Citadel Community

BYOND Name of complaint against: MrJWhit

Your BYOND name: Knouli

Date of issue and round ID: 1/7/2020 - 20862

Reason for complaint: Spawned in Stargazers of their own admission, the result of which left the shift swiftly plunging into chaos beneath the 'confirmed' cultists that were aboard. Disrupting what was an extended shift with the typical madness that results from preparations for a clock-cult attack.

I feel this action was wholly unnecessary and against the nature of the server and community; proving to be nothing short of a blatant show of power unnecessarily exercised over the playerbase. This action was nothing but disruptive, was not followed up upon in any means to even be considered an 'event' - I cannot but see this as a means to punish the playerbase for having chosen to vote extended after a prolonged period of round after round of clock cults (apparently, I was not part of the past rounds to confirm this, but many players were lamenting the fact). This continued until the round's conclusion, even going past points where attempts to contact 'CC' to figure out it was just a 'prank' were ignored.

It is one thing to poke a few players and excite things, it is another to perform an action that sends the whole round into chaos, and then continue past the point of no return even after players polled to figure out if it was just a 'prank' or not. I feel the whole thing was in poor taste - but something that could've been almost laughed at if deescalated rather than having been left in the dark, with only the worst to be assumed.

Honest take here, Main isn't where you go when you want a quiet round. You go to main to have main. That includes the chaos. If you're the kinda person to just insta-cryo the moment an antag you don't like shows up you're part of a systemic problem with main in which most only want the things they like and refuses to partake in what they don't. Sometimes you gotta give back by doing things you don't like so others can have fun too. In this instance, it's entirely the people who took the cryo route at fault for their own actions. I see no real reason to act on anything here.

From what I gathered , MrJWhit's bus was a relatively harmless prank. It's the sort of bus that I've seen done befo. Which sets a precedence that such a bus isn't outright the /worst/ thing an admin can do, since that event was received with little fanfare. What Nicc said. Main has antags, if the very concept of antags turns you away, this place probably isn't the best for you. I'm one of the admins who want quieter antags in general and despise clock cult, and even I don't see an issue with this. Sometimes, you've gotta bite the bullet and deal with something you don't like for the health of the round. This really shouldn't have caused as much of a ruckus as it did.

There were 10 secret rounds between this round and the last extended, two were nukies, two were clock cult, and one was blood cult.

I agree with the complaint. Justin did this within the first ten minutes of the round and then made the excuse that it was to "catch metacommers." When he could have done so the previous two rounds. (Nukies, Clock Cult.) For several people, this absolutely -destroyed- any ounce of fun that they could have otherwise had on a normal extended.

Clock Cult and nukies are game modes that incite IMMEDIATE panic and preparation for war/TDM, you should not be bussing this kind of stuff for shits and giggles, and then tell all the people who cryo'd out of it that it's their fault for "overreacting" to something they just dealt with less than an hour prior. Sometimes, people need a break.

You're acting as if he bussed something interesting in, and failed. No, he dunked specifically on an extended round, soon after a separate clockies round, and people were sick of it. Of course they all cryo'd out.

Just because something was bussed before doesnt mean it should be bussed again, especially if you're doing it to bus in a false -red alert- on a green shift.

Except Justin is right. It is your fault for overreacting. In fact i'd even go on a limb and say that the people who armed up, mindshielded, and triggered red alert reacted less than you. Cryoing out because of a roundtype is an absolute over-reaction. No gamemode is that bad.

If you can't stand antags then perhaps you should stick to your ghost bar by observing at roundstart.

GrayRachnid wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:11 pm

No gamemode is that bad.

clock cult is kinda that bad. it's the worst TDM mode by far because unlike all the other ones it drags out explicitly, being impossible to end before ~50 minutes in (when the Reebe assault occurs)

Allow me to say this clearly and definitely.

I am not here to complain about the cryo-fest that this incident brought up. In fact, that is upon the players who reacted in such a way. They made the decision to not play the round regardless of what was in store. This is on them one hundred percent of the way. So please leave that subject behind and do not confuse it with what I want to discuss, I want to touch on something more critical here.

Further, I'll recognize that yes, 'main IS main' and chaos is to be expected and by and large is the rule. I'm not looking to change that fact.

What I'm more concerned with the underlaying issue of the action taken by MrJWhit, and even more startling to me, the seeming acceptance, and approval of this trend.

What my complaints pivot upon is the blatant destruction of the voted roudtype, approved by the majority, and undone by the actions of one in power. The shift in particular was extended, voted in by the majority of the playerbase at the time - this is what the players at the given point in time wanted. Yet, MrJWhit's actions saw to change that in a radical way.

This is where my complaint stems from.

The decisions of one outweighed the wants of the majority. While 'harmless' in terms of damage wrought, or rather, damage it did not directly bring, it crippled an otherwise quiet round. One that was accepted to oblige by the extended ruleset by the playerbase at the given point in time - one fatigued by the chaos of proceeding rounds.

This is also to challenge that precedence as well - as the way I'm presently interpreting the acceptance of these actions is to approve of the whims of a single admin to go against the majority of the playerbase for the 'fun' of it. To upend the round and lead it in what I could only see as a non-constructive direction for little more reason than to exercise the ability to so do.

I'm really reading it as 'admins can do what they want to the round regardless of what the playerbase votes'. If this is the case, say so now and I will rescind all claims I have on this complaint as that will be the whole of the matter. If not, then let's discuss upon this, starting with how this behavior was applaudable and benefited the playerbase - it would've taken literally no action to leave the round to play out as it was, but action was taken.

The last 7 rounds on the slimbus consist solely of TDM modes (Wizards, Nukeops, Cults), so the players were clearly getting tired of it, more evidenced by the fact that Extended was voted.

Clock cult is a mode that forces a certain style of play, which is extremely disruptive to the round, in exactly the same way that nuke ops does, in that it forces the crew to arm themselves wholesale, shelve most RP for explicit crew-wide validhunting, and powergame any possible means to either stop the crew or stop the cult depending on which side you end up on, enforced for a full 50 minute round before the additional 10 minute finale. It'd a dedicated hour that completely subverts the nature of how the game is normally played and many people, including me, do not like it.

Justin's 'prank' confirmed the 'round type' to the hapless crew, given the crew had no other means to know it was a prank, after additional paranoia had already occurred within the round. It ended up wasting the hour of the round, which while some people got some laughs, more people were very upset about it and viewed it as a waste of their time.

To add to knouli's last post, there is precendent of admins ignoring the voted round type, typically during "prime time" hours, but I believe it was very insensitive of Justin to 'poke the hornet's nest', so to speak, when the players were clearly fatigued by an endless run of TDM modes, only to trick them into believing it was yet another one through a method more or less guaranteed to garner the response that was given.

It's not fair to say the players 'overreacted' when they shouldn't have a reason to otherwise. Spotting stargazers in any other scenario is an absolute guarantee of a clock cult existing, and it's an appropriate response to drive the entire station to maximum alert. You wouldn't expect the mass-cyroing players to wait around to see if it was real - the captain confirmed it to be the case, and there should be no reason to expect it isn't otherwise.

Admins maintain the right to set the gamemode as they see fit. A vote should be called to decide whether to change the round type, but it is ultimately up to the administration. A rule of thumb is to run secret whenever there are at least 15-20 players and/or during "prime-time" hours (12:00PM-12:00AM EST/GMT-5), and extended during the opposite.

No need to shut me up, I can do it to myself - I see all too clearly this is applicable. This complaint holds no base against MrJWhit and I rescind all commentary thus far.

I will however say the \policy\ is in dire need of review. Do not mistake my exoneration of MrJWhit with approval of this policy - near any grudge I've voiced in this complaint can near seamlessly be filed against the policy itself.

Let me just state something to start, because it's been wholly underrepresented so far: I did not bus this for fun. This was not an "event", or anything else along those lines. This was to see if I could shake the round up to listen to someone if they will, or will not metacomm about the round.

Metacomming is something that ever admin takes incredibly seriously, they ruin rounds, ruin servers, and break one of the fundamental rules of how SS13 works, how information is transferred. It's disruptive to the game, but it's also incredibly difficult to actually pinpoint down, especially with the fluid nature of voice chat. You more or less need someone to step forward and say what's going on, and oust their friends, which is a hard thing to do, and I deeply respect anyone who does it. So, if there's a suspicion of metacomming, it's taken seriously and it's an involved event. These things aren't recorded by default at all, it's just hearsay until some sort of staffmember sees/hears it themselves, or there's a recording (which doesn't happen).


Now, all of that out of the way, let's talk about what I did:
The entirety of what I did was spawn 7 stargazers in the southwest solar monitor-area. I did not create teleport effects, I did not cog anything, I did not place stargazers nor any clockwork items outside of that singular location.
That is all that I did that round.
As people could tell in the round, there wasn't a single cultist found. There was not any actual proof of any cult activities past those seven item that were smashed very quickly. They messaged centcom about this possibly being a prank, and I didn't respond to it, yes. However, remember this: I was in a voice chat that I was paying careful attention to for metacomming, I was the only admin online and had to do actual admin work during the round, I was also talking in the discord adminchat about this, and talk in deadchat. Things pass me by, it happens, it wasn't that relevant to my actual task, so I didn't give it as much time as I ideally should have. I don't think that's the reason why people are pissed at me.
Next, I did actually offer to help people out who couldn't re-enter the round because they chose to cryo out preemptively (as it happens the can_reenter_round variable has been changed into a datum that I had to do some digging to find and adjust from there). I helped one person out, and also tried to make the ghost bar better, although it was late. I offered multiple times for people to come forward for help, and not enough people wanted help. I didn't purposefully ignore anyone or tried to ruin anything for anyone.


Now, let's look at it from a meta perspective:
The roundvote was actually 25 secret to 25 extended, and then the system chose extended. Meaning that a more chaotic greenshift, purely from a meta-perspective, is actually pretty reasonable to have. Obviously you guys don't have those numbers, which is why I'm just saying it.
I hate doing this, but I do actually have a right to do this as an admin, as previously mentioned by knouli, to do this. The timing and population numbers are resembling a more younger citadel, but the idea is still the same. Admins are allowed to turn extended into secret, and while that isn't technically what happened, it's very similar in the disruptive nature of clockwork. Once again, I hate saying "I'm allowed too, neeer neer neer", but it's worth mentioning.
Now, the idea that suddenly players "lost out" on an extended round is... honestly just wrong. The next round was voted (roughly, I was a bit busy) 32-12 for extended-secret. When there's a significantly chaotic round, players lean more towards extended, and a more boring extended round leans the vote more towards secret.

As a side note, it's not always the best to look at raw numbers for rounds of How Many Secret vs How Many Extended, it's much better to look at how long a secret patch is, and how long an extended patch is, as well as compare to how that time normally votes. Three extended rounds and then three secret rounds sound, on paper, to be the exact same, but that could be 4:30 hours to 2:00 hours depending on the types of rounds, but, generally, extended rounds are longer than secret.


Somewhat wrapping up my point, let me just say something:
I'm not a furry, I explicitly don't erp, I don't vore, all of the things that make Citadel Citadel I don't participate in. This is just a fact of who I am as a person. The fact that I don't actively trash on any of those things (aside from the various joke), should tell you something about me. I want to help people and I want everyone to play fairly. I'm not going to say I didn't find this funny, but that was never the point, I don't mess with people like this purely for a joke. I've been a staffmember for almost a year now, and nothing has changed about me. All that I ask is that you give me the benefit of the doubt.




Now, onto the specific comments (not including knouli as they rescind):

Owai wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:04 pm

For several people, this absolutely -destroyed- any ounce of fun that they could have otherwise had on a normal extended.

I offered to help out in deadchat multiple times, and only two people responded of the multiple people who cryo'd out.
Also, you can still have fun, plenty of people have fun during high chaotic rounds. You're not one of those people, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing there for you.

Owai wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:04 pm

Clock Cult and nukies are game modes that incite IMMEDIATE panic and preparation for war/TDM, you should not be bussing this kind of stuff for shits and giggles, and then tell all the people who cryo'd out of it that it's their fault for "overreacting" to something they just dealt with less than an hour prior. Sometimes, people need a break.

The only time I said "overracting" was in relation to the shuttle being called, I never said anything about the people cryoing. I never gave anyone crap for cryoing.

Yakumo_Chen wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:14 pm

Justin's 'prank' confirmed the 'round type' to the hapless crew, given the crew had no other means to know it was a prank, after additional paranoia had already occurred within the round. It ended up wasting the hour of the round, which while some people got some laughs, more people were very upset about it and viewed it as a waste of their time.

As I mentioned before, this wasn't a prank. I don't know why people are saying this is a "prank", I never mentioned that at all, I was pretty explicit that this was a bus, not an event or anything else.

Yakumo_Chen wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:14 pm

It's not fair to say the players 'overreacted' when they shouldn't have a reason to otherwise. Spotting stargazers in any other scenario is an absolute guarantee of a clock cult existing, and it's an appropriate response to drive the entire station to maximum alert. You wouldn't expect the mass-cyroing players to wait around to see if it was real - the captain confirmed it to be the case, and there should be no reason to expect it isn't otherwise.

Something to remember with conversion antags in general:
Unless you are personally being attacked, or you have been drafted, as a regular crewmember don't actually have any obligation to hunt down conversion antags. As a botanist, you can just completely ignore a revolution going on, it's not relevant to your job. As a scientist, you don't have any server-side obligation to build a stunprod at the mention of a cultist, you can just keep working on, say, xenobiology. Non-sec crewmembers don't actually have any obligation to care unless they're breaking down the door, killing your friend, or summoning a god at that time.

Putnam wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:36 pm

clock cult is kinda that bad. it's the worst TDM mode by far because unlike all the other ones it drags out explicitly, being impossible to end before ~50 minutes in (when the Reebe assault occurs)

This is honestly what I feel like hits on the heart of the matter:
People are not angry at me personally, but angry at clockwork cult by way of me. There was an admin who gave the feeling of a clockwork round, and therefor that's bad.