Admin Policy & 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 and Moderators acting in an official capacity both in and out of the servers. If you have concerns with staff violating any of these, make a complaint or PM a Head Admin.

Admin Ranks

New Applicants

• You must apply on the forums following the rules and template to have a shot at being an Admin or Moderator.
• New applicants will start as Moderators
• You may not apply for Moderator while you have any active bans.
• New Moderators must be at least 18 years old.
• Full Admins and above may vote from -1 to +1
• The Head Admins may accept or deny an application regardless of tally based on discretion.

Moderators

Moderators are either new staff learning the ropes, or folks that wish to sit comfortably at the bottom to help out without dedicating the time to the server that being an admin requires. Moderators utilize only the most basic of administrative tools and are not permitted to greatly alter the flow of rounds or grant special requests. Moderators are welcome to be a part of player reports and ban appeals on the forums even if they weren't involved in the incident - doing so is a great way to show your understanding of the rules and involvement in the project.

• Moderators that have been on the team for less than 30 days should have their tickets reviewed by a full admin to issue bans that exceed 3 days. This does not apply to Job bans.
  • As an exception, Moderators may apply permanent bans to players who perform unquestionable acts of grief (e.g. Plasmaflooding as a non-antag), but the moderator is still responsible for alerting admins that this action has been taken.
  • Bans requiring authorization must include the name of the approving admin in the ban reason.
• Moderators do not have the forum permissions required to accept, deny or lock ban appeals. These will be assigned to Seniors or voluntarily picked up by full admins.
• Moderators cannot fully delete posts on the forum, but any posts they report will be immediately hidden from public view.
• Moderators may be removed from the team after long periods of inactivity at the discretion of Head Admins

Full Admins

Moderators which have been on the team for at least 30 days without major issues may request to be promoted to full admins, and will receive additional training at that time. Full admins are expected to try and keep rounds engaging without making the station a constantly chaotic place. Full admins are also strongly encouraged to act IC as members of Central Command, issuing reports and guiding the round as the watchful eye of Big Brother.

• Issue their own bans without needing the approval of any other part of the team.
• Will be granted access to Kibana (enhanced logging capability) upon request to a head admin.
• Are encouraged to answer and respond to prayers (Keeping a means of RNG on hand to determine your responses keeps things interesting!)
• May freely trigger random events without seeking approval, so long as they do not dramatically impact the round flow.
• May host events which are approved by Senior Admins in the #events channel
• Are given the ability to accept/deny their own appeals on the forums, and are expected to have responded to them within 48 hours
• Are given the ability lock, relocate and delete posts on the forum
• Are able to see and take part in hidden discussions on the forums
• Will be assigned and expected to complete a maximum of one player report per week

Senior Admins

Senior Admins are selected by the Head Admins to advise and train other admins as well as assisting in day-to-day operations.

• Senior Admins retain all of the expectations they had as normal Admins.
• Handles the training of Moderators and fresh Admins, and expected to be regularly available for such.
• May approve events but cannot approve their own.
• Handles the acceptance and denial of Mentor applications (wait at least three days from time of posting)
• Will be assigned to and expected to assist with the ban appeals of Moderators, retired and on-leave staff.
• Senior Admins may not overrule others when there is a dispute about rules.

Head Admins

Head Admins are responsible for the whole of the admin team and relating rules/policy.

• Head Admins retain all of the expectations they had as normal Admins
• Handles the acceptance and denial of new Moderators, as well as the approval of promotions to admin.
• Assigns player reports weekly, triaging less egregious reports when there are too many.
• Assigns ban appeals daily
• Also expected to assist with the ban appeals of Moderators, retired and on-leave staff.
• Handles any reports involving Moderators/Admins, even if they are reports involving player misconduct.
• Head Admins have a 1-year term. There are no term limits.
• Exiting Head Admins may be given the Senior Admin position.
• The Head Admin role is an elected position, voted on by current Full Admins and up.
• The vote will end 1 week after it starts, and the candidate(s) with the most votes is elected.
• Candidates may vote for themselves, but can expect to be mocked for it publicly.

General Conduct and Policies

General Behavior

• Maintain a decent standard of professionalism when operating within the community. Insulting, harassing, or intentionally targeting anyone in our community is not tolerated.
• If you are being insulted or harassed, don’t provoke or retort their behavior as it will only escalate hostility.
• Do not spam ping members of the community or staff.
• Game Administrators are held to a higher standard than normal players.
  • Breaches of conduct by Administrators may result in elevated punishments, including but not limited to immediate dismissal.

Playing the game

• When in-game as an antagonist, head of staff, member of Security, or as a silicon (excluding pAI and Drone), you are required to de-admin.
  • If you are the only admin on and wish to play and receive one of these roles, you will still be required to de-admin.
  • If you are currently handling any administrative issues, do not accept antagonist roles that are polled to ghosts.
• Inform the other staff online if you are going to de-admin in order to play. This rule is simple common courtesy to keep the admin team informed and coordinated.

Impartiality and transparency

• Administrative actions are to be carried out within admin channels. Any and all private communications while acting as an admin are to be documented and provided within admin channels.
• While you have the discretion to make decisions outside of the rules, you may not simply bypass rules you disagree with. Use your discretion wisely during unusual circumtances.
• Do not resolve tickets/reports about you.
• Do not handle issues involving your character in-game without explicit approval by a Senior admin. (Exceptions will be made for players blatantly griefing the server)
• Any form of bias in dealing with players is not tolerated, favoritism from players or other staff should not weigh in the decision making process.

Ticket Conduct

• Handle tickets respectfully, do not be condescending or aggressive in admin PMs.
• Players which violate ticket conduct should be at minimum ahelp muted for the round and have their tickets marked as rejected.
  • This applies even if the issue is valid and you choose to investigate the report; do not enable rude players to mistreat other admins even if you can take it
  • Particularly egregious violations of player ticket conduct should be met with escalating bans based on how many times in the past this has been an issue.
• Admins which are not in Stealth should be prepared to drop what they're doing and accept tickets immediately.
  • If you are playing in the round and did not set yourself to Deadmin or Stealth, this means you are duty-bound to go SSD at a moment's notice regardless of what may be happening in front of you.
  • Admins dodging tickets immediately after they have been submitted may be subject to disciplinary action unless a replacement admin is sought.
• Admins should notify players that have sent a ticket when their issue is being investigated.
• Players are not entitled to know the outcome of any individual ticket, and admins are not required to share the outcome beyond marking a ticket appropriately.
• Players should not be informed of punishments not issued to them.
• You may remove all of a player's antag rep if they ahelp asking about it, as they are likely antag rep farming.
• Do not intercept another admins ticket without asking them first, if you need to correct them or change their ruling use asay or PM the working admin instead.
• If a ticket becomes too complex or another issue prevents you from resolving it inform the other admins through asay and provide the ticket number.

Taking Action within a round

• IC and OOC punishments are separate. That a player has suffered IC consequences (anything that is over when the round restarts) should have no bearing on OOC punishments (bans and notes) if the player has broken rules.
• Admins are to cite broken rules within the ticket, and any resulting bans or notes. Cite rule 0 if you are acting outside of the rules but in the best interest of the game.

IC Punishments (Admin Intervention)

• Players which are brought to the attention of Central Command (whether through ahelp or official IC contact) may be subject to IC intervention in cases where it would be more organic to the round flow. Sometimes it's better to hold off on the bwoink and let things play out for the benefit of the round at large. Explaining where a player has messed up can cause their character to dramatically and unnaturally change their behavior.
• CentCom announcements (Create Command Report) are a great way to convey information to players about ongoing events, prefacing/warning about admin intervention, or to add flavor to the round. Announcements should remain IC at all times and should not be used for OOC communications.
• The Head of Security may be contacted and instructed to restrain and strip the rank from other heads of staff which have proven to be disloyal to Nanotrasen
• In cases where a more subtle touch is necessary, Nanotrasen may contact certain agents and empower them as an Internal Affairs Agent. If the chosen agent is caught, Nanotrasen will disavow them and claim to have no connections.
  • Be sure to use a "Custom" antagonist to do this. Hitting the IAA button will make a full squad of IAA in the current round
• Nanotrasen is occasionally known to employ the spider clan ninjas to "clean up" particularly messy situations, such as when station security has been found to be compromised and aiding the enemies of Nanotrasen.
• In the case of antagonists acting out of line, any of the situations above may be relatively easily reversed as well - being disowned by the Syndicate is quite a dangerous thing after all.
• Smites are also way to punish minor IC misbehavior or rule breaks, and are especially good as a punishment for cursing the gods, or otherwise abhorrent behavior in prayers.
• Some questions you should ask yourself before smiting a player are:
  • Did the player(s) involved pray or otherwise do something to incur the wrath of an established divine being IC?
  • Did the player(s) involved break the rules in some way?
  • Is this an attempt to enhance the round for players at all?
• CentCom Response Teams may be used to help enhance on-going rounds, bring rounds to a close, or add flavor to IC events

Joke/Weak Responses Sent to bring life back to the station. These are true powerhouses used in the most dire of situations. Clown Janitor Low Severity Sent to address low risk issues with the station that would normally require a CentCom response, such as reprimanding a misbehaving captain. Intern CentCom Officials Normal Severity Sent to address moderately dangerous incidents that cannot be addressed by current station-staff. For example, instances where most of the security detail has been killed and the station requests aid. These Teams should only be dispatched after the station officially requests aid (or contact with an official is lost) and only if the station is is at a reasonable disadvantage against a threat. ERT Blue ERT Amber Inquisition (For cult/wizard only) High Severity Sent to exterminate all life on the station address extremely dangerous incidents on the station and mutinies against Central Command. These teams should only be dispatched in extreme cases where round-ending adminbus is called for. Normal antagonists should generally not face these unless taunting Central Command, and normal players should only face them in cases of full-blown mutiny ERT Red Deathsquad Honk (Clown Deathsquad) DoomGuy

Notes

• Notes are a form of record, not a punishment. Notes should be issued to document any incidents of breaking rules that did not result in bans.
• Read the notes to determine if they’re relevant to the player’s current misconduct.
• When writing notes, describe the misconduct and how the player responded. Be sure to include the rules broken, how cooperative the player was in the ticket, and any information or warnings given to the player.
• All notes involving rule breaks should be visible to the player. Secret notes should only be utilized for unconfirmed issues or to document suspicious occurrences which are not rule breaks.
• Do not show a player someone else's notes, be it through Discord or in-game means. If they want to share it, they can do so through the OOC tab in-game.
• If a player has a recent note (within the past 30 days) for a similar type of incident, do not note the player again - apply at least a short ban.
• Notes can only be appealed if the note is invalid AND it has been less than three months since it was applied. This does not include wrongfully applied ban-notes as those should have had their record already deleted as written in the bans section.

Bans

• Job bans are to be given out when a player has shown to be too incompetent or unwilling to learn to play as a role properly without compromising the game for others.
  • If a player is being banned for an inability to be responsible with positions of authority, the player should be banned from all of Security and Head roles.
  • If a player is being banned for an inability to follow silicon laws, the player should be banned from AI, Cyborg, and Positronic Brain.
  • If a player is violating antagonist conduct, they should be banned from ALL antagonist roles, not just the one they are violating.
  • If a player is abusing gimmicky or assistant roles to be disruptive, they should be banned from ALL of them (Clown, Mime, Gimmick, Assistant).
  • Players circumventing job bans via job re-assignment should be given a server ban.
• Server bans are to be given out when a player has shown to be non-compliant with our rules or is actively malicious towards the server, the staff, or other players.
  • All refusals to follow rules, regardless of reasoning, should be met with an immediate permanent ban.
• Repeat offenses will be met with escalating punishment (e.g. Note > Minor > Major > Perma)
• Wrongfully applied bans that have been successfully appealed do not count towards escalating punishment, and should have the record deleted
• Appealed bans that were not wrongfully applied remain on the player's record.
• Self-requested role bans are to be denied.
  • Self-requested server bans can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Approved bans will be permanent and unappealable.

Permanent Bans

There are three varieties of permanent bans which may be issued by admins:

• Permanent until appealed - for players who have disconnected mid-ticket or otherwise need to be forced to explain some situation on the forums. These bans may be lifted at the banning admin’s discretion just like other normal bans are.
• Permanent until a vouch - Issued due to continued poor behavior, extreme griefing, ban-evasion or otherwise as a direct result of player actions. Unless the ban is found to be outrageously unwarranted by staff, these bans will require a 1 year waiting period and a vouch for good behavior from another server before the ban will be lifted. Only head admins may handle appeals involving “permanent until appeal with vouch” bans, and they are not subject to individual admin discretion to be lifted early.
• Total community removal - Issued to players who are thought to be irredeemable. If you have been handed one of these, you have truly messed up and will not be allowed back into the community under any circumstances. Total community removals are reserved for players who have been permanently banned again after receiving a vouch, those who repeatedly evade bans or those who have been voted out of the community by staff.
• R5 removal - Issued to players who are found to be under our age requirement. These bans may only be issued by Head Administrators and are to be suppressed to prevent them from being listed by our API. If the exact age is known, the ban can be set to automatically expire when the player is presumed to meet our requirements. Otherwise, the ban is permanent. These bans are unappealable.

Special Conduct and Policies

Creation of additional Antagonists

Antagonists should not be added during extended rounds, but random events that do not trigger antagonists may still be manipulated.

• Mid-round antagonists should only be added when it is sensible to make the round more interesting (usualy when exsisting antags are dead or ineffective)
• Mid-round antagonists should almost always be randomly selected.
• Admins manipulating antagonist spawning may not take the antagonist roles they have influenced or created.

Ending rounds

Rounds should be allowed to conclude naturally under most circumstances. However, rounds that go on for too long or have substantial issues may be pushed towards their natural end artificially under these guidelines.

When to encourage a round to end

• Rounds that exceed 90-minutes that have no clear end in sight
• Issues with the server that negatively impact game performance and/or player experience
• To accommodate a scheduled admin event
• To accommodate important security/bug fixes (At a maintainer's discretion)
• To accommodate potentially unstable/important test merges (At a maintainer's discretion)

How to encourage a round to end

1. Coercing command staff to complete station objectives or to evacuate through roleplay means (Sending a CC official, secret announcements, etc.)
2. Triggering minor "random" events and creating mid-round antagonists to help encourage an evacuation
3. Triggering severe "random" events and/or creating failures within established station infrastructure (Such as disabling telecommunications)
4. If all else fails, total station destruction and/or round-ending antagonists (Lone Operatives are preferable) may be spawned.

Event protocol

• Admin Events are large-scale modifications to the round that would dramatically affect the typical flow of the game. When doing an admin event, you must do the following:

• Before the event even begins a player vote must be held (OOC Tab) with a majority in favor of participating in the event.
  • The vote should not specify the details of the event, only that one is to be held.
• An admin announcement must be made explaining that an admin event is occurring, any information or expectations from the players must also be included. If an exemption to any rules is required, that must be stated as well.
• The admin(s) holding the event and managing it’s construction are responsible to make sure the event and round are done properly.
• Events must have the approval of a Senior Admin or higher before occurring.
  • Events that change the rules must be approved by a Head Admin
• Actions with do not dramatically affect normal round flow are not considered to be an admin event and do not require authorization.
• Examples of actions which are not an event requiring senior approval:
  • Forcing a secret game mode before a round has started, so long as the mode being forced is in rotation.
  • Triggering a random event within a current round
  • Creating a custom antagonist which can operate within normal antagonist conduct and does not alter the normal flow of a round for others

Antagonist Tokens

• Antagonist tokens are granted only in two rare circumstances:
  • When the player's antagonist round is inappropriately affected by an Administrator's interference.
  • Admins may grant the token at the direction of the Head Administrators.
• Players which have antag rounds griefed or ruined by other influences may have up to 100 antag rep returned to them.
• Antagonist tokens may not be redeemed on extended or conversion rounds. You should not disclose the exact round type when refusing to grant a token redemption
• Antagonist tokens may not be traded
• Token redemptions must take place in the lobby, tokens cannot be redeemed once a player has entered the round
• Antagonist tokens may only be redeemed for the following roles:
  • Traitor
  • Changeling
  • Heretic
  • Malfunctioning AI
  • Blood Brother (choose partner)
  • Abductor(s) (choose partner, or solo)
  • Revenant
  • Morph
  • Nightmare
  • Ninja
  • Obsessed
  • Slime
  • Sentient Station Pet or Monkey (act as an antagonist if you wish)
• Antagonist token may only be redeemed for the following roles if the same role is not already present in the ongoing round. The exact reasoning for the denial should be withheld to prevent meta-gaming.
  • Blob
  • Space Dragon
  • Wizard
  • Swarmer
  • Lone Operative (Should not be added if there are nuke-ops)
• Admins have discretion over when antagonist tokens can be redeemed; if the round is too chaotic, they can defer redemption to another round. The exact reasoning for deferral should be kept vague to prevent players from guessing which antagonists are present in the round.

Admin Strikes and Demotion

• Admin strikes are issued by a Head Admin as a punishment for breach of conduct.
• When an Admin receives a total of three recent active strikes they are to be demoted from their position immediately.
  • Administrators may also be removed at any time per the discretion of the Head Administrators.
• Violating the Admin Conduct will be judged based on what happened, how it happened, and external factors
• Admin strikes are removed by a Head Admin by a unanimous agreement to repeal the strikes.
• Moderators need only 1 strike to be removed from their position.
• The demotions of Senior Admins are to be handled by the Head Admins. Depending on the strike(s), they may be demoted to Admin or removed from staff completely.

Legal and Operations Policy

• Sensitive Information (Restricted Channel Contents)
  • The contents of administrative/staff channels is protected, and should not be released without the express authorization of relevant project leadership and consent of all parties involved.
  • Game Logs may only be provided after sufficient sanitization, including the removal of Personal Information.
  • Game Logs may only be provided for official purposes.
• Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
  • This includes information such as Hardware Identifiers, IP Addresses, as well as other sensitive identifying information.
  • Player data must NEVER be released without express consent of the Head Administrators.
  • Staff is prohibited from requesting IDs, photos, or any other directly identifiable information; even for the purposes of age verification.
  • Malicious use of data will result in immediate, irrevocable, ejection from the community and possible legal action.