Note, I have cancelled this application. See this post
Preface:
Hello, I’m bobbahbrown. I generally play on /tg/station and have been associated with their community for quite a while. I’m also somewhat known in your community, moreso around your Discord server. I won’t lie to you, I don’t currently actively play on beestation; however, I have seen the request for administrators on the discord server, and given the situation I believe I may be able to help you folks in the short term.
Again, I’m not trying to trick anyone into thinking I am a super active beestation player, I just believe I have a reasonable understanding of how to administrate a ss13 server, and I would be very open to helping you folks out to handle some tickets and take a load off the existing admins. Y’all are good people.
Your CKEY (Including any alts you have):
bobbahbrown
Your Discord Name (Including any alts you have):
bobbahbrown#0001
How often are you online to play/admin? (Timezone):
I’m generally available from 13:00 - 4:00 UTC
What changes, if any, would you bring?:
I don’t currently have any views in this regard, my primary hope is to just help take some of the load off the existing admins.
How old are you?:
22
Why do you want to be an admin?:
As announced, I see that bee is in need of administrators to help run their servers, and I can understand the strain that is likely putting on the existing administration. I’ve been asked to be involved with your community more before, and I don’t mind assisting to help lessen the load on the other administrators.
How long have you been playing SS13?:
I’ve been playing space station since 2011.
How long have you been playing BeeStation?:
I’ve been involved with the community of beestation lightly for maybe around 6 months, and more intensively the past month or two. I will admit that I am not an active player on beestation; however, I have no issue with helping to administrate your server in general, the codebase is very similar to /tg/.
On a scale of 1-10, how skilled are you in SS13?:
I’d say a solid 8, I’m aware of the majority of things but I am by no means a complete expert.
On a scale of 1-10, how skilled are you as an admin?:
Maybe a 7-8, I’m comfortable with the /tg/-derived admin tools, and as a common contributor to the /tg/ repository, I’m very familiar with VV.
Have you ever been an admin on another server? This is not limited to SS13:
I briefly hosted a mrp /tg/station downstream, Helix Station, though it was short lived as a result of the original staff’s interest declining in the project. As well as this, I was briefly candidated on /tg/ over a year ago and was deadminned for interpersonal issues with other administrators. The situation was very unfortunate, but was ultimately the fault of a very poor decision on my behalf. I believe I have learned from this situation and grown as a person; this will not be an issue again. (To respect the nature of the situation and those involved I will not comment further on that topic.)
Do you have any alternate accounts on SS13? If so, could you provide their CKEY?:
n/a
Your strengths:
I like to play around with things, as a result I’m pretty inquisitive and get a handle on new-to-me systems pretty fast. I understand VV fairly well, and admin tools in general are pretty familiar. As a code contributor I am also familiar with the framework that lays under our station, and I am no stranger to codediving to help find an answer to a question. I would say that I have been known for being a friendly person to interact with.
I would say in terms of administrating perhaps a more notable strength is that I am open to saying I was wrong. Ban appeals will happen, and while I hope I don’t ban people wrongly, I have no issue with being shown that my own judgement was wrong.
Your weaknesses:
When I am slightly uncertain I am one to doubt myself, and as a result I will generally request help from others when I may be correct in my understanding of a situation. I’m also one to be gullible at times, or perhaps better said easily led – I can occasionally bandwagon unintentionally.
More relevant to this application is going to be my familiarity with the specific culture of beestation, I will obviously be less familiar with this than other applicants; however, I believe given the similarity to /tg/ I will not have an issue picking this up.
Is there anything that gets you really mad, real fast?:
Nothing in particular comes to mind.
What do you think is the most important trait for a staff member to have?:
By far the most important trait for a staff member to have is the ability to make a judgement call. I firmly believe that no administrator should ever live by the rule book; their role is to uphold the spirit of the rules themselves, and ultimately to create an enjoyable environment for the playerbase.
What makes a staff team good?:
Generally speaking a level of cooperation between the staff is a bare minimum requirement of a functional team, if people are fighting or disagreeing constantly it serves to undermine the morale and viability of the administration as a whole.
I’d also say there’s something to be said for having an environment in the administration that promotes personal growth and development of better judgement/admin skills. People shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, or to admit they don’t know the right course for handling a given ticket or situation. As well as this, they shouldn’t be chastised for making mistakes; administrators will make mistakes and they should learn from them. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have ban appeals in the first place.
What is a staff team’s purpose?:
Oversee the smooth-running of the server, to assist players with issues that come up during the round, and generally maintaining a fun environment for everyone involved. Emphasis on that last part.
What kind of player are you?:
I love exploring the depth of gameplay that is so deeply intertwined with space station, it was the thing that caused me to fall in love with the game in 2011 and it’s also the thing that has kept me around. It seems like every time I connect to the server there is some new gameplay feature or rework, and I continue to be excited for the future of our game almost a decade into this relationship.
In general I just try to have fun, I don’t generally try to stir up drama as any job. At this stage in my ss13 experience, I prefer a more relaxing play session compared to something super active like murderboning. The warden is a pretty fun job for this, maintaining the integrity of the brig is a mission that I can vibe with.
How do you think you will change once you become a staff member?:
Joke answer: I’ll be active
Real answer: I don’t see myself changing much, though I know that the staff culture can cause a person to be disconnected from the playerbase. In my own experience I have been guilty of that, and I know from my interactions with other admins that I prefer those who are more connected to the playerbase. They generally have better opinions about situations, understanding the nuances of the players involved, and I hope that I can aspire to remain connected to the playerbase in any administrative position.
My answers to the following questions are better suited towards Golden than Sage, which I think aligns with my desires to help administrate LRP when given the option.
The clown slips the HoS and steals his gun, spacing it right after. What do you do?:
Open-ended question, I like it. If this wasn’t directly ahelped by a player, I don’t immediately see a reason to intervene if I were to assume that the HoS or clown hadn’t had any other notable issues. If one were to ahelp it, then at that point I would ask both players something along the lines of ‘hey, what happened between you and the clown/HoS?’. From this jumping-off point, I could then judge if more action needs to be taken. Whilst spacing what is potentially a objective for an active antagonist is a bit of a dick move, I wouldn’t take any immediate action beside expecting the HoS to be fully reasonable in killing the clown.
A non-antagonist is sabotaging the Atmospherics loop and pumping plasma into the distro, along with dragging around a canister and releasing it into the atmosphere. Assuming that another admin is cleaning up the after-effects, how do you conduct the ahelp with him?:
Check the player’s note history, then with this in mind start off by approaching the player with a open mind. Ask the player what happened with atmospherics and the can. In this context, given they were sabotaging the atmos loop, its likely that they’re familiar enough with the game to know better; however, this isn’t absolutely the case. Ask if they’re familiar with the rules, see if they have some sort of explanation of why they did this.
If their answers seem to indicate they are fully aware of what they were doing, ie an experienced player who is purposefully griefing, I’d dish out a permanent jobban from atmospherics, and a server ban of something like 2 weeks to perma, depending on their note history.
If they genuinely seem to be new to the game, or new to the server itself, I would still issue an atmos jobban, but maybe something closer to 2 weeks. Depending on conduct, they’d probably receive anything from a day to a couple week ban.
Both of these are contingent on nobody dying from their actions, if players were removed from the round or otherwise heavily inhibited then the server bans would increase depending on severity.
A chemist who is working alone accidentally mixes an explosive mixture inside of his chem dispenser, instantly killing himself and destroying the machine, along with exposing Chemistry to space. Nobody else was injured aside from him as a result of his actions. What do you do?:
People make mistakes, check his note history. Is he someone who constantly makes ‘mistakes’? Let’s not fall victim to the benefit of doubt in that situation, and perhaps consider a short job ban. Otherwise, if they seem to be genuine in making this mistake, I really see no reason to intervene further.
I think in this situation, the tone with which you approach the player is going to be key. Don’t assume anything, just speak to them with a non-accusatory tone. ‘Hey, what happened in chemistry?’, ‘Oh, you accidentally blew up. How’d that happen?’, <player is evidently apologetic>, ‘Everyone makes mistakes, no worries, just don’t make it a habit OK?’
