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

General Admin Conduct, Rules, and Expectations

Admin Rules

Headmins will often write directives that admins should follow. These are found here.
Be in IRC or Discord if you are adminning on the servers.
Don't cheat. Do not use admin powers for your own benefit. Don't use your powers to abuse other players.
Don't handle an adminhelp that involves you. Admins can't involve themselves as both an admin and player in a matter. This also means adminhelping like any other player would if you want to report an issue. Another admin will be needed to help you.
Don't interfere with another admin's ban or adminhelp unless requested. Feel free to point out important missed details or useful information however. Higher-ranked admins are encouraged to advise and guide other admins, but overruling someone else's ban falls to the headmins.
Privacy is expected by the players. Do not publicize IP(s) and computer IDs (cids) anywhere in game or outside.
Don't be a hypocrite. If you're doing something you'd normally ban someone for doing, you're breaking this.
Don't spam sounds and events. If you're queuing sounds one after the other, or if you're running an event every day, you're doing it too often.

Rule 9 Bans, Evidence, and Conduct

Do not apply underage bans on a suspicion. Concrete, ethically-obtained evidence sourced from the person being banned is what constitutes acceptable proof.
Under no circumstance is it acceptable to seek out a player's age beyond asking them. Seeking out their age/info through external sources such as other websites, communities, and people is strictly prohibited.
- Exception: It is acceptable ban players who have admitted to or have been banned for being underage in other SS13 communities.
  - If the ban is from another SS13 community, the ban's evidence must be: legitimate, readily available, reviewed by the banning admin, and not acquired through external sources (as previously mentioned). In other words, the evidence for this ban must be very strong and fit the standards for what we'd ban for on /tg/. Few things besides admission from the person banned qualifies for this.
If a player's age is brought to the administration's attention by a third party, this information should not be acted upon. This is to discourage people seeking out each others' information, as this has historically lead to really bad situations.
- Exception: Third parties reporting someone admitting to being underage is acceptable ONLY if reported privately with 24 hours. The admission MUST be within an official /tg/Station13 channel (the official Discord server, forums, OOC chat, etc.).
Bring all underage accusations made either by players or admins directly to the current head admin team to investigate.

Rule 11 (Bigotry) Enforcement Guidelines

Bigotry - noun

big·ot·ry ∣ \ˈbi-gə-trē\

acts or beliefs characteristic of a bigot

Bigot - noun

big·ot ∣ \ˈbi-gət\

One who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

When deciding rather or not to enforce this rule on a player, as well as how severe of an enforcement, please consider the following questions:

Are they expressing hatred or intolerance toward a protected group (race, sex, gender, disability, orientation (note: both majorities and minorities count))?
How likely are they to know that their actions/words are expressing hatred or intolerance toward a protected group?
Assuming they read and remember the rules, how likely are they to make the connection that their conduct is not allowed? (Not all of our players come from first world country with a culture that places an emphasis on promoting tolerance and sensitivity)
Have they tried to previously claim instances were accidental references but they just keep accidentally being a bigot?

It's ok to give somebody a warning or a lighter punishment at first and crack down harder if they keep it up.

And finally, remember, the goal is to remove the 'expression' of bigotry from the community, not to establish a thought crime against bigots, they can feel how ever they want as long as they can keep it to themselves.

"Do Not Joke About Doxing" Guidelines

When it was made, the idea was that the rule is worded strictly to warn players that the line between first-and-only-warning and no-warning ban is thin and should not be played with.

The kind of jokes in our minds at the time was people making light of somebody getting doxxed, or "jokingly" encouraging somebody to dox somebody else, or talking about how funny it would be if somebody got doxxed.

General Admin Guidelines

If you're unsure about something, ask your fellow admins for opinions in game and on adminbus. If there is lots of disagreement over an issue, ask a Head Admin for clarification.
Maintain professional conduct both in game and outside of the game. It is expected that you take the position seriously. This doesn't mean you can't talk casually to the playerbase, but remain professional on the forums, as well as on other Space Station 13 communities.
Please be careful if you choose to ‘test’ something you have little idea about. If someone asks something like “How much damage does a stunbaton do”, that can be checked easily, but more outlandish questions, like pertaining to var editing, should be investigated on your own local server and not the thunderdome, as you risk crashing the server.
You're expected to de-admin while playing a sensitive role like security, the Captain, or the AI. You get to avoid the barrage of metainfo, and we can avoid player suspicions of admins cheating (Yes, we've had this real issue before).
If you've opened a ticket during a round, do not readmin until after the ticket has been resolved. If a ticket about you has been opened, discussion regarding it should be kept to ahelps only.
Admins who use admin buttons to mess with their friends or players at random are rolling the die when it comes to admin complaints and do so at their own risk. If new admins are picking up bad habits from watching tenured admins, those admins may be held accountable.
- Basically, be sure to respect player boundaries when it comes to messing with them, and be responsible for the results of your actions.

Event and Badminning Guidelines

Carefully consider factors like the current server population, time of round, how many afk people there are, how many dead people there are, whether people are enjoying the round already or busy with projects, etc. before you start pressing buttons.
Do not interfere or try to add your own spice to events run by other admins.
If you need someone to fill a role in-game, such as an event character or someone who is AFK, prioritize players over admins. We're here to create fun for them, not for ourselves. If you are killing or otherwise acting as an antag as an event character yourself, think twice.
Do not stack sound files, or split long songs into smaller parts in order to play them. This creates a lot of slowdowns to the players especially in foreign countries, and those with bad internet connection.
A good litmus test for whether the event/badminning you're doing is appropriate or not, is to think about whether you would have found it appropriate as a player or not.
Above all, you're here to keep the game fun and fair for the players.

Modifying Notes and Bans

Do not modify non-secret notes/bans outside of appeals unless it either benefits the player in question or you are correcting an error within a reasonable period of time of it being placed.
- Each new incident must result in the placement of a new note, rather than the modification of a placed note.
If in doubt about editing a note or in a circumstance falling outside of the above, refer to the current head admin team for guidance.