What do notes mean to you?

[feem]

Are notes a list of things that have occurred?

Are notes a list of reasons to ban you?

Are notes stupid?

Should players be held accountable for their actions?

Should admins leave fewer notes?

Should admins leave better notes?

Do you trust players not to be shitheads if notes are only placed for bans?

Do you trust admins to ban only 'the right people' if notes aren't taken down about player behavior?

[Pascal125]

Yes, Yes, Most of the Time, Yes, Some of them, Definitely, No.

[feem]

7 answers for 8 questions

[Pascal125]

Depends on if they can properly take context and relativity into account. I personally think it would just complicate things, though.

[BeeSting12]

Are notes a list of things that have occurred?
Notes should be a way to write down player behavior, occurences that demonstrate this, and other relevant information. Writing down player behavior should probably contain evidence,
ie saying you observed it vs another player.
Are notes a list of reasons to ban you?
Depends on the situation. If a player does something bad and he has a lot of recent notes for it then ban him. It's also a good way to write down that a player has been talked to about something, otherwise we'd infinitely give "first warnings" to a player about IC in OOC until someone wises up and starts banning him. This question reminds me of a policy thread I saw a long time ago asking how many notes does it take for a permaban, and the answer is no set number. Repukan has 60+, I've seen perma'd people with very few notes.
Are notes stupid?
No, they're a useful adminning tool and only become stupid when they're used for memes too much.
Should players be held accountable for their actions?
Yes, but after a certain point, depending on what it is, it needs to be taken less into account. Not going to extend a guy's ban just because of a six month old overescalation note. Metacomms/crashing the server/rule 8 violations should definitely warrant harsher a harsher punishment no matter how much time has passed.
Should admins leave fewer notes?
Admins should look at the situation and decide if it actually warrants a note, if they're on the fence then just make the note as detailed as possible to accurately describe the situation so other admins can decide whether it's warranted/not and take it into account when dealing with the player in the future.
Should admins leave better notes?
Yes, definitely, and I think it's even a rule in admin policy to detail your notes a good bit. I try to accurately reflect the situation instead of making short notes such as "banned- rule 1 violation"
Do you trust players not to be shitheads if notes are only placed for bans?
Admins wouldn't pick up on the "line toeing" behavior which is considered unbannable unless they make their own notes file, which will probably happen, so may as well put it on the server accessible by all for transparency.
Do you trust admins to ban only 'the right people' if notes aren't taken down about player behavior?
Depends on the attitude. I don't know all the admins enough to give a good answer for this.

[cedarbridge]

Notes are just as useful for myself as they should be for other admins. I talk with so many players about random things so often and then go do non-SS13 stuff. I don't have the time or need to store all of that in my head. That's what notes are for. That way the next time I yell at you for spacing the clown I can look at your notes and see that I talked with you about spacing clowns 2 days ago without having to personally memorize every dumb thing every dumb has done in this dumb game.

[Lazengann]

Notes are just bans that expire in 0 seconds

[cedarbridge]

Notes are just bans that expire in 0 seconds

brb banning Lazengann 13 times with no real repercussions.

[Lazengann]

Okay but if it's 12 or 14 times I'll have strong words about you

[Deitus]

Are notes a list of things that have occurred?

Are notes a list of reasons to ban you?

Are notes stupid?

Should players be held accountable for their actions?

Should admins leave fewer notes?

Should admins leave better notes?

Do you trust players not to be shitheads if notes are only placed for bans?

Do you trust admins to ban only 'the right people' if notes aren't taken down about player behavior?

in my opinion/experience:
no, yes (though they shouldnt be), they can be, yes, depends on the person, yes, no, no

[Dax Dupont]

Inline

Are notes a list of things that have occurred?
Yes
Are notes a list of reasons to ban you?
Yes
Are notes stupid?
Yes
Should players be held accountable for their actions?
Yes
Should admins leave fewer notes?
Yes
Should admins leave better notes?
Yes
Do you trust players not to be shitheads if notes are only placed for bans?
No
Do you trust admins to ban only 'the right people' if notes aren't taken down about player behavior?
Yes

There's both a watchlist and notes. I think the watchlist is probably better to deal with the greytide, albeit less transparent.
Notes are more of a permanent record thingy instead of say, hey watch this guy ok.

Also, I am unsure if notes are a relatively recent thing? I've connected since 2014 but my only notes are from 2017. I had an atmosia ban before by brothemis for removing a pipe and one head ban for having to disconnect and forgetting to ahelp. They are not showing up at all.

[DrPillzRedux]

I think they should drop off completely after a certain amount of time, like with traffic tickets. They're to find patterns of behavior. If it's been years and the persons behavior changed, why keep them?

I mean I can barely remember anything pre-2015 and even that's shady.

[J_Madison]

irishwristwatch0
Don't give them my SteamID or Origin Account.


nice one. when you ask for people to play with, and you note me for asking for your ID so we can play games.


like just tell me you're scared of me and you don't wanna play

[captain sawrge]

They're overrused I used to think 10+ was bad and we were talking about this in discord and like most people had like 10-30

[onleavedontatme]

A threat of permaban because "too many notes"



"Few notes means a good player" (which clearly carries the opposite implication)



Directly telling a player they will be viewed with suspicion in the future and judged more harshly because of the notes they have



Most good players don't get notes



I'll unban you because you don't have notes



Banned instead of warned because of a note. Once it was discovered that previous note should have been erased, the ban was lifted (as well as the note, because in the absence of history, it was no longer an OOC issue)



Notes, even from other servers, matter



Won't be unbanned because of notes



Notes listed in the ban reason



Not banned because of no prior notes



We have been, for years, using notes to determine if to ban, how long to ban, whether to unban, determine whether something is an OOC issue at all, determine whether to unban here or on other servers, and as a rough measure of how good/bad a player is.

These are all perfectly valid uses of notes, by the way. Many of the screenshots there had people that deserved to be banned.

But we can't both use the notes to heavily influence our decision making around which players to remove from the server and also tell players notes are nothing to be concerned about and expect no oversight/appeals allowed.

[onleavedontatme]

This "notes are bad" thing isn't a shared hallucination among the players, it's what we have been directly telling them for years.

[Grazyn]

Then make it official and make sure all admins are on the same level about this policy, you're headmin now

[Gigapuddi420]

Beesting has it down to what I expect notes to be.

They help the administration team keep track of warnings and issues with a players behaviour. Sometimes they are literally just a note of something that occured, I have two old 'token' notes on my record. Some players are proud of their old silly notes, while others get frustrated at how easy they seem to pick up notes because of conflicts in game. Like it or not notes are sort of important to decision making, it's important they are as accurate as possible. I don't blame people for appealing their notes, but I would prefer they only appeal notes they think are incorrect or inaccurate. Ideally only recent notes too because no one is going to go diving back a fucking year or more to confirm your story.

[Lazengann]

If admins aren't supposed to act on notes that are old, doesn't that make the old notes clutter at best and bait for less informed admins to act on at worst?

[onleavedontatme]

Then make it official and make sure all admins are on the same level about this policy, you're headmin now

That is what I am doing, but I figured a sampling from several years worth of evidence from several voices would be more persuasive than me stamping my feet and yelling I have a red name so I must be right.

[bandit]

Some things players may not be aware of:

-[*]Not every interaction with an admin results in a note. I'd say maybe about one-third do. As a rule of thumb, if something gets called an IC issue that also generally means there isn't going to be a note about it.

-[*]Notes are not inevitable. I offer myself up as an example. I started playing here in 2013 (fuck myself) and was a shitter playstyle-wise in 2013 so I accumulated some notes in that time. Something like 6 in three months. In 2014-15 I became less of a shitter, and in that entire span of two years I accumulated something like 3 notes (some were meme notes, two were positive notes). There are plenty of long-term players with few notes, it's just that the people who accumulate a lot of them tend to be the loudest.

-[*]Positive notes exist. Admins should probably give out more of them but I try to when I have a reason. Positive comments in notes also exist. I have given notes with comments to the effect of "had a good attitude in adminPMs" to let future admins know someone is not a shitter.

[cedarbridge]

Some things players may not be aware of:

-[*]Not every interaction with an admin results in a note. I'd say maybe about one-third do. As a rule of thumb, if something gets called an IC issue that also generally means there isn't going to be a note about it.

Exactly. If I left a note for every time I told some guy "Hey cut that shit out." I'd spend more time writing notes than adminning.

[imblyings]

Admins can and should write more detail into notes to make them as unambiguous as possible, and always should reference note timestamps with connection log timestamps to see if poor behaviour is consistent, old and irrelevant or just uncommon when making a decision. On the other hand, admins aren't here to babysit the worries or concerns of people who get notes. If someone is concerned, that's great, maybe they can use that as motivation to find other ways to approach situations and change how they act. If they aren't worried, that's great, so long as they play nicely.

Code wise, it'd be great if players could get a message containing the note when a non-secret note is made, same as how ban reasons are displayed. It's an exercise in apathy when someone appeals a note from several years ago, since there is absolutely no chance of getting an accurate understanding of what happened, with the only involved party from then still active normally being the person making the appeal, and logdiving for a note being a questionable use of time. Showing the player the note right away makes things more accurate and expedient for all involved.

[onleavedontatme]

Some things players may not be aware of:

-[*]Not every interaction with an admin results in a note. I'd say maybe about one-third do. As a rule of thumb, if something gets called an IC issue that also generally means there isn't going to be a note about it.

-[*]Notes are not inevitable. I offer myself up as an example. I started playing here in 2013 (fuck myself) and was a shitter playstyle-wise in 2013 so I accumulated some notes in that time. Something like 6 in three months. In 2014-15 I became less of a shitter, and in that entire span of two years I accumulated something like 3 notes (some were meme notes, two were positive notes). There are plenty of long-term players with few notes, it's just that the people who accumulate a lot of them tend to be the loudest.

-[*]Positive notes exist. Admins should probably give out more of them but I try to when I have a reason. Positive comments in notes also exist. I have given notes with comments to the effect of "had a good attitude in adminPMs" to let future admins know someone is not a shitter.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say positive notes (not counting antag tokens) are maybe .1% of notes given, so rare as to be essentially anecdotal for any discussion of the system.

I don't think they're really a fix either because showing good behavior generally means not being noticed by admins.

[bandit]

Yeah that's my point, admins should be giving more positive notes or at least positive comments if warranted in notes. If someone's on the cusp of being banned or not, but their notes say that they're reasonable and not a detriment to the server, I absolutely think that should be taken into account.

EDIT TO ADD: Also, you can show good behavior and still interact with admins plenty, given how many times admins have to bwoink the other party of an ahelp

[onleavedontatme]

I think that would be nice but I am worried that it will devolve rather quickly into jealousy followed by accusations of metafriending and favouritism

[imblyings]

notes do a lot less than proving to be fun ingame while an admin is observing or playing with them

[InsaneHyena]

Notes are an opinion. I have a note for killing a cultist in friendly fire. Majority of admins disagreed with it in the appeal topic. The note remains because muh expired ban.

[J_Madison]

irishwristwatch0
Don't give them my SteamID or Origin Account.

Like right here is a awful note that gave other admins a bad view of me over rumors and drama.
Irish, Judi, and Niknak are generally drama causing admins, this note was added secretly for several months without me knowing.
So it was an opportunity when irish asks for people to play with, and he notes me for asking for his ID so we can play games.


A ridiculous note really, I have a few more including one from Technoalchemist right here;
technoalchemist
Killed and hid the body of someone who disarmed him a couple times during a declared nuke ops war.

This was during nuke war when we had SOS, a known shitter who would spam disarm everyone FNR and escalate to killing them.
I was one of 2 sec during nuke war when SOS attacked sec and militia by spamming disarm intent. Completely ridiculous note baited by a terrible player.




atlantaned
Security Officer
2880 Minutes Security job ban - Arrested a naked lizard and brigged them in a plasma filled cell. Made minimal effort to apply internals leading to the lizard dying. You know better than this. Unbanned
atlantaned


qbopper
Server
1440 Minutes Arresting people for being naked is not okay, and outright admitting to an admin that you're arresting someone for being naked over multiple rounds is metagrudging. Arresting people for dereliction of duty when their department blew up is also extrmely poor form. Take a day to rethink how you play sec Unbanned
tehsteveo

dannno
Head of Security
10080 Minutes Permabrigged an assistant for disarming him twice. When told to release them, ran in with a flashbang, spooking the assistant who tried to grab them. They proceeded to execute the assistant, despite being explicitly told not to do it. Take a break from security. Unbanned
ausops



Like all of these bans stay on as notes despite the fact all three were appealed.

Atlanta ned's was a blatant banbaiting lizard who let himself die by refusing to wear a jumpsuit.
Same with Qbopper.
And Dannno's note-ban from when Icepax attacked a latejoin Warden on shuttle then used OOC communication to lure the warden back to kill them.


These three bans caused unprecedented drama and anger and would stack up against me whenever I had to fight security bans tooth and nail.

If a ban or note was removed, then it should reflect on the admin and punish them for making any ban that was appeal-able .

[captain sawrge]

no one cares

[captain sawrge]

fag

[cedarbridge]

Jmad, this is the policy forum.

[ABearInTheWoods]

I think they should drop off completely after a certain amount of time, like with traffic tickets. They're to find patterns of behavior. If it's been years and the persons behavior changed, why keep them?

I mean I can barely remember anything pre-2015 and even that's shady.

They still exist, but notes fade out to indicate older notes in the admin's view. At 90 days they start getting faded and grey and by a year old they are fully invisible unless the admin presses a button.

This is a 30 to 90 preview from when I first made the pr.

[Dax Dupont]

Is it policy to ignore faded out notes? If not then it's irrelevant since admins will hit that button.

[Arianya]

I think they should drop off completely after a certain amount of time, like with traffic tickets. They're to find patterns of behavior. If it's been years and the persons behavior changed, why keep them?

I mean I can barely remember anything pre-2015 and even that's shady.

They still exist, but notes fade out to indicate older notes in the admin's view. At 90 days they start getting faded and grey and by a year old they are fully invisible unless the admin presses a button.

This is a 30 to 90 preview from when I first made the pr.

Out of interest, does the same fading out apply if the admin performs a specific search, say for "security" or "escalation"?

[Gigapuddi420]

Is it policy to ignore faded out notes? If not then it's irrelevant since admins will hit that button.

I would expect admins to focus on recent history and to notice when escalation notes are old. Say a player used to get a lot of notes about it a year ago, but straightened up in the last six months to the point they had no new ones. At that point I'd give them the benefit of the doubt; sometimes people get really really frustrated at spess mans and don't think clearly, but it's important to notice when they are trying.

This is really more of a issue of trusting admins make sound judgements.

[imblyings]

notes are faded out regardless of content ingame

notes are not faded out in the db

it is policy or at least best practice to compare timestamps when looking at faded notes. An isolated note faded out will most likely be disregarded. Faded out notes that are one of many continuous notes won't be.

[TehSteveo]

Some things players may not be aware of:

-[*]Not every interaction with an admin results in a note. I'd say maybe about one-third do. As a rule of thumb, if something gets called an IC issue that also generally means there isn't going to be a note about it.

-[*]Notes are not inevitable. I offer myself up as an example. I started playing here in 2013 (fuck myself) and was a shitter playstyle-wise in 2013 so I accumulated some notes in that time. Something like 6 in three months. In 2014-15 I became less of a shitter, and in that entire span of two years I accumulated something like 3 notes (some were meme notes, two were positive notes). There are plenty of long-term players with few notes, it's just that the people who accumulate a lot of them tend to be the loudest.

-[*]Positive notes exist. Admins should probably give out more of them but I try to when I have a reason. Positive comments in notes also exist. I have given notes with comments to the effect of "had a good attitude in adminPMs" to let future admins know someone is not a shitter.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say positive notes (not counting antag tokens) are maybe .1% of notes given, so rare as to be essentially anecdotal for any discussion of the system.

I don't think they're really a fix either because showing good behavior generally means not being noticed by admins.

Often due to the fact good behavior noted really translates to nothing, may not be read, and if it's mixed in with negative notes will be interrupted as "Wow, a lot notes here...gonna apply a long ban." I harped on actually reading through notes and looking at the time when notes are applied before making judgement on to apply a ban or not; if so for how long that is appropriate so people don't get punished for how they acted in 2015. I like the idea of having good notes and have left some on people but I've been hesitant due to the above reason to really do it further in the past.

[ShadowDimentio]

Admins, for better or worse, don't really give a shit about good behavior. They don't care about the fifty rounds you were a good player, they care about the one time you spaced the clown because you were bored/mad/drunk/dumb/tired, hence why good notes should be a thing and notes should be taken with the tiniest grains of salt.

[kevinz000]

Admins, for better or worse, don't really give a shit about good behavior. They don't care about the fifty rounds you were a good player, they care about the one time you spaced the clown because you were bored/mad/drunk/dumb/tired, hence why good notes should be a thing and notes should be taken with the tiniest grains of salt.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no.

[cedarbridge]

Admins, for better or worse, don't really give a shit about good behavior. They don't care about the fifty rounds you were a good player, they care about the one time you spaced the clown because you were bored/mad/drunk/dumb/tired, hence why good notes should be a thing and notes should be taken with the tiniest grains of salt.

Good behavior makes my job easier. If everyone is behaving and following the rules I can spend more time doing gimmicks and helping tell stories. You know, the purpose of a DM in any other RPG. Its "that guy" who shows up on the server bored/mad/drunk/dumb/tired and decides to cause trouble for everyone else that disrupts that and makes me take time away from building or setting up that fun thing and deal with their dumb choices, its fallout, and their justifications for doing whatever dumb thing they did.

Good behavior makes you more likely to be chosen for gimmicks. Similarly bad behavior will tend to dissaude me from including you. If I want to send a trader to a dangerous station or one with known greytiders, you can bet I'm not picking a tider as a trader and I'm not picking somebody who has shown an inability to do more than turn sprites sideways and shout ligger memes. I've left positive notes for people I used in gimmicks/events to remind myself to use them similarly more often. I've also left notes to remind myself who not to use for certain types of roles (or any roles) based on experience with them.

Notes are just generally useful and the notes themselves, when accurate, are never going to be the issue. At best, lazy "count the notes without reading any of them" adminship may be a problem but I believe that is isolated to specific cases.

[firecage]

Well, my own notes serves as a valuable lesson to admins that they should hate me forever.

[Atlanta-Ned]

At best, lazy "count the notes without reading any of them" adminship may be a problem but I believe that is isolated to specific cases.

I remember we were specifically discouraged from doing this when I was a TrialAdmin.

[Hathkar]

I don't suppose admins still start adding notes for good behavior more often now?

[Cobby]

Admins, for better or worse, don't really give a shit about good behavior. They don't care about the fifty rounds you were a good player, they care about the one time you spaced the clown because you were bored/mad/drunk/dumb/tired, hence why good notes should be a thing and notes should be taken with the tiniest grains of salt.

Admins exist because of bad behavior or else we'd call them varying forms of DMs / GM

That's why I train GMs and not admins like Alphonso heheh

I don't suppose admins still start adding notes for good behavior more often now?

If you ahelp that you're doing a cool situation and want it on your notes hmu

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Cobby has a good point. Admins dont take note of good behaviour because thats the standard, whats expected of everyone . If you feel you did something extra-good you might as wlell ask for it to be noted down or they probbably wont notice. Being nice isnt logged, after all.