Official:Admin Conduct

Note: This page is moderated and can be referenced in ooc issues, such as ban appeals, complaints, reports, etc. This may not apply to the pages this page links to.

Conduct we expect from admins acting in an official capacity both in and out of the servers. If you have concerns with an admin violating any of these, make a complaint or PM a Council member.

What you need before your application

1. A discord account that has joined our Discord server.

It's recommended to have been in the server for a few weeks, and to have taken part in discussion as admins will be required to check the discord regularly.

If you get accepted, you will need to change your Discord nickname to match your BYOND username.

2. A valid forum username matching your BYOND username. If you need this changed, make a ticket on Discord using -ticket open <subject>.
3. Knowledge of the game rules and forum rules.
4. A decent gap between your last major offence on the community.

This includes server bans or notes, forum warnings or bans, and discord warnings or bans.

5. Confidence in your own skills which should show on your application. Quiet or shy people generally do not make for good administrators.

Previous admin experience is absolutely not required. We are happy to train you.

What you need to understand about being a moderator/administrator

Guidelines

This is a long list. For an easy to read version, click here.

• If you're unsure about something, ask your fellow admins for opinions in-game or in #admin on Discord. If there is lots of disagreement over an issue, go with what the highest ranked admin suggests, or ask in #staff-council on Discord.
• Adminhelps should be answered in a timely manner. Let the ahelper know you're looking into his complaint to acknowledge that you're looking into it.
• Let the ahelper know once you've resolved their complaint. You shouldn't tell them what the resolution was as long as the round is still on-going as they could infer meta-information from it, but a simple "It's been resolved" can go a long way for them to know you're doing your job. If they insist on knowing what the resolution was, just tell them to adminhelp after the round ends, when it would be safe to tell them.
• Don't defer players to creating a player complaint if you can help it. It's a lot easier and quicker to deal with it while the players are still online where you can question them.
• Maintain professional conduct both in-game and outside of the game. It is expected that you take the position seriously. This doesn't mean you can't talk casually to the playerbase, but remain professional on the forums and in public staff channels on the Discord (such as #staff-public and #announcements).
• The adminPM BOINK sound is often startling to players and starting a PM in a hostile or threatening tone will often cause them to lash back at you. Starting the dialogue with a friendly and professional tone will make it more likely that the player will cooperate with you instead of escalating the situation into something nasty.
• Check notes of players being adminhelped for warnings and past aggression.
• If you warn someone, use the notes function and actually type out "warned for x" so everyone else knows when you warned them and what for, in case of future similar incidents.
• Please be careful if you choose to test something you have little idea about. If someone asks something like “How much damage does a stunbaton do”, that can be checked easily, but more outlandish questions, like pertaining to var editing, should be investigated on your own local server and not the thunderdome, as you risk crashing the server.
• If one player is acting like an asshole/spamming OOC feel free to mute them from OOC instead of just turning off OOC for everyone.
• You do not need to be anal about minor IC in OOC violations being performed by new players, things like references to the fact they've been disposaled 4 times this round. A warning will usually suffice. Players who do it with recent warnings/bans should be given a much harsher ban to get the point across to them.
• Don't perform actions just to intentionally piss off players, such as spamming buttons or editing sprites.
• Bans are either to teach a lesson, punish malicious behavior, or remove bad players from the community. Banning for mistakes doesn't really serve any of these purposes (an honest mistake can be explained and in the future avoided without having the players experience ruined with a ban). Of course a jobban might be warranted if a mistake is repeated multiple times.
• Always try to consider what you'd have done in the player's place. They don't have the luxury of piecing it together from attack logs, infinite time to make a decision, knowing every antag, etc. They'll act on incomplete information, they'll act on emotion. Don't judge them vs. perfect actions, but based on reasonable ones in their place.
• Upon banning someone, you are placed in charge of ensuring they understand why it is they were banned and are in charge of responding to any ban appeals they should make. Ignoring a ban appeal may lead to you receiving a strike and another admin having to resolve your appeal. At least have the courtesy to tell them "denied", and why. They don't have to agree with you, they just need to know why.
• You are not required to de-admin while playing a sensitive role like security, the Captain, the AI or an antag unless told to by a council member. However if you need to, you can inform the admins online with you and then de-admin. Just know that they can re-admin you at any time if they need extra help.
• Do not stack sound files, or split long songs into smaller parts in order to play them. This creates a lot of slowdowns to the players especially in foreign countries, and those with bad internet connection.
• Don't be afraid to punish grief harshly. Have no mercy for those who deliberately try to ruin the game for others. Same goes for players who ignore warnings or otherwise repeat bad behavior.
• If you need someone to fill a role in-game, such as an event character or someone who is AFK, prioritize players over admins. We're here to create fun for them, not for ourselves. If you are killing or otherwise acting as an antag as an event character yourself, think twice.
• A good litmus test for whether the event/badminning you're doing is appropriate or not, is to think about whether you would have found it appropriate as a player or not.

Above all, you're here to keep the game fun and fair for the players.