Pick new admins sooner rather than later

[KoriJenkins]

A situation occurred today that would probably not have occurred if the admin team was not criminally understaffed. Essentially, around 1 PM a flyhacker logged in and proceeded to go on a joyride for an hour before logging off. He wasn't jailed until about 3 hours later when Yukarion logged on and I gave him the info about the guy.

While that doesn't seem like a situation that was all that bad, it's more bad when you realize that he essentially had a 4 hour window to do whatever he wanted to whatever he found and nobody could've stopped him. If 3 admins wasn't enough in 2019 to stop phrasings from duping and "destroying years of history" then how can someone possibly argue that 2 is enough now? Or that 3 would be? There are twice as many active players now as there were when I joined, and even back then incidents still occurred.

The server needs new admins, not one new admin, and there's no singular good candidate that would make having only 3 feasible. I don't know who is being discussed by Yukarion and ostrich1414, but it seems like this might be a good place to make a basic list of candidates whose names I've heard thrown around and possibly discuss whether they would be good or not for the server.

The names I've seen come up (that I assume were serious suggestions) are: MoWobbler, Tenced, Korijenkins, Porkington (Pip, duh), Ton, clipchip, and diGGing4gold.

To get started, I'll go through that list marking out pros and cons of each candidate in my opinion, and hopefully others will follow.

MoWobbler

Pros

Undeniably neutral

Level headed

Knowledgeable with events and server commands

Cons

Possibly not active enough

Active primarily during windows where other admins are present (not necessarily a bad thing as I'll detail at the end)


Tenced

Pros

Knows Spanish

Level Headed

Active in less managed time slots than ostrich1414 or Yukarion

Cons

Questionable neutrality

Possibly not active enough


Korijenkins

Pros

Very active

Cares about server history

Lives at computer

Some experience with hacked clients

Cons

Questionable neutrality

Not very knowledgeable about server commands

Possibly the owner of the 2b2tard account


Porkington

Pros

Veteran player

Cares about server history

Respected in the community

Already manages the wiki

Cons

Has been more active on other servers recently

Possibly active during other admins' timeslots

Vast


Ton

Pros

Knowledgeable with farms

Very active

Level headed

Cons

Possibly spends most of the time AFK

Possibly not neutral

Active during similar timeslots


clipchip

Pros

Veteran player

Chad

Immense in-game knowledge

Creator of many plugins

Cons

Not neutral

Obsessed with 2D girls

Currently feuding with Yukarion

Says he doesn't want to do it


diGGing4gold

Pros

Active overnight

Very active

Hates hackers

Cons

Not neutral

Possibly not knowledgeable with game mechanics




Please add more to the list, or add suggestions, or add more context to those people, or just tell Yukar to pick one already.

Also I debated whether overlapping time slots should be a con. That's up to interpretation, but I'm sure ostrich would appreciate being able to actually log off without feeling like the server is gonna fucking explode lol.

[Burger]

I've always felt that MoWobbler is an obvious choice, it's just unfortunate that his active hours aren't much different from existing admins. But it would still be an improvement, so I don't see why that should rule him out. I also feel Tenced would make a good admin, and that you're underestimating his neutrality. I don't see any downsides to either of these, I think they should both be made admin (idk why we seem to be limiting ourselves to one, seems arbitrary).

Ton/clip/2b2tard aren't neutral enough imo, and I don't know digging4Gold well enough to judge. I assume Porkington would be fine since he's handled it before and presumably didn't abuse his role.



edit: lol @ 4pilot's contribution to the discussion on the discord "I would want burger as admin tbh but it’s hard to know if the guy is an alt or not"

[KoriJenkins]

I've always felt that MoWobbler is an obvious choice, it's just unfortunate that his active hours aren't much different from existing admins. But it would still be an improvement, so I don't see why that should rule him out. I also feel Tenced would make a good admin, and that you're underestimating his neutrality. I don't see any downsides to either of these, I think they should both be made admin (idk why we seem to be limiting ourselves to one, seems arbitrary).

Ton/clip/2b2tard aren't neutral enough imo, and I don't know digging4Gold well enough to judge. I assume Porkington would be fine since he's handled it before and presumably didn't abuse his role.



edit: lol @ 4pilot's contribution to the discussion on the discord "I would want burger as admin tbh but it’s hard to know if the guy is an alt or not"

My main thing has always been that idk if neutrality is something that actually matters. Would someone really go out of their way to grief a base as an admin, something that would certainly be undone and result in their likely permanent ban?

DakkaDok was never neutral. He always displayed outright bias against players he didn't like. He was also one of Sim's best admins historically. Tenced is also not neutral lol, he's literally a high-ranking Church member, one of the most antagonistic groups on the server.

Point is, neutrality is objective. I consider myself neutral because I avoid conflicts and stopped griefing after the Republic-Francis war, others will say I'm not because I argue with people in chat. I don't consider Tenced neutral because he doesn't avoid conflicts, but he's nice in chat. There's really not one definition of neutrality.

And I'm not 2b2tard >:(

[Burger]

My main thing has always been that idk if neutrality is something that actually matters. Would someone really go out of their way to grief a base as an admin, something that would certainly be undone and result in their likely permanent ban?

DakkaDok was never neutral. He always displayed outright bias against players he didn't like. He was also one of Sim's best admins historically. Tenced is also not neutral lol, he's literally a high-ranking Church member, one of the most antagonistic groups on the server.

Point is, neutrality is objective. I consider myself neutral because I avoid conflicts and stopped griefing after the Republic-Francis war, others will say I'm not because I argue with people in chat. I don't consider Tenced neutral because he doesn't avoid conflicts, but he's nice in chat. There's really not one definition of neutrality.

And I'm not 2b2tard >:(

You're right that only a small minority of players would actually abuse admin powers, given the chance. But we have plenty of active players to choose from, so we might as well choose the most neutral ones. You're also right that most admin abuse can be easily undone in the rare event that it happens, but I'm more worried about subtle things that can't be traced/proven, or things which can't as easily be fixed, like leaking a base or even many bases.

By neutral I mean someone who won't abuse their position to enrich their team or to attack their team's enemies, which Tenced absolutely wouldn't despite being a member of a clan. Even in the context of Simpvp LARPing he stays out of a lot of the church's bullshit tbh.

[ostrich1414]

I agree that not only do we need another admin, but we need more than one other admin. Preferably 2-3, in all honesty. With DakkaDok gone and MisterStrawman MIA, Yukarion and I have been the only two active admins, and there are many times where we have our own real-life obligations to deal with that result in the server being unmoderated. Who knows what happens during those unmoderated periods of time. And frankly, from a personal standpoint, being one of the only active admins has been miserable for the last few months. I have contemplated taking an extended hiatus from the server multiple times as a result, but have only declined because I would not want to fuck everyone over with no moderation. Having some help would be greatly appreciated, even if non-admins think it wouldn't. I'm stressing over a job that shouldn't even be a damn job.

I still stand by my original three recommendations for admin: MoWobbler, clipchip, and Korijenkins. Unfortunately I doubt clipchip will ever accept the role of admin (he has declined it twice already and expressed clear opposition against being one on numerous occasions), but I still think he is a very solid choice. I personally think MoWobbler is an excellent all-around choice, and even if his hours are not as impressive as other choices, there is no harm in having him be admin versus not even if it's 3-4 hours a day at most. EDIT: I have edited this to include Korijenkins himself. While I frankly had not considered him at first, the more I thought about it, he is an excellent candidate. He has continuously exhibited a passion for the server, its culture, history, and safety, as well as a dedication to maintaining the rules, even without being an admin himself. He is also the most active player of my three suggestions.

In a lot of ways, the "oldfag" side of me would like to see an older player or two with years of experience hold the title of admin, but other than clip (although even he doesn't play as much anymore), very few older players are active on Sim consistently. I think experience goes a long way, but there are very few active pre-2019 players to choose from. Nevertheless, that isn't necessarily a big deal.

I also largely agree with Kori's list, but Mo, Korijenkins, and clip are still my top three. However, I would genuinely be happy with any of the choices. At the end of the day, I've been fucking miserable and drained from the constant barrage I face as an admin for a multitude of reasons, so it would be nice to have more active faces stand by my side to suffer along with me.

[KoriJenkins]

My main thing has always been that idk if neutrality is something that actually matters. Would someone really go out of their way to grief a base as an admin, something that would certainly be undone and result in their likely permanent ban?

DakkaDok was never neutral. He always displayed outright bias against players he didn't like. He was also one of Sim's best admins historically. Tenced is also not neutral lol, he's literally a high-ranking Church member, one of the most antagonistic groups on the server.

Point is, neutrality is objective. I consider myself neutral because I avoid conflicts and stopped griefing after the Republic-Francis war, others will say I'm not because I argue with people in chat. I don't consider Tenced neutral because he doesn't avoid conflicts, but he's nice in chat. There's really not one definition of neutrality.

And I'm not 2b2tard >:(

You're right that only a small minority of players would actually abuse admin powers, given the chance. But we have plenty of active players to choose from, so we might as well choose the most neutral ones. You're also right that most admin abuse can be easily undone in the rare event that it happens, but I'm more worried about subtle things that can't be traced/proven, or things which can't as easily be fixed, like leaking a base or even many bases.

By neutral I mean someone who won't abuse their position to enrich their team or to attack their team's enemies, which Tenced absolutely wouldn't despite being a member of a clan. Even in the context of Simpvp LARPing he stays out of a lot of the church's bullshit tbh.

Chat logs and such still exist though. Teleport logs still exist. Essentially any action taken by an admin is reviewable. Segoria's coords were leaked months ago and nobody went there because doing so is obviously illegal. Whenever an x-rayer has leaked coords, I've just ignored the numbers on the screen and mocked him because it's funnier when they get angry about someone not taking advantage of their cheating. If someone leaked every base on the server, it would be fairly obvious it was an admin, and whoever the newest admin was would just be banned. Again, not certain any person would logically invest thousands of hours into a Minecraft server just to get banned for that lol.

Them being neutral is good, but them being inactive isn't. As I said in the sim discord chat, Mo and Tenced combine to roughly 5 hours per day, and Mo plays when ost plays. No new timeframes are covered by them, and they aren't online enough or consistently enough to justify them being chosen over, for example, diGGing, who is online as much as or more than both of them combined or alternatively more technically attuned candidates like clipchip (though whether he wants to do it is up for debate)

Neutrality arguably shouldn't be considered at all. It's far less important than game knowledge, familiarity with hacks, activity, etc. The only reason I included it at all is some people think it's important and it's probably MoWobbler's best asset by far when considered.

Not saying it shouldn't be MoWobbler and Tenced, just that it shouldn't be only them. A combined playtime of 5 hours between 2 people isn't gonna help catch hackers like the one I described, especially considering neither of them were online when that situation happened.

If someone actually abused their position to enrich their team or attack their team's enemies, they would get banned immediately and never be let out. The damage would be reversed, and they would've effectively wasted years of time on a game for nothing. It's not logical to think anyone on this list, or even most people on the server including people who aren't being considered, would do that.

[KoriJenkins]

I agree that not only do we need another admin, but we need more than one other admin. Preferably 2-3, in all honesty. With DakkaDok gone and MisterStrawman MIA, Yukarion and I have been the only two active admins, and there are many times where we have our own real-life obligations to deal with that result in the server being unmoderated. Who knows what happens during those unmoderated periods of time. And frankly, from a personal standpoint, being one of the only active admins has been miserable for the last few months. I have contemplated taking an extended hiatus from the server multiple times as a result, but have only declined because I would not want to fuck everyone over with no moderation. Having some help would be greatly appreciated, even if non-admins think it wouldn't. I'm stressing over a job that shouldn't even be a damn job.

I still stand by my original three recommendations for admin: MoWobbler, clipchip, and Tenced. Unfortunately I doubt clipchip will ever accept the role of admin (he has declined it twice already and expressed clear opposition against being one on numerous occasions), but I still think he is a very solid choice. I personally think MoWobbler is an excellent all-around choice, and even if his hours are not as impressive as other choices, there is no harm in having him be admin versus not even if it's 3-4 hours a day at most. Same with Tenced, in many respects, although I frankly see him online even less than Mo nowadays.

In a lot of ways, the "oldfag" side of me would like to see an older player or two with years of experience hold the title of admin, but other than clip (although even he doesn't play as much anymore), very few older players are active on Sim consistently. I think experience goes a long way, but there are very few active pre-2019 players to choose from. Nevertheless, that isn't necessarily a big deal.

I also largely agree with Kori's list, but Mo, Tenced, and clip are still my top three. However, I would genuinely be happy with any of the choices. At the end of the day, I've been fucking miserable and drained from the constant barrage I face as an admin for a multitude of reasons, so it would be nice to have more active faces stand by my side to suffer along with me.

It's really not even my list that I created, it's just a list of the names that were mentioned on discord.

I could honestly see Sellout being good at it. Lord too. The reality is, I don't believe neutrality is a real concept and only included it on this list because apparently some people think it's the most important factor.

[Burger]

Chat logs and such still exist though. Teleport logs still exist. Essentially any action taken by an admin is reviewable. Segoria's coords were leaked months ago and nobody went there because doing so is obviously illegal. Whenever an x-rayer has leaked coords, I've just ignored the numbers on the screen and mocked him because it's funnier when they get angry about someone not taking advantage of their cheating. If someone leaked every base on the server, it would be fairly obvious it was an admin, and whoever the newest admin was would just be banned. Again, not certain any person would logically invest thousands of hours into a Minecraft server just to get banned for that lol.

Them being neutral is good, but them being inactive isn't. As I said in the sim discord chat, Mo and Tenced combine to roughly 5 hours per day, and Mo plays when ost plays. No new timeframes are covered by them, and they aren't online enough or consistently enough to justify them being chosen over, for example, diGGing, who is online as much as or more than both of them combined or alternatively more technically attuned candidates like clipchip (though whether he wants to do it is up for debate)

Neutrality arguably shouldn't be considered at all. It's far less important than game knowledge, familiarity with hacks, activity, etc. The only reason I included it at all is some people think it's important and it's probably MoWobbler's best asset by far when considered.

Not saying it shouldn't be MoWobbler and Tenced, just that it shouldn't be only them. A combined playtime of 5 hours between 2 people isn't gonna help catch hackers like the one I described, especially considering neither of them were online when that situation happened.

If someone actually abused their position to enrich their team or attack their team's enemies, they would get banned immediately and never be let out. The damage would be reversed, and they would've effectively wasted years of time on a game for nothing. It's not logical to think anyone on this list, or even most people on the server including people who aren't being considered, would do that.

I'm not sure what exactly is logged. Would Yukar know if an admin gave themselves items in creative and gave them to someone else, for example? I imagine there'd just be a log of them entering creative mode but that's easily excused. Same if they leaked a base to someone. I also don't think "being banned" is much of a deterrent since evading a ban is extremely easy. Just best to stay on the safe side and only choose the most neutral players imo.

[Sellout9]

diGGing4gold would be maybe the worst possible choice for a new admin. diGGing4gold has hated me and spread false shit about me in chat for the better part of a year because I accidentally gave him 4 shulkers of gp and a blank shulk rather than 5 shulkers of gp, instead of telling me so I could correct this mistake he has called me a scammer and won't accept the shulker of gp I have offering him countless times. If these are the attributes you are looking for in an admin you have severe brain worms.

[KoriJenkins]

diGGing4gold would be maybe the worst possible choice for a new admin. diGGing4gold has hated me and spread false shit about me in chat for the better part of a year because I accidentally gave him 4 shulkers of gp and a blank shulk rather than 5 shulkers of gp, instead of telling me so I could correct this mistake he has called me a scammer and won't accept the shulker of gp I have offering him countless times. If these are the attributes you are looking for in an admin you have severe brain worms.

It's not my list. These are just the names I kept seeing come up in the discussion lol.