Nicc's moderator application.

[Nik707]

BYOND ckey: FORMERLY JohhnyVitrano, NOW, Nik707. Changed to my original Ckey, given the okay by Gorgilisk in #admin-forum
Character name: Ty Clarke
Discord username (+user id): Nicc#3604
How long have you played on Citadel?: 8 months.
How long have you played SS13?: On and off for several years, stretching back to 2012-ish.
What is your timezone/general hours of activity?: CST, and I tend to have very erratic hours, I work for myself and am thus near always home/available
Previous SS13 related admin experience: No previous admin experience with SS13
Previous non-SS13 related admin experience: I was a super admin on Slidefuse HL2RP, and a co-owner for another smaller server known as Esoteric. I also administrated/coded for several other servers during this time.
Current administrators who have agreed to support your application: Izzy. Fract. Faux.
Reason for application: I have been here a good while, and am on quite good terms with a fair number of the admin team. I have plenty of experience with administration, and I want to be one more staff to break the chain of 'Become staff, barely play anymore.' I have years of experience actively playing on a server that I administrate, and it seems like a number of the admins currently on the team don't really do this, which can lead to a disconnect between player and admin. It seems more hurtful to be punished/reprimanded by an admin whom you've never seen actively on the server to experience the ever-shifting demographic and play-style that games like SS13 harbor. On top of that, I feel I have good experience from Gmod in dealing with new players, and differentiating someone who is new, from someone here to cause problems. The recent lowering of the PB means that this experience will become infinitely more valuable, and I'm very much a fan of teach before punish. It's better to take a new player and give them the option to learn, than to assume grief and ban them. I've decided to go with moderator over admin as a way to regulate my time learning how SS13's admin tools work, and to get more familiar with the way that Citadel's admin team operates behind the scenes. I don't like the idea of people being able to skip this step straight into the admin rank as it leads to issues we have experience in the past of 'too much power too quickly' which ends in angry and disappointed players, and a ruined round. I disagree with this so I want to practice what I preach and start small. Maybe some day down the line I may wish to move up, but for now this is plenty to help the player-base and reduce load on admins without going too fast.

I had originally written an admin application, and decided to start with moderator instead for reasons I detailed. I still felt this information to be relevant, so I am leaving it. Let me know if this is a problem.

Please answer the following questions to the best of your abilities:

1. How would you engage with two players having an out of character altercation?
Often, the first step is a very early warning to not argue and take IC issues, or even OOC ones into a public OOC channel. I've seen this happen a number of times, and generally they are allowed to go on way too long, to be ended by a global OOC ban long after it would be due. An early warning, followed by a swift OOC disable while I personally message each of the players and address the issue of bringing drama into an unavoidable global channel. Once this is done, re-enable OOC and if needed, apologize for late reactions if that occurs.

2. What should an admin do if they're involved in a situation that needs admin intervention?
Generally speaking, immediately disengage and bring in another admin to handle it, or at the very least, mediate any decisions made or thoughts had. Depending on time zone, this may not always be possible, so from there it depends on severity. If it's the sort of thing that can be left for a bit, get a round ID, get the logs, and hold off until someone is available to look into it with/for you. If it's something that can't be left alone, act on it to best level of faith and fairness that you can, and as soon as able, have it reviewed by another admin to make sure all seems fair. Additionally, see multiple admins to make the odds of "just agreeing because admins are a team," lower so you can get the best possible chance at a fair answer for the player involved.

3. How should an admin determine in what way to punish someone who breaks the rules?
If there is a level of punishment stated in the rules for said breakage, follow that as best as you can barring special circumstance such as intent, and knowledge. If it's a new player breaking a rule because they didn't know or misunderstood, it's generally not the same as someone intentionally breaking said rule for personal gain, or with the intent of harming someone else's round. If there is no stated level of punishment, from there it bases on factors. Past punishment for the same offence, past history with the player, intent and explanation, how sincere they seem in ahelp, and what you can personally surmise is the purpose of their rule breakage. Punishments are difficult to 'set in stone' for many rules, because several factors can come into play when you think of what would be a 'fair' punishment. Over-punishing can hurt player numbers in the long term, and under-punishing can hurt the player-base itself in the long term. This is a problem I think is a bit too large in Citadel, certain players being let go with less punishment simply because they are well liked, or are "funny." These aren't things I plan to incorporate in my punishments.

4. Under what conditions should an admin de-admin themselves while playing? 
In most cases. any time you have a high impact role. These are any command role, security, or antag. Being I tend to be pretty heavy on command roles, I am prepared for this. That said, it's important to be able to know when this isn't as good of an option. If you're the only admin on the server, de-admining can make things more difficult. You're less likely to catch griefers in the act without the notifications, and people may be less likely to ahelp when they see no-one in adminwho, this is why separation of gameplay and admin-duties is extremely important. My time in HL2RP has me ready for this, as there is no option to de-admin. You are always an admin. You always have admin ESP enabled in noclip, and you always see server-wide logs in your console. I was very quick to learn to separate this from my IC actions, because threats of demotion for metagaming were very meaningful, and I myself handed a few out in my time. It's a basic need of being an admin.

5. What is expected of an admin on Citadel? 
This is a question I have difficulty answering, because it seems like all admins run in their own way and none of them have a particularly visible set of standards. This isn't a bad thing, as having freedom to act as a human makes the team more approachable and allows for more discretion in punishments. The best I can answer this, is that the admins are expected to be of a higher caliber- both in roleplay, the way they handle situations both IC and OOC, and the way that they uphold the rules of the server. Admins should be the players you point to when someone asks 'Who are the best at x.' This is something I find extremely important, and hope to help further with myself and other admins on the team.

[geemiesif]

Im mixed on this to be honest , I think Id need to see more of you on server and see how you improve on discord.

[deathride58]

You can't even be trusted to not be a dip with leaked achat logs. How do we know we can trust you with the full backlog of achat?

[Nik707]

I came public with them immediately, and specifically asked to receive no more. I don't really see how that is being a dip with them, if I'm honest. Especially being that those achat logs were far from what I would consider to be dangerous in any real way. They were someone talking negatively about me in a way I didn't see as very fair or fit for the topic. I didn't use them to try to get anyone demoted, I didn't use them to further any agenda other than to say that it wasn't an okay thing to do, and I specifically stated that I wanted nothing else from the person who sent them to me. What more can I do? At the time, I had no reason to out someone who made a genuine mistake in giving too much information about something minor involving me. I think it's dubious to assume that I'd immediately start leaking things on a server I've spent the past 8 months actively playing, learning the hell of DM code and Github so I could help further and fix, and being extremely active in the discord with people I consider friends.

[madamheichou]

1+ I believe in Nicc's ability to admimistrate/moderate. His application is very well written out and I can see him as a good addition to our team.

[StellarWolf]

Nicc, I have seen you countless times in main. Every time I have had pretty good experiences with you. While I don't know the extents of the discord events that were mentioned in previous posts, I still think you are a rather cool guy. Everyone hates being talked about behind their back, but if what they said is true, then don't make an occurrence again and I'm sure everyone on the admin team would gladly accept you in. I also want to note that I swear this is only a once occurrence. I don't think I have seen anything in discord aside what they brought up that would point you to being bad to having a staff position, but someone else will have to reiterate that part.

[Midnight_117]

+1 I know 'em fairly well and they seem like they'd be able to handle well with the position.

[Izzy]

Despite the whole situation with the leaks (which I'm in the opinion that he should come forward with it (especially if it's as harmless as he describes)), I do think that he has what it takes to be a game moderator. His community involvement and familiarity with the game is a plus.

[Nyny]

Unfortunately I would be a bit neutral. I have been thinking of strongly supporting your application but do to recent events and your history is in consideration. If you don't get on board, I insure that you will get in sometime if we continue to see a positive light from you and don't let anything stop you from having a open mindset.