yourself cited four admins that were helpful and active on the server. Why couldn't you learn from them? There were also some things you should've been able to learn by yourself. Even Yithani said that only a few verbs are important and all are easy to learn and use.

Apophis, Mitch blames the bad decision making on the Phoenix admin team for their lack of guidance and not being helpful. Most of the people on Aphelion's staff are from the Phoenix staff. I am not knocking the aphelion admin team, but this means one of two things. Either Mitch is correct that he was offered little guidance and admin'd like they did (freezing people as a first option), in which case I don't think Aphelion staff members are in a position to judge who's a good mod/admin when they clearly aren't one. Or he's wrong. He was provided with guidance but was incompetent. Given the fact that he cited 4 admins as the exception to his "lack of guidance" rule, I'd say it's the latter. I will grant that he has seen improvement, he's not nearly as terrible as he once was. But that's just him jumping from a high level of incompetence to a lower one.

[UnknownMurder]

Neutral. I see a lot of bad sides and few good sides to this judging from comments. I'm more particularly worried about your reputation and how it may change the CM's future. But, I do know that you can be trained to become a better moderator than before.

[Mitchs98]

Any news? Just curious to know what all turned up.

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

Hi Mitch.

Your answers aren't bad. But my experience with you in-game has been.. a little less than stellar. From what I saw, you sometimes have a hard time controlling your anger.

Leaning towards a -1 from me. Maybe you could prove me wrong?

[Mitchs98]

Hi Mitch.

Your answers aren't bad. But my experience with you in-game has been.. a little less than stellar. From what I saw, you sometimes have a hard time controlling your anger.

Leaning towards a -1 from me. Maybe you could prove me wrong?

If you're referring to Lucas, that's just how he's played. That's him, not me. I admit at times I get annoyed by a few things, but most of what I say in LOOC is jokingly. Some of it however is out of annoyance. A lot of people do it, honestly.

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

If you're referring to Lucas, that's just how he's played. That's him, not me. I admit at times I get annoyed by a few things, but most of what I say in LOOC is jokingly. Some of it however is out of annoyance. A lot of people do it, honestly.

Maybe I'm just being idealistic, but I never allow any frustrations show in-game. I'm not going to lie, dealing with the ahelps and situations can get very upsetting and stressful sometimes.


When we have staff who can't control their temper, it can reflect very poorly on all of us. Patience is probably one of the best traits you could have for this position.

[Mitchs98]

Maybe I'm just being idealistic, but I never allow any frustrations show in-game. I'm not going to lie, dealing with the ahelps and situations can get very upsetting and stressful sometimes.


When we have staff who can't control their temper, it can reflect very poorly on all of us. Patience is probably one of the best traits you could have for this position.

When I was staff I kept the game and staff work completely separate, I have patience. I'm one of those people that doing mind-numbingly boring tasks that pay off highly that no one else generally does...such as mining.

[Lucyz]

Hmm I have been reading everything for a while now trying to make a decision and honestly I don't want to have to babysit staff and their actions, HOWEVER I am willing to give you a try out as Trial Moderator and see how you do. My vote: +1

I am going to wait for SAS to vote as well.

[SASoperative]

I honestly do not have the time to babysit a staff member at this moment. I would be willing to give you a shot but I am expecting you to follow code of conduct to the book. I am sure another staff member would be willing to assist.

[Mitchs98]

I honestly do not have the time to babysit a staff member at this moment. I would be willing to give you a shot but I am expecting you to follow code of conduct to the book. I am sure another staff member would be willing to assist.

I can assure you neither of you will have to babysit me in any way possible, I may ask a few questions here and there, but that'd be about it. I have no problems following staff conduct either.

[Feweh]

Mitch isn't as bad as he use to be, he's honestly seemed to of made a improvement in his behavior lately.
He definitely has a anger issue, I've witnessed it first hand.

He's clearly made some mistake's in the past but who hasn't? He seem's pretty dedicated and determined for the position so I don't see why he doesn't deserve a chance at this point.

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

I'm switching my -1 to a neutral. Pink kinda shifted my viewpoint a little.

[1138]

Honestly, applications that turn out like these kind of show that, while there may not be problems with Mitch themselves, but it's foreseeable that other people may have problems with Mitch. Counting the amount of shill accounts that evidently just registered to -1 this application, for example. How nice.

I'm not really too sure here, I feel like there will be problems that come up from specific community members if Mitch were to be a full moderator.

For now, I'd say give them a tentative trial period. Only way to find out. +1.

[FriedKetchup]

I don't mean to be rude, but a player should be able to prove themselves capable through the application alone. Trialing should be done to prove they are a capable moderator, not as a way of assessing if they've improved. The fact is, the admin team should be made up of the best of the best players, the fifth percentile, not the fiftieth percentile.

[ChickenShizNit8]

So uh, I am Chicken. Hi! A lot of you may, or may not, know me from In-game. I like Mitch, he was fairly nice and friendly with the players on UT when it was up, and it was always a good time when he was there. When I was there, at least, he was friendly, kept up some fun conversations and made it a fun time in OOC with me and others. Just my opinion. I would like to see Mitch get the role, but I do admit he has had a few issues I've seen but he's defiantly got better! I think he us very capable here, so, +1 on that Trial Mod!

[SASoperative]

See... I am leaning to a -1 mainly because anger issues have caused insane amounts of drama regarding player base and staff and even staff against staff drama I have seen mitch do some serious anger moments and I am at the moment leaning towards denied given this fact.

[Mitchs98]

See... I am leaning to a -1 mainly because anger issues have caused insane amounts of drama regarding player base and staff and even staff against staff drama I have seen mitch do some serious anger moments and I am at the moment leaning towards denied given this fact.

I can honestly say I've dealt with staff on staff drama, a lot, during my time on UT. I don't have anger issues, not really. I can get into heated debates, but I don't start tossing out curse words and getting pissed off. Most of the time I'm calm or simply annoyed, it's a video game. Tone of voice/emotion doesn't display well across text on the interwebs as easily as it would irl.

I have gotten angry a handful of times and said a few things, but I didn't outright cuss a player out for an hour and get banned for it. Who hasn't had those small outbursts from time to time when playing a competitive PvP game?

As I've said before, Lucas is Lucas, they are not me. I've had a few spouts of anger here and there, both on CM and on UT, I do however know how to contain myself and ignore insults and such. They don't bother me as much as you would think, nor should they.