Maxipat - blue catmin joins the battle

[Maxipat]

HIIIIIIIII!

Who?
I'm Maxipat, though most people know and refer to me as my static's name Mei. I played since just after ssethtide (late december 2019) and got player abuse privilege adminned back in august 2023 by NamelessFairy. I'm usually around terry and back in the day on EU ehall, mained med and play mostly detective recently. I'm not an essay poster (usually) so if this comes out as short, sorry!


Why?
First of all, to give people more choice, seeing that there's only 6(?) candidates except me at the time of posting, i believe elections and democracy works the best when there's many people you can vote for. Secondly, i'm a bit wary of recent voices i heard that want to change terry in tangible ways, so i want a policy vote myself to protect terry (and try to influence some other areas).

What?

1. Protect rule 4 on LRP.

Spoiler:

I believe that rule 4 is what makes Terry Terry and our LRP unique. We're practically the last server to host european english-speaking LRP and i don't want to lose that. Terry is in a really good spot on the market, fitting in a niche and it's in demand. I personally often find myself in situations where i dislike rule 4's ABSOLUTE freedom (there was a situation where a player was entitled to killing a deconvertable and cuffed cultist, and the player did so, though seemingly only to be a dick towards everyone around trying to deconvert that cultist player), but I also understand and know that this is what most LRP players want. Person elected should serve the electorate, not vice-versa.

2. Rule 11 should go in the current form.

Spoiler:

Bit of a clickbait title, but i don't think current rule 11 form lives up to modern /tg/ standard. We should keep protecting ALL groups of people, not only minorities, but most common slurs should be outright disallowed, preferably put inside the hardfilter. I have yet to see someone actually using slurs and not trying to: a. bait a fight with another player b. bait an admin into useless argument or c. pretend it's not actually bigoted and it's "i'm just quirky guys" thing. Somehow basically all players that use slurs in "non-bigoted" way end up getting banned for rule 11 eventually anyways.

3. Protect Manuel from LRPfication

Spoiler:

It's an issue that's raised more often recently, with some sybil players mentioning wanting to "downgrade" the standard to fit closer to sybil's than manuel's. I've adminned some rounds on manuel recently and was literally astonished at how some players just play it like 2020 Terry and suffer no consequences. Maybe it's because I mostly admin Terry so my "ideal" of MRP ruleset is higher than the actual bar is, but i'd encourage and empower admins to curb tiding and other LRP-esque behaviors on Manuel, even if it would end-up in losing some players. (They can come play terry)

4. Listen to the community

Spoiler:

I mentioned it earlier, but being elected means "to serve the electorate", not "rule over the electorate". I want anyone be able to raise an issue to headmins and us to have a look at it and not feel intimidated by EVIL RED NAME on discord. Imagine a discord channel (or on forums) where players can create threads with their ideas of what could be changed to improve the game and health of servers, what is detrimental to current population etc. etc. I know it sounds very close to policy discussions subforum, but i want something more akin to a direct channel to admin team for non-policy stuff, like "hey, there's been a visible degradation in RP quality on MRP" or "hey, can we have a poll to see X?". I know it's already do-able by DM'ing headmins/admins with +POLL permission, but i can see how it can be a bit intimidating to DM someone. (NO I DON'T WANT IT TO TURN INTO BAN REQUESTS and it will need discussions with rest of headmins how to polish it to work).

I also would like to see community meetings return, something other candidates also mentioned. I think they're a great place for players to ask questions about basically anything regarding policy, servers, admins. I'd be willing to host one if other headmins agree to it.

I'd also like for us to use polls more often, have players feel encouraged to ask us to create a poll about something, it's a great way to gather opinions from players on the server and not only from people that frequent forums/discord

5. Enable non-human heads

Spoiler:

It's something i was trying to convince headmins in adminbus back when dramazing ran her test week of it, it's something i still want to see happen. It'd require 3/3 agreement from headmins probably, so i'd be willing to agree on cap/RD being humans only, as they're the ones that deal with AI, but i don't see ANY issues with other heads being non-human. There's a lot of notable and good non-human players that i heard from that they'd play heads if it was possible with their static. Most frequent things i've heard about them and my take on it:

• "It makes us unique that we have human heads forced" - I've been pointed out by people how much this argument sounds like racism accusation towards people against non-human heads, as such rewrite: you know what else make/made us unique? Allowing n-slur but with a letter replaced until recently and allowing slurs in general. I don't think that uniqueness is something a priori beneficial or detrimental, same with "soul" that people are claiming we'll be losing if we let non-human heads in. I don't think an argument should be ever built on that, since this is just "old good new bad" sentiment, which usually holds us back more than anything. We need change to not stagnate, especially when we're already visibly bleeding population, and i think for new people, non-human heads is something that will not repel them from us, quite the opposite - can make us seem more approachable and accessible.
• "It will lead to crewsimov" - the only way it leads to crewsimov is if headmins will agree to it being the default ruleset. I'm a non-human player, ai not listening to me is something I accept myself and i know i will never agree to default ruleset being changed to crewsimov. I want to add relevant policies so that re-lawing AI in crewsimov-esque manner is bannable without a really good reason. (Plus that's an argument I can see why RD and Cap should remain humans, since them being the only ones entitled to ai upload access.)
• "MUH human supremacy" - When i say i like pancakes, you dont respond with "oh you hate waffles?". I don't see how letting heads be non-human suddenly change the dynamic between asimov AI and humans. It's not like we're removing humans ability to be heads and - from my observation - most of your playerbase still plays human.
• "Non human heads will decrease the difference between humans and non-humans, so the specieism RP opportunity will lessen and playing non-human will be less dangerous" - Brother in christ, I have yet to see someone roleplay specieism towards me properly, in a way that's not just basically veiled racism. There's barely any RP opportunity in being a specieist, it requires really HIGH level of RP skills (that our servers are lacking) and it's usually an excuse that we allow for players to just be dicks to eachother. I don't think i can remember any single player that was specieist towards me and didn't end up getting banned for rule 11 bigotry or rule 8 (interesting connecetion). Specieism is a literal excuse to bully other players just for being "different" and i hate how quickly that can be parallelized to IRL bullying, since the only way to break out of the loop is to be stronger/more robust, because teachers/admins won't act on it. It's always just an excuse to bait a conflict or make someone's day worse.
  
  I play lots of TTRPGs irl, i know it is possible to roleplay a racist/specieist game character, but i also know how hard it is for everyone to be comfortable with it, especially if it's player character on player character conflict. The only reason i can imagine it even is able to work is that in TTRPG groups you usually know eachother, have a way to contact eachother and check up if the other person is okay with it, which is not really possible in an ss13 round.

Misc stuff:

• I'd like to see EU MRP revived, though im not sure if there's a demand for it (run polls maybe?)

• Thanks to Deathrobotpunch1 for leading me onto this idea - We could maybe have an events server hosted, where we run high-impact events for short period of times (think of a weekend or similar length), as an example one where metacomming is allowed for period of time or similar. If that doesn't work out, i'd still like to see high-impact events from time to time, but on our pre-existing servers i don't see a possibility for it to be ran for longer than a round or two to not kill server's usual pop.

W- I'm out of W-questions

Anyway, thanks for reading and if you have questions or want me to elaborate please ask, i love discussions (i will edit the thread if i find something i want to add to my campaing)

EDIT 1: I've made a badge for elections with my epic chemistry student graphical skills!

Spoiler:

[MothNyan]

Someone linked me your campaign thread, it makes me happy to see

I like that you wish to protect LRP as well as MRP's different cultures, I think they both have their place in SS13
I like that you wish to listen to the community, not to rule with an iron fist and force your opinions onto others

You have my vote and I'll be genuinely rooting for you, I'll be taking a break from SS13 for a while, but I'll drop in to vote
I hope next election goes well

[Maxipat]

Someone linked me your campaign thread, it makes me happy to see

I like that you wish to protect LRP as well as MRP's different cultures, I think they both have their place in SS13
I like that you wish to listen to the community, not to rule with an iron fist and force your opinions onto others

You have my vote and I'll be genuinely rooting for you, I'll be taking a break from SS13 for a while, but I'll drop in to vote
I hope next election goes well

Thank you for believing in me

[britgrenadier1]

Easily the best campaign thread in the running. You have my vote, good luck and god speed.

[winterseasalt]

easily my #1 pick

[Maxipat]

Easily the best campaign thread in the running. You have my vote, good luck and god speed.

easily my #1 pick

🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

[dragomagol]

[*] "It makes us unique that we have human heads forced" - you know what else make/made us unique? Allowing n-slur but with a letter replaced until recently and allowing slurs in general.

So not wanting non-human heads makes me racist somehow? Insane point and needlessly antagonistic. Doubly insane from an admin.

[*] "It will lead to crewsimov" - the only way it leads to crewsimov is if headmins will agree to it being the default ruleset. I'm a non-human player, ai not listening to me is something I accept myself and i know i will never agree to default ruleset being changed to crewsimov. I want to add relevant policies so that re-lawing AI in crewsimov-esque manner is bannable without a really good reason. (Plus that's an argument I can see why RD and Cap should remain humans, since them being the only ones entitled to ai upload access.)

Why would Nanotrasen give a non-human authority and then just let the ship ignore and bully them, stopping them from doing their job?

[*] "MUH human supremacy" - When i say i like pancakes, you dont respond with "oh you hate waffles?". I don't see how letting heads be non-human suddenly change the dynamic between asimov AI and humans. It's not like we're removing humans ability to be heads and - from my observation - most of your playerbase still plays human.

This works both ways. When I say "I like human heads" you say "oh, so you hate non-humans?" This is a nothing point.

[*] "Non human heads will decrease the difference between humans and non-humans, so the specieism RP opportunity will lessen and playing non-human will be less dangerous" - Brother in christ, I have yet to see someone roleplay specieism towards me properly, in a way that's not just basically veiled racism. There's barely any RP opportunity in being a specieist, it requires really HIGH level of RP skills (that our servers are lacking) and it's usually an excuse that we allow for players to just be dicks to eachother. I don't think i can remember any single player that was specieist towards me and didn't end up getting banned for rule 11 bigotry or rule 8 (interesting connecetion). Specieism is a literal excuse to bully other players just for being "different" and i hate how quickly that can be parallelized to IRL bullying, since the only way to break out of the loop is to be stronger/more robust, because teachers/admins won't act on it. It's always just an excuse to bait a conflict or make someone's day worse.

This is something that I keep seeing pop up in this discourse. We are talking about POWER DISPARITY in a NON-UTOPIA. And the way you and others keep using the rhetoric of "you want only human heads? ok you support harassment then" is not okay.

The way you wrote these answers makes me very concerned as to your ability to act in authority, especially around topics you are passionate about.

[NoxVS]

there was a situation where a player was entitled to killing a deconvertable and cuffed cultist, and the player did so, though seemingly only to be a dick towards everyone around trying to deconvert that cultist player

So to clarify, are you saying this is a situation that you believed should be protected?

[Maxipat]

[*] "It makes us unique that we have human heads forced" - you know what else make/made us unique? Allowing n-slur but with a letter replaced until recently and allowing slurs in general.

So not wanting non-human heads makes me racist somehow? Insane point and needlessly antagonistic. Doubly insane from an admin.

Maybe not entirely accurate parallel since after some time after writing it i can see how it might seem like im accusing people of being bigots, sorry towards anyone that felt offended or accused of racism by it. Both issues were having argumentation built on it being "sovl" of /tg/ station. Us keeping l-word for so long was MSO not budging because it's "soul" and same argument is now being made about keeping only-human heads, that we will lose "soul" if we change it. The only reason i used the l-slur parallel is because it's one of the more recent and definitely loudest ones i could think of. Hope that clarifies my intent a bit better.

[*] "It will lead to crewsimov" - the only way it leads to crewsimov is if headmins will agree to it being the default ruleset. I'm a non-human player, ai not listening to me is something I accept myself and i know i will never agree to default ruleset being changed to crewsimov. I want to add relevant policies so that re-lawing AI in crewsimov-esque manner is bannable without a really good reason. (Plus that's an argument I can see why RD and Cap should remain humans, since them being the only ones entitled to ai upload access.)

Why would Nanotrasen give a non-human authority and then just let the ship ignore and bully them, stopping them from doing their job?

Since imo nanotrasen doesn't care enough about them. I think AI being at odds with part of command could create better (because it's impersonal) specieist conflict than most we can observe now. Why would nanotrasen give authority to someone without a good background check? (We allow antag heads except sec and cap, so lore-wise centcomm should have a fool-proof way of checking for syndicate ties). Why would nanotrasen sometimes give the "station" (assuming you meant station = ai) experimental rulesets that let the station bully humans too? it's because the corporation doesn't care about station-scale conflicts and events and only wants the end result of gaining money from plasma research, at any cost. Plus we have non-human CC admin spawns, so if we actually care about them not giving non-humans authority we should maybe start from disallowing CC commanders be non-humans, for consistency sake.

[*] "MUH human supremacy" - When i say i like pancakes, you dont respond with "oh you hate waffles?". I don't see how letting heads be non-human suddenly change the dynamic between asimov AI and humans. It's not like we're removing humans ability to be heads and - from my observation - most of your playerbase still plays human.

This works both ways. When I say "I like human heads" you say "oh, so you hate non-humans?" This is a nothing point.

Again, i'm not saying you or other people hate non-humans for not wanting there to be non-human heads. I'm saying that lot's of people's response to "hey let's introduce non-human heads" is that it will kill ai conflict, which i think is a too far of a connection to make. Humans in command won't suddenly stop exisitng because we allowed non-human heads, and they will still retain their supremacy by us keeping asimov as core lawset. The "i like pancakes - oh you hate waffles?" metaphor is that it's too big of a stretch to make a connection between those two.

[*] "Non human heads will decrease the difference between humans and non-humans, so the specieism RP opportunity will lessen and playing non-human will be less dangerous" - Brother in christ, I have yet to see someone roleplay specieism towards me properly, in a way that's not just basically veiled racism. There's barely any RP opportunity in being a specieist, it requires really HIGH level of RP skills (that our servers are lacking) and it's usually an excuse that we allow for players to just be dicks to eachother. I don't think i can remember any single player that was specieist towards me and didn't end up getting banned for rule 11 bigotry or rule 8 (interesting connecetion). Specieism is a literal excuse to bully other players just for being "different" and i hate how quickly that can be parallelized to IRL bullying, since the only way to break out of the loop is to be stronger/more robust, because teachers/admins won't act on it. It's always just an excuse to bait a conflict or make someone's day worse.

This is something that I keep seeing pop up in this discourse. We are talking about POWER DISPARITY in a NON-UTOPIA. And the way you and others keep using the rhetoric of "you want only human heads? ok you support harassment then" is not okay.

Power disparity is cool! I love power disparity and i don't think we should ban specieism, but the argument people are making that "non-human heads = less specieism" is just BS. I think there's a big difference in systemic specieism, like AI not caring about non-humans or a bartender refusing to service lizards etc AND John McTider making it their point of honor to flashstun a moth for next 2 hours because they "hate moths IC". One feels way less personal and coming from game mechanics or being biased against an entire group, the second is just highschool bully tier stuff against a particular person. And the latter in 99% of cases i had a chance to experience on myself ended up in that player eventually getting banned for actual bigotry. There's difference between your character being specieist and going out of your way to bully someone under excuse of "being specieist", and sadly most of our players can't roleplay the former properly.
tl;dr we should keep the power disparity though i dont see how non-human heads (heads on our servers have barely any authority or power anyways, at least on Terry) destroy that disparity. You still retain the ability to have systemic specieism by keeping asimov, and the John McTider trying to ruing your round as a non-human will try to do it anyways, whether youre a head of staff or not.

The way you wrote these answers makes me very concerned as to your ability to act in authority, especially around topics you are passionate about.

I can't really prove or disprove myself in position of authority before being in one, though i think my admin conduct is quite reasonable and i'm not going on personal crusades against players that i think don't fit my "world ideal", though i hope my reply can at least ease your concerns, even if only by a bit.

there was a situation where a player was entitled to killing a deconvertable and cuffed cultist, and the player did so, though seemingly only to be a dick towards everyone around trying to deconvert that cultist player

So to clarify, are you saying this is a situation that you believed should be protected?

Since i personally noted that player (which went against rule 4, since they were technically allowed to kill that cultist) no - I think that while antags should retain freedom to do anything they want, non-antag players can end up in rare situations where following rule 4 "you can do whatever to antags" is being dickish to other non-antag players involved (or just based off NRP reasoning) and i'd like to see admins empowered to invoke rule 1 or rule 0 in such fringe cases.

[WineAllWine]

Sorry your rule 4 policy seems completely inconsistent to me. You say you want to keep it but then you say how you want admins to punish against it more often. Which is it? These seem like two incompatible viewpoints.

Rule 4 means that rule 1 doesn't apply to antags or when interacting with antags.

[Maxipat]

Sorry your rule 4 policy seems completely inconsistent to me. You say you want to keep it but then you say how you want admins to punish against it more often. Which is it? These seem like two incompatible viewpoints.

Rule 4 means that rule 1 doesn't apply to antags or when interacting with antags.

I want to keep the rule 4, freedoms both to act like you want as antag and freedom of non-antags to do what you want to antags is our selling point and main strength of us having rule 4. But from my understanding, exempt from rule 1 works only towards the antag itself, not to the players around them, and yet admins feel scared to protect those other players cause "rule 4 is sacred". The situation with cultist im describing - where the cultist was cuffed and about to be deconverted in medbay by a bunch of folks that had holy water supply, and one player coming in and killing (RR by dusting with a shade shard) that cultist just to spite other people (as evidenced by say logs in that round) that put effort into cuffing and trying to deconvert the cultist i think should fall under rule 1. I myself cited rule 0 on top in the note text, just so that no one can go "uhh rule 4 exempts from rule 1" at me. The player, despite being allowed to do whatever they want to the antagonist, still acted against rule 1 towards those other players that put good-faith effort trying to have a better RP situation. I want admins to feel empowered or at least feel not scared to act in such cases if it's to better the server's overall health. (They're ultra rare and require shitton of context though)

[WineAllWine]

Sorry your rule 4 policy seems completely inconsistent to me. You say you want to keep it but then you say how you want admins to punish against it more often. Which is it? These seem like two incompatible viewpoints.

Rule 4 means that rule 1 doesn't apply to antags or when interacting with antags.

I want to keep the rule 4, freedoms both to act like you want as antag and freedom of non-antags to do what you want to antags is our selling point and main strength of us having rule 4. But from my understanding, exempt from rule 1 works only towards the antag itself, not to the players around them, and yet admins feel scared to protect those other players cause "rule 4 is sacred". The situation with cultist im describing - where the cultist was cuffed and about to be deconverted in medbay by a bunch of folks that had holy water supply, and one player coming in and killing (RR by dusting with a shade shard) that cultist just to spite other people (as evidenced by say logs in that round) that put effort into cuffing and trying to deconvert the cultist i think should fall under rule 1. I myself cited rule 0 on top in the note text, just so that no one can go "uhh rule 4 exempts from rule 1" at me. The player, despite being allowed to do whatever they want to the antagonist, still acted against rule 1 towards those other players that put good-faith effort trying to have a better RP situation. I want admins to feel empowered or at least feel not scared to act in such cases if it's to better the server's overall health. (They're ultra rare and require shitton of context though)

Yeah I get the rule 0 thing, imo should be used as a last resort but that's fine.

What I don't get if you're saying 'protect rule 4' and in the same sentence saying you want more admins to ignore rule 4. It's your first policy and it seems to be one you don't even agree with yourself!

[Maxipat]

Sorry your rule 4 policy seems completely inconsistent to me. You say you want to keep it but then you say how you want admins to punish against it more often. Which is it? These seem like two incompatible viewpoints.

Rule 4 means that rule 1 doesn't apply to antags or when interacting with antags.

I want to keep the rule 4, freedoms both to act like you want as antag and freedom of non-antags to do what you want to antags is our selling point and main strength of us having rule 4. But from my understanding, exempt from rule 1 works only towards the antag itself, not to the players around them, and yet admins feel scared to protect those other players cause "rule 4 is sacred". The situation with cultist im describing - where the cultist was cuffed and about to be deconverted in medbay by a bunch of folks that had holy water supply, and one player coming in and killing (RR by dusting with a shade shard) that cultist just to spite other people (as evidenced by say logs in that round) that put effort into cuffing and trying to deconvert the cultist i think should fall under rule 1. I myself cited rule 0 on top in the note text, just so that no one can go "uhh rule 4 exempts from rule 1" at me. The player, despite being allowed to do whatever they want to the antagonist, still acted against rule 1 towards those other players that put good-faith effort trying to have a better RP situation. I want admins to feel empowered or at least feel not scared to act in such cases if it's to better the server's overall health. (They're ultra rare and require shitton of context though)

Yeah I get the rule 0 thing, imo should be used as a last resort but that's fine.

What I don't get if you're saying 'protect rule 4' and in the same sentence saying you want more admins to ignore rule 4. It's your first policy and it seems to be one you don't even agree with yourself!

I want admins not to ignore rule 4, but not feel intimidated when enforcing other rules next to it. I think the described situation is already against the rules, since you're a dick not to the antag but everyone else involved - thus rule 1 issue. Being a headmin has this privilege that your stance on something can encourage or discourage admin team just by having it put out there. After i placed that note i was brought into a several hours argument whether i killed rule 4 or not (i dont think i broke rule 4's spirit or ignored it even, again my interpretation is that rule 4 exempts antagonists and acting towards ONLY them) and a whole policy thread about that situation (end result was that it's very contextual and admins are trusted to not be idiots). The entire thing couldve shouldve ended at one adminbus post from headmin, whether its okay or not, and as such i want to leverage headmin position to save other admins from that kind of unnecessary back-and-forth arguments. Frankly i don't think situation like this will happen in the next term, since it not only requires appropriate context but also usually someone to ahelp about it - but if it does i want to be there for the admin that will end up taking the ticket about it and decides that they want to put themselves under adminbus fire by enforcing rules in issues adjacent to rule 4. (Since that's what happens basically everytime there's anything even a bit related to rule 4)

I'd link the relevant tickets for admins reading this but i think those are lost after host handover.
EDIT: i will link the adminbus message where i started the whole thing, https://discord.com/channels/3268221442 ... 6917900340

[NoxVS]

The player, despite being allowed to do whatever they want to the antagonist, still acted against rule 1 towards those other players that put good-faith effort trying to have a better RP situation.

Does this general mindset only apply to the nonantag side of rule 4 (do what you want to antags) or is it also applicable to the antag side of it too?

[Maxipat]

The player, despite being allowed to do whatever they want to the antagonist, still acted against rule 1 towards those other players that put good-faith effort trying to have a better RP situation.

Does this general mindset only apply to the nonantag side of rule 4 (do what you want to antags) or is it also applicable to the antag side of it too?

Antags should be Big Evil Bad Guys of the round and the story, i dont think we should exempt their exemptions from rules enforcement. They should have full freedom in all cases since they're "EVIL" and "BAD". I do think that non-antags shouldn't break rules to others while applying their freedom to do anything to antags though.

[GPeckman]

I think I know what Maxipat is trying to describe, I'm gonna try and give a better example.

Lets say I'm playing as Joe Maxcap, the nonantagonist scientist. I use a maxcap to blow up John Syndicate, a traitor, and I also catch a dozen innocent bystanders in the blast. Obviously, I would get banned, because even though rule 4 lets me maxcap traitors, it does NOT let me cause collateral damage without a very good reason. As far as I can tell, Maxipat is suggesting that the same logic should be applied to other situations where antagonists and bystanders are involved, even if the harm isn't as concrete as getting gibbed.

[Deathrobotpunch1]

Would you attempt to make some cool limited time events like Dr did? I think those were really fun and gave me a reason to log on every now and then

[Maxipat]

I think I know what Maxipat is trying to describe, I'm gonna try and give a better example.

Lets say I'm playing as Joe Maxcap, the nonantagonist scientist. I use a maxcap to blow up John Syndicate, a traitor, and I also catch a dozen innocent bystanders in the blast. Obviously, I would get banned, because even though rule 4 lets me maxcap traitors, it does NOT let me cause collateral damage without a very good reason. As far as I can tell, Maxipat is suggesting that the same logic should be applied to other situations where antagonists and bystanders are involved, even if the harm isn't as concrete as getting gibbed.

Yup, you got the gist, thanks for a good comparison

[Maxipat]

Would you attempt to make some cool limited time events like Dr did? I think those were really fun and gave me a reason to log on every now and then

I'd certainly want try as long as other headmins don't veto those, week with certain race enabled roundstart or maybe even a weekend where metacomms are allowed. Preferably we could revive something like ehall/events server that's only online for some time for such huge impact events, so that we don't hurt already existing pop (looking at you sybil), but it's something that I'd have to discuss with Scriptis since they're the host.

[NoxVS]

I think I know what Maxipat is trying to describe, I'm gonna try and give a better example.

Lets say I'm playing as Joe Maxcap, the nonantagonist scientist. I use a maxcap to blow up John Syndicate, a traitor, and I also catch a dozen innocent bystanders in the blast. Obviously, I would get banned, because even though rule 4 lets me maxcap traitors, it does NOT let me cause collateral damage without a very good reason. As far as I can tell, Maxipat is suggesting that the same logic should be applied to other situations where antagonists and bystanders are involved, even if the harm isn't as concrete as getting gibbed.

Yup, you got the gist, thanks for a good comparison

Last question on the topic since I don't want to take up the thread, is the issue with the whole nonantag doing what they want to antags when it affects other nonantags? If no one else is involved do nonantags have 0 obligation to attempt to deconvert if possible because it's an antagonist? If you're chasing a headrev and right before handteleing away they flash a random bystander, are you free to then round remove that bystander for being converted even if there is an easy way to deconvert them? Let's say you have them cuffed, you have a ton of mindshield implants in your bag (There are enough mindshield implants in cargo and the brig to implant the entire station thrice over), the new rev just walked off the arrivals shuttle and no nonantag aside from you has any investment in them or this decision whatsoever. Are you free to just shuttlegib them since they're an antag?

[Maxipat]

is the issue with the whole nonantag doing what they want to antags when it affects other nonantags? If no one else is involved do nonantags have 0 obligation to attempt to deconvert if possible because it's an antagonist? If you're chasing a headrev and right before handteleing away they flash a random bystander, are you free to then round remove that bystander for being converted even if there is an easy way to deconvert them? Let's say you have them cuffed, you have a ton of mindshield implants in your bag (There are enough mindshield implants in cargo and the brig to implant the entire station thrice over), the new rev just walked off the arrivals shuttle and no nonantag aside from you has any investment in them or this decision whatsoever. Are you free to just shuttlegib them since they're an antag?

As much as I personally would hate to see it since i think its ultra lame, i think antags should remain free game if no one else is involved, just so we don't enter slippery slope of slowly forcing MRP ruleset (deal with antags in proportion) on LRP. We should 100% encourage non-antags to deconvert antags that are deconvertable, especially if it's easily do-able, just because it makes for a better story, though we shouldn't punish the player administratively for playing LRP on LRP. I do want to believe Terry players are not that bloodlust and wouldn't bother cuffing someone and buying implants if they wanted to kill them anyways and situations like this are rather rare. (I do remember us having a discussion at some point whether we should rule "killing instead of deconversion when reasonable" as working against your team, but then there's no "team" for non-antags, maybe a policy thread would be in order? But im not really interested in curbing rule 4 freedoms when it comes to contained antag vs non-antag action)

The latter one, with the rev walking off arrivals, i think it's against rules both for the revhead that converted that poor rev and the non-antag that gibbed them bcs of "antag kill" since shuttle-area for newcomers is basically a no-pvp zone. If that did end up happening though, i'd offer the killed player some way to rejoin the round, whether it's letting them spawn in as different character or rolling a low-impact midround for them.

[ItzRiumz]

I know I'm kinda late on the support train but I'm boarding it anyway! You're my number one vote!

[Maxipat]

I know I'm kinda late on the support train but I'm boarding it anyway! You're my number one vote!

.

[Maxipat]

Rewrote the non-human heads part that Tattle and Rave pointed out sounds bad faith as fuck from me. Sorry again

[ekaterina]

Hi, Maxipat.

You said something in one of the debate threads that was to me a massive cause for concern, and took you from a top candidate in my list straight to the bottom, which sucked given that you're someone I liked both as a fellow player and a candidate.
I would like several clarifications about it.

i believe there is middle ground where someone throws specieist insults (that arent just 1-letter-off slurs) and it's still targeted at someone in particular, but admins should be encouraged to look into that and gauge at which point it crosses the line from "specieist roleplay" to "using specieism as excuse to break rules". At bare minimum specieism should open you to getting your ass beaten up by the person youre specieist about without ability to fight back lethally or incapacitate them for longer than necessary (kinda like with valid arrests but without arrest part).

Was this just a "spur of the moment" thing or is it actual policy you intend to implement?
How is abomination of a proposal (copying the abomination that was the thankfully-now-gone old "ligger" policy) not just a "soft ban" on speciesism? Is it your intention to ban speciesism?
Do you care at all that this method of de facto ban is of one of the dumbest, most immersion-breaking, agency-depriving things imaginable?
How do you deal with the obvious ban-baiting issues that arise?

[Maxipat]

Was this just a "spur of the moment" thing or is it actual policy you intend to implement?

I would definitely want to make admins pay more attention to the "line-crossing" behavior as a "soft policy" / encouragement from above, since i know about at least several good players that left because of specieism and bullying under the excuse of it - AND I HATE that we let them be driven out of community like this. The escalation part of my take is less of a thing i'd gun for with all my energy and more of a half-solution to the (aforementioned) problem i can see.

How is abomination of a proposal (copying the abomination that was the thankfully-now-gone old "ligger" policy) not just a "soft ban" on speciesism? Is it your intention to ban speciesism?

There's obviously no popular support, not from admins not from players and not fully from me to remove specieism. It is a venue for roleplay, it can create a good story, but more often than not from observation it's used to bully people that can't really fight back cause they're less robust. It is somewhat of a "soft ban" on it, but honestly between banning specieism wholesale and letting it drive out good quality players i'd pick the former.

Do you care at all that this method of de facto ban is of one of the dumbest, most immersion-breaking, agency-depriving things imaginable?

It is. It's half-assed and really just a thing that popped in my mind in that moment since we did have something similar before also in relation to specieism (l-slur). A proper solution (if one even exists) would probably require longer discussion and more brainstorming than me being a lone headmin candidate is capable of.

How do you deal with the obvious ban-baiting issues that arise?

We have, in this situation, a fight between 2 things: possible escalation baiting coming from "specieist" right now VS possible ban-baiting coming from the non-human in case of implementation. I think the latter is more optimal, since the person that gets ban-baited is the one who started the whole conflict in the first place, so it's volunatary whether they want to risk it. Though, since baiting out escalation is already against the rules (if proven), maybe the solution is educating people who get escalation baited that they can ahelp instead of implementing the "ligger policy"? But at this point it's me thinking out loud (and fighting culture of never ahelping).

[TheRex9001]

Heya maxi, besides rule 11 what rule if any do you think needs a rewrite?

[Maxipat]

Heya maxi, besides rule 11 what rule if any do you think needs a rewrite?

Think we're in pretty good spot main rules wise, I'd hide naming policy into an expandable thing instead of it taking half of the site but thats mostly cosmetic.

I'd do 2 things honestly (wording I came up with writing this live without much thinking so spare me if there are loopholes in it):

Add precedent to rule 4 that exercising your rights under it does not protect you from being a dick towards other non-antags as non-antag (see the cultist thing I was mentioning earlier in the thread) (i personally believe it already doesnt but if its written then its easier to follow) and

Dust off headmin rulings page to remove obsolete/redundant rulings from there and revisit previous policy threads to add some more important ones there, to make the wiki page more up-to-date and in line with modern /tg/. Maybe put some of them on the main page in precedents if the team deems it happening often enough.

[ekaterina]

I would definitely want to make admins pay more attention to the "line-crossing" behavior as a "soft policy" / encouragement from above, since i know about at least several good players that left because of specieism and bullying under the excuse of it - AND I HATE that we let them be driven out of community like this.

That seems fine - perhaps positive, even - but it is a totally different, lighter intention than what you presented before.

There's obviously no popular support, not from admins not from players and not fully from me to remove specieism. It is a venue for roleplay, it can create a good story, but more often than not from observation it's used to bully people that can't really fight back cause they're less robust. It is somewhat of a "soft ban" on it, but honestly between banning specieism wholesale and letting it drive out good quality players i'd pick the former.

This just seems like a patent admission that you want to sneak in a trojan horse policy that you know both players and admins are against, which is a bad look on a candidate.

The escalation part of my take is less of a thing i'd gun for with all my energy and more of a half-solution to the (aforementioned) problem i can see. (...) It is. It's half-assed and really just a thing that popped in my mind in that moment since we did have something similar before also in relation to specieism (l-slur). A proper solution (if one even exists) would probably require longer discussion and more brainstorming than me being a lone headmin candidate is capable of.

That is simultaneously moderately relieving of my existing concern, but also a source of concern of a different kind: that you might not ready to be a headmin, to interpret and write policy, if you not only come up with this but then proceed to think it "ok enough" to share in the middle of a campaign.

We have, in this situation, a fight between 2 things: possible escalation baiting coming from "specieist" right now VS possible ban-baiting coming from the non-human in case of implementation. I think the latter is more optimal, since the person that gets ban-baited is the one who started the whole conflict in the first place, so it's volunatary whether they want to risk it. Though, since baiting out escalation is already against the rules (if proven), maybe the solution is educating people who get escalation baited that they can ahelp instead of implementing the "ligger policy"? But at this point it's me thinking out loud (and fighting culture of never ahelping).

Not at all. The human exercising speciecism is using, as conrad calls it, his god-given right. Either it's banned or it isn't, and it isn't. This is a non-issue, normal escalation is already allowed and if you choose to take that route, the consequences are on you. Escalation baiting is already against the rules, so this is a policy non-issue. Maybe an enforcement issue, if at all.

So either there isn't a problem, or if there is it is an enforcement one, not needing new policy, much less that abomination.

[Maxipat]

Voting's open! Good luck to other headcandies!!!!

[britgrenadier1]

Good luck gamer, just two days left!

[Unsane]

Voting for the first Jirai headmin

[Maxipat]

jiraination we lost! but im still satisfied with the results for a first run. EXPECT more of me in the future

[Unsane]

so pien...

[MothNyan]

Rooting for you next time!