A queston/suggestion -- Please read

[Dodger007]

All admin's have may different qualities, our servers have closer admin's due to the nature of of the game client we use to administrate the game.  One thing however is clear, each admin is different!

Unfortunately this has led to questions being raised in both BT-Pro and N-Ices respective servers as to whether or or not Guidance notes as well as Better written/worded rules should be in place,  players should expect a level of uniformity from admin's, and likewise admin's should have a list of does and don’t s before acting on such features as permanent bans.

In recant weeks I have kick players from a game for what I think was spreading another admin's has said that he would not treat as spreading but our rules do not make it clear enough as to what is and is not spreading.  Another admin has given a permanent ban to a player who could not log back into his own company personally I believe that’s harsh but I have to respect that the admin had his reasons.

I would like to hear ideas from both sides as to whether or not it's time to implement a shared set of guidance and rules for admin's and players alike so as we all can start to take  a more professional and fair approach to dealing with issues that affect all of us. In doing this we will not only let the players know what to expect from an admin, but also allow admin's to work together to make a better game for players.

People we do this for free, in some cases we spend money on providing a free service and we do this in our spare time, let's try to make life easier and not harder for ourselves.

Dodger007[admin]

BT-Pro

[Geert]

Well I guess its natural for admins to be different because we are different in person. We are not machines!

But i guess its an idea to have a code or system to work like the same in ways of punishment. I think the biggestest differences are to be find there

[ST2]

That's truly a valid point. More important that set some new punishments is to harmonize and leveling the actions actions/reactions on admin side. And this is the correct way to take preventing an exaggerated scale of actions I checked recently. Of course, it's impossible to remove human factor from the equation, wich means that errors will continue to occur! What is sad is when that happens because "admin powers" make people so full of themselves. Here I'm being a bit unfair for generalize things, although the source of the problems already known. As someone said almost a month ago "we're the beginner magnet anyway" so I think it's fair admins understand that too... and not only think on the pusishments and taking erroneous decisions/actions/behaviours. Players also notice that and I guess this has been reflected in player number on different communities. About this, I think it's enough for now!

Theoretically, the easiest way of set some guidelines to admin actions is making a correlation with the rules en force. But in practice is not as literal - there's the player's human side: why he broke a certain rule, is he available to listen the admin and fix, already been warned and is reoccur in the same, and so on... But of course there's always the hard situations that require immediate actions to prevent further negatively affect other players gameplay. But perhaps it would be premature proceed further without a new definition of rule #4 (still the most problematic, enforced but not respected - and players see that and get confused there). Some guidelines already exist and somehow I don't want to believe that are being ignored. Probably a bit more detailed (if possible) would help but will continue impossible to remove human factor on both sides accumulating also the impossibility of cover all the situations. As I said previously, even inside a low severity rule break, there will be several options, always depending of player-admin interaction and any try of "mechanize" punishments will lead to less talks between admins and players, I think, and to admins forgetting what they are really needed!

But in n-ice case it's more a lack of knowledge of point "14. Handling of rule violations" or, even more worrying, the inability to analyze each rule break situation (if any) and act in concordance. And that leads to the correct timing of asking: Is that the profile wanted for admin tasks?

Note: I've seen too some very good admin work but for the same reasons I won't say names in both cases. Simultaneously I offer my apologies to innocent people caught up in.

Edit: some mistype above

[Andreas]

Making the 'guidelines' a bit more explicit sounds like a good idea to me as well. Players will feel that we treat them more fairly if they see  the same/similar treatment from different admins for similar cases. That said I myself take very different actions to the same rule-break but that has other causes than the rule-break itself.

I usually only reset immediately for clear cases of blocking/destroying of RV's.
For the rest I try to warn and ask to fix first. How long I am willing to wait depends on the nature of the rule break AND whether a person is actively building or not. If I see no activity, that person might well be going to get some coffee, or busy with some other stuff. If I see active building however and I am still being ignored, i have much less patience. I also place signs in front of where they are building if i get the idea that they do not see the chat. In that case you cannot say that you did not see that I was trying to contact you as player.

Also most admins know who active players are and a lot of the time you can see by the score who often plays on the servers.  I also consider this a factor to grant a player a warning or not. Active players should know better what is being meant by the rules. Luckily I must say that most active players are not the ones giving trouble.

For new less frequent players, it is usually quite clear which ones are truely not understanding and who is just being difficult.

As you might have noticed i used the word usually a lot. That is because there are always exceptions on both player and admin side. That will prove almost impossible to rule out.

One last point: while a shared set of admin guidelines might work, I don't think that rules need to match. Part of why people choose for n-ice or bt-pro are the differences such as competition on secondary industries and the 'waling on water' stuff.

[PixL]

But perhaps it would be premature proceed further without a new definition of rule #4 (still the most problematic, enforced but not respected - and players see that and get confused there).

(I'm not a very frequent player, so I haven't seen how admins handle these sorts of things. Therefore, my opinion might be a bit invalid.)
I definitely think rule #4 needs some tweaking, it is not very clear.
Do you admins have some sort of guidelines on how hard different actions should be punished?, and if so, do they make distinctions between things like unintentional blocking (as in booking a bit too much land around your airports) and more intentional blocking?
Rule#4 might also cause confusion to players, it is a bit unclear on exactly what blocking a town is. As an example it really is down to each individual's interpretation if a used railway be considered a blocker if it is surrounding a town.

[Andreas]

Thank you for your reply. I will begin by pointing to:https://wiki.x-base.info/OpenTTD/Rules (detailed rules) and https://wiki.x-base.info/OpenTTD/Rules/Pictures (pictures to explain rules) If you have allready seen them, then just skip

Do you admins have some sort of guidelines on how hard different actions should be punished?....

Yes there are.  I quote from detailed rules page:

14.2. Admins
Admins follow a fixed protocol if they spot a rule violation.
Ask the player to fix his rule violations
If a player does not respond within 30 seconds lock his company to get his attention
Wait for the player to respond
10 minutes for cases where nobody is disturbed by the rule violation (nobody is actively blocked, nobody complained)
2 minutes for cases where someone is disturbed by the rule violation (someone is actively blocked or complained about it)
If the player did not respond or refuses to fix the rule violation within that time an admin will reset his company

For cases with low severity admins can always decide (and are encouraged) to wait longer than the above mentioned time or even help a player by joining his company to fix the problems.

For cases with high severity (active sabotage of other players, intentional vehicle destruction, insults...) admins might even kick/ban/reset company without any prior warning.

....and if so, do they make distinctions between things like passive blocking (as in booking a bit too much land around your airports) and more active blocking?

I (and with me I think and hope most admins) do certainly make distinctions. In my opinion things that lead to a immediate reset are blocking rails with rails or buying land in front of them, blocking rv's by stopping another rv or train in front of them and such. These will most probably also lead to at least a tempban.

In most other cases I (again in most cases we) warn and ask to fix it first.

Rule#4 might also cause confusion to players, it is a bit unclear on exactly what blocking a town is. As an example it really is down to each individual's interpretation if a used railway be considered a blocker if it is surrounding a town.

Well yes. It is and will be a difficult rule to enforce and next to impossible to define all cases.
There has been a long discussion about it starting even before I joined the admin team. It can be found here:http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=170.15

It has not come to a conclusion. In the specific example you mention the distance between the houses and the railway and whether it completely circles around the town are important. If the distance is big enough for another player to fit in a decent station+approaching tracks, or at least half of the city is free, there is no problem. If neither of this is the case, you are probably blocking the city. For now I would say: don't go blindly on the 50% part, but rather the intention of the rule: to make sure that other people have the possibility to compete with you.

If you have any suggestions about things that should be added to the rule or a better wording, please share. Also there is a topic about the puinishments ( http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=292.0 ) and, if we may beleive the TS there, there will also be a follow-up topic once that has reached a conclusion.

[PixL]

Do you admins have some sort of guidelines on how hard different actions should be punished?....

Yes there are.  I quote from detailed rules page:

14.2. Admins
Admins follow a fixed protocol if they spot a rule violation.
Ask the player to fix his rule violations
If a player does not respond within 30 seconds lock his company to get his attention
Wait for the player to respond
10 minutes for cases where nobody is disturbed by the rule violation (nobody is actively blocked, nobody complained)
2 minutes for cases where someone is disturbed by the rule violation (someone is actively blocked or complained about it)
If the player did not respond or refuses to fix the rule violation within that time an admin will reset his company

For cases with low severity admins can always decide (and are encouraged) to wait longer than the above mentioned time or even help a player by joining his company to fix the problems.

For cases with high severity (active sabotage of other players, intentional vehicle destruction, insults...) admins might even kick/ban/reset company without any prior warning.

Thank you for the answer, you answered what I really wanted to ask (What guidelines do you have, why I wrote do you have any guidelines is beyond me).