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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/19/2023 in all areas
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Example can be heard at 0:02. Disclaimer: I did not know of any other movies/scenes off the top of my head. Informational/educational purposes only, etc, etc. Thoughts? Personally I think it'd be a nice small thing for immersion.1 point
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Well, the time has finally come, I’m afraid. Effective September 15th, I will be fully retiring from Paradise. It’s been quite obvious, in the past year, that my involvement has dramatically fallen; it’s been a bit of a challenge to hold on this long. But here we are—I’ve served Paradise for a full 10 years now—an entire decade. It’s been a long journey, and one that I most definitely do not regret—and one in which I’ve managed to earn myself the title of “longest serving Paradise staff member, ever”. I figured it would be fitting to conclude it all with a story of how I got where I am, today, and all the people who touched my life, along the way. It’s a long story, so consider yourself warned! It started in the summer of 2013 with me just being a regular player on a SS13 server known as “BestRP”. It was a quiet little server, mostly focused on roleplay, but it was one of the few places that was generally ok with having someone with my name and my character playing there---that wasn’t just low RP utter chaos with little social engagement. It was there that I met and got to know Necaladun, MKenner, and Kodos MacArthur. They were an interesting bunch and I often found myself assigned curious antagonist task out of the blue by MKenner or Neca with a message of “have fun with this one”, “don’t’ go too wild”, or “let’s see if you can do this one”. I was something of an oddity at BestRP---these were the earlier days of SS13, and very few things about game mechanics were documented anywhere. The basics were, like surgery and setting up the engine, but a lot of other tasks (Botany, R&D, nuanced combat methods, etc.) were not documented, and a great many more just weren’t even discovered yet. As an understatement, I was obsessed with discovering every little mechanic, strategy, or detail within SS13 and was one of the only people playing on BestRP who had a grasp of those mechanics. Neca later confided in me that he and MKenner were “horrified” about my capabilities and worried that if I were a truly rogue player I could “blow up the station and we’d have no idea who was responsible”. It was here that I also met IcedV, Ours, and ABlueFoxNight/AoiKitsune—these were regular players who I formed a fast friendship with and generally hung out a lot doing various shenanigans (Aoi and I became well known for our Virology Xeno hijinks---with one of us turning ourselves into a Xeno to be other’s bartender personal bodyguard. IcedV, Ours, and I became a trio of nerds hanging out in science a lot). Eventually things started breaking down a bit at BestRP. The server owner and founder, Abbey, maintained a stranglehold on the server. She lived in a perpetual state of paranoid fear that one of her admins was going to hijack the server or somehow usurp control of it, through the code. She also developed a fixation on pushing player numbers up---at that time, turning her server into a TG-like server was the path she chose. This didn’t set well with a moderate portion of BestRP’s playerbase, and especially Neca, MKenner, and Kodos. It was at this point that I started bugging Neca to start his own server. It turns out Neca had already had this thought, and unbeknownst to me, Regens and Ponies had started playing on BestRP to boot. I knew of Ponies from the very first SS13 server I played on, Rocket Station 42. Ponies served as the head coder there, at the time. Unfortunately, Rocket Station died and all its playerbase, including me, were set adrift. In either event, I recalled Ponies time there and encouraged Neca to collaborate with him, due to his past coding experience. I was later informed that Regens and Ponies had spoken to Neca and also hoped to form their own server. After a few weeks we decided to finally do it. Several of us broke away from BestRP, held a meeting, and decided to found our own server. In total, there were initially 6 of us: Necaladun, Mkenner, Regens, Ponies, Kodos, El Diablo Shadow, and myself. These are the original founding fathers of Paradise and the original administrative team. The first time that all of us had logged into Paradise was September 5th, 2013, which is the date I consider to be our founding date (there were a couple individuals, such as Regens and Ponies, who had logged on a week prior, but no agreement about Paradise had been established yet). Paradise initially ran off a paid yet shared server hosting service that was specialized for BYOND. It was exciting, but in retrospect, the service was incredibly basic, lacking, and overpriced. There was no database, redundancy, or anything like that. You uploaded a few files and selected which was the executable. No real tools to reset things, no extensive logging---all basic. Still, it marked that we had struck out on our own. Paradise stayed quite small, originally—we rarely exceeded 20 players. IcedV, ABlueFoxNight/AoiKitunse, Ours, and a few others all migrated over from BestRP. I was even able to convince the person who introduced me to SS13, DaveTheHeadcrab, to join. It was also during this time that we acquired some future admins and coders, such as Heroo12, and Tigercat. Over the course of the next few months Neca asked if I’d be interested in also being Headmin instead of just a regular admin ---I accepted and helped keep an eye on the server and its administration. By December we were growing quite rapidly; we reached 50+ players by that point. That doesn’t sound like much by today’s standards, but that was quite large for SS13 in 2013. It was also around this time I started playing on Goonstation, where I was able to form friendships with Cogwerks, Keelin, and ISaidNo (responsible for chemistry, genetics, and botany respectively). It was through this friendship and working with VG Station’s N3X15 that we were able to bring the very first open-source garbage collector to SS13. As a side note, my time playing on Goonstation eventually led me to being the first and only person to discover Goonstation’s “magnum opus” secret chemical, werewolf serum. A few months later, however, I decided it was time for me to step down and retire; SS13 had become so normalized for me that I felt it wasn’t really filling the initial gap it hit when I first started playing. I didn’t stay retired long though, only a few months; I got the craving to start playing against in late July or August of 2014. When I returned, Paradise was a bit on the decline, but I still met a few more great people---it was at this time that I got to know FullOfSkittles. That downturn at Paradise quickly turned into a crash, sadly. Neca retired again, Ponies’ real life and career became far busier, and he had to step away---there were no other Headmins and no Headcoder. Code contribution tanked, and we lost virtually all our admins, save a few (such as Regens and BoneWhite). To say we were on the verge of utter collapse would be an understatement; at times our population numbers sunk into single digits. Neca returned long enough to offer me the Headmin position again and Ponies also returned for a short period to offer me the keys to the code base in addition to all his authority. After thinking about it hard for two weeks, I decided I didn’t want to see this community I helped found and build die. It was a lot of hard work rebuilding what was lost, and I can’t put all that credit on my own shoulders in rebuilding things. I hired FalseIncarnate as an admin and accepted a lot of help from MarkVA to help get us back on track, code wise. A few senior admins, such as Regens and Kluys bumped up their activity or returned. It was also at this point that I got thrown into the deep end of the pool with respect to coding. I was by no means the most experienced at that time, but there was no one else to drive the codebase forward, so it was a sink or swim moment—again, I couldn’t let this community die. Upon having discussions with both MarkVA and DaveTheHeadcrab, I chose to start focusing on balance and leaning into TG for design cues and coding standards, as they were the highest form at that time. To say the least, this decision was a bit controversial. I definitely made my fair share of mistakes along the way that I take responsibility for, but ultimately, I did try my best and always had a mind for trying to make the server better for a larger portion of the community. This meant standardizing the rules, having less favoritism with certain players, and changing some long-loved balance and design aspects into a healthier mix. I knew it would ruffle feathers, but my motivations were always to try to make Paradise better. By December things were looking up again; our player numbers had recovered to a new peak, new admins were hired, and a few old faces returned. We were also invigorated by a lot of new designs, features, and a more balanced codebase. The foundations laid for the garbage collector allowed us to have improved performance, too. It was also during this time that DZD and Tigercat really started coming into their own as coders, with both starting to make major contributions to Paradise. This takes us up to 2015, when Ponies returned, and a new system was put in place for codebase contribution; instead of me making decisions by myself, there would be a committee of Maintainers; initially this was DZD, Myself, and Ponies. We could reach consensus on what we felt belonged or did not. After the dust settled on this new system, I took interest in designing a canine-like race for SS13. FullofSkittles had put a few of her sprites up on Paradise’s forums; I used her werewolf sprite as a basis and began coding and testing it out—I also mentioned my interest in a canine-like race to Skittles and showed her a few screenshots using the werewolf sprite. Unbeknownst to me, she also had an interest in seeing a canine-like race too and had been working on sprites. We continued collaboration which led to us co-creating the Vulpkanin, which I still consider the height of my SS13 contributions (garbage collector being second). The amount of people who played Vulpkanin, only to discover new aspects, traits, or dimensions of their personal real lives and personality and how it impacted them, has been especially heartwarming over the years. The creation of the Vulpkanin, though…unfortunately led to a dark period for me. You see, SS13 wasn’t nearly as open and accepting back then as it was now. It still carried a lot of baggage from its /VG and Something Awful roots; intolerance was high and furries were especially hated. Needless to say, creating such a race brought a lot of extreme hate directed at me. For the greater part of the rest of 2015 and into 2016, a dedicated group of players made it their sole purpose in life to show up to the server and kill me in game, inconvenience me in medical as much as possible, and trump up fake arrest charges. Eventually this graduated into the formation of the “Furry Freedom Force” who would show up and demand I be removed from Maintainer and Vulpkanin removed or the “bombings would continue” …. then 4-6 tank transfer bombs would blow across the station. When this didn’t work, they then insisted I was their secret leader and because the server wasn’t a furry oriented server, the “bombing would continue until the demands of our leader, Fox, are met”. Like most trolls though, they grew bored and eventually left. What didn’t improve, however, was Reddit. Here, vile statements were often made about myself and Paradise---which continued well into 2016-2017 and didn’t really conclude until the famous downfall of Feweh, who, it was found out, developed dozens of sock puppet accounts to parrot points of how bad I was and especially how bad Paradise was. I can’t help but think forming a good relationship with Goonstation’s staff (who were primarily responsible for handling Feweh) helped in this department. The next few years were defined by a continued expansion of our original scope. As Paradise shed a lot of the trolls and haters, it became easier to focus on code developments. Tigercat, Krausus, TastyFish, CrazyLemon, AuroraBlade/Fethas, and a few others all were major contributors that helped us grow by leaps and bounds. We were no longer a fly-by-night codebase or server—we had matured and come into our own. After this time, we encountered some unique challenges with hosting, but thanks to Alffd, we were able to get back on our feet and keep the lights on. It was also here that AffectedArc began his redemption arc---from, quite frankly, an annoying pain in the butt to someone who was a lot more thoughtful and considerate----and he showed great promise in his code contributions to boot; he later went on to become one of our best Maintainers and eventually later still our server host. It’s especially been a pleasure working with him over the years. Our code standards tightened further, we established more well documented standards, formalized the decision-making process for PR approval, involved the Headmins, and established more community input, which brings us to the present. To say the least, it’s been a monumental journey and one that I am immensely happy I was a part of. I’m happy to retire, having seen Paradise grow so much, and I truly can’t thank the community and staff enough for having the opportunity to serve Paradise for 10 years. I could go on and on, with all the people who I’ve met over the years, but those stories could fill a hundred pages. Plenty of people had high impacts, too, even if not detailed here, just to name a few: Kasparov, Tully, ChibiTaur, Denghis, Klees & Shina Hoonkins, RB303, Von Bon, Alex Shreds, Archie, Doc/Evie, Jovan, Lowlander, Paranoid Sofa, Pierre, Ryan/Zan, DarkPyroLord/Valthorne, Skyping, StreakyHadock, DragonSlayer932, SteelSlayer, Elysian Prince, ADRKiller, FlattestGuitar, FreeStyla, Fludd12, Ansari, Exa, DumbDumb/Slade, Jayfeather, Normaly, RadiantFlash, Sassnek, Saywat, SkyPing, GuiltyBeans, Rurik, Toodles, Twinmold, UC Guy, Kitsa, Mochi, Ty Omaha, all the individuals mentioned in the body of this post, among dozens upon dozens of other players and staff are to name just a few of the people who have all impacted my life through this journey. I’ll still continue to be active in the Paradise Discord and will likely even pop on the server from time to time, so don’t worry, I’m not going to completely disappear, so feel free to drop me a line on Discord some time. It's been a truly wonderful experience and ride, and I look forward to seeing how Paradise develops and continues to grow over the coming years. It’s been an honor. Goodbye, Farewell, Amen. - Fox1 point
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It turns out locking does not stop the spam-hide/unhiding of posts. If youre going to call people out for what you suppose is non-transparency and issues, please kindly dont hide the post yourself afterwards and make it look like we could have possibly hid it. It doesnt look good on us and it DEFINITELY doesnt look good on you. If you want us to be more transparent for issues, lets not hide the replies okay?1 point
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I'm done. I give up. The entire point with the way I wrote my post was trying to avoid that, and you're still maintaining, three posts later, that I'm finger pointing. I'm going to take a long break, and when I come back, if I come back, I'm not going to participate in the forums or on the Discord. You've successfully ignored the entire point of the thread. You win. Bye.1 point
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So you might see this as dogpilling or whatever but Sirryan is at work during these hours while I am off work today so I'll be responding as well. I'm going to start at the very beginning with your first post and go through your comments but before that I will establish what we as headmins do for admin applications and what we can do. We take everything into account; your note/ban history even past the bare minimum amount of time of 6 months of clean history, your past behavior and current behavior on the discord, server and forums and we take into account how much the staff team talks about potential candidates. We weigh each decision we make for applications as letting in admins that bring issues or start issues with the rest of the staff team or the community makes our jobs as headmins much harder than it ever needs to be. We expect people to be able to conduct themselves with a bare minimum of respect for the players and fellow staff. Staff positions are volunteer positions, there's little to no compensation for the time, sweat and tears that goes into creating and maintaining a decent community and for that reason we hold admin applications as very important to us. We can break trust with the community far more easily than we can build it, especially in a niche gaming community that is SS13. We can deny applications on good grounds that it would be a waste of the staff's time to have to review an application if it would be out right denied. Now onto your comments here in your first post. You made a public post on the forums for the sole reason of making it as public as possible, if you weren't trying to make it as public as possible you would've messaged myself (the one who placed the declined message on your admin application) or one of the other headadmins at the time of your denial (being Sirryan or Denthamos). All three of us can be reached at any time on discord or on the forums via DMs. You practically forced us to have to respond to you here, if we didn't we'd look like scummy assholes which we are not as again any of us can be contacted to chat in a civilized manner. Now we warn people who are directly breaking the rules or are toeing the line to much or too often to where we have to step in for the betterment of the community. Sometimes this means we don't address people directly on certain topics such as metagaming, multikeying or other things we suspect people of doing till we are sure they are doing those things then we bring it up to them and warn them directly for. In your case it's your conduct and attitude while it might not warrant a direct admin message regarding it every time, it is certainly not something we'd like our admins to be doing let alone a potential admin candidate. When your name pops up in from multiple staff talking about your conduct and seeing a lot of agreements from the majority of staff then I don't see the reason why I'd let my admins waste their free time reviewing an application that is certainly going to fail. Especially after you've gone and deleted every message after 2018 within the paradise discord in response to your application being denied over conduct, you claim to have experience and training regarding how to conduct yourself but your current actions prove much otherwise with how you've conducted yourself so far. Now I will respond to your comments responding to Sirryan's post. If you wanted a public response to be transparent then it could've and should've been handled much better than fashion, we even have a place for that within these forums under the admin complaint section as anyone can read things that are posted there. Using the suggestion section as a means to paint the process in a bad light is not how you win over the staff or even the head admins or even paint yourself in a better light. While asking a community how they feel or think is fine in some places but allowing everyone not involved to comment on something they do not have the whole picture about is how drama starts over stupid shit. You have notes regarding some behavior and there are no notes regarding other behavior because it doesn't directly break the server rules but it's again not something we want admins to be doing to other staff or even the player base. ("Hello there, thank you for you interest in join the administration team on paradise. However myself and the other two heads have some concerns about your behavior in the public discord in more than occasion as well as concerns in game with behavior. For those reasons we're going to say no to your application at this time, while this application is going to be rejected it doesn't prevent you from applying in the future when admin applications open up again. ") This is my direct quote from your denied application it clearly spells out your issues being behavioral, if you were confused exactly what I or the other heads meant a simple DM is a moment away from getting you an answer directly in terms of what we're referring to. There's never been holding us to explain in depth anything regarding notes or denial reasons on admin applications in the past, I've been making sure that denial applications have been clearly given a reason in a direction without going into detail exactly what it is. Those who care to know the exact reasons have messaged me regarding their denial be it behavioral rejections like your own or for simple note rejections and wanting to get more information regarding it or see their own notes. Now as to the reason our unban appeals and admin complaints are public to everyone and why doing this here is a shot at the staff directly. Our unban appeals are public for a record and accountability as well as our admin complaints as they can go hand in hand, as well as our community deserves to know that we do not let staff get away with valid admin complaints and hold staff to a minimum level of conduct and professionalism. This also means potential staff members are held to that exact standard upon review of their application. You have taken one rejection as the status quo of how things are handled in staff via assumption, all this has done in my eyes and in many of the staff's eyes has been that the head admins actions with your rejection were completely justified and reasonable. We as staff pour countless hours into moderating the community to the best that we can, this includes warning people before banning them and having the appropriate conversation. To me your responses read as you not only don't understand why we permanent ban players in the first place but also that you have little to no understanding of the commitment the staff makes to engaging with the player base in general be it in an administrative capacity or otherwise. These posts has done nothing but toss unneeded shade at the staff in general over what could've been handled in a few DMs between yourself and me or one of the other two headmins to explain and get more info.1 point
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I think it's a bit naïve to make a very public forum post at which anyone in the community (or 3rd party visitors) can see that criticizes the server and then request that the server administration not respond to it. You've always been able to reach out to the heads of staff in DMs and make inquiries as to application rejections or get info on previous notes/warnings. So to address your suggestions and explain some ways in which we run the server: First and foremost: we don't hire administrators to be people's friends or teach them how to play the game within our community guidelines; learning our guidelines and rules is a prerequisite to playing the game and the admin team's job is to enforce them when they're broken. When staff do this It's enforcement, not a criticism of the player; Unfortunately some players take it this way, which therein lies the difficulty of being a GA. Community outreach and good relationship building is an additional expectation of being a GA but not the main one. Constructive feedback and admin-to-player conversations have a myriad of benefits, namely it helps reduce rule-breaking and tension. This is of course, at the cost of significant time and energy. Some admins note hundreds of players a month and ban about 1/5 that amount of people. There is little room in that time frame to have solid conversations with each player, not to mention that some players don't just take notes/bans sitting down and will fight back (I'm done having 1 hour conversations with players over bans). Personally, for me, I worked an 11 hour shift yesterday and got home at 2AM, and now in the few 3-4 hours I have before I go back to work today I'm taking 30 minutes to sit down and reply to you. This is a story that is similar to other GAs who also work, have families, or other commitments which made time a valuable and scarce commodity for them. EDIT: Admin complaints and Ban Appeals already exist to facilitate these conversations :) Secondarily: it's an admin application, which is a job/role application. You're not entitled to an explanation, we don't owe you a full breakdown of why we denied your application and what aspects of that you could work on to be a perfect candidate in the future (technically part of this is already in the pre-reqs to making an app). Sometimes some players are just not great fits for the admin team for a myriad of reasons. I'd also like you to keep in mind that we have 25 applicants this cycle, 13 of which have been veto'd and denied already. You want a chance at being a Game Admin? Don't post shit like this. All it says to be is that you completely misunderstand the primary job of admins and how the community fits into it; If you really have adminned in the past then you should know that players won't just "accept" a single DM about notes or warnings, it will still make them feel alienated ESPECIALLY IF IT IS A WATCH NOTE AND NOT A FULL WARNING. Maybe you should take your own advice and taken this to a head of staff to have a conversation about it. Now you've made judgement of us without even starting up a conversation about potential issues. You've made several assumptions, one of which being the reasons we denied your application and second that you somehow know better than the people running an admin team who have 2, 3, 4, 5, 6+ years of experience. Game Admins are unpaid volunteers, one of the assurances they get is that they don't have to continue having conversations with poor actors in the community, they remove them and move on.1 point