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| admins |
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- Sammael, level 8 scout on DAoC, woo!
That is the way its presented, as a challenge. Or as another representation of an attitude that is all to often seen on muds. "What have you done for me lately?"
Admin isn't going to build you a new mud or greatly change the one you play. We are here to make it run as smooth as possible and as fairly as possible.
A numer of our duties are handled by the whole imm staff primarily because this game is a game we are not paid to administer and partly because everyone should try and make their community the best it can be.
a few things that only an admin imm can help you with .... password loo-up, recovery from purge and overlimit save information.
Chocorua
The original intent of the admin department is documented pretty clearly in the first post on the welcome board.
In my vision, admins job is to handle appeals of warnings and punishment (as opposed to ME handling all of them when I can be tough to find) as well as being responsible for keeping general help files up-to-date and making sure that the rules are clear and followable.
In many cases, the admin department needs to do some behind-the-scenes work on problems that the rest of the staff notices, verification of multiplay concerns, etc.
Additionally, the admin department functions, when necessary, as 'internal affairs' within the immortal staff. While we've been blessed with imms who tend to prefer to not abuse their power, if it were necessary to monitor immortal behavior, that job would fall on the admin department as well.
We're a small department because so much of what we do CAN be done by the rest of the imm staff, but there are things that are specific to the department and the subset of commands available to the admins that they do.
I know that seemed kinda vague... I can answer specifics more than general questions, and mostly I just meant to give pointers to the welcome post, since the departments have stayed mostly true to the original vision of years ago.
-Zandy
Even though as a department head I have the commands to act on my own, I much much prefer to have a team of people who are focused on the rules and punishments and such, to ask about the situations I uncover. I'd rather let them make the decisions about punishments and such, not only to immunize myself from bias, but also to help insure that we are applying the rules as equally as possible.
-LA
Chocorua
It's also part of an appeals system. If for whatever reason, you think an immortal has treated you unfairly or has passed wrong judgement, the judgement call then goes up the line, with Kaige at the top. My experiences with certain people, what he says is completely true - they will not accept any ruling or answer from anyone below the imp level. So we eventually learn to not waste our time arguing with these people and direct them immediately to Kaige. People like this exist not just in/on the game, but in real life where they call customer service and immediatel demand a manager. It's life and you deal with it as you can.
Cheyla
Food for thought.
-Fear.
Huginn
I mean its a game and if someone changes equ. or multi play dose it really hurt the game? I dunno but rules are rules and there is probably a reason why the rules are as is. Admins are like cops, they give out parking tickets, speeding tickets, pull you over etc. but they dont improve the game by making items, or fixing bugs.
Zemus
Kalyani
It's true that Legend is a game, and that on a larger scale, it doesn't matter very much whether someone breaks a few rules here. Compared to half an hour of CNN headline watching, reading the admin lists seems pretty -- harmless. However, Legend is a place we come to escape that ugly reality, and in order for it to function as such an escapism, it has to work within the parameters established. So, the rules have to be kept.
In really simple terms, the game is no fun if everyone else but you figure out how to get the good stuff. It's not as if there aren't chances enough in real life to feel that opportunity is passing you by.
On the subject -- if we can call it that -- of some admins being jerks, I can only say that I find it indicative that we have an active admin department. In a twisted way, I'm reading those posts as compliments to our active, rules enforcing staff.
--Darth Kae,
trying hard to join the jerk faculty.
So you admit you try to immunize yourself from bias! Ha this proves it legend uses cheesy good cop/bad cop authority figures, imm conspiracy is cracked open, everyone abuse this in depth knowledge of how thier system works to get watcha want, woowoo!
...think if I blamed this on the painkillers people would forget that I am always this loopy, and my posts are usually this pointless? well I ken but try, its the painkillers i tells you, the painkillers!
The one thing we would need for this to work, however, is non-Admins to realize that their job consists of dealing with problems, and rulebreakers. At least when a builder or coder warns me, I feel like I'm being warned by someone who contributes to this mud. And I completely agree with Sammael that EVERY time I have an issue, I get one of two things from the admin dept. speak to Zandy, or speak to Kaige. I guess Admins are either scared to make a decision that might be overturned, or simply don't care enough to deal with the problem. If the latter is true, I wish they would move on, perhaps become a PR (another useless job, IMO) or try their hand at building.
Perhaps Admin and PR should combine, actually, making a halfway decent job out of two pointless jobs. We never have games more once a month, IF we're lucky.. and poor Snapper has done the bulk of my strings over the past few months, so what are PR's doing? I never even see any on. I would guess most are using this new Aura thing, which drives me insane. I understand the idea behind it, but if I can't find a PR imm, you know, the ones that are suppose to deal with public relations.. what good is a PR imm?
On the other hand, I'd like to add this. LegendMUD has the absolute best areas and code I've ever seen. I salute the coders and builders of this mud, keep up the good work. I'm sure you guys seldom get praise, so here it is. Thank you for making the best mud around.
- Jade
Somebody has to break the cycle sometime. Certain morts need to stop acting like children who run to mommy when daddy doesn't give them an answer they like. And certain imms need to lose the attitude that being a jerk is a prerequisite for being an admin imm.
Chay
secondly, who can blame anyone for directing at other people who are used to dealing with admin-type issues, if you feel like you're beating a dead horse?
and when they feel like they are beating a dead horse, what is left?
just a few thoughts
/Hrath, breaking things
Like when you ask Ladyace for a desc, I always assumed chocuora was the person she was runnin it by, and when you are bein warned by a builder, its prolly an invis admin using the force command on a poor afk builder so admins look nice and builders look mean :P
If this aint true, maybe yall should lie and say it is :P some defense ummm, also ignore those last two words :P unreleated to this post And umm, I just lost the subtle mental connection between my point and my post, so like, stop reading already you gits, since I stopped thinkin.
Still here? God, are you just an abuse craver, or really bored? in either case I can find something better for you to do than keep reading this..
I also don't understand why the immortal staff is expected to defend their positions every few months. We do out duties and players play the game. If there is soemthing that is lacking from a particular department or the imm staff as a whole lets discuss it. But a blanket statement that on department or another is useless is in itself just another round of people either being jealous of the role of that department or needing to use a "discussion" forum to bash people who spend a great deal of time making the best mud on the net stay that way.
As for those of you who will jump up and say that you have every right to voice your opinions. This is true but how long do you think that the imm staff as a whole will stay around and suffer the abuse and keep making new areas and revamping the old if all they get for it is abuse. If you think that all imms fit into a mold defined by their department tags you are sorely wrong those tags merely give us a set of commands to do the duties assigned, we all work outside our departments on almost a daily basis.
a final thought on this for now ...
the rules are there, they aren't going away, follow them or don't complain when you get warned for not following them. okay more than one thought ....
Chocorua
Admin meant a lot more than it does today. Admin imms were responsible for enabling characters for pk and moving pkillers between clans. They were responsible for character descriptions -- including verifying your description wasn't too close to anyone else's. They monitored language on channels and watched for multi-playing, bug abuse, equipment duplicating, etc.
The MUD changed for me pretty quickly. All the things that I could tune out as a mortal, I had to pursue as an admin. I'd have a mort window open as well as an admin window, and I'd have to stop my own gaming in order to check something out -- perhaps somebody was multi-playing or swearing publicly. Most of the time the people I talked to were unknowing, or at least contrite.
I didn't become an admin to satisfy some little power-trip of my own; I only wanted to become part of the staff that made this place so great. I was genuinely motivated to help the players by making sure channels were clean, nobody felt harrassed and everybody played by the rules.
But there were always some people who took it personally, as if the rules shouldn't apply to them. They'd swear at me or threaten me. They'd plead for leniency, despite being warned before. They'd rant on channels, sometimes earning more warnings.
It was those people that I began to associate with LegendMUD, and I began to dread logging on as Solomon. I would feel guilty if I morted without my admin window open, so I began to avoid LegendMUD completely. It wasn't until Solomon became inactive and, after a few months, I began morting again that I rediscovered the fun side of LegendMUD. I eventually re-morted this character, but I don't really have fun playing him even now, so he sits in the archives.
So do you know why it's hard to find an admin imm anymore? If I'm any indication, it's because you ran them off. You spit in the faces of people who wanted only to give something back to the community that they enjoyed so much.
Do you know why there seems to be so little separation between the roles of the admin imms and the others? Why they're all doing admin things? It's because you ran the admin imms off.
Do you know why you're saddled with PKOK, gagchannel and other indignities? It's because you made LegendMUD so unpleasant for the admins who were managing PK, monitoring channels, etc. that they threw up their hands and left you to your own devices. The coders stepped into the breach the only way they knew how, and this is the result.
There is no immortal consipiracy. Every single imm -- with a couple of exceptions -- volunteered themselves out of the player base with the same desire to contribute that I did. Only the ones that can survive the environment you provide will stick around, although they may not have the sunny dispositions you seem to think they should.
By the way -- my use of the word "you" is intended to refer to the ones who exhibit the behaviors I'm talking about. There are still lots of nice players here, and I believe they still outnumber the bad apples.
- David, the player behind the scenes
-pout sandra-
TO address the "I am better than you, if you don't like it, leave (not an exact quote there) ... I don't think I am personally better than anyone. I do believe that I have a better understanding of the rules (how and why they were written) and the basic ideas behind the design of the game, than most of the players that haven't been around as long as I have. I also believe that I have a greater responsibility to the game than most because I have been around this long. If you feel that my saying "if you don't like the rules, leave" implies that I am better than you are wrong. It means "the rules are here to protect the game and its players from abuse, if you can't accept that, the best choice you can make it to play somewhere else.
anyhow again I say, Hate me if you like, don't respect me if you don't want to. But read the rules, follow them, and try to have fun.... Its why we spend so much damn time here.
Chocorua
I'm certain that if needbe said persons could find a freetime job where they would actually get paid to work, especially with people like chocorua's experience, I doubt it would be a problem.
the way I see it, if he/they didn't care, why would they bother to even answer?
/Hrath
I can say honestly, that Choc does care quite a bit about this game. I've worked with Choc for the past 5.5 years. He was Head admin before me, and while he's not the head now, he's still damn good at the job.
Being an admin immortal is -very- difficult. They're often in the front lines, and will get a lot of flack from players for their decisions. Decisions that they know they're going to get hell for, yet still have to pass them because it's their job. After a while, even though they're doing their job, being visible only causes some players to immediately start up again on them, so it becomes easier to just stay invis unless otherwise needed. It's hard on admin imms, and it's hard on the players that see the things that are said on chat about them, and the rest of the staff, when some players begin their temper tantrums.
I have to say that Solomon's append is pretty much dead on.
Sandra
Seems like every time we imm someone, we get two that go inactive.
- Jade
--Darth Kae, sitting too hard on her return key.
I never claimed to be perfect or anything close to it. I do however claim to have a better understanding of the motives behind the rules. The rules are there to try and make the game fun and fair to all who wish to play. They often seem to do just the opposite when you are on the recieving end of a warning but unfortunately that is where you put yourself by allowing your emotions to carry your actions.
Everyone makes mistakes and that is why there is a warning system and not immediate banishment for rule breakers. 99% of our population here has 1 or less warnings with close to 85-95% having none at all. Everyone gets carried away by their emotions and have to pay the consequences. Myself included. If you are still angry over a bad decision that was "recanted a few minutes later after this much time has gone by... I can only apologize again. Doesn't justify a hatred for the whole department. You are welcome to hate me and not have any respect for me. Just don't break the rules of teh game and chances are we won't end up with any negative encounters in the future.
Chocorua
Chocorua
I asked this same question about 6 months ago and got about as vague of an answer. The best I can piece together from all the jarble of answers is that your basicly all lawyers who sit in the background determining just what the damn constitution means when it says freedom of speech. If you disagree with that, then flame away, but I honestly can't find any other "use" for you. Help files maybe? I honestly don't know. Just seems to me we could just have a specialized imm like Rufus who does nothing but handle the "interpretting the rules" aspect and let all imms handle warnings etc. and the special imm could handle the appeals. Then maybe the rest of the admins could go on to do something more noticeable like building or coding, which we so desperatly need.
I also agree with whoever said PR seems to be non existant. I see Ladyace and Kae sometimes, but those are about the only 2. Where the hell are they? If they are sitting invis, I find this highly ironic, considering PR is all about being in the public eye. So I guess this question goes out to LA. Where is your department! And, on the same not, thanks for playing the pirate game last weekend, even though I couldn't participate it was nice to see a game played for a change. :)'
On the whole choc, I think you have the attitude that the player base is out to get you and you need to cut them off at the pass. I have to admit I tend to think that way much of the time with imms, especially certain ones. What you and I and everyone else with this problem need to realize is that we're all just players sitting behind a keyboard playing a game that really doesn't matter. Sure, enforce the rules, make it a better place, all that stuff. But do it without bias and the horrible attitude you tend to have.
FYI, the reason I dislike you Choc is because of something you did. Cheyla had been asked by a friend to string a herne sword from his inventory, but due to the fact that it was still cursed she said she would "steal" it and do it for him. Instead she took the horn that had just came from the corpse as well and strung that. When he realized what happened, he asked her to fix it. She got incredibly defensive and upset and basicly said too bad and went invis. We sat there, dumbfounded that we could be treated like this. About 10 minutes later you showed up and DEMANDED an apology from my friend for hurting Cheyla's feelings or some such nonsense or you refused to fix the problem.
How can I ever respect someone who acts like this? That to me is total abuse of your position. OF COURSE he had to appologize or he was SOL, and there isn't a damn thing he could do about it. When I see YOU apologize for crap like that and start acting like a authority figure without a stick jammed up your ass...maybe I'll respect you. Maybe
Sorry this post is so long but I'm sitting here venting my fustration at this entire post. You are so damn self rightous I want to punch you sometimes, and if that makes me a bad person, then I'm a bad person.
As for the rest of you imms, the majority of you aren't too bad. Zandy has an itchy delete finger, few other problems on the whole, but the MAJORITY of you are good people. If the very few bad would clean it up I think the imms staff would be more respected and valued. Then again, that probably goes for the player base too.
- David, the player behind the digital mask
As for you respecting me for my contributions or attitude, I honestly don't care if you do or not. My main duty here is to help make sure that the rules of the game are followed as best I can and that everyone has a fair chance at achieving their goals aswell. Now this whole thread has wasted a good amount of time. If anyone of my "fan club" out there understand atleast a little more behind my motives then its not as wasted as I thought, but I doubt it. Most of the people who publically "hate" me do it because its easier to be mad at someoneelse or be jealous of someoneelse than it is to look at your own flaws and make adjustments.
Chocorua
I'd suggest re-reading Solomon's post. I know I've felt like that at times Having met many of the Imms in person, I can assure you they're people like you. With all of the strengths and weaknesses people tend to have. Some you'd like and others you wouldn't.
But together they've made Legend a damn fine mud to play on. It's one I often try to get folks to try, which i wouldn't do if there weren't some control over language, abuse of bugs, etc., rudeness, and any of the other things mentioned in the posts above.
I won't speak for other PR Imms, but if I'm not visible I'm involved with something else. It may or may not be Legend-related, but I don't wish to be disturbed while I'm doing it so I go invis.
I would encourage everyone to, as Chocorua says, "play by the rules" as well. But then I'm a bozo and everyone behaving makes life easier for me. :) I like to see people getting along, regardless if they are a mortal or an Immortal.
Okay, I'm rambling/babbling, so it's time to "self medicate" again. Stay groovy, peeps, and let's all enjoy history as it should have been. -puff- -puff-
Peace, dudes and dudettes!
Spencer
Chocorua