Hey everyone, Starfish here. This thread is about something that's been on my mind lately and something that I've discussed with Sky. The thing that's been on my mind is the immunity the admins of FoG possess. Now before we cause a potential shitstorm; hear me out. I know the admins of FoG are all people capable of maintaining a mature attitude and handling their powers well. Most of the time. That doesn't mean some of us slip up at times or flat-out mess up. My problem is that it seems virtually impossible to do something wrong. To my knowledge, warnings or demotions are rarely given out. And no, it's not like I want my fellow admins to get punished. What I do want is a fair judgement when it comes to some reports. Most reports against our admins end in a; "Don't do it again." Again, this could just be me being nitpicky. tl;dr - FoG admins are immune to almost any kind of wrongdoing. If this thread somehow does end up in a shitstorm, I'll close it. Thanks for reading PS. The reason I didn't post this in the admin forum is because normal members should have a say in this as well.
I do not even know if this is something that just bothers a small group of people. So right now it's difficult to even call it a problem. I forgot to mention in the first post that forum activity is also something strange. The amount of activity required on the forums seems way too low. I could just open my browser, type something in the shoutbox and close my browser.
IMO the reason punishments are rarely handed out are because most are well behaved. Maybe make warnings harsher?
It's mainly a case of taking screenshots and reporting them, @Downy and @n0name can't keep track of every admin, there have been cases where powers are removed etc. but most of our admins have been here long enough to know what they are and aren't allowed to do. If you ever come across a more senior admin doing something wrong, tell a Veteran Admin or n0name about it, and they'll help you sort it out.
Soo, when a report is made, you would need some surveillance on said admin if there was indeed something wrong with his behaviour. However, this takes quite some time and n0name/Downy have other things on their mind. If you would want this kind of surveillance (like chat/command logs), you'd need a third person with only read capabilities of those logs that could summarize what has happened for n0name/Downy, who then can take action if needed. And as Otter said, most admins behave properly most of the time, and if they don't and people have a serious problem with it, they report it on the forum.
I get what you mean and do believe that you are bringing up an important detail into the open. I'm on equal terms; I don't want someone "banished" because they slip up but we to recall that we have actually lost admins as part of their misbehaving. Remember; if one admin suffered for an offense, the next admin should do so too or else we're biased.
"I know the admins of FoG are all people capable of maintaining a mature attitude and handling their powers well." I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. I have no problem with the lenght that these reports are processed in. Neither do I think any of our admins are hardcore abusers or abusers at all.
What I'm trying to say is that as far as I know, when an admin is reprimanded with a "Don't do it again", there is no control wether or not it is done again by said admin, because this is a time consuming activity (check the logs, join the server to see how he/she is doing, etc.) I know that neither n0name or Downy ever join jailbreak, thus not being able to see how admins are doing. And just as with the report on Jaffa, apparently there is nobody goes through command logs once in a while to check if admins are not giving out ridiculous bans/gag/mutes/whatevers. If you were to go through these logs, it would consume quite a bit of your own FREE time and as n0name/downy are busy with servers/coding/school/whatever, you'd need another person to check these logs and, if something is wrong, report it to n0name or downy. I hope it's clear now.
I'm sure there are people on the forums willing to sacrifice some free time checking admin logs (I know I am), so if Downy and n0 are interested in this, it might be an idea to find out how these things are going to be checked.
Your idea is pretty good. However, it's the judgements these reports get that confuse me. "Admins are allowed to deal with rulebreakers as they see fit, the guidelines are guidelines. While this may have been a bit harsh it's still not abuse." Things like this make it useless to even try and make a report. As the chance of getting accepted is really, really low. Again, this is just my personal opinion.
If you were in charge of people, but can't constantly follow what they're doing, wouldn't it be nice to have someone who gives you small updates like "X bans people for quite long times" or "Y toggles disco VERY often", so you can tell those people to turn it down a notch. Also, it is possible "Z hands out really short bans", to tell Z he should ban for a bit longer than he is doing now. Would have prevented some stuff i think.
I think you misunderstand what I mean. This thread isn't about the admins that should get more surveillance. It's also not about admins doing their your job wrong. You keep referring to how we should refer to other admins on what to improve. I'm not saying any admin on FoG needs to improve, neither am I saying we should all be thoroughly stalked. It's solely about the fact that admins are able to get away with almost anything. Some punishments in the past have just bugged me, to the point I felt like discussing about it with others. I have no idea how to formulate it in any other way, so I hope you get the point.