Thank you for your support. While I don’t think anyone’s rep should be damaged by fulfilling a role. I do completely understand and recognise that mine was trashed by performing mine. That is often a side effect of being in management.
I’ve stepped back from a lot of roles to focus on what gives me joy in CM: RP, events, and contributing.
Dropping another community +1. Moonshanks is a solid roleplayer, knows the dynamics of playing command in a round, and knows ML to the level needed by a CO. Played a few rounds either in CIC with them or in adjacent positions. Also just a solid person all around from what I’ve seen in spite of their staff rep from their management days.
Thanks for the support 
You were just suspended from pred for breaking the HC, if you cannot follow another WL’s guidelines then I cannot trust you with the CO WL, -1
While this is true, and I will make no attempt to cover it up. I believe the reasons I was suspended should be acknowledged , not just the suspension itself.
I was suspended for a non malicious reason, in which I made it clear I misunderstood HC and acted at fault. I immediately apologised for my action, at no point did I lie or attempt to reduce my punishment through coercion or deceit.
I have an extensive history in ML positions and do not have a single note linked to: LRP, ML violation, Grief, or Community Expectations since 2019.
I have an extensive history in staff where I do not have any violations linked to: grief, being unprofessional, miss enforcing ML/RP rules. During this time as staff I have repeatedly acted as provost without issue.
Simply put, there is no manner in which my current suspension from the pred WL is indicative or linked to my performance in other roles. To suggest so is reductive.
While a suspension from any WL is undesirable in a WL candidate at least mine is a clear example that if at any time I am met with feedback, clarification, or a report over my conduct in any role, I shall accept it with grace, make no attempt to obscure any proceedings, and make no attempt to reduce any punishment I am given.
I do not think one recent blemish in an otherwise crystal clear, and active, history in CM should remove my chance at a WL.
I am going to have to agree with Soomis and -1 this application.
Sorry to say this, Moonshanks, but you’ve also been suspended from Synth before for a similar reason as you have been with Pred – procedural errors. That is to say, misremembering or not being overly familiar with the guidelines or procedures pertaining to each whitelist.
While CO is in no way equivalent to Pred or Synth in terms of playstyle, our rules are equally as important to follow. How can the Council ensure you won’t make the same mistake?
My knowledge with CO is clearly above and beyond the point my knowledge was at with Synth.
Just the other day you and I solved a semi-complex ML situation as provosts.
I believe that when it comes to ML (over 100 hours in MP roles) I have proven consistently without issue I know it inside and out.
As for my skill as CO, I have had several CO players comment on it, question it, and then after seeing me play, support it.
I have performed numerous BEs as provost without issue, stipulating clear reasons for each, and while CO BE’s are more restricted I have outlined clearly where I believe they can be appropriately used.
I do not feel like text alone can clarify any miss-givings the council has. Even if I have made my dedication to this app clear with my effort put into it. Over the 25 days my app has been up I have been putting consistent effort into displaying skill with XO, SO and SL (having played 18 hours of XO, 9 hours of SO, and 6 hours of SL - approx).
Perhaps rather then denying this app and making me re-apply in a month (which would not clear up the primary issue with this app) I could play some rounds with council members observing me or playing with me as CO. If they spotted mistakes or issues occurring which showed I hadn’t paid enough attention to: ML, SoP, Commanding Officer Guidelines, then it I believe the only appropriate option would be to deny this app.
Simply put, let me put my money where my mouth is, let me prove my knowledge and command talents.
If time does not permit the first solution (observing rounds) I would be happy to sit in a VC with the CO council or members of the CO WL and answer questions on the Commanding Officer Code of Conduct.
The upside with this method when compared to text is my response will be instant/off the cuff, more indicative of how I would act in game.
Switching to -1 due to other WL issues
Putting aside the red tape, I’ll provide an old school evaluation of this application form years of experience in the role and previous councils.
I certainly can appreciate the colossal amount of work put in on writting 20 pages of a story, however the requirement is a short story. Many of us don’t have the time to go through 20 pages of story. In any case, great work on that there.
Juding by the short paragraph in the application, there are some inconsistencies in the character story that don’t seem feasible and do not provide to me a solid understanding of officer structures and leadership positions. Officer promotions are usually provided in due time, and performance reviews coming from evalutations of superior officers. Furthermore an Intelligence Officer taking part in strike team (a 2LT/1LT would be in charge of a platoon level unit) with a missions to take down AA defenses before a main invasion force (typically something you’d expect from forward units, forward recon, navy seals or army special forces) does not seem feasible. Moving through to ship combat and then being assigned to the CO of an infantry Company, likewise.
In any case the stories are only for us to gain an insight on what your understanding of the role and military officer structure is. This is done by concrete actions according to your own thoughts and perceptions put in a story.
Unltimately this whitelist is about you being trusted as the main authority and leader for marines side of the round, responsible for effectively organizing anywhere from 50 to 120 people depending on server pop. This means we primarily need to see your ability to do this ingame, much more than your ability to write. Most instances you will encounter will be spontaneous and not planned.
From what I notice and have observed, you have very limited experience in Command roles such as SO/XO. You fail to mention one of the most important as well, the SL role.
SL is the most basic form of leadership we have ingame. It is a role where you are expected to be a team player, directly lead your squad to objectives and manage to have them follow you and your instructions one way or another, primarily by building trust and relationships with the people in it. Achieving this is not an instance, but rather a bumpy process in which you will actually prove your ability to be recognized in positive light so to sufficiently inspire other players to follow through with you when it comes to deployment on any map. SL is the “back to the basics” leadership role to understand the dynamics of the marine team, before you can make broader calls/assesments in higher CIC roles such as SO/XO. Alternatively it would require many more hours on these CIC roles or combined with squad roles.
A leadership role, requires genuine concern for the people you are leading, experience and competence in the discipline you have been trusted to lead in (and in the lack of such, the ability to obtain quick and necessary information from those who do have the experience or at least not refrain them from properly putting their experience to good use), and the ability to be a team player.
This is worth mentioning because, while the CO is the ultimate authority on the ship, it does not make people follow you if you do not have strong foundations in these leadership virtues, or concern for the general people you are entrusted to lead.
If your leadership fails to inspire and build trust with the marines under your command, how is authority alone going to make you an effectively good leader? You will encounter resistance at every step.
Failing to inspire, motivate and influence team members to achieve a certain goal, will never be counterbalanced by any amount of authority given to you as a CO. And this I believe is something you should work on. A good leader is different from a manager.
A good leader should have integrity, self-awareness (not self-cetnered), courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude in order to provide that feeling of security and integrity in doing the right thing to the people under your command. Then they will trust and count on the decisions you make and willingly follow them.
Unless proven otherwise, It is for these reasons that I cannot support this application.
The requirement for the whitelist is 30 hours as XO. I have 49.2, I also have 27.9 SO hours, and 20.4 SL hours.
In other words I have anywhere from 19.2 hours to 67.5 hours above the minimum expectations. If the minimum expectations are too low for people to be considered fit for the whitelist then they should be raised to meet whatever standard is expected.
You mention that leadership requires: empathy, concern, and care for those you are leading. I am unsure how I have at any point demonstrated anything other than that.
You mention a good leader has self-awareness. Again I am unsure how I have demonstrated a lack of it.
I have no intent to sound terse, so this is said out of a place of genuine confusion. You seem to be applying attributes to me that my app, nor my hours would indicate. Without providing a good reason for why you associate these attributes with my actions as a character or my actions outside of the game.
As for the structure presented in my story. I’ll admit I made the 1st/2nd LT error out of a mistake in my writing more than a lack of interest or care for the lore. I believe the primary point of a story is to show how your character would act and RP. Or at least, that is what I have been told across the WLs by multiple councilors and a senator or two. Not to specifically practice my knowledge on US rank and file and how it is used in contemporary warzones.
As for IOs being in forward recon teams or not, that seems like quite a subjective thing that hasn’t been defined in our lore. Some areas of the wiki note that IOs operate independently from stations conducting intelligence missions, but in game we see them operating as a unit. I’m unsure how this subjective lore matter would detract from my app.
Here:
Failing to inspire, motivate and influence team members to achieve a certain goal, will never be counterbalanced by any amount of authority given to you as a CO. And this I believe is something you should work on. A good leader is different from a manager.
You appear to be suggesting that my app is based on my experience or time as a manager. I shall clarify. The reason I brought these aspects up in my app is it shows that I have had a long period of time without breaking server rules and that I can dedicate time to a role. That is all.
The only aspects of my app I expect to have an impact on my ability to command are my playtimes, and my answered questions.
My questions to you would be:
What is the minimum time for XO, SO, and SL you expect from applicants?
Why have you ascribed these characteristics of lacking empathy, failing to inspire, and lacking self-awareness to me?
With the feedback I am providing is to help guide you toward the right direction on things I would like to see from a CO. It is not that you lack these characteristics mentioned, it’s just that I would like to see them demonstrated in-game.
I’m sorry if the “A good leader is different from a manager”, correlates with your staff experience, but that was not the intention. It’s about differences in the CO side and other command roles. As a CO, being the ultimate authority, you carry the responsibility of taking direction and establishing the standard. You are alone at the top. There’s no one above you you can look up to.
The rest of command roles have to oversee that it is done, and therefore focus on managing. And they are also counting on you, so you have make sure the calls can be well managed as well.
I am not concerned about server rule breaks or such, as long as that is not done in a severe way. After all, many of us here even with very troublesome note histories have managed to provide good leadership. So that is not really something I am worried of.
However what concerns me more is, even by looking at your playtime, that your experience is mostly outside of squad/main operations role.
I am not assigning these qualities, or lack of thereof to you. But these are the general qualities that one ahs to focus on while playing the role and that is what I want to see from you in-game. I want to see you on PFC, on SL. I want to see you establish relations with the people you are a part of, so that in the end of the day you can relate to them and they can relate to you. Join me on PFC, be my SL, let’s play together and rely on one another, let’s be part of a team together.
The amount of hours in my opinion is an evaluation of how much you have practiced. How in touch are you with the round progression, knowing the tools at your disposal, etc. It’s more about being comfortable doing what you do, without much hicups. I personally believe that with a combined 150 of SL,SO,XO you should already be a master of it.
But my problem is not the hours spent. I just believe that you need to go through the basics again, at the lowest roles, before you can climb up to the highest, otherwise you will be missing the perspective of lower ranked roles and lack the understandings of their side.
Looking at your activity hours, I notice that the hours are almost half-half split with MP and auxilliary roles having more than the squad roles and SO/XO.
Looking at the balance between hours, it really brings me to another question, regarding your motivation and desire to obtain the CO whitelist. Is it because you simply want to acquire it for prestige or the power that comes with it over other players on marine side? Similarly to the CMP but with even more authority, or is it because you actually do enjoy doing what you do when you lead marines, interact with them and have proved your self more than capable to do so?
Again, please do not take this feedback as negative, I simply wish to point you towards what I have mostly seen from prominent players who have played the role that can help anyone applying for the whitelist.
I haven’t posted all my hours. I have a fair amount of squad hours and bronze in at least… three? Squad roles, maybe silver in one. I shall post my entire hour list when I get home.
I genuinely do enjoy both playing and leading marines. I have yet to see you in CIC at the same time as me, apart from perhaps one round to me memory. I imagine this is a time zone issue.
The reason my CMP hours are so high is because I’ve had a much longer history of playing CMP, it’s within the last 6 months I’ve focused on command and ground side roles.
I enjoy creating and understanding rp scenarios something I found you could do through CMP through appeals, standoffs, attempting to convince criminals to turn themselves in. Simply put it was a cat and mouse game that was easiest to win through convincing the other person to give themselves up.
I’d like to have a command role to make more unique rp opportunities for other players, something I take to heart in my events I run.
In round I expect for CO to be split between focusing on the round and focusing on rp. Weighted mainly to the round until a capable XO turns up.
If my only wish was to have authority, I would have not applied to CO, currently as the provost I hold the highest authority in any round should it be needed. I enjoy playing a unique character (Mateo Martinez) where I get to build a reputation for being slightly weird, very headstrong cowboy.
Some of my favourite experiences as XO has been finding characters I recognise and rping with them.
Having a stern word with a strong leader like Parker, having a silly moment with a Private like Cleatus, having a tense moment in command over orders with Rikkard Boar. Enjoying a final hold with marines, or a charge ground side of the CO permits it.
I enjoy the structure of command, having a routine form:
I enjoy XO rounds most when others are around me in CIC. You get to chat to have ideas on where to flank, or hold a mournful moment as you lose the ground, or even just shoot the shit before briefing.
Would I be a stern CO? Without a doubt I play Mateo as in charge and level headed, I do let my character scorn or chastise marines who mess up, and I have even gone as far to threaten arrest to those who fail to follow orders.
But I haven’t gone out of my way to ruin others rounds or harass them over mistakes.
The simple answer is. If all I wanted was prestige or power, I wouldn’t need to apply to CO to gain it.
I have genuinely enjoyed the amount of XO hours I’ve put in during this app, I’ve laughed with people OOC about the round and made some fond memories.
My ultimate goal, as I’ve always expressed, isn’t to win or occupy some arbitrary position. But to make the game more enjoyable, more rp focused, for those involved.
These are my squad role playtimes. I don’t think I missed any.
A total of 77 hours in squad roles, 77.1 hours in command roles (not counting SL).
133.8 hours in MP roles not including provost (as that’s OOC/IC enforcement more than RP)
Getting both other WLs suspended is probably the biggest red flag possible in my opinion. Both other WLs do not impact the round as much as the CO one, hence why it is even more important to fully grasp the game’s concept. I’ve only interacted directly with them once by giving them someone to heal and it turned out in a disaster. Self-inserting as a provost is pretty railroad low effort rp and I think that it’d be better if they tried to roleplay as a rifleman or something at the bottom of the food chain as to carve a brighter reputation. Their reaction to the regular community whiplash from their own mistakes is often subpar to what I’d normally expect. COs often get flamed for the round.
I’d say that they should try and roleplay as a normal marine, get people to know them and how they behave icly. Most of the orders they’ll have to give as a CO are enhanced if they get more ground mechanics knowledge. I’d also start by fixing the reputation gained on both previous WL before trying to reach for this one.
-1
I was suspended from Synth for a lack of medical and engineering knowledge. I didn’t break synths programming at any point.
I completed the tasks required of me from the synth WL suspension, which was get my engineering and medical skills up to scratch. Which FrogZeke and Phelan would be able to confirm as the councillors who observed me through the process.
Once this was done (as in once I had fixed the reasons I had been suspended for with Zeke) I had a chat with Zeke about what they would personally like to see, after some back and forth we came to the decision that the best course of action would be for me to put up a normal app so that others could weigh in. So I revoked my access to the WL (I was not removed, and from what I understand my suspension was served) and I went about the process of applying. I withdrew my first app to work on my story some more.
As for my current pred suspension, I’m still a predator. There is no other trust I need to regain than waiting out my suspension with respect and patience, which I am currently doing.
Self inserting as a provost is an odd assumption to make. And the assumption that I’m low rp for… doing my job as staff? Seems to be an odd assumption too. I’m not sure how much time I’ve spent in game as a provost, but I’m willing to bet it’s not even 1% of my total game hours.
Edit: off the cuff it’s between 1-2%
I run events, and HRP event chains which require me to RP as unique characters, or write unique characters regularly. On top of that my rifleman hours are only around 10-20 hours off of my XO playtimes. Rifleman is often less of an RP focused role than say, SEA or XO, of which I have lots of playtime in. We’re required to RP as preds and have RP skill to get the role. I was not suspended for being lrp and I have 0 lrp notes despite playing since 2015.
