"Faking revolutionaries" Headmin Ruling Clarification

[Vekter]

So this came up in adminbus earlier today and I figure it's worth throwing a thread down to see if we can better clarify what Nervere was talking about with the following ruling:

Faking a revolution always causes grief, without fail. If someone is pretending to be a revolutionary, feel free to murder them.
If I find someone faking a revolution as a non-antag, they can prepare to catch a rule 1 ban for being a griefing shitter.

My main concern here is that I've seen this interpreted multiple ways, all of which are somewhat valid. What counts as "faking a revolution"? Is running around yelling "VIVA!" as a greyshirt enough to get you noted? Does a flash need to be involved? The ruling makes it seem like something as simple as shoving a head of staff as a non-antag might get you noted (though we almost certainly would never interpret the ruling like that).

The OP for the original ruling thread clears things up a bit for us:

Lately i been seeing this happen more and more where someone will grab a flash and run around faking a rev round which always results in security implanting 1/3 of the crew.

So I'm assuming Nervere's specifically referring to that behavior - someone getting a flash and flashing random people while yelling the usual "VIVA" noise. So, let's clarify:

"Faking a revolution" is defined as randomly flashing members of the crew for no reason other than to make people think there's a revolution. This inevitably leads to grief and will result in punishment from admins, up to and including escalating bans. Discretion should be used by admins to make sure this is less "someone flashing one or two people" and more "intentionally trying to start shit". If somebody is doing this and also yelling "VIVA" or other typical revolutionary catchphrases, they can expect to catch a note or ban for this behavior.

Admittedly a little wordy, but we can whittle it down if we feel like it's necessary.

[Timberpoes]

My approach is twofold as an admin.

First I ask myself if whatever the player was doing would have made me think there was a revolution. If it would not have, the matter ends there since there's really nothing to action. If other players believed there were revs from it, it would be either a skill issue or an IC issue.

But if it would have made me think there was a revolution, I'd then try and figure out if that was the player's intent.

For that, I need to be able to use my own judgement as to what faking revs is. This lets me reprimand players clearly griefing while letting everything else slide as an IC issue.

I hope that we shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of behaviour I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps we could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

[Vekter]

My approach is twofold as an admin.

First I ask myself if whatever the player was doing would have made me think there was a revolution. If it would not have, the matter ends there since there's really nothing to action. If other players believed there were revs from it, it would be either a skill issue or an IC issue.

But if it would have made me think there was a revolution, I'd then try and figure out if that was the player's intent.

For that, I need to be able to use my own judgement as to what faking revs is. This lets me reprimand players clearly griefing while letting everything else slide as an IC issue.

I hope that we shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of behaviour I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps we could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

Right, and I agree with you on that, but if we can make it more explicit and clear for players as to what behavior we don't want to see, we should.

[Timberpoes]

We don't want to see players faking revs.

It doesn't need to be more explicit than that because it's not a set of actions that are banned, it's an intent to fake revs that is banned regardless of what their actions are.

Such a vague ruling can better withstand the test of time without needing to be adjusted every time players find new ways to fake revs or game mechanics change.

[sinfulbliss]

I see no reason to change the current policy. The new version is just a wordier version of the old one.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

I think that codifying it is unnecessary, and runs the risk of backfiring something fierce.

Is the problem running around flashing people and yelling Viva? Well that's already blatant enough that it doesn't need mentioning.

If you want anything less than what would already be blatant enough to get hit even with the vaguer rules, you also run the risk that a non-antag using a Flash for self defense getting hit. A clown doing some slapstick comedy gets hit.

I think leaving it up to judgment is better, because it inspires the question to be asked, rather than a checklist to be ticked.

[Vekter]

I think leaving it up to judgment is better, because it inspires the question to be asked, rather than a checklist to be ticked.

The problem is that the ruling is vague enough that it inevitably leads to questions every time it comes up. If our admins can't even tell when it actually applies, then what hope do the players have of understanding it?

[Misdoubtful]

Maybe a little off topic but someone so much as saying a player is head rev fnr gives me brain warts. It doesn't just have to be someone flashing people. This could be extended to anything implicating someone is an antag fnr in reality.

It's going to alter the trajectory of the round, and it's going to inconvenience someone for longer than 5 minutes.

Both are on my 'not cool radar'.

I'd rather see a more generalized rule like that be in place rather some hyper specific bloat.

[MooCow12]

My issue is that because flashes are so nerfed, anyone using them extensively is automatically considered a head rev and by extension faking revs, like when I got noted by Iain for putting a bunch of them on timers in my backpack so that tiders that go near me (or i go near) would go blind.

This is literally someone taking into account that the meta doesn't call for use of flashes, they tend to be sucky, and then assuming that the extensive use of flashes is automatically an antagonist that makes better use of them, and then they call out the possible antagonists.


viewtopic.php?f=34&t=33103&p=661288&hil ... te#p661288

I made a bunch of points in my (successful) note appeal about how this sort of unholy union of metagaming and policy have actually caused an item (flashes) to be blacklisted from creative use, especially outside of private areas simply because more people can hear the use of flash and go "revs" when used in public locations.

[Higgin]

"Faking a revolution" is defined as randomly flashing members of the crew for no reason other than to make people think there's a revolution. This inevitably leads to grief and will result in punishment from admins, up to and including escalating bans. Discretion should be used by admins to make sure this is less "someone flashing one or two people" and more "intentionally trying to start shit". If somebody is doing this and also yelling "VIVA" or other typical revolutionary catchphrases, they can expect to catch a note or ban for this behavior.

Admittedly a little wordy, but we can whittle it down if we feel like it's necessary.

I think a broader rule to the effect of:

"We will note and ban you for intentionally misrepresenting people as or intentionally falsely forecasting the presence of antags as a non-antag with severity to the degree of harm caused. Do not shout 'FIRE' in a crowded theater or 'REVS' in a crowded station."

might be useful.

Flipside of it needs to be

"Unintentionally treating a non-antag as an antag based on false information or assumptions may lead us to note or ban you with severity to the degree of harm caused. You have the responsibility to only take decisive round-ending* action against others if you can be reasonably certain that normal escalation does not apply with some allowance for time, threat, intentional misrepresentation by others, and stress. Do not kill or permanently remove people without direct, concrete evidence as to their status when you have the ability to test that status (i.e. medical scans for Obsessed, loyalty implants for revolutionaries, holy water for cult.)"

[MooCow12]

leaning towards some of higgin's ideas and away from others. You should need more evidence to call for revs.

[Screemonster]

aren't half the arcade machine prizes things that are meant to fool people that aren't paying attention into thinking that there's an esword / red spacesuit / whatever around

kinda like the old trick of renaming a book to "cryptographic sequencer" and putting it in your bag in front of someone

a couple of red herrings here and there are necessary for the antags to have cover (since otherwise you might as well say that using a flash makes you valid if only antags are allowed to use them without eating a note)

[Higgin]

aren't half the arcade machine prizes things that are meant to fool people that aren't paying attention into thinking that there's an esword / red spacesuit / whatever around

kinda like the old trick of renaming a book to "cryptographic sequencer" and putting it in your bag in front of someone

a couple of red herrings here and there are necessary for the antags to have cover (since otherwise you might as well say that using a flash makes you valid if only antags are allowed to use them without eating a note)

As far as I'm aware, acting like an antag - even a funny pretend one - opens you up to getting treated like one.

The amount of misdirection afforded by those things is pretty slim, and a lot of antags are about as subtle as a fart at a funeral even with them. A toy DEsword is good to make people jump, but it's only good for about the first click.

Revs snowball hard and prompt a massively aggressive, disruptive response if you want good odds on beating them. Buy guns, lock down cargo, start implanting folks.

If you flash people as a nonantag and it turns into that happening, fucking up the round for others, the original OOC sin might be on you for using the flash. It might be entirely unintentional - somebody's chasing you, you flash them, a third person shouts REVS, and shit kicks into gear.

It's unintentional at that point, so it wouldn't violate the first part of what I propose. Not trying to set the record straight at that point - failing to say* "I'm not a rev, go ahead and implant me, here's what happened" - might well get you banned under the second if your negligence at that point fucks other people over.

The security officer who refuses to listen and immediately spaces the next reported headrev (spoilers: it was the comms agent who made the call on them) on an otherwise green shift would also be open to cop a ban under this.

[Vekter]

aren't half the arcade machine prizes things that are meant to fool people that aren't paying attention into thinking that there's an esword / red spacesuit / whatever around

kinda like the old trick of renaming a book to "cryptographic sequencer" and putting it in your bag in front of someone

a couple of red herrings here and there are necessary for the antags to have cover (since otherwise you might as well say that using a flash makes you valid if only antags are allowed to use them without eating a note)

Right, but the difference is that those are just items that can be used in different ways, whereas running around actively acting like a rev looks identical to there actually being a revolution.

[Higgin]

Hell, I'll give a case here about why the negligence bit matters so much.

The other day on Manny, we were chilling in engineering when some bastard in the Magnate MOD came blowing through causing trouble, attacking folks, at some point trying to drag somebody off into the snow. Their ID (gold) was 'Captain Smiles."

Chilling out with the CE at the time, we see this happening, dive in, give chase - we throw down with this baddie, several of us go down, but in the end we all get out with it having been inconclusive except for one thing: engineering gang is pissed.

Cue a vague call about a "Smiles" doing something bad at the bridge - as several of us are near having been gathering the CE's stuff, hearing this, we go. I lead the charge.

Next scene, we reach the bridge after hacking on. Things are quiet. There's one other person on the bridge:

A lizard named Doctors-the-Smiles, in the full captain getup - no MOD - standing there. The Quartermaster.

The Acting Captain.

You can probably see where this is going. I don't remember the RID. Gang activity occurred.

The entire time Doctors was understandably upset until they got cuffed in the hall. There was nothing immediately sus in their bag, but I don't think any of us looked too closely. The CE got back from med and we handed her the things she'd lost earlier (found in maints.) By this time a fourth engineer had dragged off with Doctors to parts unknown.

As a few of us are still all standing there, we hear over engineering comms,
[REDACTED] flutters, "Tossed him into SM"

This is all well and good - justice has been done - until we get back to engineering.

Captain Smiles axes into the foyer from atmos.

Rhials Duffy (as Captain Smiles) asks, "Where is Doctors?"
we answer, stunned (not with his baton or several guns:) he's fucking dusted bro.
Rhials Duffy (as Captain Smiles) says, "Good..."
Rhials Duffy (as Captain Smiles) says, "I'm taking your windows"

...

Doctors was one of Rhials's targets. That was his only successful objective after he went out swinging on the shuttle.

As far as I'm aware, Doctors was not an antag.

I don't know if it ever came to an ahelp about the moth who actually tossed him, but it never came to me.

I was undoubtedly responsible and at least in part negligent. I was not an antag, and I don't think any of us in engineering were at that point.

Even if it doesn't take the language I offered, if the principle behind it is agreeable, I should have copped a note or a ban off of that for misidentifying Doctors, leading to his death.

If that's agreeable to anyone reading this, please, feel free to put it down in ink and hit me. My ckey is Higgin, my character in the round was Hali Psy, I hope my example is an instructive one. o7

[CMDR_Gungnir]

I think leaving it up to judgment is better, because it inspires the question to be asked, rather than a checklist to be ticked.

The problem is that the ruling is vague enough that it inevitably leads to questions every time it comes up. If our admins can't even tell when it actually applies, then what hope do the players have of understanding it?

I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I hope you can see why it feels like a Catch22, too.

Nice trips, btw

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The issue with calling a revolution as a prank is sec responding with absolute, round-destroying force. At the time the ruling was made, the balance of things was such that sec would immediately start a brutal oppression, forcibly implanting people and declaring martial law instantly even without proof, because it was kinda felt to be the only realistic chance you had of beating one given the extremely fast spread speed of revs. This consistently happening when there WERENT actually revs got the prank banned because it destroyed entire rounds.

Not sure if that'd happen so much today tbh but thats where it comes from.

[Helios]

We don't want to see players faking revs.

It doesn't need to be more explicit than that because it's not a set of actions that are banned, it's an intent to fake revs that is banned regardless of what their actions are.

Such a vague ruling can better withstand the test of time without needing to be adjusted every time players find new ways to fake revs or game mechanics change.

It takes ambiguity out of the game, constraining player actions for the sake of making them easier to manage. It also implicitly pushes Security into being Meta chasers, as the limit of Green Shift security issues that they would have to deal with, like Tiding, or a fake rev, or trespassing/petty theft are banned at a moderation level and not enforced at a security officer level. So all that is left is the real antagonists.

[TheBibleMelts]

faking a revolution, or malf ai, or a cult can, and usually does result in players being griefed by security in attempts to quell the supposed threat to the station. anybody trying to do it probably knows that, and shouldn't be facilitating it as a non antagonist.

[Cheshify]

I'm still not exactly sure what the complaint here is, or what a solution would look like. Faking a revolution intentionally is pretty obvious because it gets the entire station thinking there's revs? What needs to change?

[Vekter]

I'm still not exactly sure what the complaint here is, or what a solution would look like. Faking a revolution intentionally is pretty obvious because it gets the entire station thinking there's revs? What needs to change?

I recall the concern that was voiced in adminbus was that someone just randomly flashing one person could be considered "faking a revolution" just by the potential reaction of other people hearing a flash and jumping to conclusions.

[dendydoom]

i think intentionally going out of your way to cause hysteria by mimicking the mechanics of an antag as a non-antag is some rule 1 stuff.

i've seen non-antag mutinies and "revolutions" for very palpable IC reasons and they were very fun rounds. just doing it because you want to trick people is very different.

i actually like the unintentional interaction of flashes though: they are decent personal defence tools, yet they're also a tell of something sinister. if you don't have the context of why someone is using it, then you can become paranoid. paranoia is good!

[Screemonster]

I'm still not exactly sure what the complaint here is, or what a solution would look like. Faking a revolution intentionally is pretty obvious because it gets the entire station thinking there's revs? What needs to change?

I recall the concern that was voiced in adminbus was that someone just randomly flashing one person could be considered "faking a revolution" just by the potential reaction of other people hearing a flash and jumping to conclusions.

yeah, like, the one appeal that got peanutted was the guy that set a bunch of flashes on a timer and started running around flashing everyone next to him without any other rev behaviour, which might be dumb and griefy but it's not the same as pretending to be a headrev (especially since the people he flashed were clearly not being converted)

"getting the station to think there's revs" is a hard line to draw because sometimes the station are, collectively, a pack of fucking animals and "the roboticist flashed me and tossed me out that asshole I only wanted his goggles" quickly becomes "ROBO FLASHIGN PEOPLE" and swiftly mutates into "REVS, THERE'S REVS"
like that one time I had to unpick what the fuck happened in a situation where a borg was AFK -> the borg didn't respond immediately to an order -> someone said "maybe it's emagged" -> "ARREST THE ROBOTICIST, HE ABSOLUTELY DEFINITIVELY POSITIVELY EMAGGED THAT BORG"

[Vekter]

I'm still not exactly sure what the complaint here is, or what a solution would look like. Faking a revolution intentionally is pretty obvious because it gets the entire station thinking there's revs? What needs to change?

I recall the concern that was voiced in adminbus was that someone just randomly flashing one person could be considered "faking a revolution" just by the potential reaction of other people hearing a flash and jumping to conclusions.

yeah, like, the one appeal that got peanutted was the guy that set a bunch of flashes on a timer and started running around flashing everyone next to him without any other rev behaviour, which might be dumb and griefy but it's not the same as pretending to be a headrev (especially since the people he flashed were clearly not being converted)

"getting the station to think there's revs" is a hard line to draw because sometimes the station are, collectively, a pack of fucking animals and "the roboticist flashed me and tossed me out that asshole I only wanted his goggles" quickly becomes "ROBO FLASHIGN PEOPLE" and swiftly mutates into "REVS, THERE'S REVS"
like that one time I had to unpick what the fuck happened in a situation where a borg was AFK -> the borg didn't respond immediately to an order -> someone said "maybe it's emagged" -> "ARREST THE ROBOTICIST, HE ABSOLUTELY DEFINITIVELY POSITIVELY EMAGGED THAT BORG"

This might honestly be an unfortunate case where it's just going to be based on vibes. There's always going to be a difference between "someone being a dickhead with a flash" and " legitimately faking a revolution" and I think the station's reaction to this probably shouldn't be the determining factor.

[TheBibleMelts]

i think the gist i've gotten from chesh and myself is "don't blatantly try to facilitate the faking a revolution" - if you're flashing someone and people metagame a rev round out of thin air from it, that's their problem.