sporkyz

sporkyz · December 30, 2024, 3:44am

In-game Username: sporkyz
Discord username: sporkyz
Characters you play: Lexi Neely, Andrew Neely

On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: 6-7 hours

Days you are available to admin on: Mon, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun

How old are you? 24

Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience? I have a bit (less than 10 hours) of experience on Goobstation, and I played a decent amount of SS13 (maybe 50-60 hours?) a few years back. The vast majority of my time in SS14 has been on WizDen servers.

Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? Short answer, no.

Slightly longer answer, I have a surface level familiarity with some of the admin tools from doing testing and bugfixing on my own server instance for the contrib work I’ve done.

Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? No, I’ve never been banned.

What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? I think I’d primarily be interested in in-game rule enforcement and in-game events, though the former holds much stronger appeal to me than the latter. In particular, I’d like to work to ensure that rounds move smoothly when I’m around, and ensure a continued positive experience for players as much as possible.

I’m strongly motivated by direct evidence of positive outcomes, so any task where I can see the “fruits of my labor” (i.e., see a round that was being ruined by raiders end up being fun once the raiders are dealt with) would be a task I’d enjoy.

What are you least interested in doing as an admin? I’m not particularly interested in doing lots of ban appeals, but I’d be willing to do any task that fell to me, as I understand that’s part of the responsibility of being an admin.

Detail Questions

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

I think the primary role of admins is ensuring that things run smoothly. This manifests both as enforcement of rules for players who might seek to throw a wrench in the round (raiders, rulebreakers, etc), as well as being a guide for players who are uncertain about things. I’m of the opinion that while admins sometimes need to utilize their authority to do things like kick or ban players, alternative approaches are often plenty effective. Being a helping hand for new players, clarifying confusion or disputes, or just generally being responsive and letting players know that someone’s aware of their situation and is doing their best to address it are critical functions of game admins.

Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?

I really enjoy playing SS14, and I’ve had really positive experiences in the community. There’s an element of wanting to give back, but I’m also just motivated by a desire to ensure that things are running smoothly and that players are able to enjoy the game and the shared community rather than being put off by problems and frustrations. I’ve already worked in part to address this desire by writing contributions for the game, and being an administrator would allow me to further work towards this goal.

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

I feel like the current roleplay status on the servers is good to alright, depending on the server. I spend a large portion of my playtime these days on salamander, because I find that I enjoy the slower pace and more roleplay focused gameplay appeal to me, and I also find that players tend to be a little nicer and more relaxed (though there’s always the occasional frustrated player, as is natural). I also think that Lizard’s status is pretty solid. It’s become something of an acting new-player server, and I think that people on Lizard tend to generally be pretty understanding and accepting. Leviathan and Vulture aren’t in a bad state by any means, though sometimes it feels like there’s a bit of a lack of roleplay. Even for LRP, some of the rounds feel like there’s not as much roleplay going on as gameplay, and there’s moments where it feels like players prioritize powergaming or silent gameplay over trying to engage with other players. Part of this is just an aspect of LRP, but sometimes things (excessive shittery in particular) can get a bit out of hand, especially during peak hours when population is capped (lower pop rounds during the off hours tend to be much more chill AND have more engaging RP, even on Levi or Vulture). Overall though, I think the roleplay status on the servers is pretty solid, and doesn’t need massive changes.

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 wouldn’t say I’ve had any notable negative experiences with admins; the only issues I’ve had are reporting an issue and receiving no response to my report, but that’s not an issue with an interaction per say.

I’ve had a few negative experiences in game with other players, though nothing incredibly outrageous. I’ve reported some self-antagging and the like after seeing the round-end screen, and while sometimes things were addressed, often things were either not seen or were resolved without a response. I’d try to prevent those experiences by doing what I mentioned in the question above, doing my best to ensure players were aware that someone was responding to their concerns.

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

I’ve had multiple good experiences with game admins.

A long while ago, I was newer to security and was experiencing issues where a player was seemingly able to unbolt doors and get away with their hands restrained. I AHelped and explained that it was entirely possible that I was just missing something or that I didn’t know about some feature, but that I was confused on what happened and would appreciate an admin explaining it to me or looking into the player in question. An admin did end up getting back to me, told me that they weren’t sure exactly what happened since they weren’t present when it occurred, but did a good job of running through possibilities in case I wasn’t aware of something. They later ended up coming back to me and updating that other players had been having issues with the same player as well, and that they’d be looking into it further. I went into this situation feeling confused and discouraged, feeling like I might have screwed things up or just been unaware of critical information, but after the admin’s help, I left feeling like it wasn’t a big deal, and that although the player probably wasn’t cheating, if they were, an admin was addressing things.

Recently, I experienced a bug/issue two rounds in a row that impacted my ability to do my job IC. I mentioned in LOOC to another player that this had happened the previous round as well, and unprompted, an admin bwoinked me to ask what was going on and clarify the issue. They gave me potential solutions to the problem, let me know they were listening, and suggested making a formal bug report to ensure that other players didn’t have to deal with the same thing. I was pretty frustrated going into the situation and feeling discouraged, but after speaking with the admin and explaining my frustrations, I left the situation feeling much better. This particular experience is actually what motivated me to go from considering applying for admin to actually doing it.

Another time, I was playing as a nukie, and an admin bwoinked me to give me a tip on an alternate use for the fire axe that might help me out of a stalemate situation. I was already aware of the alternate use, but I thought it was really sweet that the admin wanted to inform me in case I wasn’t aware or was newer to the role, and it made me feel good knowing that there was a guiding hand to ensure that rounds didn’t get stuck in frustrating or uninteresting situations.

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”.

I would not “do something funny” in a way that would impact any players aside from the ghost players. Admemes can be fun but they also drastically change the flow and feel of the round, and so I strongly believe they shouldn’t happen often, and should be put up to a vote (or occur on specific days like the holiday admemes we’ve been seeing recently). Given that the round has already started and I therefore couldn’t put things up to a vote, there’s no chance I’d do anything in a way that would impact the experience for players in the round.

Instead, I’d wait for traitors to be selected, observe the round to see if things were starting smoothly, and if the round was particularly quiet or smooth, I’d consider teleporting the ghost players and doing something minor in an area that wouldn’t impact the station in any way. If the “encouragement” escalated past polite requests, I’d tell them to let it go, and if they kept insisting after a warning I’d freeze or mute them.

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.

It’s not really self-antag for the clown to purely steal the cap’s saber, the whole point of the clown is to steal things and be a general nuisance. However, the fact that the captain and QM are hiding from the clown and not from the HoS and HoP implies to me that the clown was doing something beyond simply stealing the cap’s saber, perhaps attacking the Cap or other players. If the clown ended up just stealing the saber and doing nothing else, I wouldn’t take any action towards the clown in that case. In order to clarify what had happened, I’d bwoink the captain and QM and try to clarify exactly why they were hiding from the clown, and if it was because the clown was doing things that constitute as self-antag (such as attacking cap), I’d check the rulebook to see what the punishment for self-antag was and dole out said punishment, though I might just give them a warning if this was their first offence. Finally, in this case, I’d probably freeze the clown to get the saber back and return it to the captain.

If the HoS has decided to coup captain and the HoP agrees, I’d try to figure out their reasoning for the coup by first checking chatlogs and observing the situation. If I was unable to figure out their reasoning from chats or their reasons seemed questionable, I’d bwoink the HoS and HoP to ask them why they were trying to coup captain. Honestly, given that the cap not only lost their saber to clown but is also now actively hiding from them, I feel it’s likely that the HoS and HoP have some valid reasons given the captain’s apparent incompetence, but I’d check and verify reasoning to be sure. If it turned out that the reasoning was valid, I wouldn’t take any further action against the HoS and HoP. If instead it turned out that their reasons were poor, I’d warn them both to stop the coup, and if they insisted on continuing things despite my warnings, I’d punish them, likely by forcibly demoting them from their current positions. If they still persisted after this, or this wasn’t their first offence, I’d look into longer term punishments like rolebans.

As for longterm actions regarding the cap and QM, I don’t think the captain’s done anything worth longterm punishment aside from some incompetency, though if the reasons the HoS and HoP provided for the coup broke the rules or were EXTREMELY incompetent, I’d consider rolebanning the cap for a while.

Finally, the QM’s just doing their job, as assisting the captain and obeying their orders is the default chain of command, so I think no further action is necessary regarding the QM.

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.

In this case, I’d let the other admin know that I’d be considering their opinion and thank them for the advice, then double check the rules and temp-ban the player as long as the rules said this was the appropriate punishment. I feel that a temp ban would be alright, because regardless of who’s right, a temporary ban aligns with both my judgement and that of the other admin until the tempban has ended, giving me more time to try and contact a headmin. I’d try to get in touch with a headmin throughout the duration of the tempban, and if I was able to get in contact with them, I’d defer to their judgement of the situation; if they ended up deciding that the offending player should be indefinitely banned awaiting an appeal, I’d ask them if they felt it was appropriate to change the player’s punishment after the initial ruling, and if they felt it was, I’d inform the player and tell them to appeal if they so desired. If, however unlikely, I wasn’t able to contact a headmin for the entire duration of the temporary ban, I’d triple check the rules to make sure that what the admin told me a few days before the issue occurred was correct, and then most likely just let the tempban end, deferring to the rules rather than to what an admin of equal rank to me said.