HEAD OF SECURITY TO HEAD OF JANNIES, LUKAS BEEDELL.

[kieth4]

Head of Security to Head Admin.

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone, this is my attempt to become the first player non-admin Headmin! Sounds crazy, I know, but I have a clear goal in mind with this campaign, and I’ll make this work by working closely with the players themselves. I play the character of Lukas Beedell, HOS main on terry. I think it’s finally time for a player who’s embedded into the community to have a chance to cause positive change. With this campaign, I will work to improve the gameplay experience of our players across all our servers with the power of communication.
I’m going to keep the next bit short and sweet.

GOALS

1) More communication between admins and players. Increase participation in policy bus by allowing trusted players to have a permanent role. This will encourage more participation within the community and let players leave more of a mark, at the moment it is VERY unknown that you can even ping for a role. This will hopefully promote a better player-admin work relationship which is nothing but healthy for the game- I want to encourage communication at every possible avenue.

2) Trial a place on discord where people can leave constructive criticism, a lot of people don’t want to use the forums, and that’s cool! We should give them a medium to express themselves if they don’t want to do this. The idea is to see if this would lead to genuine critique that could be healthy or just shitposting, in which case we would delete it.

3) Replace inactive jannies with active ones. I want to encourage them into retirement and hopefully replace their numbers with new fresh admins who are in touch with the player base and the current problems. However, if they decide to come back after some playtime, they should be able to. This should always be an option for them, hopefully making retirement easier since they’re always welcome back with a bit of playtime. I want to write this as a tangible thing that doesn’t change between headmin terms so admins can have some clarity on what happens if they retire and some security in that.

4) Make what headmins do more public at the moment a lot of it is hidden away, which isn't good for the player- head admin relationship or for trust. By making some of these conversations public, including the reasoning, I know that we could tackle this issue.

MANUEL

I want to talk with Manuel admins on what they want to make of manuel, then help them achieve this. Communication is key. I want to have a representative from Manuel, elected by their playerbase, advising the headadmins on mrp issues so they don’t feel left out and have a say in what happens with their server.

END

The reason for these points is that they’re realistic, relatively small, changes that can improve the server. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get them implemented, and then from there, it’s possible to move into more significant changes. I am fully committed to improving the admin-player relationship especially and know that as a player if I'm elected I'd be able to do that

[MortoSasye]

What would you do if you got elected with no admin experience? Do you possess some from other places, even beyond ss13? Being a head admin is like being admin 2.0, and even with previous training as an admin the task is very difficult for those new to it.

[sinfulbliss]

It's great to see a player run for headmin, and I agree more communication would be nice since a lot of admin discussion seems relegated to admins. Lots of players have meaningful opinions to share as well - not just shitposting - and I think the game could only benefit from greater communication.

As a fellow HoS main I have some sec-related policy questions which I'm curious your opinion about.
We spoke before about sec metaprotections and the grief it could cause - i.e., a seccie uses a minor crime like B&E and possession of a stunbaton to justify stealing all their items, fullstripping, and sending them to gulag. I agree this is an issue and has affected me too since I play assistant 2nd-most after sec.

A concern we have both expressed is that players simply validhunt as nonsec instead. It has none of the responsibility but all of the fun of sec - perhaps more fun since people trust you more as a validhunting assistant than a seccie, in many cases. How do you plan to solve the metaprotection problem while ensuring people don't choose this less risky alternative to avoid sec-bwoinks?

[Domitius]

Jumping from player to Headmin is a hell of jump knowledge wise. Regular training times for our admins spans over several months just to get suited somewhat into the role. Would you be willing to commit the significant amount of time to onboarding so as to learn the tools and personnel required to do the job? Plenty of people in the team, myself included, are more than happy to help out in showing the ropes. Do you have any concerns with reaching out for help whenever you don't understand something?

You are proud to be a player in your platform and would set a hell of a precedent with what you would do at the end of your term. With nothing being set in stone do you imagine that you would resign as an admin or stay on board?

[Armhulen]

Honestly policy bus should just be open for anyone to chat anyways... trusted role? I'd rather have the cost of joining the discussion be free so more voices can be heard, at the cost of managing a blacklist instead of a whitelist

[NoxVS]

Make what headmins do more public at the moment a lot of it is hidden away, which isn't good for the player- head admin relationship or for trust. By making some of these conversations public, including the reasoning, I know that we could tackle this issue.

Do you have any examples of headmin actions that are hidden at the moment that you think should be made public?

[SpaceLove]

1) More communication between admins and players. Increase participation in policy bus by allowing trusted players to have a permanent role. This will encourage more participation within the community and let players leave more of a mark, at the moment it is VERY unknown that you can even ping for a role. This will hopefully promote a better player-admin work relationship which is nothing but healthy for the game- I want to encourage communication at every possible avenue.

I said this in Cimika's thread. It is good to have a policy-bus kind of channel open for all community members to venture their voices. However you want only "trusted" players in this discussion. How would you consider someone "trusted" and also only let them discuss when several others could have different opinions too?

Also another note, wanted to teach me HOS on Terry, good lad.

[kieth4]

What would you do if you got elected with no admin experience? Do you possess some from other places, even beyond ss13? Being a head admin is like being admin 2.0, and even with previous training as an admin the task is very difficult for those new to it.

I have experience admining somewhat large discord servers for map games involving: organising multiple weekly games, dealing with rule breaks and writing new rules and precedents. This, although not seeming like much, has put me through the wringer more than you would believe it led to me directly fighting heavily with both Serbian and Romainian 'nationalists' and unironic fascists giving me experiences that I would rather have not have had. Yet, I believe the cumulation of these has prepared me to be a Head admin.

[MortoSasye]

Thank you for your answer!

[kieth4]

It's great to see a player run for headmin, and I agree more communication would be nice since a lot of admin discussion seems relegated to admins. Lots of players have meaningful opinions to share as well - not just shitposting - and I think the game could only benefit from greater communication.

As a fellow HoS main I have some sec-related policy questions which I'm curious your opinion about.
We spoke before about sec metaprotections and the grief it could cause - i.e., a seccie uses a minor crime like B&E and possession of a stunbaton to justify stealing all their items, fullstripping, and sending them to gulag. I agree this is an issue and has affected me too since I play assistant 2nd-most after sec.

A concern we have both expressed is that players simply validhunt as nonsec instead. It has none of the responsibility but all of the fun of sec - perhaps more fun since people trust you more as a validhunting assistant than a seccie, in many cases. How do you plan to solve the metaprotection problem while ensuring people don't choose this less risky alternative to avoid sec-bwoinks?

I would love to address a lot of these issues radically but I'm not going to make any promises here because to put it simply they would be empty. I've spoken to the host vote and they don't want anything huge. At most I can say that small touch ups will hopefully happen. In my ideal world having something like a stun baton should NOT mean that you get all of your other things 'confiscated'(taken into a seccie's inventory) that's non-sensical and acting like a tider in red fully abusing your power over others.

To address your validhunting point: Although having some desire to, I don't think assistant sec is something that I would be able to change. I have a few ideas floating around though, like holding people more accountable for their actions. If you're playing as an assistant and gun down the wrong person because you're trying to valid hunt you should be held at a higher level of accountability then a seccie.

[kieth4]

Jumping from player to Headmin is a hell of jump knowledge wise. Regular training times for our admins spans over several months just to get suited somewhat into the role. Would you be willing to commit the significant amount of time to onboarding so as to learn the tools and personnel required to do the job? Plenty of people in the team, myself included, are more than happy to help out in showing the ropes. Do you have any concerns with reaching out for help whenever you don't understand something?

You are proud to be a player in your platform and would set a hell of a precedent with what you would do at the end of your term. With nothing being set in stone do you imagine that you would resign as an admin or stay on board?

I'd be fully willing to get help from others to learn the tools. Hell, I'd even be willing to sit on a local server just to learn them if I needed them.

The second question is harder to answer. One of the reasons I believe a player would be a good choice for Head Admin because simply they're not part of the admin 'metagang' (if you can even call it that.) I'm not entwined in any admin friendships and am coming into this fully neutral. I am not afraid to hurt feelings for the betterment of the servers. If I'm forced to discipline multiple Admins for bad conduct and manage to crumble all of my relationships I will retire. If it goes well and I'm not forced to crumble the relationships I make I'll stay on. I'm not afraid to make the hard choices. Obviously hoping for everything to go well though I'd love to stay on

[kieth4]

Honestly policy bus should just be open for anyone to chat anyways... trusted role? I'd rather have the cost of joining the discussion be free so more voices can be heard, at the cost of managing a blacklist instead of a whitelist

I'll discuss with the other headmins the best route to do this but I WANT more communication. If this happens to be the best route to it I'll take it.

[kieth4]

Make what headmins do more public at the moment a lot of it is hidden away, which isn't good for the player- head admin relationship or for trust. By making some of these conversations public, including the reasoning, I know that we could tackle this issue.

Do you have any examples of headmin actions that are hidden at the moment that you think should be made public?

A better question is what isn't hidden? We, (the players) barely know what they do other than post on ban appeals and occasionally tackle a policy. I would love to just open everything else up for the sake of transparency.

[kieth4]

1) More communication between admins and players. Increase participation in policy bus by allowing trusted players to have a permanent role. This will encourage more participation within the community and let players leave more of a mark, at the moment it is VERY unknown that you can even ping for a role. This will hopefully promote a better player-admin work relationship which is nothing but healthy for the game- I want to encourage communication at every possible avenue.

I said this in Cimika's thread. It is good to have a policy-bus kind of channel open for all community members to venture their voices. However you want only "trusted" players in this discussion. How would you consider someone "trusted" and also only let them discuss when several others could have different opinions too?

Also another note, wanted to teach me HOS on Terry, good lad.

Being trusted has nothing to do with your opinion. You could go against everything and would be A ok! I just want a good faith discussion and I believe a short whitelist process will be the way to keep bad faith actors out, this could be as simple as answering a question or two get in.

[NoxVS]

Make what headmins do more public at the moment a lot of it is hidden away, which isn't good for the player- head admin relationship or for trust. By making some of these conversations public, including the reasoning, I know that we could tackle this issue.

Do you have any examples of headmin actions that are hidden at the moment that you think should be made public?

A better question is what isn't hidden? We, (the players) barely know what they do other than post on ban appeals and occasionally tackle a policy. I would love to just open everything else up for the sake of transparency.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 38&t=28546

• They decide policy and rules text
  Post policy notices to admins to try and bring some consistency to admin rulings. (if you think this isn't working, instead consider how much worse it would be if they weren't doing this)
  Handle permission book keeping stuff on discord, the game servers, and the forums.
  Control policy and gameplay related configs on the server.
  Advise on gameplay or policy disruptive Pull Requests
  Promote admin trainers and prune staff rolls of inactive admins
  Decide on all admin appointments 3 times (once when being added as a candidate, again when going to trial, and finally after reviewing their trial review thread to promote to fullmin.)
  Handle admin complaints and mentor/coach admins on better approaches (or demoting when appropriate).
  Review ban appeals. (and often actively reviewing recent bans and notes for anything that seems off)
  Represent the server in host chat, a discord server containing hosts and headmins from over 30 different ss13 servers.
  Take reports related to serious community offences like doxing from players, admins, and other servers via hostbus.

[kieth4]

Make what headmins do more public at the moment a lot of it is hidden away, which isn't good for the player- head admin relationship or for trust. By making some of these conversations public, including the reasoning, I know that we could tackle this issue.

Do you have any examples of headmin actions that are hidden at the moment that you think should be made public?

A better question is what isn't hidden? We, (the players) barely know what they do other than post on ban appeals and occasionally tackle a policy. I would love to just open everything else up for the sake of transparency.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 38&t=28546

• They decide policy and rules text
  Post policy notices to admins to try and bring some consistency to admin rulings. (if you think this isn't working, instead consider how much worse it would be if they weren't doing this)
  Handle permission book keeping stuff on discord, the game servers, and the forums.
  Control policy and gameplay related configs on the server.
  Advise on gameplay or policy disruptive Pull Requests
  Promote admin trainers and prune staff rolls of inactive admins
  Decide on all admin appointments 3 times (once when being added as a candidate, again when going to trial, and finally after reviewing their trial review thread to promote to fullmin.)
  Handle admin complaints and mentor/coach admins on better approaches (or demoting when appropriate).
  Review ban appeals. (and often actively reviewing recent bans and notes for anything that seems off)
  Represent the server in host chat, a discord server containing hosts and headmins from over 30 different ss13 servers.
  Take reports related to serious community offences like doxing from players, admins, and other servers via hostbus.

Ok I didn't quite mean it literally haha, I was aware of what they did because I've seen this post but It was in reference what the average player knows of what the headmins do. I think a lot of the thinking that goes on behind some of these points should be publicised so players can have a feel of what the Head admins are thinking as opposed to currently where a lot of it is in the dark- for example, discussing bans, whilst we see the end goal that often takes weeks to get a lot of players would like to see the reasoning that was used to get to the result. It's also not positive to have a situation where a lot of the administrative stuff simply isn't stated or shown in any way giving the impression that 2/3 headmins did absolutely nothing- The impression players currently have of the headmins.

I'd also like clarity on things like what they seek in a candidate as I've heard from other players that they believe you either need 0 notes or to be a metafriend. This isn't a great thought to have spreading around the community so hopefully it could be tackled by making what people look for clearer.

[cSeal]

Hello there! a lot of my concerns have already been brought up and discussed, but the last bit id still like to question you about

3)Replace inactive jannies with active ones. I want to encourage them into retirement and hopefully replace their numbers with new fresh admins who are in touch with the player base and the current problems. However, if they decide to come back after some playtime, they should be able to. This should always be an option for them, hopefully making retirement easier since they’re always welcome back with a bit of playtime. I want to write this as a tangible thing that doesn’t change between headmin terms so admins can have some clarity on what happens if they retire and some security in that.

1) what's your metric for "Inactive"?
2) While I agree that people should not be punished for retiring when they can no longer be an active presence on the server, what steps if any would you put in place to ensure admins returning after long breaks would be properly reintegrated? The game changes fast, mechanically and at times policy wise, and admin tools are also being expanded or moved

[kieth4]

Hello there! a lot of my concerns have already been brought up and discussed, but the last bit id still like to question you about

3)Replace inactive jannies with active ones. I want to encourage them into retirement and hopefully replace their numbers with new fresh admins who are in touch with the player base and the current problems. However, if they decide to come back after some playtime, they should be able to. This should always be an option for them, hopefully making retirement easier since they’re always welcome back with a bit of playtime. I want to write this as a tangible thing that doesn’t change between headmin terms so admins can have some clarity on what happens if they retire and some security in that.

1) what's your metric for "Inactive"?
2) While I agree that people should not be punished for retiring when they can no longer be an active presence on the server, what steps if any would you put in place to ensure admins returning after long breaks would be properly reintegrated? The game changes fast, mechanically and at times policy wise, and admin tools are also being expanded or moved

Hello! To reply to your first point it's something I'd need to discuss with other headadmins to properly define or to get a metric on it- I think a good time would something like 3 months with 0 activity within the game. By this point retirement should be encouraged/forced. I'm aware that a lot of admins stick around for the admin chats and the friends they've made and in a lot cases their experience is very valuable. Knowing this I would advocate heavily for giving retired mins the ability to speak and post in the main admin chat.

I do understand that sometimes real life comes up or there is a need to take breaks, thus I would offer opportunities to admins to take these. For example if an admin says "I'm not really feeling the game, can I take a break for a couple of months" this would be fully accepted and totally fine as it's simply a healthy thing to do.

To your second point- I'd ensure there was a playtime requirement before returning to the team to ensure that they're in touch with the game- A certain number of rounds within a certain timeframe. After this the feedback would be checked and if it's all pretty swell they'd get re-admined.

[damneddog]

What do you think of the current state of the community and do you want to change it?

[cSeal]

Thank you for your response, and good luck!

[Arcanemusic]

I'll hand it to ya, I can appreciate the experience that you have and can see that you want to use it positively in some respect within the community.

While not explicitly an offer, (As I am not an admin trainer and have not had the experience of playing with you much if at all, so it would be rash on my part), would you be willing to see yourself in an admin candidate after the election, REGARDLESS of whether you win or not? If you win, we should make sure that you get just as much if not more experience learning the admin tools and tricks behind the scenes, and in the chance that you didn't win the election, would you be committed enough to want to join the admin team regardless?

[kieth4]

What do you think of the current state of the community and do you want to change it?

This is quite a broad question but I see the current state of the community as ok but on a downward slope unless action is taken.

Let's start with one of my biggest issues- the treatment of newer players by the current base. The amount of times I've seen new players flamed for being new or for using the duffel bag without any help to improve is way too high. I've seen some pretty depraved shit said to them too with seemingly no consequence which just isn't ok for the health of the game at all, if you know how I play ic you'll know that there is nothing I love more than teaching new players how to play sec and some of the shit that they've told me people said to them just was not cool. I feel that the intern change definitely didn't help this (highlighting newer players, in practice they're just targeted for easy loot by antags or an easy target to flame). As a headmin I would heavily encourage the use of rule 1 to deal with these cases as being a dick to new players isn't cool at all. I would also love to add in some kind of mentor role as ahelping can be a super daunting way to ask for help especially for newer players. This isn't a promise though as I'd need to discuss it with other headmins and then get it coded in. (I'd be willing to pay)

My second issue somewhat ties in with the first one. The use of slurs driving people away. Removing slurs fully would cause a lot of unneeded drama but I would like to encourage players tone down their use of them excessively spamming the n word serves absolutely 0 purpose. If possible and the other headmins agree I would like to amend rule 11 to add a clause that excessive use of slurs is not ok too as it creates an incredibly toxic environment. Ideally as time goes on we'll slowly phase them out completely or to a point where they aren't impacting the game to such a degree.

The third thing I view as an issue is hatred towards admins leading to problems not being dealt with. Players use adminwho as a tool to see if they will ahelp or not. If the admin is unknown or a "banbot" the issue simply won't be ahelped and the rulebreaking behaviour will continue. This is incredibly difficult to resolve as you can't change people's sentiment on this thing without a lot of work. I feel that we as the headmins could work to better integrate these admins into the servers where they are hated or viewed as banbots to change public opinion. This will GREATLY improve the player experience leading to more enjoyable rounds but will take a lot of work. I however am willing to put this work in for the betterment of the game.

[Omega_DarkPotato]

Yknow originally I was feeling as though a player candidate for headmin wouldn't go far at all, but your responses to a lot of the debate questions leaves me with a lot of hope for your success.
You're cool to talk to in discord, in game, and in the forums, and I sincerely hope you win this player election! Good luck!

[WineAllWine]

If I were a player Lukas would be my top choice, and I hope it goes excellently for you.

[RaveRadbury]

This is the best player campaign that I have ever seen. He's shown real hustle in the community and I agree with a lot of what he says.

He has expressed a concern for the New Player that I find admirable and worth acting on. New players are the lifeblood of the community and we should be doing our best to see to it that new players stick around long enough to become community members. Should we end up working together in this upcoming term I feel like we could get a lot of good done.

It's definitely worth placing Kieth4 high in your vote.

[kieth4]

I'll hand it to ya, I can appreciate the experience that you have and can see that you want to use it positively in some respect within the community.

While not explicitly an offer, (As I am not an admin trainer and have not had the experience of playing with you much if at all, so it would be rash on my part), would you be willing to see yourself in an admin candidate after the election, REGARDLESS of whether you win or not? If you win, we should make sure that you get just as much if not more experience learning the admin tools and tricks behind the scenes, and in the chance that you didn't win the election, would you be committed enough to want to join the admin team regardless?

I would love to join the admin team and have been actively trying to do so for the past 400 or so hours