Staff Report
Your BYOND Key GoldenDarkness55
Date of Incident October 9, 2021
Your Character Name? Oliver 'Unhinged' Door
Their BYOND Key Grimreaperx15
Approximate time and date of the incident 6 PM GMT
Which Staff Protocols (//showthrea...-and-Protocols) were broken Enforcement of the rules
2. Investigate the situation
3. Determine the seriousness of the issue
5. Determine the punishment.
6. PIN NOTES TO PLAYERS
Description of the incident Reporting for mishandling of a staff report - //showthrea...rt-Silencer_pl
The manager in question dismissed multiple solid issues as "appropriate handling".
We've had:
-an admin telling an ahelping player to handle an OOC rulebreak himself
-failure to and lack of any interest in investigating - didn't even ask for the claymore amount despite ahelp clearly mentioning multiple. Went as far as to assume people's intent "wasnt to grief" without even talking to them or checking who it was, despite believing that this was very likely to harm the marine team
-failure to resolve it whatsoever - the claymores were not removed, no player was noted or even received a verbal warning, the IC way of handling it the admin has opted for was not only unheard by anyone relevant to the issue but also has not even implied that something against the rules has been done
-the admin not being aware of extremely old and simple rules, dismissing them as "IC issue" - just like preparing defenses pre-hijack or blocking cockpit access with floodlights, placing traps on them before marines even drop is an extremely clear cut case of Metagaming
-the admin believing that if your actions are more likely to harm your own team than the opposing one, breaking the rules isn't an issue as long as "Rule 4 - No griefing" is followed - to quote "I still maintain that marines putting a claymore inside the dropship in 95% situations is more likely to do more damage to them than anyone else is a IC issue as long as not done maliciously"
-the admin going against what he believed to be the correct enforcement due to player pressure, OR attempting to mislead a player by calling it an IC issue while being aware it was in fact a rulebreak - the staff is here to enforce rules, not the player's interpretations of them. If staff tells me something they should stick with it instead of going "I believe it's an IC issue but I handled it in an OOC manner because you asked me to".
Alternatively, the admin was aware the issue was OOC and that is why he eventually complied, but initially chose to label it as IC, seemingly because he disagrees with rules currently in place. Had it been a new player ahelping he'd actually believe that there's nothing wrong with first drop claymores.
I firmly believe such a failure on absolutely all fronts would(should?) result in a Tmod's trial period being revoked and I've serious doubts whether someone making this many mistakes could even pass through the staff application and receive a trial to begin with.
Mishandling ahelps like this causes so many issues - from people not ahelping because its not being dealt with to people getting (rightfully) confused about the rules.
Since Grim has apparently found 0 faults with all of this he is severely unfit to serve as a manager and I hope a better replacement can be found.
To further worsen the issue, my attempts at discussing this in the discord have been deemed "not polite". When I attempted to adress it, I was once again told im not being polite - because of a simple clown emoji. I dont know, is the playerbase not allowed to use emojis to express themselves towards the staff?
Have the egos gone so sky high I should refer to them per their staff ranks, as they're clearly my superiors and I shouldnt dare speak to our overlords so casually, or it'll be deemed "impolite"? It's especially suprising because I believed Grim was trying to fix the rift between playerbase and staff.
Another case that I didn't want to bring up since I was apologized to etc, but since im calling Grim's competency in handling reports as a manager into question, I kinda have to.
The other day when reviewing a report (//showthrea...-4-No-griefing) he has failed to go through it properly, skipping the evidence section and coming to an early, wrong conclusion - which he later overturned, after a lengthy discord discussion on the matter, on which he would not budge until he finally by sheer luck has decided to review the report properly.
At this point im honestly not sure how he came to a conclusion that nothing was wrong with silencer's case - maybe he hasn't read the current report and comments either? EvidenceHow you would punish the accused Once again, a demotion to trialmod for Silencer - staff hasn't had any real repercussions in ages, this aint your irl paid jobs and getting demoted is not the end of the world, I genuinely do not understand the staff's aversion to dishing out any real punishments.
Cut the promotion times on him by half on his way back idc, just do something about it. No player that wasted their time making a report wants to see yet another wrist slap, especially in the cases of a total mishandling by a longtime Admin staff member - he should have known better. If you're short on admin staff then promote another SMod, im sure there's people fitting the bill.
If silencer has passion for the community and the game and genuinely wishes to improve on how he handles issues then he shouldnt have any problems with a demotion like this either.
Hell if I fucked up this badly I'd ask for a demotion myself or outright quit staff if I've had no interest in improving and showing goodwill to the community.
How do you want the relationship between players and staff to improve if they dont set a good example and accept punishments for fucking up? I thought staff was staff because they cared about the community more than the average joe - it puzzles me that they're fine with contantly getting away with writ slaps for their mistakes up until the point where, as I've seen people mention multiple times its "staff vs community", because it doesnt feel like the same rules apply and it turns into a clear divide.
As for Grim, if a manager
-can't see a single issue with a mishanding of this magnitude,
-can't be bothered to go through reports properly (if you've no time then dont review it and do it PROPERLY later?),
-cant provide reasoning for his decision in either the report or discord,
-hides behind "you're impolite" because someone expressed his dissatisfaction of poor report handling with a joke followed by a clown emoji
then he shouldn't be a manager either. You've plenty of good senior admin staff that you could promote to this role if you really need it.
Grim keeps talking about his admin/staff standards being high only to prove with his actions that they're nonexistant because conduct which wouldnt pass thru a TMod app is apparently fine for an Admin. And no, turning no-punishment into a wrist slap aint making things better in terms of "standards" either.
Im mostly mad because im disappointed that someone who would prattle about it so much absolutely fails to deliver. Shame. Shit like this is why CM player-staff relationship is dead and doesnt seem to improve.