Notes: The nuclear option. If notes are punishments the alternative option that nobody wants.

[NamelessFairy]

There appears to be a growing misjudgment that notes are a punishment rather than a recordkeeping tool so I think a discussion needs to be held about how we're going to handle them in the future. Notes are visible to players as a gesture of transparency, admins have the option to hide notes from players but we are asked not to do this. I'm going to bring up the possibility of repealing that request and standardizing players not being able to see their notes to allow admins to maintain their record-keeping tools.

To start I'd like to be clear this is an awful idea that I dislike, I don't like inaccurate notes being placed so I fully support players being able to read their own so they can ensure any missed details that the admin didn't catch can be pointed out. However if notes start being treated as punishments by headmins as at least one headmin has made it clear they think then we run the risk of critical data for admins being erased, this is not the primary concern, the concern is admins being forced to keep personal or shared documents tracking notes with players and admins not being able to judge if notes are accurate or not. This is the worst case scenario that I fear we are marching towards.

So, what do we do if admins can't maintain their documentation due to their records being treated as punishments do we move those records out of the public eye with little or no scrutiny, do we keep admin note keeping the same as it has been for years and live with the occasional batch of complaints that "they're punishments", or do we restrict admin note keeping entirely and risk serial rulebreakers getting away with rulebreaks consistently and repeatedly.

I'm not happy I've had to make this thread but we're at risk of going in blind to a very dangerous era of adminning which could really harm the quality of administration TG is known to have. So if headmins are going to travel this path then this path needs to be discussed and charted so travelling it is done smoothly.

[sinfulbliss]

You don’t need a record if the player didn’t do anything bad. If the player did something bad you can note it incase they do it again.

Having something bad you did recorded on your account is a punishment along with being a recordkeeping tool. It seems very odd to make a policy proposal you yourself don’t agree with simply because you disagree with the idea that notes are punishments.

It goes without saying but this is a bad idea since players won’t be able to appeal notes they can’t see and therefore might get inaccurate or unfair notes and then get 360 noscope banned at some point in the future.

[NamelessFairy]

You don’t need a record if the player didn’t do anything bad. If the player did something bad you can note it incase they do it again.

Having something bad you did recorded on your account is a punishment along with being a recordkeeping tool. It seems very odd to make a policy proposal you yourself don’t agree with simply because you disagree with the idea that notes are punishments.

It goes without saying but this is a bad idea since players won’t be able to appeal notes they can’t see and therefore might get inaccurate or unfair notes and then get 360 noscope banned at some point in the future.

The first point is pretty accurate, if nothing bad actually happens theres usually no reason to have the note, the note is only there for bad things that are at risk of happening again even if that risk is unlikely.

I think notes can be punishments but the bulk of them were not intended to be so, as for why I made the thread its because I'm afraid that the current term headmins might begin a crusade of removing important notes for logging stuff in the interest of ensuring players don't feel like they're being punished, if that happens without proper planning we're unfortunately going to have to just set up a private logging method that'll be shared between admins concerned about incident logging, this is annoying to use and dreadful for transparency but a healthy server and community cannot exist without proper record keeping, I'm trying to suggest the middle ground that I dislike but dislike less than the private external document option to ensure we actually have a proper plan for what may become a new era of adminning. I'd prefer for things to stay the same but I don't want to take chances here given how bad the implications may be.

Your right with your third point, unappealable inaccurate notes are a huge danger but I trust that the admin team wont place notes out of malice at least... Its still a bad idea but there are worse ideas on the horizon so we're kinda choosing between bad and badder...

[sinfulbliss]

The first point is pretty accurate, if nothing bad actually happens theres usually no reason to have the note, the note is only there for bad things that are at risk of happening again even if that risk is unlikely.

I think notes can be punishments but the bulk of them were not intended to be so, as for why I made the thread its because I'm afraid that the current term headmins might begin a crusade of removing important notes for logging stuff in the interest of ensuring players don't feel like they're being punished, if that happens without proper planning we're unfortunately going to have to just set up a private logging method that'll be shared between admins concerned about incident logging, this is annoying to use and dreadful for transparency but a healthy server and community cannot exist without proper record keeping, I'm trying to suggest the middle ground that I dislike but dislike less than the private external document option to ensure we actually have a proper plan for what may become a new era of adminning. I'd prefer for things to stay the same but I don't want to take chances here given how bad the implications may be.

Your right with your third point, unappealable inaccurate notes are a huge danger but I trust that the admin team wont place notes out of malice at least... Its still a bad idea but there are worse ideas on the horizon so we're kinda choosing between bad and badder...

I just don't really understand the rationale. Why keep a permanent record of something if the player did nothing wrong? Even in private, what's the point? If the player did something wrong, even if it was by accident, then of course they could be noted for that. I'm not sure what headmins have said about this, maybe it's a reaction to something in private channels, but I would very much doubt they're crusading against noting people for doing something bad.

I have a good example of the ridiculousness of suggesting notes can just be purely record-keeping. Suppose someone opens a firelock, and an admin then notes them for opening the firelock. Is that a note that should exist? It's 1) not excessively harsh, and 2) factual. But of course that's sort of insane and ridiculous, there is the obvious implication notes should only be given for some amount of wrongdoing, even if accidental, not just record-keeping.

[Archie700]

Many notes that were appealed and rejected by admins have been repealed by headmins because of information discovered by logs that ended up absolving the appellant of the incident to begin with.
You want to hide these notes? Should I bring up their appeals to show you what notes are being repelled?
You're basically just treating a fractured toe by amputating the lower half of the body.
This is not the nuclear option, this is the "blow up the damn earth and hope people will ignore it".

[COwlbear]

In case people need an example of "did nothing wrong" notes that are helpful record-keeping: I have a note on my account, stating that my IRL spouse and I share an IP, and have gone through the proper channels to let people know we're two different human beings. This note also states that we understand we're still expected to respect meta-comm policy. I like that this note is there, since it lets staff who aren't familiar with one or both of us know everything's gucci if they see us both playing in the same round. No muss, no fuss!

[Archie700]

In case people need an example of "did nothing wrong" notes that are helpful record-keeping: I have a note on my account, stating that my IRL spouse and I share an IP and have gone through the proper channels to let people know we're two different human beings who understand we're still expected to respect meta-comm policy. I like that this note is there, since it lets staff who aren't familiar with one or both of us know everything's gucci if they see us both playing in the same round. No muss, no fuss!

See, this is an actual example of a neutral note.

Most of the notes that I see in appeals are notes that have had someone do something close to rule-breaking that resulted in an admin taking note.

Those are what people consider "negative" notes.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

As someone who has had two notes overturned on appeal (Three if you count the name policy note I got, which was later overturned to give me my name back), absolutely not. I love the admin team to death here, but you guys make mistakes, and we need to be able to see those mistakes and appeal them when that happens.

Also, looking back at my old note appeals, it seems pretty clear past headmin terms DID consider notes punishment, not only the current term. for example, in my note appeal regarding buying Disco Inferno (found here: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=31709) Mothblocks explicitly referred to my note as a punishment. Quote:

However, with all that in mind, we are removing the note, for the precise reason that the head admin ruling does seem to explicitly allow buying the Disco Inferno as captain, and so it would be unfair to retroactively punish you for this new alteration.

So if notes aren't a punishment, why did past headmins consider it a punishment, and current headmins by your words? If so many headmins consider them punishment, and the players consider them punishment... maybe they're punishment.

[kieth4]

This has been argued to death- I for example believe notes are a punishment. There are many other admins who agree and who disagree- this doesn't mean that we need to fundamentally change notes as they perform a function which is fine.

[iamgoofball]

this is somehow the dumbest overreaction to admins getting whiny that players are correctly identifying and acknowledging that the big list of things they did wrong are being held against them by admins and that admins take note count into consideration when deciding further punishments

you cannot with a straight face tell me you sincerely believe that notes are not used as punishment when the vast majority of appeals include the admins saying "you've racked up X amount of notes in Y amount of time" with, usually, no breakdown or nuance on the notes unless the player themselves protests it and reviews their notes publicly in the thread on a line item basis to prove the notes aren't representative of a problem

[datorangebottle]

The thing I dislike about "notes are not a punishment" is that it's a lie, deliberate or not. They're typically a punishment. This doesn't mean in any way that they need to be avoided.
I just want people to stop lying. I don't want a future where notes aren't used on /tg/, because that drastically lowers the ability of the administration to handle shitters and repeat offenders.

[WineAllWine]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

[NamelessFairy]

I just don't really understand the rationale. Why keep a permanent record of something if the player did nothing wrong? Even in private, what's the point? If the player did something wrong, even if it was by accident, then of course they could be noted for that. I'm not sure what headmins have said about this, maybe it's a reaction to something in private channels, but I would very much doubt they're crusading against noting people for doing something bad.

You might have misread my first point, if nobody did anything wrong they probably wont be noted, I can think of exemptions, e.g. player did something that is allowed as a one off gimmick and has been asked to hold off from doing it again such as the ruling on turning everyone into yourself via genetics. But overall for the most part all notes will be linked to critical information of something negative that a player did.

[vect0r]

I just don't really understand the rationale. Why keep a permanent record of something if the player did nothing wrong? Even in private, what's the point? If the player did something wrong, even if it was by accident, then of course they could be noted for that. I'm not sure what headmins have said about this, maybe it's a reaction to something in private channels, but I would very much doubt they're crusading against noting people for doing something bad.

You might have misread my first point, if nobody did anything wrong they probably wont be noted, I can think of exemptions, e.g. player did something that is allowed as a one off gimmick and has been asked to hold off from doing it again such as the ruling on turning everyone into yourself via genetics. But overall for the most part all notes will be linked to critical information of something negative that a player did.

Those notes should be fine if they are clearly worded, even rn. "Played a gimmick where he played 'Mr. Poopface', asked not to repeat it until next month (5/11/23)"

[Vekter]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

I have been asked to defend my point as to why I don't think they're a punishment for ages, but I never see the inverse. Tell me why you think they are?

[WineAllWine]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

I have been asked to defend my point as to why I don't think they're a punishment for ages, but I never see the inverse. Tell me why you think they are?

They result in future punishments being harsher. this is not a thing the player would want. therefore it is a punishment

[legality]

Notes may or may not be a punishment (i think they usually are), but they are definitely a threat. Oftentimes they are schrodinger's suspended sentence - you may or may not receive a harsher punishment in the future because of this black mark.

Anecdotally, I was an admin from 2010-2012 and we did pretty good at noticing repeat offenders and patterns of behavior without notes. They're not a vital tool.

[Vekter]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

I have been asked to defend my point as to why I don't think they're a punishment for ages, but I never see the inverse. Tell me why you think they are?

They result in future punishments being harsher. this is not a thing the player would want. therefore it is a punishment

I would argue that they only result in future punishments being harsher if the note is for the same issue that they were noted for before. We only really ban people for accruing multiple notes if they're showing general bad faith gameplay.

[WineAllWine]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

I have been asked to defend my point as to why I don't think they're a punishment for ages, but I never see the inverse. Tell me why you think they are?

They result in future punishments being harsher. this is not a thing the player would want. therefore it is a punishment

I would argue that they only result in future punishments being harsher if the note is for the same issue that they were noted for before. We only really ban people for accruing multiple notes if they're showing general bad faith gameplay.

I agree with this.

[TheRex9001]

Of course they're a punishment. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise with a straight face

I have been asked to defend my point as to why I don't think they're a punishment for ages, but I never see the inverse. Tell me why you think they are?

They result in future punishments being harsher. this is not a thing the player would want. therefore it is a punishment

I would argue that they only result in future punishments being harsher if the note is for the same issue that they were noted for before. We only really ban people for accruing multiple notes if they're showing general bad faith gameplay.

Exactly, notes can make punishments harsher. Its like being told off or being branded for the admins that this dude should most likely not fuck around and find out. Notes are punishments because admins use them to justify bans/longer ban length, therefore its quite natural that players strive to avoid notes

[oranges]

Notes may or may not be a punishment (i think they usually are), but they are definitely a threat. Oftentimes they are schrodinger's suspended sentence - you may or may not receive a harsher punishment in the future because of this black mark.

Anecdotally, I was an admin from 2010-2012 and we did pretty good at noticing repeat offenders and patterns of behavior without notes. They're not a vital tool.

holding up admins from 2010 to 2012 as a gold standard is a bold move

[BrolyButterfingers]

Anybody who disagrees that notes are a punishment need only look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33374&p=665448 to see that a person copped a FOUR DAY BAN for an antagonist breaking out of a plasma prison and starting a fire that damaged nothing and injured nobody that damaged nothing and injured nobody specifically because of their note history. I had to go to bat for them as the antag who broke out in order to get it reduced.

[Cobby]

There is no "do not note for this" option.

There is a "do not log this on our most useful function for tracking warnings" option, but the only alternative if you are going to be realistic about the situation is that it just encourages admins to either make their homebrew note system that you cant contend with, or you hope it doesnt come up in a private conversation about you in adminbus with no way for any other admin to contest (as if you, the player, get to fight the view) without hoping that admin cares enough to find the round and look at the logs to validate their potentially colorful memory. The other alternative is to simply not have the manual noting available and force admins to have to kick/ban for the log so you can actually argue the merits of the note because they had to have uncontested (semantically) punishments with them.

The correct solution is to say notes are warnings OR they are to highlight good instances with players, and if a note does not fall into either then you need to vibe check the admin who wrote it. You do not need to upend the note system, drastically change anything except what you the admin are letting other admins get by with when you see them

1. Use number of notes to justify actions (without regard to what those notes say)
2. Use notes that arent related to the incident in any way to justify actions
3. generate notes that fall into neither category

Its not hard but its such an easy suggestion it gets ignored in favor of arguing whether or not notes are considered a punishment from a semantic point of view which is just a funny meme argument and gets away from the actual point. nopony cares whether notes constitute your personal threshold for the definition of punishment, it is just a tactic used to divert from the fact you are actually arguing that warnings shouldnt be logged without having to say it (or just trying to divert the thread with useless babble, keep that garbo in PC).

[Timberpoes]

What a complete and utter waste of time. This proposal makes absolutely no sense.

You can continue to issue record-keeping notes, just accepting that such notes are punishments.

If you don't want to punish the player for what they did, you should be asking yourself what the point of placing the note in the first place was. If your only or primary reason for placing the note was "some future admin may find this information useful" rather than "the player broke a rule which I'm clearly recording" - then that's fine. Just keep in mind that because you placed your note, a future admin will likely be influenced by it if the player does something again. That was the point of placing it, to communicate to some future admin something that is more than of trivial importance. And you won't have any control over how that resolves, excepting that the admin will feel you must have placed the note for a good reason because that's the standard we've come to expect.

This is especially pertinent when recording incidents where no rules are broken but we can't take the L as admins and instead try to leverage a note of dubious merit, knowing that they're almost impossible to get overturned as long as they're factual and not overly harsh. It's pertinent because the presence of a past note can turn a valid action into a rule break.

See the aforementioned appeal at viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33374&p=665448 for an example of what happens when a player gets banned for not breaking the rules. Their note history was used to transform a totally fucking amazing MRP-friendly SS13 moment without a single HINT of a rule break into a ban. Then the ban was upheld on appeal, just reduced in duration and moved a line-toeing ban.

When admins say notes aren't punishments, players see IC issues turned into administrative issues and bans due to the presence of notes then go "you fuckin' wot m8?" in response.

You know what you should be suggesting instead? More liberal use of expiring notes when you're just making a record that a thing happened. This gives you more flexibility to record information, eases the burden on players knowing that if they behave or don't repeat the behaviour then the note will eventually just go away automagically and makes permanent notes stand out more by virtue of not being diluted around less serious notes that don't really serve much purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Players tend to be happier knowing if they don't cock up then their notes will do more than just fade, but will vanish entirely. You could probably rally a lot of support for using expiring notes when you're simply intending to record a thing that happened instead of punish the player for breaking the rules.

[Farquaar]

Anybody who disagrees that notes are a punishment need only look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33374&p=665448 to see that a person copped a FOUR DAY BAN for an antagonist breaking out of a plasma prison and starting a fire that damaged nothing and injured nobody that damaged nothing and injured nobody specifically because of their note history. I had to go to bat for them as the antag who broke out in order to get it reduced.

I don't agree with that ban, but to be fair the headmin reply in the appeal sets the precedent at one day for that sort of thing, not four days.

[iamgoofball]

This is especially pertinent when recording incidents where no rules are broken but we can't take the L as admins and instead try to leverage a note of dubious merit, knowing that they're almost impossible to get overturned as long as they're factual and not overly harsh. It's pertinent because the presence of a past note can turn a valid action into a rule break.

This is absolutely a massive problem. We have admins on the team, including OP, who absolutely utilize the note system as a way to punish people for things that aren't actually rule breaks despite the evidence stacked against them because they know there's such an extremely high bar to clear for note removal that they can put a permanent mark on someone's record without any realistic hope of that person overturning it.

Notes are a punishment, and the extremely harsh conditions under which a player has to undergo to actually get a note removed makes it the favorite tool of petty assholes on the admin team because it lets them permanently fuck up a player's record with little to zero recourse from the player being available, and the pushback from the petty asshole boomermins on player-visible notes is absolutely because they don't like that players are pushing back against them for sketchy, petty, and dubiously legitimate notes.

If you see an admin advocating that notes aren't a punishment or that we should remove player visible notes, they aren't cut out for being an administrator and need to rethink their approach to the position, full stop.

[WineAllWine]

This is especially pertinent when recording incidents where no rules are broken but we can't take the L as admins and instead try to leverage a note of dubious merit, knowing that they're almost impossible to get overturned as long as they're factual and not overly harsh. It's pertinent because the presence of a past note can turn a valid action into a rule break.

This is absolutely a massive problem. We have admins on the team, including OP, who absolutely utilize the note system as a way to punish people for things that aren't actually rule breaks despite the evidence stacked against them because they know there's such an extremely high bar to clear for note removal that they can put a permanent mark on someone's record without any realistic hope of that person overturning it.

Notes are a punishment, and the extremely harsh conditions under which a player has to undergo to actually get a note removed makes it the favorite tool of petty assholes on the admin team because it lets them permanently fuck up a player's record with little to zero recourse from the player being available, and the pushback from the petty asshole boomermins on player-visible notes is absolutely because they don't like that players are pushing back against them for sketchy, petty, and dubiously legitimate notes.

If you see an admin advocating that notes aren't a punishment or that we should remove player visible notes, they aren't cut out for being an administrator and need to rethink their approach to the position, full stop.

I approved this post but I think you're being overly harsh on the admin team, most notes are placed reasonably after having a decent chat with the player in question. At least thats what I try and encourage my trainees and colleagues to do. They ARE a punishment, as we've spoken about.

I think we should probably lower the bar for appealing notes but I'm not sure what it is. That's a more useful discussion than this thread's original proposal

[BrolyButterfingers]

Just use expiring notes more often.

[WineAllWine]

Just use expiring notes more often.

I'm struggling to express this. Admins get to see everything. As it stands, an admin can see expired notes. I think this is good (but y'know I'm biased cause I'm an admin)

The important thing is admins judging. We should be more encouraged not to give much weight to old notes

[BrolyButterfingers]

Just use expiring notes more often.

I'm struggling to express this. Admins get to see everything. As it stands, an admin can see expired notes. I think this is good (but y'know I'm biased cause I'm an admin)

The important thing is admins judging. We should be more encouraged not to give much weight to old notes

Put expired notes somewhere where an admin would really have to go out of their way to get them, and internally discourage checking them for all but the more serious issues.

[WineAllWine]

Just use expiring notes more often.

I'm struggling to express this. Admins get to see everything. As it stands, an admin can see expired notes. I think this is good (but y'know I'm biased cause I'm an admin)

The important thing is admins judging. We should be more encouraged not to give much weight to old notes

Put expired notes somewhere where an admin would really have to go out of their way to get them, and internally discourage checking them for all but the more serious issues.

This is pretty much how it exists atm. But when placing bans, especially permas, admins generally want to get a full picture

[Cobby]

expiring (permanently removed 5ever) notes should not exist outside of some sort of technical aspect such as we cant retain notes or something. "You" just need to make sure notes are used appropriately.

First off the player should have an equivalent view to how admins view notes if the idea is they are afraid to see their repertoire. This is the wrong zone for that suggestion though.

Second off severity should increase the rate at which notes "decay" (become visible without needing to show all), with the highest severity items always remaining on top. The note list should be sorted by relevance rather than just date with the high severity items remaining at the top if they have not hit the cutoff. Also not the place for that suggestion though.

It seems like the "just teach admins better" solution isnt very palpable and rather than contend with the system to improve it so it better reflects what the administration tries to get out of noting, it seems like some are more keen on avoiding to interact with it in a way that is conducive to administrating with such a large team and everyone not being able to be on 24/7.

If your idea to make the overall community better is to note less because "other" admins arent using it correctly from the input side or from how they are utilizing the outputs rather than try to make the data be presented to better reflect how you want notes to actually be used (a log of warnings), you are approaching the situation wrong.

Theres a lot of visual "nudging" that can be done on the UI end imo to make notes naturally gravitate to being used in the ideal aspect, but that will absolutely fall apart if we have admins who are simply not engaging with the system because they fear they cant manage how other admins act on that full view of data (especially odd coming from people who have that exact power)

[kieth4]

There appears to be a growing misjudgment that notes are a punishment rather than a recordkeeping tool so I think a discussion needs to be held about how we're going to handle them in the future. Notes are visible to players as a gesture of transparency, admins have the option to hide notes from players but we are asked not to do this. I'm going to bring up the possibility of repealing that request and standardizing players not being able to see their notes to allow admins to maintain their record-keeping tools.

To start I'd like to be clear this is an awful idea that I dislike, I don't like inaccurate notes being placed so I fully support players being able to read their own so they can ensure any missed details that the admin didn't catch can be pointed out. However if notes start being treated as punishments by headmins as at least one headmin has made it clear they think then we run the risk of critical data for admins being erased, this is not the primary concern, the concern is admins being forced to keep personal or shared documents tracking notes with players and admins not being able to judge if notes are accurate or not. This is the worst case scenario that I fear we are marching towards.

So, what do we do if admins can't maintain their documentation due to their records being treated as punishments do we move those records out of the public eye with little or no scrutiny, do we keep admin note keeping the same as it has been for years and live with the occasional batch of complaints that "they're punishments", or do we restrict admin note keeping entirely and risk serial rulebreakers getting away with rulebreaks consistently and repeatedly.

I'm not happy I've had to make this thread but we're at risk of going in blind to a very dangerous era of adminning which could really harm the quality of administration TG is known to have. So if headmins are going to travel this path then this path needs to be discussed and charted so travelling it is done smoothly.

Can you provide an example of actions we have taken that make you believe that we are heading down this dangerous era other than me and timber expressing that we believe notes are a punishment?

This reads like a huge amount of speculation and fearmongering.

[kinnebian]

I dont understand this post. Notes are a very versatile tool that cant be classified as punishment or not a punishment, its pretty clear its on a case by case basis. Notes like the one Cowlbear mentioned are good examples of non-punishment, logkeeping notes. Notes recording incidents or bad faith acts are punishments, as they leave a mark on your record and can affect future rulings.

Why does this matter, again?

[iamgoofball]

If notes aren't a punishment, why was this person banned for "note evasion"?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34036

[sinfulbliss]

I appeal pretty much every note that I find even slightly disagreeable. 95% of the people I play with don’t do this. Unless they’re being forcibly removed from the game for like a few days or more, they won’t appeal at all.

The reason is because this is a videogame and most people are not psychotic enough to write the equivalent of a college shortstory to contest something as minor as a few lines of dumbassery an admin drizzled on your account. The worst part is that the better the player, the even less likely they are to appeal notes, because they hardly ever get noted so it probably won’t matter.

I wish admins kept this in mind before opting for recording every single possible conversation they could ever have in the ticket. It makes bwoinks really tedious knowing your account history is on the line, particularly when it’s an admin that you KNOW likes to note things a lot or is particularly strict about stuff. You’re forced not only to take yourself out of the round for 45 mins discussing a minor issue, but you know from the first 2-3 messages you’ll be noted regardless of what you say and have to appeal.

I have to agree with Goof. If your view of notes is to keep a record, with absolutely no concern for how you’re punishing the player in keeping that record, then you have no business being able to note people.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I dont understand the premise that "There appears to be a growing misjudgment that notes are a punishment rather than a recordkeeping tool so I think a discussion needs to be held about how we're going to handle them in the future". The argument over are-notes-a-punishment has been going on for years and years now, and it bubbles to the surface every now and then with some big appeal or fight in the adminbus.

Futhermore, I do not see the issue with notes being a punishment. The argument this time around seems to equate "notes are a form of punishment" with "Therefore admins shouldn't give them out", and I don't agree with that at all. Notes are a collection of admin remarks on your permanent records, for the good ("Great player for events, played adminspawned roles in a way everyone enjoyed") or the bad ("Told to stop doing annoying thing").

[Archie700]

There appears to be a growing misjudgment that notes are a punishment rather than a recordkeeping tool so I think a discussion needs to be held about how we're going to handle them in the future. Notes are visible to players as a gesture of transparency, admins have the option to hide notes from players but we are asked not to do this. I'm going to bring up the possibility of repealing that request and standardizing players not being able to see their notes to allow admins to maintain their record-keeping tools.

To start I'd like to be clear this is an awful idea that I dislike, I don't like inaccurate notes being placed so I fully support players being able to read their own so they can ensure any missed details that the admin didn't catch can be pointed out. However if notes start being treated as punishments by headmins as at least one headmin has made it clear they think then we run the risk of critical data for admins being erased, this is not the primary concern, the concern is admins being forced to keep personal or shared documents tracking notes with players and admins not being able to judge if notes are accurate or not. This is the worst case scenario that I fear we are marching towards.

So, what do we do if admins can't maintain their documentation due to their records being treated as punishments do we move those records out of the public eye with little or no scrutiny, do we keep admin note keeping the same as it has been for years and live with the occasional batch of complaints that "they're punishments", or do we restrict admin note keeping entirely and risk serial rulebreakers getting away with rulebreaks consistently and repeatedly.

I'm not happy I've had to make this thread but we're at risk of going in blind to a very dangerous era of adminning which could really harm the quality of administration TG is known to have. So if headmins are going to travel this path then this path needs to be discussed and charted so travelling it is done smoothly.

I'm going to respond to this post directly and bold the critical points.

So your response to "the concern is admins being forced to keep personal or shared documents tracking notes with players and admins not being able to judge if notes are accurate or not" is to...basically get the system changed so that admins do the very thing you're concerned about.

[Shellton(Mario)]

I think 3 things should happen with the note system

A: Make the note fade viewable on the players side - if we are truly seeing notes that as faded as lesser why not let the player base see that so it doesn't seem like a scar on your account

B: Give out more positive notes, right now there you pretty much only work your way down as no admins give positive notes out, "atleast I haven't gotten any and I wouldn't consider myself a shitter". Imagine if someone gets banned for X y or z they come back after the ban and they improve as a player from that ban. Why not positive note that shit to reward the good behavior. Just reward good behavior the same way we reward bad behavior.

C: If you as an admin are bringing up someone's old notes in the appeal atleast bring up some context around it instead of just saying due to their note history I increased the ban length and the notes you are bringing up should be relevant to the ban itself.

[BrolyButterfingers]

Just use expiring notes more often.

I'm struggling to express this. Admins get to see everything. As it stands, an admin can see expired notes. I think this is good (but y'know I'm biased cause I'm an admin)

The important thing is admins judging. We should be more encouraged not to give much weight to old notes

Put expired notes somewhere where an admin would really have to go out of their way to get them, and internally discourage checking them for all but the more serious issues.

This is pretty much how it exists atm. But when placing bans, especially permas, admins generally want to get a full picture

Admins should place more trust in other admins making the notes expire for a reason and not feel the need to look under the hood as a result most of the time.

[MooCow12]

Many notes that were appealed and rejected by admins have been repealed by headmins because of information discovered by logs that ended up absolving the appellant of the incident to begin with.
You want to hide these notes? Should I bring up their appeals to show you what notes are being repelled?
You're basically just treating a fractured toe by amputating the lower half of the body.
This is not the nuclear option, this is the "blow up the damn earth and hope people will ignore it".

This, I understand if someone keeps getting into situations where an admin might give them a false note then they are probably toeing a line, but admins are not known to do thorough investigations when they apply a punishment/note, that is what the appeals are for and if players are notified of notes then they cannot appeal to correct or remove those notes.

[Kubisopplay]

Okay, so few things from my point of view.
Notes aren't punishments, they are warning that punishment will come if you continue down the road.
IMHO every conversation that where player and admin had a disagreement should be noted, mainly because then next person to need to deal with player can either fact check the last admin, or escalate if the player continues to do the same damn thing.
Biggest thing that should be improved would be creating a goddamn unified system for note severity because currently it's mostly "give the note a severity of what you think it is". With a written policy for distinguishing severities we could both fit the "did something that is not really a rule break, but it's very close" notes as low severity, medium for warnings, and high for imminent bans.
Some qol for note panel would also be nice, being able to sort by severity would help in ignoring the irrelevant ones, and in doing the x notes in y time things.
Pinnacle of note development would be addition of tags, so things that are easy to qualify as a type of offence (ick ock, over escalation, self antag), can be filtered and counted much easier. I'm afraid that it would require changing the DB schema, so that's probably not really possible

[Cobby]

one of the bigger failings of the note system as it currently stands is the fading out does not respect severity in any way. a 6 month fadeout makes perfect sense for BIG BAD notes, but for things like one sussy situation and especially lower tiered mishaps like IC in OOC, I VERY RARELY care about these over a half-year time period or even a three month period for that matter.

If it was tiered based on severity it would be a lot more susceptible to making sure the "right" severity for the note is selected as well. It should come a lot more naturally when you can say "set severity based on how long youd want to realistically see this note before it fades out".

[RedBaronFlyer]

I'm sort of in the middle ground. With how I view notes. (This is only talking about notes as a documentation of behavior and not positive notes (this person taught a new player how to do stuff) or neutral notes (these two accounts have the same IP but are separate users)

On one hand, there have been instances of someone being ultimately banned for a repeat offending behavior, with previous notes of similar behavior used as justification for the ban or for having a longer ban. Which I feel is the correct usage of the note system for tracking repeat offenders/shitters/bad actors. In other instances, admins will use merely having a history notes as a reason to ban someone for behavior that probably could have been let off with a verbal warning or a note. (see the above-mentioned plasma fire incident) Which I feel is very much the incorrect usage of the note system. Obviously, if someone is getting 14 notes in seven days, then that person is probably a shitter, even if each note is mostly unrelated to one another. Due to the nature of the game, people will likely get notes over time, especially if they play potentially destructive jobs (engineer, atmos tech, security, research) or have antagonist enabled. And thus, assuming that they aren't complete goody-two-shoes-boring-pants (me), they will slowly rack up notes. A note for invalid escalation here, a note for an accidental death there, etc.

It doesn't help that some of these negative notes are absolutely horribly written, often with minimal context except "person did 'x' told not to do it again"requiring people to appeal just to have the note show that something done on accident is appropriately listed as such in the note, instead of it being a black mark on their record making it look like the person was being a shitter on purpose.

There's a world of difference between these two notes:

As a non-antagonist chemist, shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals. Warned not to do it again.
vs.
As a non-antagonist chemist, accidentally shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals during a scuffle with a traitor. After the fight, they brought the CMO's body back to medbay and revived them.

[iamgoofball]

There's a world of difference between these two notes:

As a non-antagonist chemist, shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals. Warned not to do it again.
vs.
As a non-antagonist chemist, accidentally shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals during a scuffle with a traitor. After the fight, they brought the CMO's body back to medbay and revived them.

One of those should be a note, the other shouldn't of been a note to begin with.

[RedBaronFlyer]

There's a world of difference between these two notes:

As a non-antagonist chemist, shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals. Warned not to do it again.
vs.
As a non-antagonist chemist, accidentally shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals during a scuffle with a traitor. After the fight, they brought the CMO's body back to medbay and revived them.

One of those should be a note, the other shouldn't of been a note to begin with.

They're both the same hypothetical scenario, I'm just using it as an example of why having full context is important. Most of the notes I've seen appealed are usually vague and poorly worded, like the first note, then the person has to appeal to have it be like it is in the second instance to reflect what fully happened.

[iamgoofball]

There's a world of difference between these two notes:

As a non-antagonist chemist, shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals. Warned not to do it again.
vs.
As a non-antagonist chemist, accidentally shot the CMO with a syringe gun filled with poisonous chemicals during a scuffle with a traitor. After the fight, they brought the CMO's body back to medbay and revived them.

One of those should be a note, the other shouldn't of been a note to begin with.

They're both the same hypothetical scenario, I'm just using it as an example of why having full context is important. Most of the notes I've seen appealed are usually vague and poorly worded, like the first note, then the person has to appeal to have it be like it is in the second instance to reflect what fully happened.

Once again, if the note is being updated to the second note, then it shouldn't be a note. It shouldn't be on their permanent record, they didn't break any rules.

[Pandarsenic]

The second note would warrant some sort of additional justifying context, e.g. Had a death-syringe made at roundstart for no good reason, or shot it while scuffling with a traitor who hadn't done anything openly traitorous but they found antag gear while looting the body, etc.

[iamgoofball]

The second note would warrant some sort of additional justifying context, e.g. Had a death-syringe made at roundstart for no good reason, or shot it while scuffling with a traitor who hadn't done anything openly traitorous but they found antag gear while looting the body, etc.

Okay, but neither of those are against the rules, so once again, why are they a note in the first place?

[Farquaar]

The second note would warrant some sort of additional justifying context, e.g. Had a death-syringe made at roundstart for no good reason, or shot it while scuffling with a traitor who hadn't done anything openly traitorous but they found antag gear while looting the body, etc.

Okay, but neither of those are against the rules, so once again, why are they a note in the first place?

Rule 12.