In-game Username: purpleskittleo
Discord username: purpleskittleo
Characters you play: Melody Moon
On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: 15 - 30
Days you are available to admin on: All!
How old are you? 18
Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience? Outside of the many Wizden hours, I am a newer member of the Umbra Sector’s community, and have minor experience playing Frontier. Most servers I’ve looked at participating in are MRP - HRP, and I believe Umbra is a nice mix of what feels like a tight-knit whitelist community, with nice HRP standards. At the time of writing, I plan to join multiple friends on RMC at some point in the near future.
Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? Whilst I do not have any administrative experience on either Space Station games, I’ve noted a track record in communities I’m a part of around other areas of the internet (eg. Minecraft, various Discord servers) of helping manage situations and people causing issues, socially or mechanically, often leading to me join the administrative team for said communities, including, but not limited to:
Team Abyssal’s Discord Server
A server with 850~ people for a Minecraft modding community, 11/04/24 (dd/mm/yy) - present
RoseSMP’s Minecraft and Discord Servers
An active public Minecraft community, 12/05/22 - 08/07/23
Wild Planet Studios’ Discord
A Minecraft Modding community with 780~ people, 01/09/23 - present
Project EUCLID’s Discord
A private, HRP Minecraft community with 30~ people, 26/11/21 - present
Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? I have not had any bans, and I aim to keep it that way.
What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? Being active on Salamander to help out (and encourage!) ahelps as well as possibly give warnings to lower roleplay actions on Salamander specifically is what immediately jumps out to me when asked this. I’m unsure if this is a question further in, but being in the UK and having a fairly erratic sleep schedule allows me to be active for much lowerpop hours than other folk, often during 8am - 4pm, and whilst the lowpop Salamander experience is pleasant, I don’t often see admin activity during, and I feel as though it would be useful to have more folk available then. (Though I am aware this could just be because any frequent admins active then don’t make their moves public like others do.)
Thinking more about this, I feel as though dealing with conflicts that arise whilst OOC is active may be a more realistic answer to this question. I suspect this is a textbook saying in these applications, but I know the value of hearing as many sides to a story as possible, and judging accordingly.
What are you least interested in doing as an admin? This is a tough question to answer, given my admitted administrative inexperience. Given the limited knowledge available to me, I feel as though my interest falls much further on the side of in-game administrative actions, compared to in things like the Discord or forums. Whilst happy to do so if specifically asked, I do realise that adminstrating forums and the Discord server falls as a lower priority to me than in-game administrative action. This isn’t to say I wouldn’t if provided with good reasons to do so, but to specify that my immediate instinct is to help out in-game rather than out.
Detail Questions
What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?
I believe administrators exist on Wizden to serve a multitude of varied responsibilities - to helping newer players when others don’t, to answering general questions about the game and its mechanics, admins are necessary for a community to function properly, and are one of the many moving parts involved in making a group as large as SS14’s a healthy environment for those within it.
To many players (including me!), admins serve as an instinctual authority figure within the community, and bear the responsibilities that general authority figures do, as unexpected as they could be. As said previously, these can be to help newer players out, spice up a boring round (in a way that isn’t destructive!), or what I expect to be much more realistic, to make sure things are socially smooth in OOC. There’s a certain level of social responsibility administrators have, given that their word is likely seen to be much more impactful than the average player’s, I believe using this word to do things such as settle boiling water, deal with problematic folk, and act in a way that players would aim to be, is the administrators’ role.
Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?
Since I fell in love with SS14, I’ve wanted to help out the community in any way I realistically can. I’ve experienced so much joy from this game in so many different ways; the spike in heartrate of a first-time major antagonist, the utterly beautiful roleplay that can be found in Salamander and Umbra, to the wonderful stories that’ve been told from a truly good Captain against the antagonists of a shift, I’ve personally found another game to add to the roster of reasons my career is in game design.
For a while I’ve been looking into applying for an administrative role in Wizden, as I do want to give back to this community in the same way it’s given me a firey passion, and using my skills to adminstrate feels like a good balance of something I know well, and something that’d affect the community I love in a genuine and positive manner. The final push for me to actually act on this want was the Wizden resignations, as I saw an opportunity to be in the crowd of folks that I know has stepped up to fill the shoes.
How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?
This question is a strange one to answer. The roleplay on the majority of Wizden servers is - in all honesty, not as good as I wish it was, whether that’s due to a lack of experience, effort, or any other reason. Wizden has a lot of LRP servers compared to the one MRP server, and I feel as though this is the reason Salamander can feel lower RP at times. I do wish for higher RP servers run by Wizden, but whether that’s a realistic want or not, I’m unsure. Either way, I would do as many things as I can to hopefully lean the LRP servers into LRP over NRP, and Salamander into a truer MRP environment.
Other than banning problematic players, what admin actions do you believe have the biggest positive impact?
Whilst punishing problematic players obviously has major positive impacts on the community, I don’t think enough credit is given to those helping newer players learn the ropes and allowing those who have made mistakes to learn from them. I do believe that smaller actions like answering ahelps and being a genuine positive presence on the servers add up massively, as well as deescalating social conflicts.
Have you ever had a negative experience in the game or with a game admin? If so what, if anything, would you do to prevent other players from experiencing this?
I have not had any negative experiences with game admins in the past, and I’m quite thankful for this! Looking through the forums, I do know they occasionally happen, and I’ve also notably seen further actions taken when this does happen, which makes me confident I’d be working alongside people I would like to be around.
Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?
I’ve had a few experiences with Wizden admins, being it things like messing around in an isolated area on lowpop, to participating in custom ghost roles, all interactions I can recall with administrators in SS14 have been generally positive experiences.
Scenario Questions
Scenario 1
It is the start of the round. There are 60 players on the server. The game mode is traitors, traitors have not been selected yet. There are three players who decided to observe the round instead of join it orbiting you. Two of them are encouraging you to “do something funny”.
Doing something “funny” is a vague request, and being given it allows me freedom to do quite a lot of non-disruptive things, if I even were to choose to follow through.
Given the fact that the round has just begun, and traitors will likely be chosen soon, it doesn’t strike me as wise to do something this early, if at all from their request. Any larger events would take a lot more planning and testing to execute, (and a vote beforehand!) and personally, smaller, impulsive things aren’t my cup of tea.
If I hadn’t been thinking prior about possible admin occurrences, I would likely deny the request politely, and keep an eye on the players requesting it, if they were to take up any ghost roles. If I had, this would likely get me thinking about possible events again, and I’d likely bounce ideas off of them in a way that makes it clear that it wouldn’t be happening in the current round.
Scenario 2
This scenario takes place on LRP. The Head of Security has decided to coup the Captain. The Head of Personnel agrees with the Head of Security and has taken up arms in case it is necessary to aid in effecting the arrest of the Captain. The Captain is hiding with the Quartermaster in the cargo shuttle to avoid the Clown who has stolen the captains saber as a non-antag. There are five people named in this scenario. Please describe what actions, if any, you would take in relation to each, and why.
This situation is quite messy, and untangling it in a way that seems just is a tough problem that I’d be happy to take notes on.
This all majorly revolves around what point in this situation the present. Everything following this paragraph are the actions I would take after attempting to deescalate the situation, if this situation is taking place live, and is not being viewed through a replay.
A coup of the Captain, brought up by HoS of all roles, seems to already be bordering antagonistic behaviour, and HoP deciding to take up arms to follow through does not give me good faith that it would go well, even with their reasoning of “in case it is necessary.”
As per my first instinct, having a conversation to the HoS about why they decided to do this would be my first action, as the intent and reason is easily the biggest missing piece to me.
Alongside this, a conversation with the Captain and HoP separately would also be necessary to get their sides of what has happened.
If my view of the Captain’s actions prior to the coup easily aligns with the HoS (ie, an self-antagonistic Captain,) I would mention to the HoS and HoP that a coup here was not the right action to take - if a role as important as Captain is being played poorly enough to warrant a violent and immediate response, that should be taken up with ahelp OOC, if it is genuinely problematic. If it is not immediately problematic, an IC demotion should likely’ve been considered before taking action. Depending on their response, and how understanding they are to this, could justify a less severe punishment to the HoS if they do not seem to take in the information, as whilst they were justified in their opinion of the Captain’s actions, their response to it was certainly not the correct path to take.
If they’re aware to the situation and show signs of understanding that this was not the correct course of action, I would likely notify other admins of the situation with the player and not administer a punishment to them, depending on other admins’ views on the circumstance.
HoP would also likely get a minor punishment after a conversation, as not only did they agree with the idea of a coup, but their call to arm was likely completely unjustified, and may’ve ended very poorly if things had taken a turn for the worse. My willingness for the HoP’s understanding is slightly less than HoS’ here, as they not only assisted HoS when they should’ve been the one to correct them to ahelp, but also seemed to play a part in the snowballing of this situation, in a way another command member should’ve prevented.
After that conversation has happened, punishing the Captain fairly stands out as being my next course of action. This obviously depends on how antagonistic their behaviour was, and possible punishments would range from a warning (depending on how over-escalative HoS was), to a command role-ban, with the most severe, and therefore most unlikely, being an indefinite overarching ban.
If, after finding out as much as I could about the situation, my view does not align with HoS and HoP here, (ie, the Captain was being played fairly and HoS and HoP were in the wrong,) I would likely administer a temporary roleban to the HoS and HoP both at best, and an indefinite commandban at worst, given their actions. I do not believe this is warrant enough to justify an indefinite overarching ban, but disallowing HoS’ player to be in charge of the station’s security force, and HoP to be second-in-command, if temporarily, seems like a reasonable punishment.
My immediate reaction to the Clown is to check how many times before incidents like this have happened with this player, and to check with other folks about what was done with the saber itself, to help determine the severity of the situation. If it seems to lean into ban territory, it may be worth checking the in-team requirements to see if it’d be justified.
If there’s many accounts of self-antagonistic behaviour, over various roles, I would propose an indefinite ban to the admin team. An explanation here about their behaviour and how it’s unjustified does not feel necessary, given the fact that they’ve likely heard it many times before, and not changed their actions.
If, with them, incidents like this have happened many times, just as a Clown, I would have a conversation about how playing as entertainer roles, especially Clown, does not give justification at all for antagonistic behaviour, especially not Grand Theft of one of the most notable items in the game. Depending on how much this has happened in the past, I would then likely administer a temporary ban, and bring up the possibility of an indefinite ban with the admin team if this has happened an significant amount.
If the player does not have a history of self-antagonistic behaviour, I would explain that Clown does not justify actions like that, and check their playtime to see how new of a player they are, and punish accordingly, likely much less severely if they’re newer. If they’ve got a notable amount of playtime, this punishment would likely lean to the more severe end, as as an experienced player, they should certainly know the ropes by now, and know that behaviour like this is entirely rulebreaking. If they’re a newer player, their intent becomes much clearer and an explanation as to the concept of self-antagging would be given; I’d hate to punish a player for what’s their first offense of something they flat-out did not understand. Depending on their response to this, a note would likely be made about the situation for their account.
Scenario 3
You are ahelping a player about an issue. The player has no prior noted issues. A few days earlier, an admin had told you that this type of situation should result in a temporary ban for a first offense, and you are confident that this situation is not substantially different from the type that admin was describing. During the ahelp, another admin pings you on Discord with a link to the ongoing ahelp and tells you to just indefinitely ban them and make them appeal. Excluding trialmins and headmins, all admins are equally “ranked”. A headmin is not currently available.
I do not believe that being pinged by what may even be an experienced admin with the recommended action being to “just indefinitely ban them and make them appeal,” is a good solution, especially due to the lack of prior issues this player has - it immediately strikes me as off, especially given the previous example. Appealing a ban should not be a necessary part of the punishment process, it’s a way for humans to question other humans’ decisions in a way that’s fair and easy to do, with the hope of re-finding a solution that works for everyone involved. A spontaneous, indefinite ban here would likely cause much more harm that it would do good, especially given the fact that I’ve been recommended a solution in the past for a situation that I’m confident is not unlike this one.
I’d likely challenge the former admins’ recommendation to go through with an indefinite ban, genuinely questioning what they think the appeal process is for, as this may be a misunderstanding on my part, whilst keeping in mind that the situation here is not exactly like the example provided a couple days back. It’d be wise to think through what made a temporary ban a recommended solution for the former situation, and how that reasoning, and therefore punishment, may or may not carry over into this situation - I imagine no two circumstances like this are exactly alike, and to immediately group them may result in an unjust punishment for the player involved.