State of the SA:MP Staff Team

[Sawyer]

Most recently I have reported Whiteman in like 2017 or 18 for DMing and he actually got panel banned by Andeey the next day. I think the report process is actually effective considering all of the times I have reported someone an HQ member came back at me either here or Discord asking for further information to take actions. Actually even Gandalf in RS3 once took money off from my account for some spineless scam I comitted against a newcomer. Then again, all offenses were pretty serious with no blank points or room for personal opinions. Unless you are reporting someone for shits and giggles, I feel all reports actually seem to work.

[Darxez]

I've reported people a few times back when I played. Seeing we are digging up old dirt, lets say for instance the many reports I filed when I was 2IC of AirDiv and got constantly harashed? Imho, HQ dealt with it quickly and very well and assured I was comfortable playing.

Making reports public is a very bad idea. Would it help if people get notified that the report has been received? Ye.. But that's only a minor thing.

[Nathan]

Are you all not tired of going back and forth on the same bullshit? These threads don't provide change but do only sow seeds of division. Digging up old dirt from years ago does nothing good and if you're still bitter about something that happened years ago, maybe it's time to just let go and move on.

Reporting someone =/= them getting a punishment. Reporting is necessary to flag for the staff members to be aware of situations and to de-escalate / remove rule breaking parties from the server.

Now in sense of bias, I do believe bias will always exist. The only way to fight bias is by making decisions on a consensus basis - in a group of three. This way, any bias can be ruled out. I personally experienced this against me and though I did not like the end result, it's a better way of punishing. Ideally, rules should apply equally, regardless of your status in the server. But we don't live in an equal world and mistakes will happen.

I personally believe, and I hate to say this, that grace should exist on mistakes as long as both parties (staff vs. players) learn to apologize and own up to mistakes. Until we can get to this state, everyone will end up getting hurt emotionally. Staff do not rule over the players. Staff are to serve the players. Players in return should follow rules set. Don't like the rules, change them.

[Kessu]

To address your last comment, do you personally believe that an admin would require HQ feedback on the following rules:

"Enticing or Encouraging Rule Breaking
Intentionally engaging in any act that is likely to directly encourage a player to
break the rules is prohibited."

Depends on the scenario in my opinion.

And the one I've been bringing up to HQ for over an year now:
"Usage of /gm (group message), public chat, /pm (private message)
or other non-role-play communication ways to call for backup or as an IC method of
communication is deemed false and are set to a punishment.

This is SA:MP HQ's call to look over. It's a server specific call, because in VC:MP for example we actually do not actively try to prevent people from calling backup through discord for example. As long as the contact is roleplayed ingame, I'm fine with it.
SA:MP HQ might have a different ruling over it and it's actually a tricky rule to enforce since you can not see discord messages in chats you are not a part of. That is most likely why HQ reviews the cases.

Using OOC information for IC purposes is not allowed.
For example you can NOT know anyone's name by seeing their nametag, or know that anyone is a gang member because of their /groups."

Per my understanding of this rule, calling backup over Discord is prohibited. Yet it is more than obvious it is still being practiced, even by Staff members. I have filed a couple of reports for that specific rule being broken, however the responses I always receive are: "Everyone does it, no action will be taken".

Now even if the majority break this rule, it is still listed in our rulebook and it is every admin's duty to enforce it. Personal discretion leading to dismissal of such reports is first of all highly unprofessional and second of all it keeps being "forwarded to Seniors/HQ" without any response being given afterward. One of the times I reported someone for that - it was a Staff Member and lead admins/HQ were made aware of the situation and advised the handling admin to simply discard the report.

Using OOC information IC can appear to the player to be just "metagaming", but the HQ has the ability to check logs and question the party supposedly committing said metagaming and find out if they have previously somehow gained knowledge of who you are for example.
Cases like these are often more time consuming to handle than what ingame investigation allows and more often than not, should be reviewed by the HQ. Admins ingame cannot complete full investigation of every rulebreak, hence why sometimes even if you witness a rulebreak, the rulebreaker might not get punished because the admin present did not witness it. Admins should never punish players for a rulebreak they did not witness / prove that it happened.

@Kessu How would you feel if the VC:MP Staff handle reports this way? Do you find it acceptable? And if not, would you be able to assist Khm and the rest of SA:MP's HQ get a grip on the admin team and rule enforcement?

VC:MP Staff handles only ingame reports and they in majority of cases just talk with both sides to resolve the issue. Most reports are handled by Klaus and I and I dare say my input is involved in almost all rulebreak cases, except the most obvious ones.

Also the admins who defy the guidelines set by Klaus and myself in VC:MP get fired on the spot and permanently banned for a single rulebreak pending investigation. Our system would more than likely not work in SA:MP as our admins all have played for several years before they become moderators and some people played for nearly 10 years without ever becoming a moderator. Comparing the two servers administration and management ways is wasted effort as the servers are wildly different.


Fun fact; I shit you not the admins in SA:MP actually teach me how to do my job better and whenever I have been ingame it has been a nice atmosphere within the team.

[Bruce.]

Administrator Comment

Comment removed. No provoking/ racism.

[JDC]

All about discussing. I think he should be able to voice his opinion in whatever form he pleases. Oh, you all don't agree because we have certain rules in place that disallow certain kinds of behaviors? I wonder why we say 'lead by example'.

What good does it do to withhold one's name? Did the person not commit the actions? When are we gonna stop with the bullshit and start acting right?

I have plenty of posts in this forum complaining about the staff team. From those posts, only those with named staff members have resulted in some change.

I'm all about this "we reply to every report" but it's just a lie. I don't have replies in my Discord PMs, Forum PMs, IG PMs, I simply don't.  And I'm not talking about Khm, in fact even when the server thought the staff team was heavily biased towards _Gvardia I was still not getting any replies on my reports. I have possibly witnessed all HQs of RS5 come and go, and this has been an issue since Zaila. (RS5 BETA)
The staff team continuously fails to take responsibility for their actions. The HQ denies it. The players are unhappy.

Like all of us, Ellz has the right to express himself. However, I called it out as an unfavorable example because it was inappropriate for two reasons.

First, his comment was objectively uninformed and spreading false info. The group topic concerned was archived along with others because of a groups cleaning that was properly announced beforehand. Every group had the chance to meet the criteria, and those who did not - like his group - were archived. Not because some leader/HQ was butthurt and acting on some personal vendetta, unlike what he implied.

Second, yes the manner in which he posted violates rules and norms against certain kinds of behaviors, specifically unnecessary provoking and moaning. We have these in place for a reason: not to stifle the freedom of people to express themselves, but to prevent toxicity and worsening the atmosphere for other players. In this case, the kind that derails any constructive discussion and buries it under mudslinging, which has happened all too often when we discuss things as a community.

Complaining about the actions of staff/HQ members - even naming the specific people involved - is, in itself, not wrong. Especially when these complaints result from actual mistakes and/or abuses of power from the staff. But there is a difference between A.) pointing out mistakes so the administration can improve their handling of the server, and B.) finger-pointing, simply hurling accusations, and simply letting anyone jump on a bandwagon of "hey admin X you're f*cking incompetent resign pls". (not for Ellz's comment specifically, but how we handle these discussions in general)

The first (A) is a constructive process where we identify problems and discuss the solution to them maturely (like Greasy/Kris is doing), while the second (B) only creates more drama, with bad-faith accusations on one side and defensiveness on the other, stopping any real progress from happening and putting us back at square one.

My favorite example of constructive criticism would be Stormeus' "SA:MP is borderline unplayable for new players" topic, which was praised by (and humbled) players and devs alike. It pointed out problems and suggested solutions instead of doing something like "hey devs you dont care about making things easy for new players, you suck!!11". While it's unrealistic to expect all criticism to be as stellar as this, the least we can do when pointing out mistakes is 1.) to try discussing things maturely, and 2.) to propose a solution or help others arrive at one, instead of mere provoking and engaging in back-and-forth hostility as what usually happens. I believe this should apply regardless of if we're discussing the script, admins' performance, or other important matters.

TL;DR: Constructive criticism, discussing solutions maturely, and fixing mistakes vs. simply finger-pointing and attacking each other.

[Chase]

My favorite example of constructive criticism would be Stormeus' "SA:MP is borderline unplayable for new players" topic, which was praised by (and humbled) players and devs alike. It pointed out problems and suggested solutions instead of doing something like "hey devs you dont care about making things easy for new players, you suck!!11". While it's unrealistic to expect all criticism to be as stellar as this, the least we can do when pointing out mistakes is 1.) to try discussing things maturely, and 2.) to propose a solution or help others arrive at one, instead of mere provoking and engaging in back-and-forth hostility as what usually happens. I believe this should apply regardless of if we're discussing the script, admins' performance, or other important matters.

I almost forgot about that. That topic is a treasure. I am sorry that I couldn't bring it to fruition. I just don't have it in me anymore to work with the limitations of SAMP and the GTA SA engine. @Khm If you somehow find a skilled developer willing to work on this, make sure they follow that topic an initial roadmap

[Khm]

My favorite example of constructive criticism would be Stormeus' "SA:MP is borderline unplayable for new players" topic, which was praised by (and humbled) players and devs alike. It pointed out problems and suggested solutions instead of doing something like "hey devs you dont care about making things easy for new players, you suck!!11". While it's unrealistic to expect all criticism to be as stellar as this, the least we can do when pointing out mistakes is 1.) to try discussing things maturely, and 2.) to propose a solution or help others arrive at one, instead of mere provoking and engaging in back-and-forth hostility as what usually happens. I believe this should apply regardless of if we're discussing the script, admins' performance, or other important matters.

I almost forgot about that. That topic is a treasure. I am sorry that I couldn't bring it to fruition. I just don't have it in me anymore to work with the limitations of SAMP and the GTA SA engine. @Khm If you somehow find a skilled developer willing to work on this, make sure they follow that topic an initial roadmap

I personally covered up some points from that topic and added some informative textdraws but I guess there's a limit to that too since we started to experience some bugs with textdraws so I paused until I finish my exams so I can focus on the issue.

[Ellz121]

My groups page got deleted because one person cant handle one comment. (wonder who)

That's all you need to know about the status of the SA:MP community/server. 

Rather than deleting me, deletes a group I'm not even the leader of. seems legit

Before you jump into conclusions as you would, in that state of mind on Argonath, a group cleanup was executed. Many other groups were deleted as well with HR being one of them.

Convenient timing