BYOND KEY: James View
DISCORD ID: HighAdmiral#3632
USUAL IC HANDLE: I play an HRP AI, Alpha v1.0, as well as an MRP sec Nick Thorne. I have various Engineering characters, Roman Joon, Alpha Riley. I play whatever the ship needs unless the AI slot is open.
EXPERIENCE WITH SS13: I’ve been playing for like two years now, I started on Paradise and disliked the chaos, tried Bay and have been banned there three times (all for hilariously weak reasons), Aurora which I liked, but eventually swore off due to their heavily anti AI development team. I then moved to Bastion of Hestia.
EXPERIENCE WITH ADMINISTRATION IN SS13: After arriving to Bastion of Hestia, I quickly gained a good reputation as an HRP AI and eventually took a position on the admin team, I quickly moved into senior administration as someone who was constantly on with basic common sense.
YOUR TIME-ZONE: I am in CST, however due to my work schedule my administration would be of the AUTZ to EUTZ area.
AVERAGE AMOUNT OF HOURS ACTIVE PER WEEK: Difficult to say, I work every shift of overtime I’m offered but otherwise I’m on my computer. I’d say around 30 hours a week?
YOUR MOTIVATION: With BOH no longer a server, and every currently existing HRP server not meeting my standards, NSV13 is the only server I currently play on. Unfortunately due to my work schedule, I cannot make weekend playtests during the times with good population. My motivation for applying comes from your release, I recall while in VC a few months ago Sergei talking about how for release you’d need staff to handle the late nights, and on the same night he told me to apply here. I declined the offer, as I can’t make playtimes and would hate to look inactive. With release though, I feel I could fill some needed coverage.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A STAFF MEMBER: As stated previously, my main motivation is to provide coverage for ahelp issues, however one of the things that make NSV13 one of the better servers is how liberally adminbus is applied to create interesting events in a round. Some of the finest rounds in the game have occurred as character development between admin characters and Captain Czanek or various Security officers.
QUALITIES THAT ARE IMPORTANT FOR A STAFF MEMBER: In my experience from BOH the single hardest part of being an admin was handling the constant onslaught of player created drama. Being able to keep calm and avoid taking things personally is important. Staff burnout was a weekly occurrence on our staff team.
A few other important ones include, but are not limited to empathy for frustrated players, players can be dicks. Many times when you’re bwoinking one they’re starting from the initial stance of offense that they’ve done something wrong, or are incredibly overwhelmed by a situation that they’re too personally invested in.
A good understanding of SS13 as a whole, how a community on SS13 works, and experience in every round type. A lot of what goes on during an investigation is interviewing witnesses, and being able to understand what happened from few or poorly chosen words is key to completing a picture of an existing situation.
Understand what makes rounds fun for the average player. One of the biggest jobs admins have is to facilitate the round, they’re given many tools to do that and it’s their job to figure out what needs application.
#1 When is it okay to Adminbus? It’s one of the many responsibilities of admins and those in server management positions to facilitate rounds, ensure the round are entertaining and enjoyable, while adding in server specific spice to rounds. Adminbus is misused when an admin lets this tool be used as a way to further their own personal goals as a player, or the spice added effects the round to the point where players rounds are ruined. Many people don’t have time to play more than a round a day, and ensuring as many people as possible enjoy their time on our server is of course the priority.
#2 What is the purpose of antagonists and how much freedom should they have? Antagonsists exist to provide the ship with a challange, something more than just premade mechanics that can be minmaxed. Antags provide a human intelligence for the ship to overcome, thinking up and implementing creative ways to disrupt ship operations and add a little bit of chaos to the game. Antags need restrictions in how they’re allowed to kill players, how quickly they’re allowed to do major sabotage, and how reasonable the actions they attempt are.
#3 What would you do if you were accused of abusing your power / being unfair and how would you react? I personally prefer to keep detailed notes of the situations I handle, as players will often wait a while, then appeal. In my experience the best way to handle complaints of unfair handling is to listen to their argument, review my decisions, and if I disagree with the accusation invite them to leave a complaint about me, which will be reviewed by a superior.
#4 What do you think qualifies as an abuse of power? Abuse of power occurs when an admin takes action that is excessive to a rule violation following an investigation, or otherwise misuses adminbus as covered by question #1.
#5 What is the purpose of staff and how do you think they should act? Staff exist to manage the server, this includes basic administration tasks such as midround bugfixing or otherwise finding an OOC solution to OOC issues, rulebreak investigation, and handling of punishments for unfit players. Staff in my opinion can act however they please, however as community role models they are held to a higher standard similar to command characters. Honestly same as players, as long as they aren’t being a shitter I won’t generally take issue with anyone.
