Denied Remove Site Command and ISD

This suggestion has been denied and will not receive development.
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Zen

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What does this suggestion change/add/remove:

This suggestion changes the following;

[Removals]
- Remove the O5 Council, Alpha-1, and their Assistants (outside of events/SSL)

- Remove the Ethics Committee, Omega-1, and their Assistants (outside of events/SSL. Ethics could possibly be reintroduced in the future in a different form.)


[Department Expansions]
- Expansion of the Security Department to include a whitelisted security task force (Like an MTF, but under Security) dedicated to the protection of Site Administration, and executing their will, acting as their combative arm.

- Expansion of Internal Affairs to include more trusted jobs with more powerful arrest and investigative authority site-wide. This could possibly include a more combative job, like the “SWAT” of I.A.

- Possible expansion of Site Administration to include jobs such as Zone Managers or Deputy/Co-Site Director (Just an idea, somewhat questionable in use)

- IA and/or DEA pick up infoleak suppression as a duty, possibly some kind of shared thing to encourage RP between the two


Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Site Command being removed has not been suggested before outside of mess hall, that I know of.


Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):

> Significantly reduced drama and ego battles within the community

> Less potential rule breaks

> Improved roleplay environment

> Reduced amount of excess, unnecessary job bloat (Less of a player split, and two less MTFs)

> Removes the overlap issues and frustrations between Site Command, ISD, Site Administration, IA, and the rest of the community.

> Provides opportunities for other departments to expand or be created, such as Security, or Nu-7/E-11.

> Prevention of ISD wars, which go so bad when left unchecked that UK SC made an OOC agreement that heavily limits what can be done.

> Makes sense in RP - why would O5-1/2/3/4, three ECMs and the ECC all be stationed at a containment site [EDIT: Added later]


Possible Negatives of the suggestion:


> All of the work done regarding Ethics, O5, and Alpha/Omega-1 will be removed.

> Members in Site Command and Alpha/Omega-1 will lose their positions (Though can be transferred to other positions of their choosing at the discretion of the roleplay leaders)

> This is a major change, and can cause a temporary destabilization within the community as they adapt to it and figure out the new environment that would come as a result.

> Significant reduction in combative jobs, which may (or may not) cause an imbalance between the Foundation and GOIs/SCPs


Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:

(Note: Things mentioned here do not account for every single site command member who’s ever existed or does exist in the community. Some ISD/SC have done relatively well in their positions, but that does not account for the majority. This is not intended to be a disrespectful or personal jab at anyone.)

For one, Site Command simply does not contribute enough of value to the community to make up for the issues caused. While the idea of the O5 Council, Alpha-1, Ethics Committee and Omega-1 are all very cool ideas and work well within the SCP Wiki and have a lot of roleplay potential, that isn’t how things have worked out in this server. These groups contribute nearly nothing to the roleplay environment of the community and have only taken away from groups such as Site Administration. Not to mention the amount of drama, toxicity, and egos that come from and are often caused by all four of these groups who constantly fight for who’s right, wrong, and who has the most power/authority over others. Site Command and ISD have only caused frustration, community divide, and problems. Even certain past ISD commanding officers have stated they would rather have someone toxic who doesn’t roleplay over someone bad at combat. The priorities of these groups are not in line with the communities best interest, and this has been proven over the past two and a half years where players outside of Site Command and ISDs friend groups express their frustrations with their near limitless power and their nonsensical use of it. It doesn’t make sense in any lore, and it doesn’t make sense for the community to continue having Site Command in the way that they are implemented currently in the server to essentially be two major powers who do the same exact thing and fight each other on a daily basis.

Overall, having these groups have only caused toxicity and frustrations in the long run. The Site Command/Administration rework only helped in the short run until the point of that rework was forgotten, and Site Command still stepped on and overshadowed Site Administration on many subjects, involving themselves directly in site affairs more often than they ever should have.

There have been countless incidents relating to toxicity, power abuse, server rule breaking (often not addressed when staff are aware) and similar, that often significantly affect server health for other factions/departments/etc. These issues come naturally when you introduce two major powers with minimal restriction on what their expectations are. Even if Server Leadership manages to weed out every bad apple of Site Command/ISD, the mere nature of these groups will continue to encourage more unsavory individuals to work themselves into these positions again and again. [EDIT: Specific incidents have been removed as to not potentially cause drama, but there was previously an actual list of various incidents over time, so while I won't include them, rest assured that there are plenty.]


Frequently (Predictably) Asked Questions:

“How would this be implemented in roleplay, and what would happen to these roles?”
Essentially, The Administrator would decide that leaving the O5 Council and Ethics Committee permanently assigned to a site such as 65 was far too dangerous to be reasonable, and went against the Foundations expectations of personnel of their class. So, they’re re-positioned to Site-01 with the rest of the council. These roles would then serve as a position for Game Masters to use for events, or for Server Leadership to use when assigning a new Site Director or intervening in roleplay situations when necessary.


“What are the main benefits of this suggestion besides whats mentioned in the reasoning?”
Besides what’s posted, removal of O5, Ethics, and everything associated opens up alot of room for opportunity. Floor 3 and Ethics Wing could be repurposed or removed entirely in favor of other sectors in the map that other groups could benefit from. There would also be a reduction in models for these roles unless NL decides to keep them for events. This would also remove many roles, including many combative roles, from the server which opens up room for other departments to expand or be created without bloating the server. (Such as expanding Security, Internal Affairs, giving room for E&TS, RAISA, etc.)


“Could these roles ever come back?”
Depending on what NL wants if they accepted this suggestion, I’m sure they could. But they would have to be much more strictly chosen based on their roleplay capabilities and how kind they are to others, and not who’s friend they are, their combat skills, or what documents they created. Other implementations of O5, for example, could include solely being a Forum/Discord role given to heavily trusted players who are excellent at roleplay and respect with maybe one O5 job slot that can only be used when authorized by Server Leadership for specific events/scenarios. The EC specifically has a lot of potential to be reworked into something else that wouldn't be nearly as susceptible to these sorts of issues.


“What about the people who hold these positions already?”
I definitely can understand that some of these people, especially those in Site Command or ISD COs, have worked long and hard for their positions. The prospect of that work being stripped from them like this wouldn’t feel good. One idea for this process is to allow all people in these positions to hold their roles until they choose where they want to go or resign, however the roles would be locked and unable to be obtained by anyone in the future. So if there’s four O5 now and two choose to resign or transfer, there would only be two O5 remaining until they resign. In return, O5 and Ethics would lose their power over site policy and would not be able to edit it further without permission from Site Administration once there’s less than three Site Command from each group remaining. They would continue to hold their power in roleplay to initiate different RP until their role dissolves. During this process, members of SC and ISD can transfer to other departments such as other MTFs, Junior CL4 roles (or Senior CL4 roles for ISD CO and SC+), DEA Senior Agent, IA, etc.
 
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Agreed, people saying it won't be implemented even though they are +supporting it are ultimately dragging the idea down through their own deception. This is genuinely a necessary change that should be made to expand on the Core of the Site, 62 slots of the server can be taken up by ISD, Assistants and SC which is almost half of the player cap (ridiculous) whereas GSD, Research and Medical are becoming more and more stagnant throughout time. The Core departments of the server (GSD, RsD, Medical, IA, DEA, Engineering, SA) Need to be expanded on in jobs and take away from the 62 job slots for unnecessary positions.
Could make the same argument that all of CI can literally take up all server slots
That’s not gonna happen though, there probably wont ever be all ISD and SC on
 
Feb 13, 2022
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= Neutral learning to - Support

From what i've read from the suggestion I do understand some points however on the UK servers both ISDs are very strict with toxicity and if we see anyone being toxic it is dealt with strictly, ISD wars which is said to be a massive problem is something which both ISD CO teams have worked to stop and are more so of a rare event now which require good RP reasoning.

I also believe the toxicity etc would not be reduced by removing ISD as no matter the regiments on the server, there will always be some sort of conflict. It is the CO team of the respective regiment to stop toxicity thus outright removing ISD would not change much, instead toxicity should be handled through reporting it to the CO team of each ISD

From a RP perspective, Site-65 is the logistical hub of the foundation, the full removal of the council and committee just doesn't make sense. There would be some representative through an assistant / council member / committee member. I do somewhat agree that it doesn't make sense that -1 / the ECC would be on this site due to how dangerous it is.

The issue of what occurs IF this suggestion occurs, how would Site admin be reworked? Who will oppose Site admin and ensure they're not making incorrect decisions within RP, site-65 works on the fact that the 2 most powerful groups are always watching over each other ensuring that if the wrong decision is made, they will step in.

Lastly, Requis has said that Site-9 will not have a similar structure to site-65 in mess-hall so it wouldn't be reliable to see how it is without SC there.

That is all i really have to say :)
 
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TootsMcScoots

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Jun 18, 2023
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i know from the outset this seems like a silly suggestion, after all like the beginning of the post says something like this has only been suggested in mess-hall which... is mess-hall, but I really do think this is a good way to deal with some of the issues we've been having on the server for a while. Way too much over-stepping from some ISD's and SC and not following procedures that they are supposed to embody and like you said it would make no sense that the Administrator would let so many overseeres and the EC stay for extended periods at a site like Site-65 that has some of the most dangerous and difficult to contain anomalies (minus literal gods and celestial bodies ofc) and has catastrophic breaches every hour.

+support from me
 
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Jul 11, 2023
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For all the ISD saying they'd be out of a job and not having slots for another regiment, IN MY OPINION. I think SSL / SL / NL would highly think of increasing the cap for E-11 / Nu-7/ GOC / CI if they do remove ISD.

PLEASE DON'T QUOTE ME ON THIS.
 
-support
most of your "positives" are just problems on the UK. The only big concern I see that happens on US is "Ego Battles and Drama." Which is completely false to say that this is a positive because all that will happen is this drama moving to more departments do you think people who are have drama or ego others just leave? They go elsewhere and cause more drama.
 
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The removal of Assistants is also completely unjustified. Not only are Assistants not the target of your accusations regarding ego issues but if there were no council or committe members on site that it does make sense that an Assistant would be assigned to the site to represent them.
Im not too much of a yapper, so i won't be fully commenting on the other stuff (i am not bothered typing out a paragraph or two) but this is completely fair. Most I could say is that Assistants could move elsewhere outside of EC/O5, and they could stay in a less powerful way, but they are definitely some form of collateral.
 
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May 24, 2022
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-Support

There is a couple of issues with this that have been listed in other replies.

Site-9 is being developed and as far as i know wont have SC. What's the point making a new server with a different set of positions if site-65 is going to be the exact same.
Another thing is the issues listed with SC and ISD is more to do with the players involved in those departments and not the positions and content they provide, Omega-1 are trying to help with those issues but we are not receiving many reports so its a tricky one to resolve.
Site command has the purpose of IC projects and storylines alongside keeping the gameplay loop varied through their positions and they are not to intervene and interact with departments over every little thing, that is site admins job and I agree with that site command are involving themselves where it isn't needed.

Like I said though, the issues is player orientated. Removing SC and ISD will not solve any of the issues you've listed and instead spread it across the entire server. Alongside that there is also the issue of getting rid of 50+ active players who have worked for their positions, it isn't feasible.
If there are any issues with Omega-1 or ethics on UK please reach out, we have been trying to resolve as many issues as we can so it would be a great help.
 
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Site-9 is being developed and one of the main differences in that server is the lack of site command. What's the point making a new server with a different set of positions if site-65 is going to be the exact same.
Lastly, Requis has said that Site-9 will have similar structure to site-65 in mess-hall so it wouldn't be reliable to see how it is without SC there.
Arrest this O1 for Misinformation 257753 pls
 

Prplex

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-Support
While reducing job bloat is a thing to consider both isd and sc combined don't make up the same amount of players as a single other mtf, so it wouldn't be the most efficient way to go about it.
As for ISD wars the agreement is in place for that specific reason, there is now an additional clause that the relevant COs must hold a ts meeting and discuss the validity of the war, aside from the singular example listed there have been no isd wars in excess of 30 minutes in my time as isd
As for lore accuracy that's never been the primary concern of the server when it comes to stuff like this, it's nice to have but doesn't come at the expense of other stuff necessary
Some of the other points related to ego battles and rule breaks and the like are more a player issue and both myself and the A1 COs team are very harsh on any sort of toxicity however we can't take action if it isn't reported. The same goes for rule breaks, these are taken very seriously however if no sit is made we cannot act on it. I hope you can appreciate how the sentiment of isd are this and that with no evidence or examples given is getting old especially when certain people are doing their best to move a1 away from this stigma
 

Prplex

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For all the ISD saying they'd be out of a job and not having slots for another regiment, IN MY OPINION. I think SSL / SL / NL would highly think of increasing the cap for E-11 / Nu-7/ GOC / CI if they do remove ISD.

PLEASE DON'T QUOTE ME ON THIS.
Im sure every ISD CO looks forward to the idea of a demotion to CSG because e11 don't want 4 majors
 
+Support
-Everything has been listed above but I do believe that this would highly encourage making SA way harder to get due to it (if this gets accepted) becoming the department with the most power on site.
This change would be hard to do of course but it's time to give a new shape to the server, all that should remain of at maximum should be ethics
 
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To start, we can extend the requisite that SL+ can't be in positions of SC. I believe SSL already has this, but I don't know if I'm actually just wrong here.


AS for the method itself, there could to be some sort of system perhaps something similar of a human resources adjacent of staff under NL that could handle problems of nepotism among other nefarious behaviors from members of high command and maybe staff as well; These would have to be clear-cut. These members could perhaps take cases and have good transparency in the thought processes behind why someone should be punished. Obviously, members would also have the restriction of not being in positions of high power. Sadly, I fear that no matter what body makes a decision, not everyone will be happy. I could draft something for NL if they wanted something like this, as I have prior experience. J

This is just one alternative imo.

But do you think it would make sense that, for a top-down organization set up by players, fixing the top could perhaps fix the things below them? Do we not apply similar logic to a lot of things IRL?

Chop the top off the org here and you're just making a new top. ie same problems, back to square 1.
'Fixing the top' isn't nearly as easy as it sounds. There's various options you could apply to serve as a checks and balance system to remove nepotism, egos, and people using their position for just themselves and their friends rather than for the community as a whole. However, you'd first need to get NL on board (if they even would, something tells me theyd just say it "isnt necessary" because we have SL, despite that not working in most cases) then it'd actually need to work. You could still easily have cases of nepotism in this HR group aswell if youre not very careful, then the situation just gets worse.

And the biggest problem is that there's two "tops" implemented in an extremely poor way. When you take two small groups of four people and give them near limitless authority and power individually, with the same exact purpose and the same exact authority to do whatever they want, that is not a good checks and balancing system. Now you just have two tiny groups that constantly fight and wield their power to just benefit themselves or their buddies. And while this isnt always the case, it's more common than it should be to where it causes significant damage to the community. Dissolving these two groups in favor of one, large group that decides everything together could drastically reduce the amount of issues, fighting, drama, and ego trips. Because now youre part of one large group with the same goal, rather than two tiny groups with limitless individual authority to do whatever they want.

If the O5 Council and Ethics Committee actually served their intended lore purpose, it'd work a whole lot better. The Ethics Committee would focus solely on things such as rooting out corruption in high ranking individuals, and making the determination of what the Foundation should do so the Foundation doesn't go past a line where they turn into the "bad guys" beyond whats necessary for the advancement of research and their goal of containment and protection. The O5 Council would focus solely on the operations of the Foundation, creating and approving bigger operations that initiate roleplay for every department and determining protocols necessary for people like Site Administration and guiding them, rather than overshadowing them and forcing them to make a certain decision.


TL;DR
Two tiny groups with limitless power and no difference of jurisdiction, authority, or purpose = bad.
 
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