Cark - Moderator Application

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Moderator Application - Cark

What is your BYOND key?

Cark

What is your Discord username?

cark. (period included)

What characters do you play on CM-SS13?

Adam Pierce, Atticus O’Connor, Ashmita Jain, Charles H. Cain

Are you 18 or older?

Yes

Timezone:

Pacific Standard Time

On average, how many hours are you available to moderate in an average week?

I very much fluctuate in how much I player, but on average when I’m actively INTO the game I’m on for around 4ish hours per day minimum.

Qualifications:

Do you have previous experience in game or community moderation?

Yes. I was a member of the Yogstation staff team from 2022-2024. First as a moderator, and towards the end as what was called a Primary Admin. Primary Admins were responsible for the training of new mods, effectively the lowest level of ‘management’ Accepted for Trial - Cark's Admin application | Yogstation Forums Accepted - Cark's Promotion application | Yogstation Forums Accepted - Cark's Promotion application | Yogstation Forums

Provide any links to any previous CM-SS13 whitelist, mentor or staff applications:

Have you ever been banned for more than 24 hours on CM-SS13?

Uncertain, I have only been banned once. It was in 2019, and I don’t know the duration. I only know it was for improper escalation.

Can you actively engage and communicate with the team through Discord?

Yes, I’m very active in the discord.

Final Details:

Why would you like to join the CM-SS13 staff team?

I’ve been toying off and on with the idea of doing it for a few years now. I’ve held off simply because as a player I tend to play in bursts. Logging lots of hours quickly, then vanishing for a few months. The burnout cycle, pretty much. That’s something that generally doesn’t work for administration positions in my experience, and when I adminned for Yogs it was something I certainly struggled with especially as I got later in my tenure. The way it ended up working for me at the end of the day was I’d be on the server pretty much JUST to take tickets and observer main. I ended up actually playing very little, and it got to be that when I finally started actually playing again, Yogs was dying.

The reason I’ve decided to try my hand at this anyway is because I think it’s probably not safe to assume I would have the same problems now, and even less safe to assume it’d be even comparable considering Yogs and CM are very different communities. My level of energy has drastically increased since then, and honestly the reason I struggle at all with energy is simply because of a lack of things to do. I love this server and this community, despite having a lot of issues and disagreements with the way certain things have been managed over the 7~ years I’ve been around. I want to try being a more active part of it than I have been, so I figured I’d give something I’ve done in the past for a server a try.

What makes you a great addition to Staff? (Experienced Tabletop DM, Aliens Lore Buff, Super Organized, etc.?)

I obviously have past experience, though nothing quite on the level of CM. Yogstation averaged 60 players during it’s peak hours when I staffed there, and our players were nowhere near the level of salty some CM players get. Since it’s been specifically mentioned in the above text, I will also add that I have been GMing tabletop off and on for five years – and I know a fuckton about the Aliens universe because of a long period of being super into it in my teens and indeed still a good bit now.

I also am going into education, specifically special education as a career path once I finish schooling. For Yogstation at least, it sure did feel like I was dealing with children who couldn’t properly regulate their emotions sometimes. I know how to handle that kind of thing well, I grew up in special education as a kid. I’ve been called all kinds of shit, and watched desks get flung across classrooms right next to me. Generally, I don’t lose my temper or crash out over things anymore. Getting insulted and called slurs doesn’t bother me.

In your opinion, what is the most important quality of a CM-SS13 staff member?

I think fairness is probably the most important quality of any staff member in any community. CM can feel pretty clique-y sometimes, because of the amount of people that come through the server every day and the amount of hours certain people have. People here know each other very well and often have relationships spanning multiple years and hundreds if not thousands of hours of shared playtime. To a new person coming in, this is very alienating and it can definitely feel like you’re being ignored and excluded – and sometimes even unfairly treated by authority figures.

Often times this is salt from griefers or shitheads acting in bad faith to try to call foul on a staff member after they get in trouble, but it’d absolutely be shortsighted to pretend that bias hasn’t historically and, yes, presently been an issue for every server on every online game ever. It’s not always a conscious thing, either. When I staffed for Yogstation, if I knew a person too well, as I sometimes did, I would ask another admin to take a ticket that involved them if it came up. It wasn’t because I thought I couldn’t handle it fairly, I just consider it good practice, and like I said – it isn’t always conscious. The ability to recognize situations where your judgement might be compromised and work out how to counteract that is a skill all staff should have.

Anything else you want to add?

guh

2 Likes
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Guh indeed.

Thanks for the application, got a few situations I’d like you to respond to as to how you’d handle them.

A) You are observing a round and the CL has deployed to the planet without informing anyone, the XO ahelps this and tells you that the CL is frontlining, you check the CLs location and it appears that they are just behind the marines main forces with their bodyguard, they do not have a weapon.

B) You are playing as CMP with no other staff online, a PVT guns you down in briefing before being killed by another player.

C) You receive an ahelps about a Xeno player metagaming, it appears that they have found someone who was hiding in a far corner of the map out of the way of any other player, looking at the xeno, they are another staff member.

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The addition of the bodyguard makes this slightly more confusing to me, as I’m not sure where it stands in regards to the CL being able to be outside of unsecured areas groundside. My gut still wants me to say that I would warn him to stay inside of secured areas and not be near the front, which was and still is the rule as I understand. This answer is the one I’m least confident about though.

I imagine CM probably has a “no taking tickets you’re involved in” policy like most servers including Yogs did. If the PVT had not been shot right after, I’d probably immediately handle it myself by adminsleeping him and finding out what he’s doing – if he’s just a clueless new player or an outright griefer. Since the PVT is dead though, this isn’t a time sensitive issue where he’s going to continue killing people and doing damage. I’ll go to the discord and see if I can’t get another admin on to deal with him. If by the time I as the CMP am revived and able to process and brig this private someone still hasn’t shown up, I’d probably handle it myself just incase the PVT plans on leaving. If they already had left by that point, I’d probably wait until round end and then handle it.

This one depends really on what tools and logging CM has, Yogs had a replay system so it would be really cut and dry to tell. My first move would probably be to check how long the staff member had been alive, if they’d aghosted recently, and if they were watching the twitch stream if the stream was on the player found. As far as them being staff, unless there’s some internal policy I don’t know about the only real difference this makes is that there’s more ways to do it. If it becomes clear that they did metagame, then it’d be something that I’d probably immediately inform a manager about to make sure the staff member is handled on that front as well. In the more likely scenario that there’s no way to prove it, I’ll still ask the xeno what they were doing there but unless they outright admit to it there’s really no way to prove it (at least with my knowledge of CM’s admin tools) and I’ll let the marine know as much.

If any of my answers were bad or wrong, I’d be happy to be corrected.

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The questions had no “one true answer” I was just looking for your responses as a general gauge on how you approach problems.

Thank you for the responses. We’ll have a final response in the next day or two just in case there’s any feedback from other staff/players on this app here.

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Hey there, @Cark.

We had some concerns about your recent activity, but seeing how long you have been around as a player, I don’t think it will be an issue, therefore I am happy to approve your application!

Please make sure your Discord DMs are open, we will be reaching out to you soon!

1 Like