About administration and how to understand them.

[robveelben]

I think this needed to be made as a lot of people do not understand the workings of a admin in larger communities in gaming why they can be harsh and why they do things they do.

Before I go deeper into this I have been a admin for a gamming community and larger servers on other games before I played SS13 so I do have some general understanding about this topic on communities that are larger then 100+ players and how general administration/moderation is done.

I will go into how admins often think about rules. How to maintain order.

First administration are here to enforce the rules. This is very obvious but have you ever questioned why how or what this really mean?
Why: In a perfect world we do not need admins as everyone will understand the spirit of the rules to perfection and no one would break them this is sadly not the case in essence it comes down to everyone who break the rules are griefers and those who do not are good players this is a simple way how most admins will look at complains that have been made. 

So how do admins look at complains and what they are often see or miss. First they have tools to look into the logs and can see what has been said and what actions have been done here are things you need to understand is this perfect no as the logs are often full of stuff you do not need and looking through it just give a headache so that is not something a admin want to do so they go through the next step ask the defended about what happend and any eye withness. This is also not perfect as it often miss key detials but in a large server admins may get dozens of complains that needs to be looked into and judged and this is why mistakes can be made or you may feel they didn't look at your side deep enough because in all honesty they do not have the time they just look did you do something wrong yes or no? if yes they look at detail how bad you screwed up and then punish you for it.

What can I do to not get banned the rules are unclear when it comes to specifics. I agree the rules can be vague but it is not something which can be changed. The rules must be broad so that the spirit can be upheld. What you need to understand first before you can understand the spirit is what admins really care about is that the most amount of people have fun and that the spirit of the community is alive and active. The community agrees to the terms of the server they play on there in applies you obey the ruleset given to you. The rules are the frame work of the community and are not defined as a solid system. The reason for this is simple. The rules need to be understood by everyone this cannot happen when the rules are 100 papers longs what happens then is that a new player look at the rules and think ooh well damn how do I remember this?

Then the next best thing happens is make the rules broad but specifiec to certain subjects this is a art and will never be perfect. What this does cause is that you get something like a spirit of the rules which most people will understand and obey. This is the key point in what it means to be a admin on a larger server as the spirit of the rules is minimum of what needs to be maintaned. In the advanced rules of the server you can understand what paradise means about this it goes into the case law and suchs but this guide is a bit more general for those who has never been a admin.

There is a big difference on how a admin acts in a larger community and smaller community.
Smaller communities often times cannot lose dedicated players and are more willing to be leniant on how they act towards them often times it is in a detrimental effect to the community at large. Larger communities do not face this problem they need to ensure that the balance between the dedicated players and newer players are kept. This brings its own sets of challanges which cause that the dedicated players need to obey the rules closers then the newer players if they want to stay on and often times they just look at your history and see your log of warnings and bans you allready had and then apply a new one but they will never know of the merits you done to the community or server at large as you are in essence a small part of the whole picture. In bigger communities do not expect special treatment if you are going to stay a normal player the only players who get special treatment are those who are connected with the admins or those who pay for the server. This is just how it goes any server needs money to operate and the larger the community the more money you need. Donators are then more important to the server which cause the admins to be warry of being to strict to them.

I hope this will explain some of the things you do not understand about admins. Feel free to ask question or debate me on some points.

 

 

 

 

[Kyet]

I'm not sure this guide is helpful.
There are lots of things it says that are just not accurate, at least for Paradise.
For example,

29 minutes ago, robveelben said:

it comes down to everyone who break the rules are griefers and those who do not are good players this is a simple way how most admins will look at complains that have been made.

This is not at all how we look at rule-breaking.
Most people who break the rules do so for one of three reasons:

1. They're a new player who never read the rules, possibly just assuming the rules are the same as the last game/server they played
2. They're a less new player who is trying out more serious roles (like command) for the first time, and haven't yet learned the ins and outs of what is expected of these higher seriousness roles
3. They're a veteran who just had a really bad day, was drunk, or otherwise had a lapse in judgement and did something that, in hindsight, they recognize they should not have done.

Griefers make up an incredibly small proportion of rule-breakers.

I could cover a lot of other things in this guide to a similar level of detail... but suffice it to say this guide says a lot of things that are inaccurate, at least for Paradise.

[robveelben]

this is more of a general point of view it doesn't go in deep details it is more to understand how the spirit of things. This is not a guide on Paradise admins just gaming communities more. to show that there is no big difference in most gaming community administrations work they all follow the same concepts sure there is difference but in regards on how rules are applied and how that is looked at is not to different. context to any breach in rules is a important matter but the thing is sadly that the admins and mods do not always have the time to either care or look to deep into it. which then bottles down to the basic guilty till proven innnocent concept which is a lot of time the norm in gaming communities.