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Recently the !admins command was stripped from all but Head Admins. While the reasoning behind this clear, many admins raise the question as to why exactly this was done. It was a way for both =VG= and community admins to always know how many admins were in the server and most importantly, to notice new admin names in-game.

 

As stated in the Admin instructions that everyone has to  read upon getting admin rights, admins are required to talk with each other to set next maps etc.  Why then do we get stripped of the one thing that lets us see admins directly in-game? I hate to think of admins as solo police officers, not being part of a team as a whole. I know most admin names by heart but without !admins I would not have known asquirrel or StormHawk10 before much, much later, with all the risks of mistaking a problem-fixing admin for a badly behaving/rule-breaking player.

Our aim is to keep the server healthy, the players happy, and to make sure everyone follows the rules. =VG= is and will probably remain my all-time favourite server because of the regulars and playstyle. I get a huge pleasure from making sure everyone is having a good time and our player counter is high. The biggest reward for any day of being an admin is simply seeing people work together and having fun. To be at our top game of admining, it's a good thing to know who is who, and to know there's another admin who can deal with the issue when one is preoccupied.

 

Is there a bigger reasoning behind this change that we are missing?

Thanks for your answer.

 

Have a great day!

Acro

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I have to agree with Acro, there is (in my opinion) no need to remove the !admin command from admins, while it's good to remove it from the general public and light admins so they can't abuse admin powers I can't get the reasoning behind removing it from full admins and =VG='s, since they have prooven to be trustworthy and have been playing for a long time.

 

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Reason why !admin command was removed in the first place is so higher admins can watch out for new light,community and VG admins and that was all explained in some post couple days ago if I'm not mistaken. Honestly I got no problem with that because you can always check the player list to see who is on from both VG and community admins and if you dont know some new admin it will show up if that admin decides to do an admin command. 

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I am the one who asked for that command to remain off.  Feel free to throw your hate at me.

I would be more than happy to provide a public list of names of all our PR Admins -- this would resolve 90% of the issues posted above.  I will speak with TEDF about it, and get a list up very soon.

But I am not willing to make the !admins command available to all at this time.  Without any measure to "police the police" we could easily be screwed by an admin (we have many non-VG Admins in PR) having his way when we are not online, causing serious trust issues between PR Admins and the public.  It has happened before, it will happen again, and this is our only way to ensure that VG is protected at all times.  For players and admins alike to assume that any random "blueberry" player is actually a VG Head Admin undercover, watching players and admins alike to see how things flow, is an indispensable tool that we cannot ignore.  I cannot think of a better way to safeguard against a "wolf in sheeps clothing" or to enforce integrity.

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I personally do not see the problem either. Most of us know who are all the admins that are online by name so just pressing tab and take 5 sec to look who's online should tell you the same as the !admins did. Plus it's not mandatory but most admins Ingame are also on teamspeak.

I do find it should have been announced that it was removed,and if for a longer time this will stay.

 

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Well, now I also share the opinion of Double, mostly I was posting that since I wasn't 100% clear of the reason behind the removal off it without a public announcment. But it doesn't bother me that much now anyways.

Just wanted to be 100% shure and throw thoose questions to the light so I know in the future

 

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I get your point Semler. It's kinda sad that it's come to the point where the police have to be policed, but I guess we can do nothing about that. I always thought any admin would be driven to keep the server at its best.

 

To me the list of public admins sounds like a great idea. I kinda want to know beforehand when a new admin is appointed rather than having an awkward 'hello, you an admin?' when deciding over a punishment or map change. Having this kind of uncertain situations in-game also looks incredibly unprofessional and undermines the authority emitted by the admins.

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TEDF made some good points about why it should remain private, so any admins who need to see that list, please keep it safe and private, do not share it with anyone so as to not single out admins to players.  Again using the "police" analogy, off duty cop's do not advertise that they are indeed off duty cops - not that our admins are off duty when they play - but player admins moreso than VG PR Admins don't need to be needlessly singled out or named on a public list.

Thanks for understanding!

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No.  This is for Head Admins to monitor their "staff" -

2 hours ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

assume that any random "blueberry" player is actually a VG Head Admin undercover, watching players and admins alike to see how things flow

- including specific server managers such as TEDF et al.

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Double_13 brought up the idea of using identifiers in TeamSpeak to show who PR Admins are so players can know who to message if there is a problem, instead of going to any channel with a VG Tag TS3 client

  - good for discussion, the only counter point I had was that it again singled out people in TS3 (some of these guys who cant' get an admin get downright ANGRY!) and it could end up that AFK PR Admins in TS3 might get a lot of grief (read: multiple pokes and messages) over an incident while they are away at lunch, for example.

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2 hours ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

But I am not willing to make the !admins command available to all at this time.  Without any measure to "police the police" we could easily be screwed by an admin (we have many non-VG Admins in PR) having his way when we are not online, causing serious trust issues between PR Admins and the public.  It has happened before, it will happen again, and this is our only way to ensure that VG is protected at all times.  For players and admins alike to assume that any random "blueberry" player is actually a VG Head Admin undercover, watching players and admins alike to see how things flow, is an indispensable tool that we cannot ignore.  I cannot think of a better way to safeguard against a "wolf in sheeps clothing" or to enforce integrity.

I get it but I'm not so sure if that's the best approach. On a broader scale and from a management perspective that is. If you have evidence or feel reason that some particular 'admins' are abusing the system or their privileges then talk to them and if there's no reasonable explanation simply take away some or all of their rights. Being an admin is a privilege not  a right.  We're supposed to be a team that 'in good judgement' try their best to keep the server-population as happy as we can playing awesome rounds. Sure we all make mistakes, heck I have... But as soon as my name pops up as an abuser of rights TALK to me. I probably made a mistake or have a good explanation. This community is also supposed to be about trust. We're supposed to trust and discuss our actions to keep the server neat and clean. I will call out an admin if I think they're abusing powers and I think we should move more forward to that 'comradery' rather than a 'secret police' looking to round up traitors. But those are just my 2 cents. Again I get it but I know most, if not all the non- =VG= admins and I think they're always trying to make the game as much fun as possible. 

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11 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

good for discussion, the only counter point I had was that it again singled out people in TS3

Well pretty much anybody who play's regularly on the PR server and hangs around TS will be able to distinguish admins from regulars, and if an admin is AFK he coud just change his name to "His actual name-Afk" or just go to the AFK channel. 

Pepole are going to get angry anyways if there is no one they can really speak to, and the setup proccess for such a group woud be a few minutes at max if we aren't going to mess with permissions and just make it a mark.

And if we also do it for Arma admins it woud make things SOO much more easier for pepole since no one really know's any Arma admins around here, at least I don't :P

 

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10 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

Double_13 brought up the idea of using identifiers in TeamSpeak to show who PR Admins are so players can know who to message if there is a problem, instead of going to any channel with a VG Tag TS3 client

  - good for discussion, the only counter point I had was that it again singled out people in TS3 (some of these guys who cant' get an admin get downright ANGRY!) and it could end up that AFK PR Admins in TS3 might get a lot of grief (read: multiple pokes and messages) over an incident while they are away at lunch, for example.

You lost me now. Wasn't ACRO's question about why we cannot as non-=VG= admins see who's policing? I totally agree with, what I believe was Double's suggestion, to hide it from 'normal' players but it's more about !admins for admins. I mean I play differently when I see there are four other admins online than when I am alone. Then... When I know I am the only admin I often have to spend more time keeping the server nice and checking all the reports and bad shit that happens. Is that wrong? I mean I know when Double is there and other admins they will watch their corner and I only have to intervene when I spotted something they missed. Doesn't that make sense? Or am I missing something? 

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For starters, it is not only about policing the police -- at times, a Head Admin may need to investigate issues of players behaviors on the server when no admins are present, and to do so at times when another admin may pop on as well, while the other is checking out some issue, he may wish to remain hidden for such reasons.  There are times when we have dealt with issues regarding admins by not removing them, but by helping them to be better admins - if we kicked good admins who were making mistakes or still learning the best ways to admin, we'd never have any good admins around.

We want to provide all you awesome PR Admins with all the tools you need to do your task properly.  As it has been stated, the admins who have been around awhile know who each other are.  There was a time when certain people even knew certain other people's aliases, some of these people have come and gone over the years - but this is a system that has worked before, and again I do not mind if you recriminate me over the idea of keeping this one command offline.

I have tried to make sure you can get a list of admins if you wish, so you can again have all the tools you need to do the great deeds you all do - and I hope you understand no one is peering at good people through a microscope, watching their every little tic and judging them.  That is the last thing any of us want to do, but the tools exist if we have to, and that is what we need in our toolbox to do our dirty deeds.

On a personal note, the higher up the responsibility chain ya go, the more painful and heavy the tasks become - they are done with grumbles and procrastination and double and triple checking the options because managing brother on brother issues or accusations against our brothers is something we all hate.  I'd rather deal with obvious or even mistaken in-game infractions like kicking or banning a teamkiller any day of the week - but I also have a passion and drive to do what I do, so I do what I do, and I hope you can understand why we need this tool in our toolbox, and I hope the compromise with the private admin list on request is enough to keep your toolbox's filled with what you need to do what you do.

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1 minute ago, Jersans said:

I mean I play differently when I see there are four other admins online than when I am alone. Then... When I know I am the only admin I often have to spend more time keeping the server nice and checking all the reports and bad shit that happens. Is that wrong?

Then get that private list of admins from TEDF, don't share it, learn who the names are, and be cool - don't rely on the !admins command to tell you who is online, check your in-game player list, know who is who.  Also, an undercover admin would not fall under any category that you'd have to worry about - they'd appear blue, the actual person may or may not be in ts3 with their regular name, they'd likely be among other regular players, and it would be a rare occasion if they were even there.  It's not an everyday practice (or is it?!?!?!?) j/k - couldn't help myself.  Hope you understand why we need this tool, if you need anything just ask.

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2 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

Then get that private list of admins from TEDF, don't share it, learn who the names are, and be cool - don't rely on the !admins command to tell you who is online, check your in-game player list, know who is who.  Also, an undercover admin would not fall under any category that you'd have to worry about - they'd appear blue, the actual person may or may not be in ts3 with their regular name, they'd likely be among other regular players, and it would be a rare occasion if they were even there.  It's not an everyday practice (or is it?!?!?!?) j/k - couldn't help myself.  Hope you understand why we need this tool, if you need anything just ask.

No I am cool with it I know most of the admins anyway. I just don't get all the smoke and mirrors. Sometimes you recruit the wrong person, fire that person. :)

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If only there was some way to run !admins and be presented with a list of admins, but head admins to have the power to hide certain people/gamer tags from appearing on the list. Then everyone would get what they wanted..

 

To do this we'd need just one coder crazy enough... Crazy enough to know Python and be willing to try it. Luckily I know one such man. He hasn't had a lot of time on his hands lately but I'll see what he can do. ;)

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4 minutes ago, Jersans said:

I just don't get all the smoke and mirrors. Sometimes you recruit the wrong person, fire that person. :)

again, it's not only about recruits - it's not even 50% about recruits - more like 30%.  There are players and player cliques run amok when no admins online, etc. and I have little energy to list the ways regular players dick with the server when they think no admins are online - you all know.  etc. etc. etc.

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1 minute ago, =VG= SolarFlame1 said:

If only there was some way to run !admins and be presented with a list of admins, but head admins to have the power to hide certain people/gamer tags from appearing on the list. Then everyone would get what they wanted..

 

To do this we'd need just one coder crazy enough... Crazy enough to know Python and be willing to try it. Luckily I know one such man. He hasn't had a lot of time on his hands lately but I'll see what he can do. ;)

:0:lol

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3 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

again, it's not only about recruits - it's not even 50% about recruits - more like 30%.  There are players and player cliques run amok when no admins online, etc. and I have little energy to list the ways regular players dick with the server when they think no admins are online - you all know.  etc. etc. etc.

Ah yes! That I totally agree with. But I thought Double had the solution for that, meaning that admins can see if admins are online and other people can't. That, I believe, was his idea and it made perfect sense. Than there's the admin hierarchy meaning that light-admins have different rights than full admins and full admins have lower rights than =VG= admins. It made perfect sense to me. A light admin could kick and warn when they spotted something and earn their spurs and at the end a =VG= admin called the shots on map change or even a ban or kick.  Kinda like Sheriff's and deputies. 

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11 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

again, it's not only about recruits - it's not even 50% about recruits - more like 30%.  There are players and player cliques run amok when no admins online, etc. and I have little energy to list the ways regular players dick with the server when they think no admins are online - you all know.  etc. etc. etc.

 

3 minutes ago, Jersans said:

But I thought Double had the solution for that...

a solution for 70% of what this is about -- now we're just going in circles.  Barring Solar creating a custom Python script for this, the !admins command needs to stay offline as per 100% of the reasons detailed in this thread.  Again, I do appreciate you understanding.

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The solution of having a confidential list of admins sounds great to me. My only main point was that as admins we should be able to know our 'crew' as it evolves until that one very specific person has the time to code us a script to bypass hidden admins on the list. Thanks Semler and TED for presenting this list.

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so much fuzz about one command

i do not see why people can't accept that they might need to do a little bit more work checking the admins online (press tab apply scroll) 

i only see it that =VG= is trying to keep its servers healthy and that sometimes checkups need to be done on the staff, to ensure the people who enforce the rules also follow them themselfs. This last has been a great issue last few months so I do not find it odd the higher ups want to get evidence so the people who do can be addressed so they could improve. 

So you should be thankful for the removal since you might learn from it yourself. You should have nothing to worry about if you just follow DA RULEZ.

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