Denied Limited Reversion of Staff Escalations Removal

[Zen]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
Partially revert the staff escalation process removal.

Specifically, I am suggesting that it be brought back with the following stipulations:

• Maximum one in-game escalation (as was already the case)
• Rule against constantly trying to escalate trivial matters or otherwise abusing the system - can lead to you being kicked, then banned
  • E.g. you try to bring an escalation over every sit, where there's clearly no impact on ongoing/near-future RP
• Only allowed for cases that are considered to have a likely direct impact on ongoing RP
  • E.g. you can't escalate for a one-off warn that doesn't impact ongoing or near-future roleplay (for example, you have been warned for clear RDM), but can for situations where e.g. the staff member has ruled on how ongoing RP should be carried out, such as declaring that one possible course of IC action is FailRP, which would limit your RP choices.

It would be up to the staff member that took the initial sit to decide whether something met the requirements for an escalation. While they might be biased in terms of they would agree with their own decision, they can likely be trusted to realise that yes, this does impact ongoing RP, and then decide it can be escalated. If they decided that there wasn't a valid reason for escalation, they would be able to say so and just forward the players to the forums complaints section as normal.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Not as far as I'm aware.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):

• Most situations would still not be eligible for an escalation, so still less pressure on SL and the like in-game.
• Includes clearly defined way for how escalation abuse should be handled, which wasn't previously written anywhere that regular staff could see.
• Issues with staff rulings that impact the outcomes of ongoing RP can still be quickly resolved
  • As it is, if a staff member declares that, for example, Option A out of Options A/B/C in an RP scenario is not allowed (and that isn't explicitly defined in the rules, i.e. it is up to staff judgement), and disallowing Option A significantly impacts the roleplay, and those involved believe it should be reversed/changed, then there isn't any consistent recourse to handle this in time. Those involved in the RP can only either:
    • Just ignore the staff member until their forums complaint gets handled, and probably get punished and prevented from doing so in the mean time
    • Pause their RP until their forums complaint is dealt with
    • Follow the initial ruling given, and even if the ruling is overturned following their forums complaint, it's too late and the RP has already been affected
  • None of the above are good outcomes, and any situation like this is going to upset everyone involved.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:

• Return of staff escalation system in any form will lead to increase in workload
  • Though it would definitely be less than before, when escalations were available for every decision, it would be unclear as to where in between "none" and "exactly as it was before" the level of work would fall. It might be worth trialling this for a month or two, and just reverting it to no escalations if this doesn't work out.
• Some staff may not be confident in deciding whether an escalation should be allowed.
  • I feel like this should be fairly simple, so there shouldn't be any real problem here, but I can see it maybe causing problems for one or two.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
It provides a way to resolve problems impacting ongoing RP in a timely manner, without returning the full, unlimited escalations process that was reportedly a large source of work for SL previously. Staff decisions do sometimes impact RP in this manner, and there isn't currently a sensible way to resolve situations where this happens and players wish to "appeal" the decision - if it impacts ongoing RP, the forums isn't anywhere close to a timely and sensible way to resolve issues like this.

 

[Tylenol Smith]

+Support although if its up to the staff team if you get an escalation I feel like its almost always gonna be no unless the staff member is slightly unsure.

 

[Auburn]

Has a situation like you described in this suggestion actually happened, or are you making up hypotheticals to support your argument?

 

[Cheetah]

Removing escalations was one of the most goated changes NL did. Escalations like mentioned in the original announcement was a way for players to "staff shop" until they found a staff that they A: Liked more, or B: That sided with them in the situation. Not having in-game escalations and instead referring people to the forums is a very good change. It saves soooo much time for in-game staff to be able to handle the 20 other reports that are currently up.

 

[Zen]

Has a situation like you described in this suggestion actually happened, or are you making up hypotheticals to support your argument?

I'm not the most active on the server right now, so I can't give you one that's recent, but it has happened to me at least a few times over the time I've been on. I'm sure others probably could give you more recent examples, especially those that are pushing the boundaries of things like powergaming/FailRP/etc. like RSD mains and CL4s.

A random older example I can think of, and one that literally caused this exact problem because (if I recall correctly) we were forced to resolve it via a Discord ticket for whatever reason at the time, was when I was on 22415-3, with another player on 22415-2, a while ago. I had witnessed both A-1 and O-1 acting concerning and threatening to other staff within the period of an hour or so, and so when I saw some A-1 kidnap the then-IA Director and bring them to Floor 3, we followed them while in the dimension to make sure they weren't doing anything untoward to the Director. Because we then witnessed them holding him in an interrogation rule, threatening him with a gun to the head and the like (iirc, we believed IC that they were trying to intimidate him and then possibly kill him, based on some actions taken), both of us dropped out of the dimension, expressed our concern, and then pulled the Director into the dimension and fled Floor 3 with him to remove him from what seemed to be an unwarranted threat to his life.

There's some specifics missing here that I simply don't remember or wasn't ever aware of, but essentially, a moderator that was essentially uninvolved in the situation raised an issue on it, and for some reason, that led to then-SMod/HMod John Doe ruling that the whole situation was voided because (as far as I am aware), there was some belief that 22415-2 had given the Director the helper SWEP (against the rules), and so it was against the rules. That hadn't happened, and I believe there was some general confusion between those that were actually involved as to what was being voided and why, and what was being claimed to be against the rules. Because, for some bizarre reason, this was being ruled on via TS and Discord from a USA staff member who wasn't on the server, via a UK staff member that wasn't originally involved and didn't have all of the info, this led to a lot of confusion and later delays in resolving this situation. In the end, the Director, @Merrick Travolta , had to open a Discord ticket and get it resolved via that, which took ages, added to the confusion, and meant that the others involved in the situation could neither view nor contribute to the conversation about it. While this was happening, for about a week, none of us knew whether the roleplay was supposed to be voided or not (from all involved's perspectives, it didn't seem so), nor what was supposed to have been against the rules that we shouldn't repeat from that if so. We couldn't continue from the roleplay, because it was supposedly voided, but also didn't want to just pretend the whole thing didn't happen and lose that RP, so iirc Merrick's whole character got put on pause for a bit while him and others worked out between others involved and any staff as to what could be done. In the end, I believe the situation was then no longer considered voided, and no rule breaks were apparently committed.

Merrick could probably give more details and the like on this specific situation, but the key thing related to this suggestion is that when RP decisions depend on a staff ruling, a delay in resolving an issue with said ruling causes problems for everyone involved, for the entire time the complaint/ticket is open. You only really have the option to either give up on challenging it, or have everyone involved wait the entire time to see what happens.

While many staff rulings don't have such an impact, it's not completely uncommon that staff might make a decision to void some RP due to rule breaks, or declare that certain things that are planned aren't allowed. All of the RP that comes after that will depend on this decision, so if players believe the decision to be wrong and they want to challenge it, they often can't proceed until it is resolved, because they literally don't know whether the whole basis of their RP is valid. If these sorts of issues aren't resolved quickly, that's a pretty big problem for everyone involved in the RP. Everyone just has to wait and see what the outcome is - and sometimes that's not actually possible for other reasons.

Imagine, for example, that a member of staff tells CI during a raid that they aren't allowed to hack the nuke, or release an SCP, or whatever. Even if CI wanted to comply with that ruling, they would then have wasted time, lives and let information out that they are there, and now they have to both get out of wherever they are, and change the whole raid plan - that's a huge, short-term, problem. If they think that the staff member's ruling doesn't make sense and want to challenge it, right now, their only recourse that they are currently actually allowed is to go on the forums, make a complaint (which only one person can see), wait however long it takes, and then get a response which, even if it goes their way, is too late. No point in even trying, given all that. With staff escalations, they could just ask the staff member in question to escalate it, which (under this) would be allowed due to it being a decision that affects ongoing RP, RP is paused for a few minutes while the decision is confirmed, and then they can just immediately continue - all resolved in an amount of time that doesn't cause a huge disruption.

Based on my past experience, and from talking to others previously, this seems like a problem that more often would face CL4+, as they are more often involved in longer-term RP and character-based RP, in which their RP essentially being on pause for a few days or a week would essentially prevent them from continuing a good chunk of their RP that isn't just base gameplay until it is resolved.

 

[Zen]

Removing escalations was one of the most goated changes NL did. Escalations like mentioned in the original announcement was a way for players to "staff shop" until they found a staff that they A: Liked more, or B: That sided with them in the situation. Not having in-game escalations and instead referring people to the forums is a very good change. It saves soooo much time for in-game staff to be able to handle the 20 other reports that are currently up.

I can understand that. I wasn't SL, so this wasn't really something that seemed too prevalent on my end, but it definitely sounds like the SL on the receiving end saw this problem a lot. I still, however, think that they do have a place in resolving urgent issues like these. That's why I'm trying to balance keeping that workload low, while still allowing them to be used where absolutely necessary. It would be up to the original staff member to judge if it was actually necessary, and if not, it wouldn't even reach SL in the first place outside of the longer-term forums complaints process (which already happen). Combine that with some actual, consistent guidelines/rules/punishments for handling those that try to abuse the process, and I don't think that this would be a significant issue - it would just be a tool that is used now and then, rather than many times per day.

 

[Doug 'TrippleD']

Personally when I was in a staff sit, people would constantly ask for escalations.
This leads to excessive 50 minute sits, annoyed staff & does not make the staff member who took the sit actually feel like its their sit anymore.
The removal of escalations was a great change imo and I always felt like absolute shit whenever a DC has the power to just escalate an already long sit because they weren't happy with the results. I could see how some of these points could be altered but the point of a sit is where the staff member is in control and has the FINAL say on what happens outside of staff complaints.

 

[Critical]

-support

Having been SL on SCP-RP staff sits could take 30 minutes -> 1 hour for an escalation which eventually leads to a forums complaint anyway.

 

[James V]

-support

 

[Broda]

Staff are volunteers and want to also play on the server. Being locked into a sit because X player is having a tantrum and wants an escalation will deter staff completely.

Massive -Support

 

[Guts]

Staff are volunteers and want to also play on the server. Being locked into a sit because X player is having a tantrum and wants an escalation will deter staff completely.

Massive -Support

"grow the fuck up and take the ic consequences"

>close sit
>result in a forum complaint
>it would have happened either way

 

[Snake]

Don't usually comment on this stuff but this has been one of NLs best changes, most the time 90% of escalations were from the same 10% of players. I don't wanna be called into escalations on the regular by some poor junior staff who've been talked at by someone in a sit enough to make them unsure

 

[Cade Valentine]

-Support
I get the idea but I literally just don't want staff to ever have to have more time per sit in an unnecessary fashion again. The removal of escalations was great, and I know a LOT of sits are being called daily as of late, if this was implemented, we'd have 10 minute backlogs for individual sits and people would hate the server. Just not practical.

 

[McMuffin]

I’m going to throw my two cents into this.

The removal of escalations entirely was the best change, in my opinion, that NL has done. Staff have been happier without it, and as others have said, staff are just volunteers; there is no point in making them do extra work and stress. Escalations add an extra 30+ minutes to a sit that usually would be around 10 minutes typically. The only reason people ask for escalations is because they don’t like a ruling that was given, not because the ruling was wrong; the person who broke the rule just wants to find every excuse to not get the punishment they would get. And if the ruling is still something they don’t like, it’s still a complaint at the end of the day; escalations just remove the middle part of getting more staff and attempt to change the ruling. In the other 99% of times the ruling is wrong and the escalation is needed, then a complaint would still solve the issue.

Anyway, TL;DR:

Don’t re-add escalations; staff are volunteers and don’t want to sit here for 30+ minutes dealing with a ruling that would happen anyway. The complaints we have are for a reason.

-support

 

[Niox]

-Support
-This is the lesser of 2 evils or something

 

[Marvin Garden]

The neverending sits had to stop.
Making them go to the forums not only gives time to cooldown and think, but deters people from making escalations on matters that really quite clearly do not need an escalation.

 

[Sceptre]

wah wah i want to speak to your manager because i am right and you are wrong!

bring back escalations, but make it that if you're in the wrong, you're permanently banned with no chance of appeal
see it, say it, sorted

 

[Guts]

wah wah i want to speak to your manager because i am right and you are wrong!

bring back escalations, but make it that if you're in the wrong, you're permanently banned with no chance of appeal
see it, say it, sorted

blacklisted instead


you aint bitching to nobody after that

 

[Merrick Travolta]

Merrick could probably give more details and the like on this specific situation, but the key thing related to this suggestion is that when RP decisions depend on a staff ruling, a delay in resolving an issue with said ruling causes problems for everyone involved, for the entire time the complaint/ticket is open. You only really have the option to either give up on challenging it, or have everyone involved wait the entire time to see what happens.

I will admit the ruling provided by staff at the time was confusing, this has since been clarified to be more clear, though I do not necessarily agree with the ruling myself, Lack of escalations however would not have helped the matter due to if I had made a sit, it would have been against a staff member which would have then required me to go to the forums regardless.


I don't think escalations should come back due to previously mentioned reasons such as

- "Staff shopping"
- Allowing people to be more confident in their sits.


As a staff member i've had people both make escalations for fair reasons and making escalations out of sheer outrage that I disagreed with them, I do not believe the latter group should be allowed to get escalations just to waste my time further because they're outraged.

It is massively demotivating if I can learn a pattern of players who will make escalations when they are disagreed with and dread taking their sits because I know it would take up to 20 to 30 minutes of my own time that I want to spend roleplaying or handling other player issues as both site command and O5.

 

[Charles "Ze" Whitmee]

most the time 90% of escalations were from the same 10% of players

bring back escalations, but make it that if you're in the wrong, you're permanently banned with no chance of appeal

Gentlemen, I may not have a brain, but I have an idea.