Pikl's mod interview

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:47 PM
Ready to get it done now or are ya busy?

pikl - Today at 9:48 PM
Ready Freddy.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:51 PM
okay then, so I'm doing this sliiightly differently to the usual format. There are gonna be a few scenario questions then some server/rule related questions. During the scenario questions you're able (and encouraged!) to ask for any information you want about the situation. You may also 'use' any powers you would have as a moderator in these scenarios. Feel free to ask if you're unsure of what powers you have and such. Remember, we do these interviews to test and observe how you work in various situations that are likely to happen on the server if you were to actually be moderating, so it's best to give it your all! So with all that said.. Let us move onto the first question then shall we?

pikl - Today at 9:52 PM
Ready when you are. Sounds good.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:53 PM
Aye aye, First question: A new player joins with the character name "Vladimir Putin", a bald 30 year old assistant. You do a quick age check and find out that their account is 0 days old. What do you do?

pikl - Today at 9:54 PM
Did they just join, standing in the arrivals shuttle? Or are they actively doing something.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:54 PM
They're walking around the halls after just joining, they don't really seem to know what they are doing

pikl - Today at 9:55 PM
I'd PM them, asking them if they've read the rules. I would then mention that Aurora is a HRP server, meaning names like that are not acceptable, as they would be on a server like Hippie.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:55 PM
And if they ignored your PMs and continued to wander about?

pikl - Today at 9:56 PM
I would PM them more firmly, warning them that, say, in the next 30 seconds if they didn't respond, they would be winded. I would also instruct them as to how to respond to PMs.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:57 PM
Okay good, next question.
You recieve an adminhelp from a player. The adminhelp is not very clear, and just states that they were permabrigged for no reason. How would you respond?

pikl - Today at 9:57 PM
I would ask who brigged them, and where.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:58 PM
They state that they were simply walking toward their department via the main halls when an officer stun batonned them and cuffed them, taking them to security before telling them they were being permabrigged

pikl - Today at 9:58 PM
I would check the antag status of the officer in question.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:58 PM
The officer is not an antagonist.

pikl - Today at 9:59 PM
How about the prisoner?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 9:59 PM
Negative, neither the prisoner or the officer are antags

pikl - Today at 10:00 PM
Alright. I would then PM the officer, politely asking about the prisoner who they perma-brigged. The perma-brigged person is in a holding cell, right?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:01 PM
They're in a cell, correct. The officer says that the Head of Security told them to permabrig the player

pikl - Today at 10:01 PM
Alright. Also, what's the round time at this current moment?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:01 PM
It's about an hour in.

pikl - Today at 10:02 PM
I would PM the Head of Security, politely asking about the prisoner.
In my head, for context, I would also be thinking, "1 hour in is a little early for someone to be perma-brigged." (usually)

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:04 PM
You can't seem to find the HoS. During your search you see the log stating that they have entered cryogenic storage and, the player is gone.

pikl - Today at 10:06 PM
How does the cryo time compare with the time the Officer was instructed to arrest them? I would also ask the officer what charges they gave the man, as typically the officer would have entered something into the processing terminal.
On this note, I would also ask an admin to pull up logs of the chat to confirm that the HoS told the officer to arrest them. (I don't think moderators have that power?)

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:09 PM
Mods don't have that kind of power, no. The officer charged them with murder but never mentioned this fact to the brigged player. From logs you find out that during the time of the brigging there were infact two conversations going on in the security channel at the time. One about permabrigging someone for murder and the other about giving someone (who you see as the player who has adminhelped) a fine for trespassing over the bar.

pikl - Today at 10:11 PM
Yes, well. If it was indeed murder, that would be a perma brig sentence, given that command staff made a majority vote. Did command staff make a majority vote? Also, I would ask an admin to check the logs to see if this player did make a murder.
ALSO. What are the account ages of the officer, and the imprisoned? Also, is there any other way to contact the HoS who logged off? Via Discord, email, mutual contact, etc?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:13 PM
Note that the player who has ahelped due to the permabrigging is the one who was trespassing the bar, they did not infact commit the murder

pikl - Today at 10:16 PM
Ah, very well. Details on the permabrigging someone for murder conversation? Who initiated it? Did the officer somehow misinterperate the HoS's directives, thinking that the player who trespassed in the bar was to be charged with murder, instead of trespassing? Possibly mixing up the people Sec radio was talking about.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:18 PM
It's your judgement, the conversation was started by the HoS, simply asking for the murderer to be brought in and permabrigged before asking for the player who ahelped to be brought in and fined for trespassing.

pikl - Today at 10:19 PM
Did the HoS mention the murderer by name?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:19 PM
Yes. And both orders were said one after another

pikl - Today at 10:21 PM
I would confront the Officer about it. Carefully suggesting, without implanting the idea in their head right off the bat, that they he might have the wrong person. I would see how he then reacts.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:21 PM
He admits he may have mixed the orders up.

pikl - Today at 10:24 PM
I don't believe that this is something that deserves a warning, but I would verbally tell them that they need to be more careful in the future, and that this sort of thing, while possibly an honest mistake, ruins the round for the player who's hulled up in sec for no reason.

I would then make a note, and tell staff to keep a closer eye on this player in the future. Because repeated behavior of this sort of thing may result in a job-ban.
I would also tell them to let the prisoner go.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:24 PM
Right-o, that all?

pikl - Today at 10:25 PM
For now, yes. When I look back at this in the future I'll likely think "Holy shit, I messed up bad right there."
W a i t.
Check if there was a specific murderer in the round, and if they were an antag?

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:26 PM
The murder did happen and was completely valid.

pikl - Today at 10:26 PM
Nice.
Okay, I'm good.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:27 PM
Right-o, You and an admin are frequently online at the same time on deadhour. Nobody else is usually online on this time. You start to notice they have a habit of spawning weapons for themselves at round start, antagonist and not, as well as frequently reviving themselves and even winding people during combat to gain an advantage. What would you do?

pikl - Today at 10:27 PM
Bring it up with Garn or Shadow, as this would be an instant demotion, I believe.
They can check the logs to confirm.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:28 PM
Alright, let's scale it down a little. You notice another mod is powergaming slightly, by picking up items they don't really need. How would you go about dealing with this?

pikl - Today at 10:29 PM
Alright, lets be honest. Am I currently in good standing with this person, and are they likely to listen to my feedback if I bring it up in a conversation with that?
If it's subtle it's not deserving of a player complaint.
Nor bringing it up with Garn or Shadow.
But, if they're able to listen to me in saying that what they're doing is slightly messed up, and actually listen, that solves the problem without bringing them pain.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:31 PM
They're a mod whom you've known as a player for a while. Taking this into account is there anything you'd change in your answer?

pikl - Today at 10:31 PM
Yes, as that doesn't tell me if they're going to listen to me.
I'd strike up a conversation with Shadow or Garn about it.(edited)
I would say something along the lines of, "It's not major, but it's something that may need to be monitored."

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:33 PM
Right-o, onto the server/rule based questions. Ready?

pikl - Today at 10:33 PM
Yep.
House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:34 PM
What's the role of roleplay on Aurora? What is it? How should we enforce it? What standard of roleplay should all players be at? These are some examples of points you could cover, if you think of anymore then the more the better.

pikl - Today at 10:35 PM
Roleplay is taking up a role. It's in the name. It's playing as a believable character. To me, it's ideally becoming your character for that moment. Thinking like they would, and doing something that they would do.
This being said, it's important to keep your roleplay within the server rules. No powergaming, no Mary Sues.
To one person, a character may be completely believable, but to the rest of the server, they really shouldn't have five PHDs.
Mistakes happen, and sometimes it's easy to forget to roleplay something like pain and fear, as you just want to win.
People deserve chances, and that's what warnings and notes are for.
It's people who actively antagonize others, or themselves, and do not respond to feedback or staff support that are a problem.
As well as the average actually malicious person.
So, the standard of roleplay, for me, should be non-intrusive. There's some really great roleplayers in the server, and there's players who pretty much sit in a chair the entire time, then leave, never saying anything.
Both of these players are within the rules.
I think that's about all I wanted to say on that.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:40 PM
Alright, next one, same thing here but with a different focus point: What's the role of action on Aurora. What's gank, where's the balance between RP and murder? What is  the role and purpose of antags and how much should they be able to do?

pikl - Today at 10:40 PM
The spectrum of how severe roleplay levels are enforced is useful to look at here.
In Hippie, it's all action, no character development. Everything is developed to be destructive, and " Fun".
There's the concept of winning on Hippie, with things like objectives and such.
There's little concept of winning on Aurora, and I think that's the first major difference between LRP and HRP.
Well, there's supposed to be little concept of winning, at least. Players don't abide by that sometimes, but, yes.
Action on Aurora is meant to drive a round. It's meant to be something that gives everyone something to do, rather than every round being extended.
And action can be hard to do, which leads to a lot of problems.
It requires somebody who really knows their stuff to create a truly memorable antag round, and that's, just, not average.
Instead, and antag tends to be a player with some kind of gimick.
Whether the gimick works out or not, that's the big thing.
What an antag is doing might be legimitately cool in their mind, and nobody else will enjoy it.
So, they might gank, and they might murder. They might even get fixated on winning. These are all forseeable things, as it's human nature to be somewhat faulty.
That's almost where staff comes in. When the line between narrative and shit-show is blurred.
And it's fairly easy to know when, because I know that ahelps start flowing in whenever an antag makes a large, impactful action.
As far as what an antag should be able to do, I believe that a middle ground has to be made.
Something in terms of balance, and story-telling.
Which is exactly what I believe is typically achieved.
This multi-antag type round thing may be an interesting thing to witness in action, as it might stretch my views on all of this. But as of now, that's about all I can say.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:48 PM
Next one: What are the current issues with the server/community? If any.

pikl - Today at 10:49 PM
I don't have any, really.
I suppose the openness of the server gives way for griefers, but it also gives way for legitimate new players.
So no, I can't think of any.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:50 PM
Alright, similar one here: What are the current issues with the staff? If any.

pikl - Today at 10:51 PM
I do not have any. Not personally.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:52 PM
Alright, last question
How do you think people percieve you as a player at the present time?

pikl - Today at 10:53 PM
Most probably don't know me, really. I view my characters as average, and I view myself as pretty average. They probably just look at me like another player.
I don't start drama. I guess somebody might really dislike me as a person. But I won't really know, and I don't really mind.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:53 PM
Anything else to add?

pikl - Today at 10:53 PM
Nope, that's about it.
Can't think of anything.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:55 PM
Alrighty then! Well that pretty much does it. Would you like this interview posted on your mod app or just kept within the staff ring?

pikl - Today at 10:55 PM
I don't mind it being posted.

House_Of_Synth - Today at 10:55 PM
Alrighty then