Evandorf's Moderator Interview

StrudelYesterday at 11:34 PM
ALRIGHTY
Are you ready to start the interview portion of your road to Moderatorship
EvandorfYesterday at 11:35 PM
One sec, let me just hide away in my office.
StrudelYesterday at 11:35 PM
Alrighty
EvandorfYesterday at 11:36 PM
OK, sorry. I'm playing chaplain so no one is going to notice me stepping away for a moment.
Ready to go.
StrudelYesterday at 11:36 PM
All fine
Alright to start, here is a lift of all the wonderful abilities that you have as a moderator, I may forget some stuff, so if you have a question at any time about policies or abilities feel free to ask
You have the abilities as followed:
Kick
Wind
Warn
Reset fuel tanks
Check account age
Aghost
Player panel with all the info you will nee, be it notes or anything else
Temp-perma job ban
Temp-perma ban
Mute
Access to information about what jobs a character has played
And some other stuff I'm sure I forgot
EvandorfYesterday at 11:45 PM
OK, they all seem straight forward. I assume Aghost lets you ghost around from your current character but jump back in when done?
And I'm not sure what reset fuel tanks is.
StrudelYesterday at 11:48 PM
Yes, and we will assume you are a full mod for the duration for the interview
(Sorry work is popping off, be a second)
EvandorfYesterday at 11:49 PM
No prob.
StrudelToday at 12:08 AM
First question, you are alone at night a hosting around, when you see three bald people spawn and instantly start causing trouble, breaking windows and trying to activate welding tanks.
EvandorfToday at 12:10 AM
Well, if you're asking what I would do, I would wind them to stop any further damage. And message them to see what the problem was. Maybe they're just new. I would check their histories for notes, playtimes, warnings, that sort of thing.
Is this like a DnD sort of thing where you give me more information? Or should I write out my actions up and through the most severe escalation.
StrudelToday at 12:20 AM
Some will escalate further, the people begin spamming in OOC random offensive phrases and wgw, ignoring the ahelps, one just instantly ghosts after being winded.
(Someone is down here giving me their life story)
EvandorfToday at 12:27 AM
Well, I would mute the spam and move to ban the ones who ignore the ahelps and the ones who immediately ghosted. I would move or get help moving the bodies into cryo.
StrudelToday at 12:28 AM
Wonderful, next question.
EvandorfToday at 12:28 AM
To clarify, I would ban the ones spamming as well, not just those ignoring ahelps.
StrudelToday at 12:29 AM
They all would have been spamming, just general greytide question for a warm-up.
EvandorfToday at 12:29 AM
nods
StrudelToday at 12:35 AM
Question 2: you encounter an issue with a Borg character and a mercenary, the mercenaries were doing a stealthy gimmick, the Borg claims they were killed with absolutely no RP. You have just joined so you don't have full context for the issue, and the other staff member was AFK at the time.
EvandorfToday at 12:37 AM
As a mod do we have access to chat logs ingame?
Meaning, can I see what was said for myself or do I need to get the story from those involved?
StrudelToday at 12:40 AM
They do not, but if you really need to
You could VV the radio servers for its logs
Or ask an admin to make a log
EvandorfToday at 12:43 AM
Well, regardless of the gimmick, if the borg was killed with no RP and the station had no knowledge of the existence of the mercs beforehand it would be considered ganking. If this were a team of mercs I would ask them each for a quick description of any RP they provided and check it against what the borg reported. I would also check the notes, warnings, and other information on the mercs for past behavior similar to this.
StrudelToday at 12:46 AM
(Alright I'm free now, jesus, I'm going to hide in the break room it is never this bad)
EvandorfToday at 12:46 AM
If I found that not enough RP was given beforehand and the mercs had a history of this behavior in the past I would warn or ban as necessary. If there was no indication of previous behavior I would give a warning. If we have the ability to I would also see about getting the borg back in the round.
Also, I'm assuming that you listed temp-jobban and temp-permaban because our bans need to be looked over before enacted fully? Or am I mistaken?
StrudelToday at 12:50 AM
Alrighty sorry, allow me to give some more context, so from the Borgs perspective, he believes that the mercenary just shot him for no valid reason, ending their round entirely with a few shots.

When it comes to questioning the mercenary, they claim and have evidence of the Borg instantly calling out their location to security the second they were seen in the halls, calling them hostile intruders without any contact with them or knowledge beforehand.

In this situation how would you handle this specific situation.
EvandorfToday at 12:54 AM
So in this scenario you said that the mercs "claim and have evidence of" so I am assuming the borg calling out to security is not in question?
What kind of evidence could they provide to me that I would not have to verify on my own? Either by scrolling my own chat, checking comms logs, or maybe verifying with security what was said.
StrudelToday at 12:55 AM
Correct it is a picture of a Borg calling out over comms
EvandorfToday at 12:56 AM
Sorry, I don't mean to get tangled up in the details, I just don't know what kind of information you have available.
StrudelToday at 12:56 AM
In addition to someone saying "hey we're not hostile", and the Borg continuing to call out "hostile intruders", completely ignoring them.
EvandorfToday at 12:56 AM
Ah, ok.
StrudelToday at 12:56 AM
All fine good to be through.
EvandorfToday at 12:59 AM
If I have clear evidence that the borg ignored attempts by the mercs to RP or communicate and simply escalated immediately, then the mercs took the borg down, I'd say that the mercs made a sufficient attempt to interact before taking the borg down. I don't think further warning to either side would be warranted.
Further action*
Well.
I would probably make notes, but I don't think a warning is needed.
And I would again check past histories.
If the borg had possibly a history of metagaming I would possibly warn him.
StrudelToday at 1:03 AM
They seem to accept it after you explain it to them, they have no notes and have only been around for a few days.
EvandorfToday at 1:03 AM
Both sides?
Or the borg?
StrudelToday at 1:04 AM
The Borg side, the mercenary has a few unrelated notes.
EvandorfToday at 1:04 AM
If the borg has only been around for a few days and understands the situation I would simply make note of it and a warning wouldn't be needed.
StrudelToday at 1:04 AM
Alrighty sounds good.
EvandorfToday at 1:04 AM
Actually, question.
StrudelToday at 1:04 AM
Yeah?
EvandorfToday at 1:05 AM
I personally, dislike getting warnings, I don't think anyone likes it, but as I've come to understand it, it's not like a strike system correct? You can have many warnings and there isn't a hard threshold for a ban?
StrudelToday at 1:06 AM
Nah, it's just a viable note, but usually, if someone already has a warning regarding something, it is escalated to a a ban.
It is really depending on the mod, we are given a lot of freedom
EvandorfToday at 1:09 AM
Ok, then I'll stick with my answer, I think since the borg is very new I would make a note and not give an official warning so long as they were amenable and understood what the issue was.
StrudelToday at 1:11 AM
Alright third queston!
You are sitting in the lobby when you get an ahelp from a disgruntled community member, they claim that the staff has really just been agressivly going after them for rules, and are just out to get them. A quick glance at their notes gives you a story of all kinds of bans and unbans, warnings, notes, dating back years. They begin going on a rant about how admins are allowing horrible offensive jokes on discord, and generally a rant about how they feel about staff
You take the ahelp, how do you proceeded
EvandorfToday at 1:17 AM
I would tell them that ahelps are not the proper channel for these kinds of complaints. I'd point them towards the forums or discord.
StrudelToday at 1:20 AM
They claim that everyone on the forums ignore them, and this is the only way they can get a response
EvandorfToday at 1:22 AM
I'd tell them to try messaging an admin directly on discord but that ahelps ingame were still not the proper channels. I'd also make sure they weren't spilling over into any of the OOC channels ingame.
StrudelToday at 1:25 AM
They just close the ahelp themselves, and seem to go offline. They don't bring it up in OOC at all.
EvandorfToday at 1:27 AM
Hm, I would also make a note of what happened. I would want anyone else they may ahelp to to be aware that they were trying to engage admins that way.
Well, moderators. Abusing ahelps at least.
StrudelToday at 1:29 AM
Cool Cool!
And with that, that is the end of the standard interview questions, I have some more personalized ones for you now that should be quick, don't want to steal too much of your time.
EvandorfToday at 1:29 AM
Sure thing.
StrudelToday at 1:31 AM
First one:
We have been having some issues recently regarding staff activity, since we are getting away from summer months and such, people having work and school, if you are accepted for a trial you may need to be somewhat active, just so we can observe you. Do you think your activity will be good for a full month?
EvandorfToday at 1:32 AM
Yea, I'm usually on pretty regularly after work. I don't have children or anything that really takes up a lot of my time.
StrudelToday at 1:32 AM
That's good, and at any time you thing you won't be able to get on for an extended amount of time, you are able to just drop us a message saying so.
EvandorfToday at 1:33 AM
To clarify, you just want me to make sure I can give you a heads up if I did need to be off for a while?
I can do that.
What exactly is an extended amount of time though? A week? Month?
StrudelToday at 1:34 AM
Yeah just like a week or something
EvandorfToday at 1:35 AM
Yea, that wound't be a problem. I wouldn't ghost you, if that's what you mean.
StrudelToday at 1:35 AM
Nothing to bad, we don't expect you to be on absolutely every day.
Second question:
Being a mod isn't always fun, it can be draining on people, it can also ruin the game for some people. Do you feel that is a risk worth taking?
EvandorfToday at 1:42 AM
Definitely. To be honest, it seems to me a lot like when I got my head whitelist and moved Tokash from Officer to HoS, the whole dynamic changed. And even then I still get to play the game. I understand that being a mod will change my perspective and necessarily take some of the game out of it, but this server and community has been good to me for a long while now. Even if the worst case scenario occurred and I felt I had to stop playing, I'd still want to offer what I could of my time and energy to keep the server and community going. I wouldn't regret having done it.
StrudelToday at 1:46 AM
Wonderful
Third Question:
We have had a bit of pushback from the community regarding how we handle rules and such, a lot of us have been staff long enough to be a bit disassociated from being a normal player, and can sometimes be oblivious to how it affects the playerbase. In your honest opinion, what do you think that needs to be changed? You are free to say whatever, and it won't affect your chances of becoming a mod, so full honesty is appreciated!
EvandorfToday at 1:47 AM
Hm.
When you say changes, do you mean specifically in the server administration/moderation?
StrudelToday at 1:49 AM
In all honesty anything, be it lore, dev, or admin/moderation
EvandorfToday at 1:54 AM
I honestly think that the admins and mods I've spoken with so far have done a pretty good job, all things considered. I have had disagreements over certain things and have gotten my fair share of warnings, but for the most part my experience has been mostly good and equitable. There are some times where I might submit an ahelp or have one submitted on me where the mod/admin responding is a little terse or short in their answers. I try to understand that it's just because they're busy and not because they're irritated or angry at me and I know people can't be all smiles all the time.

Honestly, my biggest disappointment with the server is just the synthetic lore, but it's just a difference in taste and I don't think it needs to change for my benefit.
StrudelToday at 1:56 AM
Alright final very important question
Should you be accepted, are you fine with the normal trial hazing
This is including, and not limited to, making you take the ahelps, yelling TRIAL at random times among other memes.
EvandorfToday at 2:03 AM
Yea, that's fine. Like you said, they'll want to see how well I handle certain issues, pressure, stress, that sort of thing.

I'll be honest, even though I've been on the server a while I feel like I've definitely flown under the radar. Mainly because I'm usually quiet and keep to myself, but also because I don't engage in a lot of the stuff everyone else does. At the risk of sounding like an old man using airquotes I don't do a lot of "shitposting". I don't post "memes". Even in discord I usually take a long time to type and use full punctuation. So for a while I've not really fully engaged with the community because you just get lost in that scroll of text. But I've been slowly making friends and I enjoy inside jokes and all that stuff. It just takes me longer to learn them. Plus I have really thick skin so it would take a lot to piss me off.
StrudelToday at 2:05 AM
Wonderful! Also one final question that I forgot about, are you comfortable with me posting this on the forums for transparency sake?
EvandorfToday at 2:05 AM
Sure
StrudelToday at 2:05 AM
Cool cool, Interview concluded.