Nanotrasen Representative Redundancy

[DocSocrates]

Hello, and today I want to talk about a job I particularly like, but tends to disregarded due to the unavailability of the admins.

What is the Nanotrasen Representative?

As many of you are probably aware of, but bears repeating for those of us who are new here, the Nanotrasen Representative serves as an advisory role for the Command crew. As the wiki states, the Representative has no formal authority on the station itself,  and should act as the eyes and ears for Nanotrasen's interests, such as inspecting for proper Standard Operating Procedure usage as well as ensuring that the station survives by advising the heads of staff. The Representative should also be informing Centcom (admins) via fax if there is any breach of the Standard Operating Procedure, or if there is a major threat to the station. A final note is that the Nanotrasen Representative costs 30 karma.

What is the problem?

The Nanotrasen Representative's job is circumstantial.

In the rounds I have played as the Representative, I have noticed that most of my faxes go largely ignored. While it is understood that most faxes don't warrant a response due each specific fax's urgency, some of the faxes sent have been regarding a major station threat, such as an AI subversion, have been generally ignored. Even if the fax itself would be, "automatically filed away under the NSS Cyberaid's records," a basic response to a major threat should be a necessity due to the "major cost" of a station's destruction. 

Most of the time there may only be a few admins on at a time. Trial admins, from what I have heard, cannot respond to faxes. This leaves a heavier burden on the few working admins that may already be monitoring Ahelps, combat logs, and the round itself. Personally in my faxes, one of the last sentences asks if there is an officer on duty at Centcom that can oversee current NSS Cyberaid operations. This is a way for me to indirectly ask if there is an admin that will be looking over my faxes. I have only received two replies regarding an officer; One time an officer replied, stating he was on duty, while another said that there was no officers on duty at the moment. 

While the admins are busy, that leaves the Nanotrasen Representative with his/her advisory position, which I have enjoyed in the past, but have been ignored by the command staff occasionally. Nothing to rant on about with being ignored, but being ignored by both Command and Centcom leaves the Representative as a greytide with a command ID.  The Representative has no authority aboard the station, unlike the Magistrate whom enjoys a stronger position on the station through their interpretation of Space Law. I mentioned that the Representative's job is circumstantial, and this could be argued for the Magistrate as well, but Security generally has at least one case per shift that involves the use of a Magistrate.

A final note on the problem is that, if the Command crew has been failing hard enough to warrant a fax from the Representative to Centcom, an announcement from Centcom generally arrives before the Representative does anything. Fingers are pointing now at Command for doing a bad job, but now also at the Representative for not being able to reign in a Command crew that may not even listen to the Representative in the first place.

All together, this forms the circumstantial redundancy of the Nanotrasen Representative. 

How do we fix it?

The Representative sits in the role-play category, as most of the use the Representative can provide is through dialog. Reminding the Command crew to pay attention to the Representative is not productive. Admins generally have enough on their plates, and granting Trial Admins the ability to answer faxes may be a bit much as faxes potentially have round-changing effects. Allowing for a player to act as a games master who isn't an admin but can read and respond to faxes is unrealistic. So where does this leave us?

The best recommendation I can personally give would be to either slash the karma cost, or don't make it a karma job at all. 30 karma is a bit much for a circumstantial job. All of the other karma jobs, excluding the Magistrate, do not require admin cooperation to function.

Other than that, it's difficult to do anything else for the Nanotrasen Representative aside from trying to make jobs/objectives/go do this stuff around the station to make the job worth 30 karma.

Discussion

I'm going to strawman and say that someone will tell me to suck it up and play a real job, and to them I'll say to stop bullying me.

In all seriousness,  if you have anything to contribute, I would love to hear it. I will be making edits to this post if it becomes necessary. 

Example (11/7/17)

Edited November 7, 2017 by DocSocrates

[Kyet]

Before I became an admin, I was quite frustrated with the lack of admin responsiveness to faxes.

After becoming an admin, I realized that the most common reasons faxes don't get a response are:

- Issue is so minor it isn't worth CC's attention, e.g. sec officer batoned a prisoner - HoS is expected to deal with that.

- There are OOC gameplay balance reasons that CC should not respond. E.g: NTR requests gamma alert due to war ops. War ops always lose anyway - giving the crew Gamma just turns a loss into a curb stomp battle. Another example: command may be panicking about traitors, but if we see there are only two traitors, and 6 sec.... we aren't going to send backup, as the traitors are already badly outnumbered.

- GAs are AFK or absent. TAs cannot even see faxes, let alone respond to them. Ditto all other messages to CC.

- GAs are simply busy playing and miss the fax notice - or assume someone else will get it.

- The fax is unhelpful. Long, vague and/or otherwise time-consuming to deal with.

 

Escalation Procedure:

- If the issue concerns a normal crew member, their head should deal with it.

- If the issue concerns a head, the Captain should deal with it.

- If the issue concerns the Captain, or the entire chain of command up to and including the Captain is not dealing with it adequately, THEN you fax CC.

- This requires you actually at least try to talk to people in the chain of command. DO NOT automatically fax CC without talking with anyone.

 

Good reasons to fax CC:

- The Captain is an idiot, and needs to be replaced. CITE EVIDENCE for this.

- The station is in widespread chaos, and requires an ERT, but most of Command is dead / you're unable to officially request an ERT. So you fax instead.

- There is an unusual situation (admin event) going on, and you want advice.

- The station is being consumed by a blob/xenoarmy/etc and your request for the nuclear codes has gone unanswered.

 

If you think you have a good reason, and CC isn't responding:

- You can call a vote of the heads to remove the Captain.

- You can ask the HoS/Captain to arm the crew to combat emergency threats.

- You can ask the crew for advice.

- You can (usually) call the shuttle.

Edited November 7, 2017 by tzo

[lizardzsi]

The way I see it, as Nanotrasen Representative, your 'role' is not so obviously defined, so to say, and most of the time it boils down to you being an ornament on the bridge or you hang out in your office with your metabuddies since you have nothing better to do. What I suggest is instead of being a Nanotrasen Representative, you should be more like a 'Nanotrasen Inspector'; I used to see Reps play in that sort of mindset, who went through the departments and inspected their performance, wrote a report, and handed it to the captain to make him fix it, or to the individual heads, to suggest what they should do to fix their department. (for example: important medicines missing from medbay, science slacking off instead of doing Research, botany not supplying the chef with plants, who in turn prepare food, etcetc,)

Minor things that I think might make the NTRep more involved:

-It should be him that the tech disks should be given to instead of cargo, and he'd carry it in a secure briefcase. (Would be a fine objective for tators to actually steal the tech)

-I brought it up in the Station Goal thread, that we could perhaps make the NTRep/Inspector involved in it, as in the goals are more loosely defined, so despite the objective being the same, no two outcomes would be the same (for example making the station expand in various ways and such, since there's plenty of place to construct/refurbish/expand to) and the Rep would be the judge whether the project/goal met NT's standards, or his own standards (if it does, he could maybe trigger a greentext via a remote he spawns with, similiar to the one for the nukies to announce war?)

[DocSocrates]

Thank you for your responses, tzo and lizardzsi. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to respond, so forgive me if I need to sleep for a for more hours and edit this post so it makes sense when I'm actually awake.

2 hours ago, tzo said:

- Issue is so minor it isn't worth CC's attention, e.g. sec officer batoned a prisoner - HoS is expected to deal with that.

- There are OOC gameplay balance reasons that CC should not respond. E.g: NTR requests gamma alert due to war ops. War ops always lose anyway - giving the crew Gamma just turns a loss into a curb stomp battle. Another example: command may be panicking about traitors, but if we see there are only two traitors, and 6 sec.... we aren't going to send backup, as the traitors are already badly outnumbered.

- The fax is unhelpful. Long, vague and/or otherwise time-consuming to deal with.

I agree with the first two bullets as reasons to deny action for a station, but I don't believe either of these two are an excuse to outright ignore the Representative. If it isn't worth CC's attention, then a quick fax to the Representative stating something along the lines of, "We're not interested in minor offenses. Contact us once you have sufficient evidence of a major breach of the Standard Operating Procedure."

A similar idea applies to OOC reasons, such as outnumbering a syndicate nuclear squad. Although no intervention from an ERT from CC is necessary, this should be expressed IC in a fax, such as, "We believe the situation is contained and do not see the necessity in allocating resources to fix a problem that's being resolved locally." That doesn't encompass every OOC balance reason, but my point still stands that some kind of fax should be sent.  

Not every Representative knows how to make a proper fax, and in this case, a reply should be made essentially stating that. If the fax reads for pages like a novel, ask the rep to cut it down. If it's vague, then ask for it to be made concise. If trying to deal with the rep is too time consuming, then simply say that there are no officers on duty that can handle the NSS Cyberaid's situation at the moment. The Representative isn't some third party. They are working for Centcom, and should be told directly when their work isn't at NT standards.

2 hours ago, tzo said:

- GAs are AFK or absent. TAs cannot even see faxes, let alone respond to them. Ditto all other messages to CC.

- GAs are simply busy playing and miss the fax notice - or assume someone else will get it.

As I mentioned originally, it is understood that admins are generally busy, or could be AFK as you mentioned. There's not much we can do either than assign more GAs or allow TAs to respond, but admin powers are beyond my comprehension and standing on the station. 

The bigger problem is that, when you mix the three bullets above with these two bullets, you have a Representative being ignored for a reason they might not be able to understand. Is the fax poorly written, or are the GAs afk? Is the situation too minor, or is trying to fix the situation unbalanced OOC? If the Command crew is waiting on the Representative to report back with what CC had to say, but there is no response, should the Representative assume that Centcom has abandon the NSS Cyberaid? 

3 hours ago, tzo said:

Escalation Procedure:

- If the issue concerns a normal crew member, their head should deal with it.

- If the issue concerns a head, the Captain should deal with it.

- If the issue concerns the Captain, or the entire chain of command up to and including the Captain is not dealing with it adequately, THEN you fax CC.

- This requires you actually at least try to talk to people in the chain of command. DO NOT automatically fax CC without talking with anyone.

I agree with the above. If the Representative is faxing about this, however, it shouldn't go absolutely ignored. There should be a reply simply stating that the problem the Representative has indicated should be resolved locally, without CC aid, and that the Representative should focus on bigger issues. That should only be four to five sentences right there, maximum. From that, the Representative knows how to poise themselves to be effective, and if they fail to do so, then they can be ignored. 

3 hours ago, tzo said:

Good reasons to fax CC:

- The Captain is an idiot, and needs to be replaced. CITE EVIDENCE for this.

- The station is in widespread chaos, and requires an ERT, but most of Command is dead / you're unable to officially request an ERT. So you fax instead.

- There is an unusual situation (admin event) going on, and you want advice.

- The station is being consumed by a blob/xenoarmy/etc and your request for the nuclear codes has gone unanswered.

I agree as well. As indicated in the wiki, I generally update CC on a situation as it unfolds as well, but I don't expect a response for those. The problem, again, comes from being ignored. I have faxed in similar situations above and not received a response. 

3 hours ago, tzo said:

If you think you have a good reason, and CC isn't responding:

- You can call a vote of the heads to remove the Captain.

- You can ask the HoS/Captain to arm the crew to combat emergency threats.

- You can ask the crew for advice.

- You can (usually) call the shuttle.

If a major problem can be handled locally, then there would be no need to fax CC. However, if the Command crew has no intention on fixing the problem, then the Representative should fax Centcom. If CC isn't responding, then the Representative runs into a problem. 

The best example I have for this is when I had an HoS and Captain agreeing to the execution of a traitor who confessed to a murder and surrendered. While the execution itself was technically legal, killing a confessor would have serious implications. If any other criminals wished to confess, now they would know that it would not help them in any way, shape, or form. There were other complaints about the HoS, which I included in my fax to CC about the execution. This was one of the only times I ever had CC respond with actual action by sending an inspector from Centcom. The inspector would never come, however, and a meteor would destroy a majority of the security department, instead.

Now, taking a step back, what if Centcom never responded? As the Representative alone, I couldn't forcibly stop the execution, and the Captain was on the HoS' side. I could have the heads vote on removing either the HoS or Captain, but even if I managed that, who would enforce the removal? Should I lead a rebellion against the two? That would lead to rule-breaking if I decide to include the average crew member as most of them would probably murder each other at the drop of a hat. The same sort of goes with other heads, since it's all of security, HoS, and Captain against five potential heads. 

My point is that, once a situation regarding heads reaches the level that it requires CC intervention, it is difficult to try and reason with the heads to a point where they would cooperate. 

1 hour ago, lizardzsi said:

What I suggest is instead of being a Nanotrasen Representative, you should be more like a 'Nanotrasen Inspector'; I used to see Reps play in that sort of mindset, who went through the departments and inspected their performance, wrote a report, and handed it to the captain to make him fix it, or to the individual heads, to suggest what they should do to fix their department. (for example: important medicines missing from medbay, science slacking off instead of doing Research, botany not supplying the chef with plants, who in turn prepare food, etcetc,)

I used to do something fairly similar, but instead I gave a grade to each department and turned in a report with an overall station status update. I stopped because I would NEVER receive anything from CC. Nowadays when regarding more specific SoP and station integrity situations, I receive faxes more often than before. The grades could have been considered minor in the eyes of an Admin, so now when you give a poor grade to medical because they were sloppy, you now have an angry medical crew and an empty fax machine to show for it. I would inspect more often in if had results, but I'm trying to fight for a response in the first place.

1 hour ago, lizardzsi said:

-It should be him that the tech disks should be given to instead of cargo, and he'd carry it in a secure briefcase. (Would be a fine objective for tators to actually steal the tech)

I kinda like this as part of the station score at the end. A simple code to count how many tech disks are on the rep at the end.

 

1 hour ago, lizardzsi said:

-I brought it up in the Station Goal thread, that we could perhaps make the NTRep/Inspector involved in it, as in the goals are more loosely defined, so despite the objective being the same, no two outcomes would be the same (for example making the station expand in various ways and such, since there's plenty of place to construct/refurbish/expand to) and the Rep would be the judge whether the project/goal met NT's standards, or his own standards (if it does, he could maybe trigger a greentext via a remote he spawns with, similiar to the one for the nukies to announce war?)

That's difficult, as what will stop me from making a meme out of it? 

[DocSocrates]

In order to provide an example, I played a round not too long ago where my faxes were ignored. I sent a total of three faxes, which are included here arranged from left to right from first fax to last. I sent a prayer after my first fax, and it was responded to, so I believe there were admins on duty at the time.

In my first fax, you'll notice that I asked if there was an officer on duty. As mentioned in my first post here, I typically do that in order to see if an admin was online. Although I never received a response, I sent the second fax as a result of an SoP violation. Please note that I didn't request any heavy action, such as demotion or death-squads, but rather a pay cut. The final fax regarded a set of blue "Top Secret" documents, which are antagonist items. I believe each of these three faxes were at least somewhat tangible compared to an un-formatted letter. The admins were online, as I originally received spaghetti after my first prayer. 

Again, this further proves the redundancy of the NT Rep.

(Bonus Second Prayer) 

[Malphystoh]

I feel the faxes are a bit baited. Passive aggressively demanding interaction. Just my opinion though. Also that is not a Prayer its LOOC.

[DocSocrates]

1 hour ago, Malphystoh said:

I feel the faxes are a bit baited. Passive aggressively demanding interaction. Just my opinion though. Also that is not a Prayer its LOOC.

I'm sorry if the faxes feel that way, as I don't know what else to do at this point other than directly asking. It's probably passive as hell, but if I had not been ignored, I wouldn't be so resentful.

The prayer was originally sent through the prayer feature under the IC tab, but as the textbox would cut off the text, as well losing the text itself after sending it, I copied and pasted it into LOOC where I was talking with some folk.

[lizardzsi]

Although the wiki implies and encourages that you should send many fax to CC, I think it's a bit 'too much' as is. As in, basically every round, 90% of the time, the letter will be pretty much the same, with the same replies. Imho: the report will be compiled/written/etc 'after the round' so to say, and the Faxing System is more like a tool to be used in extreme circumstances, when CC's intervention is the only solution to a problem.

I stand by my previous comment, that the Representative should be more like an Inspector; rating and evaluating the station/departments, and giving them advice on how to improve. And the way the evaluation should be 'presented' is not via a fax, but, well... I'm not sure how hard it is code-wise, as I really don't know how it works, but I guess you know that little box that pops up after the round, with dumb statistics, like 'Food eaten, clown abused, etcetc?' If there was a way that the NT Rep would have control over it, to fill out certain fields, rating them from 1 to 10, such as 'Performance of security', 'Response time of medical', 'Quality of food', etcetc, and the overall 'performance' would be calculated from that Promotions for everyone!.  then I think it would bring a whole new twist to the role, that encorages roleplay/interact/have a bit of a influence in the round. Either it could be filled from his own customized console, or maybe having an item, like a laptop, for just such a purpose of rating the performance on the go.

 

22 hours ago, DocSocrates said:

That's difficult, as what will stop me from making a meme out of it? 

 

What stops you from making a meme out of anything in this game?

[Kyet]

14 hours ago, DocSocrates said:

In order to provide an example, I played a round not too long ago where my faxes were ignored. I sent a total of three faxes, which are included here arranged from left to right from first fax to last. I sent a prayer after my first fax, and it was responded to, so I believe there were admins on duty at the time.

In my first fax, you'll notice that I asked if there was an officer on duty. As mentioned in my first post here, I typically do that in order to see if an admin was online. Although I never received a response, I sent the second fax as a result of an SoP violation. Please note that I didn't request any heavy action, such as demotion or death-squads, but rather a pay cut. The final fax regarded a set of blue "Top Secret" documents, which are antagonist items. I believe each of these three faxes were at least somewhat tangible compared to an un-formatted letter. The admins were online, as I originally received spaghetti after my first prayer. 

Again, this further proves the redundancy of the NT Rep.

(Bonus Second Prayer) 

The first fax practically screams "no response needed". The entire first paragraph concerns stuff that is entirely typical, and something the HoS should be able to handle. The second paragraph starts with "there is no need to take any action". Further, you say you'll tell CC if, in future, the station needs help, but that it doesn't right now. The only thing you say that merits a response in this fax is the last sentence, which is please reply just to confirm that you've read the fax. If that was the entire point of the fax, don't even include all the previous stuff. Simply send a fax that asks "CC, are you receiving this fax? We'd like to confirm that faxes are being monitored. Any reply is fine." or similar. Get to the point right away. Don't bury it in the last line of a multi-paragraph message that leads with several indications of the fax NOT needing a reply.

The second fax concerns unauthorized distribution of genetic powers, which is against SOP, but again, something that should be handled by CMO/RD/Sec. Not something you need to fax CC over. It isn't until the second paragraph that you explain the heads are ignoring it. OK, that kicks it up a level. Did the CAPTAIN ignore it? If the Captain is ignoring it (and their heads not doing their jobs) then you can write to CC and explain that Command is ignoring SOP by choosing to ignore hulk being given to crew. But as is, this fax doesn't include any mention of the Captain, nor does it confirm that you actually talked to any about them and asked them why they did it before you faxed. This sort of fax is a minefield for admins, because if we reply, without knowing more facts about the situation, it is entirely possible we'll end up ordering Command to revoke genetic powers from friendly crew during a hijack attempt, or otherwise prioritize things that aren't dangerous over things that are. It is also entirely possible that Command had good reasons for making the decision they did, but we don't know about them. In short, this fax treats the reporting of SOP violations far too literally. It isn't enough to say that SOP was violated, you also have to establish that there was no good reason for it to be so violated, which requires you to talk to the people concerned, and the Captain. Replying to a fax like this would take several minutes of dedicated investigation to even determine if we should reply. The more work you ask admins to do in order to respond to your fax, the less likely it is that you will get a response.

The third fax is good. It is short, and to the point. Just bear in mind that it is essentially an invitation to online admins to run some sort of mini-event involving the documents - something that *won't* happen most of the time, because, most of the time, admins won't be making a routine thing into an event like this. This is a much better written fax. The topic is not something that's likely to get a response, but the fax itself is well-written.

Prayer and LOOC are bad ways to ask for an answer to a fax. Adminhelp is better. Prayers are IC. Adminhelp is OOC. LOOC, while viewable by aghosts, is not obvious. Ahelps are obvious. Ahelps are a far superior way to ask for a fax response.

 

Were I in your place, here's what I would have done:

For a roundstart fax: "CC, I would like to confirm that faxes are being read. Could you reply, to confirm this? Any reply is fine." Since admins frequently join/leave rounds, getting an answer (or not) at shift start doesn't really mean anything in terms of you getting an answer later. It is for this reason I never bothered with roundstart faxes.

For your second fax, here's what I would have said:

CC, be advised:

- Genetics is giving out unauthorized hulk powers to crew.

- Neither the RD/CMO care to correct this. There are syndicate agents, and the RD/CMO don't consider it a priority to deal with hulk power distribution.

- I asked the Captain, but they too seemed not to care, being more concerned with the activities of the syndies.

- I ask that CC remind the RD/CMO that they should generally enforce SOP in their department, and leave worrying about syndies to Security. I also ask that you remind the Captain that they are responsible for ensuring their heads are doing their jobs, not all trying to do the HoS' job.

For your last fax, if anything, I would have said:

"We have recovered syndicate top secret documents from one of their agents. We will be holding onto them until crew transfer. If you have other orders for us, please tell us."

Short, and to the point. No reply would be expected.

 

Were I in your position, I would not have sent the first fax at all. I might have sent the third, but I would not have expected a reply to it. As to the second, I would only have expected a reply to that if I could show, clearly, that the whole chain of command up to and including the Captain was ignoring SOP without good cause. IE: that I'd asked them why they did it, and they simply did not care to do their jobs, and the Captain did not care to do his job by pushing them to do theirs. And that there was risk of damage to station (hulks smashing things) from this. With all those elements in place, I might have expected CC to do something, but whether they reply to me, or contact the Captain directly, is up to them. I'd still only put 50/50 odds on getting a reply in this case, even with all my ducks in a row. Without all my ducks in a row (e.g: not having asked them why they did it) I'd put the odds at more like 20%. You can never reach 100% odds of a reply, since 50% of the chance is down to admin presence/availability. You can, however, maximize the other 50% of your odds by getting all your ducks in a row, and doing as much of the investigation yourself, so that you aren't asking admins to stop whatever they are currently doing and spend several minutes investigating the situation and composing a reply. Faxes are about conveying as much useful and relevant information in as little space as possible, on a topic that merits CC intervention. If they have insufficient useful information, lots of irrelevant stuff, or the topic just isn't important, a CC reply is unlikely.

Edited November 8, 2017 by tzo

[Kyet]

2 hours ago, lizardzsi said:

Although the wiki implies and encourages that you should send many fax to CC, I think it's a bit 'too much' as is. As in, basically every round, 90% of the time, the letter will be pretty much the same, with the same replies. Imho: the report will be compiled/written/etc 'after the round' so to say, and the Faxing System is more like a tool to be used in extreme circumstances, when CC's intervention is the only solution to a problem.

I stand by my previous comment, that the Representative should be more like an Inspector; rating and evaluating the station/departments, and giving them advice on how to improve. And the way the evaluation should be 'presented' is not via a fax, but, well... I'm not sure how hard it is code-wise, as I really don't know how it works, but I guess you know that little box that pops up after the round, with dumb statistics, like 'Food eaten, clown abused, etcetc?' If there was a way that the NT Rep would have control over it, to fill out certain fields, rating them from 1 to 10, such as 'Performance of security', 'Response time of medical', 'Quality of food', etcetc, and the overall 'performance' would be calculated from that Promotions for everyone!.  then I think it would bring a whole new twist to the role, that encorages roleplay/interact/have a bit of a influence in the round. Either it could be filled from his own customized console, or maybe having an item, like a laptop, for just such a purpose of rating the performance on the go.

 

 

What stops you from making a meme out of anything in this game?

 

So:

• In general, I agree that every fax to CC should get a reply. Even if the reply is boilerplate, faxes should never be ignored. I've been of this opinion since long before I became an admin, and I make a point of always replying to faxes when I see them. However, I'm just one admin. There is no guarantee of admin availability when it comes to faxes, and I'm sure some admins believe that certain faxes simply don't merit a reply.
• That said, faxes should be a last resort. The NT Rep isn't there to be an investigator, sent to report every event on the station to CC. They are there to advise. First, advise the crew and the heads. Then, advise the Captain. If nobody is following SOP, or there is otherwise systematic failure that warrants CC intervention, only then do you fax CC.
• I know that some admins consider "department grading" faxes to be not just useless, but actually annoying. I find them useful, but typically not worth replying to with anything more than a "good job" boilerplate fax. If you are at all tempted to do evaluation of departments as the NTR, I would say... do it! But don't think of it as a report to CC. Think of it as a report you can give the heads of staff so that they can see what they could do better. So that they can be made aware of SOP breaches in their department. So that they can be more effective managers. If they are totally incompetent, or their department is in shambles... highlight this to the Captain, so that they can consider bringing in outside help. The only part of a routine status report that arguably should be sent to CC is a report that evaluates the performance of the Captain themselves. The individual departments are up to the heads to manage. The heads are up to the Captain to manage.
• Again, the point of the NT rep is NOT merely to give everyone a 'score'. It is to help them improve, or help ensure the situation is fixed if they just can't. Giving them a score an hour after the fact is useless. Better to inform them right away so they can correct the problem, and learn. The heads themselves should ALWAYS be your first port of call when you notice issues. CC should ALWAYS be a last resort, typically for matters concerning the Captain themselves, or positions that have special responsibility directly to CC, such as the Magistrate, IAA agents, and Blueshield.

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by tzo

[Jovaniph]

I don't care if action is not is taken, I just want to know that if I send the fax, I get a fax back that it is received. It's a confirmation that there is a GA paying attention and I'm happy with just that alone.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Jovaniph

[Kyet]

Well, there is already code that detects when people request an ERT with no GA online.

It shouldn't be that hard to detect when people are faxing/messaging CC... with no GAs online/active.... and say something like: "Sorry, communications with CentCom are temporarily offline. Try again later."

[DocSocrates]

I'm going to go discuss each reply chronologically, but I wanted to start with Jovaniph's for clarification. 

7 hours ago, Jovaniph said:

I don't care if action is not is taken, I just want to know that if I send the fax, I get a fax back that it is received. It's a confirmation that there is a GA paying attention and I'm happy with just that alone.

This is essentially what I'm asking for in a nutshell when it comes to faxes. I don't need a response for every single fax, but receiving the first fax from Centcom is crucial for the Representative, as personally, it let's me know that a GA is watching. 

 

11 hours ago, lizardzsi said:

What stops you from making a meme out of anything in this game?

I wanted to use this bit first to apologize for my comment about making a meme of subjective objectives, as I was starting to get tired after writing that first reply, and it was rude of me to to reply in such a way.

11 hours ago, lizardzsi said:

Although the wiki implies and encourages that you should send many fax to CC, I think it's a bit 'too much' as is. As in, basically every round, 90% of the time, the letter will be pretty much the same, with the same replies. Imho: the report will be compiled/written/etc 'after the round' so to say, and the Faxing System is more like a tool to be used in extreme circumstances, when CC's intervention is the only solution to a problem.

In most of my experiences, I fax Centcom whenever a development occurs, whether it is being dealt with locally, or something that needs Centcom intervention. I consider the prior to be a status update that generally doesn't warrant a response, as it's known IC that the NSS Cyberaid is a rather expensive station. Every round has antagonists, and so Centcom intervention isn't needed every single round, but it's only logical that Nanotrasen and Centcom alike should be informed when a group of covert Syndicate agents have infiltrated one of their stations.

As for faxing being a tool to use in extreme conditions, you didn't say it should ONLY be used in extreme cases, so I agree that is should be used in said circumstances, but I disagree that it should ONLY be a last resort.

 

10 hours ago, tzo said:

The first fax practically screams "no response needed".

I'll concede that the faxes I used in my example are rather poor faxes all together, as I was probably just throwing words onto the paper without thinking about flow or structure in any way. Requesting a Centcom officer will probably be the first item on my starting fax, however I still hold that the information I had on the fax itself was relevant to the situation as it was a status update for the NSS Cyberaid.

10 hours ago, tzo said:

The second fax concerns unauthorized distribution of genetic powers, which is against SOP, but again, something that should be handled by CMO/RD/Sec.

I tried to fluff up my faxes recently in an attempt to get more attention, but as you indicate in your reply, you, as an admin especially, would rather see concise faxes. I agree, and I'll also agree that the information I provided within the fax itself wasn't particularly useful, as you go onto say that it acts as a minefield for admins when trying to deal with the situation.

10 hours ago, tzo said:

Replying to a fax like this would take several minutes of dedicated investigation to even determine if we should reply. The more work you ask admins to do in order to respond to your fax, the less likely it is that you will get a response.

Here's where we hit a problem, however. I understand that the admins shouldn't have to investigate, as that's the Representative's job. A fax including concise information, testimonies, pictures, and the like allows for an admin to judge the situation a whole lot easier.

Yet, a Representative's incompetence shouldn't be met with an absolute cold shoulder.  It's illogical for a Centcom officer (admin technically) to look over a fax, understand there is a problem, but outright ignore it due to the lack of proper evidence. If the officer deems the fax unsuitable as a means to take action, then a simple reply to the Representative could easily say, "Please provide a more thorough investigation before expecting Centcom assistance," or alternatively for poorly written faxes, "Please fax a more precise account of the situation to allow our officers to better understand the situation." 

It's not a matter of always getting Centcom intervention because of a fax, but rather a response from Centcom so we can either do our job better or focus on another aspect of the station. 

10 hours ago, tzo said:

The third fax is good. It is short, and to the point. Just bear in mind that it is essentially an invitation to online admins to run some sort of mini-event involving the documents

Thank you, and as mentioned, I sort of considered it to be a status update with room for Centcom to do something. This was the first time I ever managed to grab onto antag documents as a protag, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't goofing up all of Nanotrasen by taking the actions I did.

11 hours ago, tzo said:

Prayer and LOOC are bad ways to ask for an answer to a fax

I generally use prayer as a way for a joke because Ahelp seemed annoying, but I can switch back if it's not the right way to go. I wasn't asking in LOOC, and as I explained, I was showing it to some people in game. It was also an easier way to take a screenshot, as once the prayer itself is sent, it's replaced with, "Your prayers have been recieved," or something alike. 

11 hours ago, tzo said:

You can never reach 100% odds of a reply, since 50% of the chance is down to admin presence/availability.

I understand that admins can't always be available, as they are handling running the station. However, with admins online, Representatives shouldn't have to play a percentage game when it comes to a simple response. Communication is key, and when a "We're busy," "Denied," "Fix your fax," "Intervention granted," or any response from Centcom is warranted by the Representative, then it shouldn't be met with a cold shoulder unless the admins are THAT busy.

You gave me examples of what you would do in my situation when I sent those three faxes. I appreciate that, and will be using it in future rounds. I assume that's what you personally look for when you respond to faxes. The problem is that I have to take into account the admins that are online, and that while you have your criteria, other admins may be different. I shouldn't have to roll the dice with faxes when the answer is rather apparent, but not communicated.