scholar_nz

scholar_nz · July 30, 2025, 9:18pm

In-game Username: scholar_nz
Discord username: Scholar_NZ
Characters you play: Gordon Tiltman, Rust-Bucket, Fe2O3

On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week:
4-8 hours.

Days you are available to admin on:
NZ weekends (US Fri/Sat) with a few rounds availablility during the week on an ad-hoc basis.

How old are you?
36.

Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience?
I used to play a number of player roles in SS13 AuStation many years ago, and have dabbled in other Hub servers (Frontier, Marine Corps, Starlight)

Briefly played SS13 Goonstation and TGStation, but the latency and BYOND’s netcode didn’t really allow me to get a significant amount of experience there.

Overall, I’d say so, but I’ve had enough time to see what others who run downstream servers do with the vanilla code.

Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)?
A bunch, not specific to SS13/SS14.
Since some of this includes PII, I’m happy to validate over a direct message, but I’ll summarize here.

If I were to point to my employment, I’ve been working with production Cloud Infrastructure for a number of years now, and have about a decade historically in support / customer service-based roles.
Seperate to the above, i participated in testing and QA experience on a kotlin-based, open source game recreation project, where I was being actively considered for moderation, however due to non-collaborative timezones and an increase in requirements from my job at the time, I could not continue to contribute in a significant manner.
Very historic, but was heavily involved in moderation for a server on Subspace: Continuum. (SSL Hyperspace) - Since this was nearly 2 decades ago, it’s harder to validate this one.
Lastly, on my home lab I have hosted small-time game-servers for personal friend groups using a “no-OP” approach to participation - Game balance is very important to me!

Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers?
No bans of any kind from any of the above.
No warnings or notes (to my knowledge) on any hub-affiliated server.

What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin?
First, and foremost, this is about getting to know the role of administrator, the team and discovering if it is truly something I enjoy about being part of this community.

In-game events feel like a great way for me to get a feel for the nuance of the capabilities of the robust toolkit and SS14 code, which is certainly appealing.

I think next would be out-of-game rule enforcement; I feel that I have a keen eye for detail, and discovering all aggravating factors that could lead to sub-optimal behavior would help me put together a clear picture of what has happened, and allow me to make the correct call.

What are you least interested in doing as an admin?
Until I know the culture better, working as a Trialmin, I think I’ll struggle with in-game rule enforcement and ban appeals, in that order.

This isn’t because the rules are unclear - It’s mostly about understanding the nuance and culture of all the individual servers, and how that applies to the punishments delivered to the playerbase.
After all, punishments are meant to be a lever to disincentivize poor behavior, not to remove people from the community.

I recognize each of the servers your group has contains their own ecosystem and culture.

As a trialmin, I’d likely lean heavily on my Administrative peers to provide guidance on individual cases to begin with.

After which, I would then approach getting approvals or peer review, and with time, move in to a space of making independent calls.

I strongly believe that the wrong action on the wrong player can create a far larger problem for the admin team as a whole.
I’m eager to follow good examples and learn where the balance lies.

Detail Questions

What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?

A vague, job-description series of paragraphs follow:

Serving as the “front-line” to the Wizards Den servers, you’re there to ensure everyone in the round is having a good time, which simply means engaging roleplay and gameplay inside of a round, or series of rounds.

As individuals hand-chosen and evaluated over a trial period, your standard of behavior goes above simply following the rules – It’s expected that your ability to collaborate, enforce and assist players provides a net enhancement of Wizden’s Administrative reputation, with a high standard of accountability for actions that fall short of this standard.

In short, aim to be beyond reproach.

Part of your role is to evaluate the rules laid out to players, and provide feedback to Headmins or other appropriate escalation points after internal discussion.

As the culture and population evolves, so too does the way our community interprets the rules, thus the rules must be a living document that grows with the larger community.

You’ll often be called upon to act quickly in circumstances with limited information at a high standard of behavior (see above) and, after a trial period, be expected to have a bias toward action for enforcement that does not negatively impact mid-round gameplay, providing reports where the enforcement lead to a negative disturbance in a normal round.

Additionally, you’ll be asked to investigate complaints in historic rounds, collecting information about gameplay prior to a suspected rule violation and providing feedback to players where appropriate.

In the case of Vulture, you’ll be asked to monitor rounds for visible exploits or unexpected behavior from a new releases of our codebase, and provide that information to maintainers or project managers dependent on severity and urgency.

You’ll be expected to be able to monitor and escalate if larger issues occur with Watchdog or other game infrastructure, providing clear communication of any issues observed leading up to the problem.

In addition, outside of rounds, Ban Appeals, MRP allowlist requests, and other Administrative applications will cross your desk for consideration.
All of these require an evaluation of the player to culture, with the standard increasing relative to the level of additional privilege.

Finally, no small part of what you do as an Admin is to help enhance the engagement of players by providing unique experiences, in the form of either ad-hoc changes (favoring a light touch) or by running, carefully monitoring and gathering feedback on the hard work of contributors before their contributions are merged to main.

Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?

I think a large part of wanting to be an Administrator is a desire to further uplift the reputation of this community and be in a position to enhance the experiences of others.

I want to peek behind the curtain, and get to know the community behind all of this great work, as well as get to know the codebase a lot better.

Starting in from an admin position and evaluating if it’s a good fit for me (as well as your wider team) feels like a good place to start integrating myself further.

How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?

LRP is in a good state - Removal of the metashield has really helped grease the wheels of smooth gameplay in a number of departments, as well as reveal flaws in the way other antagonists operate.

MRP is harder to judge - Although I am allowlisted, it’s low population makes it a little less appealing, as I’ve always favored increased chaos as a means to increase the depth of the knowledge of gameplay mechanics, and help push my roleplay standards up further.

Ultimately, the quality of RP is down to the individual server. A few bad apples can spoil the bunch, but light touches are all that’s required to help people who are counter-culture be nudged in to what the collective communities vision of good RP.

Standards don’t to be very high on LRP – Let them play! But we have an allowlist on MRP for a reason, it’s fair to hold others to a higher, well-established and discussed standard.
No one person sets the full standard for what good roleplaying is, the whole community does.

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?

Genuinely, I haven’t.
By all appearances, your team gets it. This was a key factor in deciding if I wanted to join.

Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?

Many - From when I first started in SS14, being anxious about going SSD as a technical assistant, to participating in Admemes, I don’t think I’ve had anything but good experiences with your team.

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”.

Internally, I think my first instinct is that it’s “too early in the round for shenanigans”.

I’d likely not say that, I’d more likely have them spitball suggestions, deflect and buy time, and observe as normal - Try and push it toward a conversation as opposed to a requirement for action.

If it ends up that they become insistent in a way that’s rude, they’ll get ignored, but if they’re good sports, then there’s very limited room for incredibly judicious tweaks without a distinct vote on admemes, basing this entirely on what I’ve seen before and what seems to be acceptable currently.

In terms of scale; Maybe a non-antag passenger who is leaning toward self-antag gets their insuls replaced with budget insuls, instead?

If there are regulars on who I have a good rapport with, maybe a light prank wouldn’t hurt - A slip, or a small teleport that doesn’t harm them would be fine, too.

To do anything at all, requires 100% confidence in the action being taken. There’s no room for “what does this button do? Oops, they’re now Bread”, Damage, particularly that leading to crit or RR should never be on the menu for this sort of thing, as that’s just bad player experience.

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.

Clown falls short of 2.6 with the theft of a high-importance, but not critical, offensive item.

My enforcement action depends on what they do with it - there’s a very real difference between the clown going to the bar and running a sword-swallowing show with music (and allowing themselves to be taken in by sec) and them then going on a violent rampage, and RR several other players.

If they do nothing harmful to other players with it, the correct action might actually range from nothing to a Bwoink, depending on feedback from others on the team.

If they go on a violent rampage, it’s possibly raider-level enforcement / RR / Ban - Context on what they do next is key.

Clown is the first-priority in terms of enforcement from an administrative perspective, as the role is readily accessible, so raiders playing this role could exist.

Of secondary importance, is the HoS deciding to mutiny with the HoP.
Command is a privileged role - users doing the absolute minimum to get to these roles are required to have played at least 10 rounds with Wizden, and have some experience in game play mechanics and familiarity with Space Law.

With the QM and Cap working together to minimize harm (at the sacrifice of their gameplay), the key becomes context.

Has the captain taken action that is considered against space law, and so have command then decided to arrest the captain?
Does the QM know about these misgivings or accusations?

If HoS and HoP have decided to arrest Cap on appropriate grounds, then QM could be falling short of 2.10.
If HoS and HoP are not arresting on appropriate grounds, they possibly breach 1.2, maybe 2.6 and maybe 2.10.

If I don’t know enough to make a judgement call, I will carefully observe, and make other in-round admins aware to get their feedback.
The scenario will cause chaos (half of command aren’t doing their job) if left long enough.
Although you could argue that command is not following 2.12 and 2.10, we can get creative here.

This is a great opportunity to remove the focus from the argument. Introduce a loud antagonist ghost role, if there aren’t any such events going on – A dragon would be great for this purpose, and it’s immediate enough that it should encourage all involved to come back on station to deal with the threat.

If they don’t, then it could be argued that light enforcement could be valid – Warnings to temporary / light role bans dependent on the severity of their negligence from their role.

From there, competent security should then be able to arrest the captain.

If none of the actions toward the captain are justified, it’s from a bwoink to a temporary command role ban for the command staff who started the mutiny, as they would fall short of 2.14 / 2.15, and maybe 1.2.

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.

Discretion is the better part of valor here.

I’d use my own judgement, based on historic cases similar to this one (asking for peer support if available) - I believe that enforcement action should lean away from severe for first offenses, and if the offense is severe enough that a temporary ban is warranted, I’d put that in place.

I’d then thank the other admin for their feedback, get their take on why perma is more appropriate, and ping a headmin for their review in an async manner – Ultimately, we’ve achieved what we want to with a minor ban (gameplay disturbance has been removed).

Headmin can educate me or the other admin asynchronously about the correct action, which we could then communicate to the wider team as precedent.

If after the ban the player comes back and does the exact same thing immediately before a headmin can respond? Sure. It’s a ban that requires appeal next.