What is the purpose of this forum: http://forum.meleegaming.com/game-admin-feedback/
I had understood that forum to be the place for "peer review" of admins yet it now seems that despite not knowing whether a significant portion of admins have even read the rules you trust them to review each other's comprehension of those rules in secret?
The admin section is hidden to the public.
The admin feedback section, as it exists now, is a courtesy to the public as a place for them to bring up issues. It's largely misused (even by people who do have problems) and regarded as a joke, unfortunately.
Yes, for the most part I trust the general comprehension of the rules of the current, active admins. If I have any issues, I can bring it up with them directly.
Even you admit that the only examples of banworthy bro-coding necessarily involve breaking a second, clearer rule. Obviously attacking a teammate is against the rules whether or not that teammate is your friend. Have you ever banned a player for one of the "yellow" offenses? Has any admin? I check the ban request forum from time to time in between rounds and I have never seen an admin issue a ban for one of your listed offenses. As far as I can tell, the last time someone tried to get admins to take action against obvious bro-coding, that ban request was simply moved to general discussion.
I can think of one specific example where I've personally given out punishment to a player who was standing still behind while watching his teammate fight an enemy, and then stayed there after the teammate died only to let the enemy walk up behind another teammate. This was a case where the player in question had already been receiving warnings for other errant behavior earlier the same day, though.
The majority of the time, one would have to watch specific people for round upon round to determine what is actually going on in cases like this. It's a difficult thing to follow, and even more difficult when it's not against the rules as they're written.
Except you do not know if the admin team tries to keep in sync with one another and remain consistent. You just said that you simply direct new admins to the rules and old admins may not have even read them.
Again, private forum, which of course I have access to. The posts the other admins have made there tend to give us an insight into the way they handle things.
What I meant about the old admins (meaning all of us but Froyo/Kelugarn and Witchcraft/A_Hot_Elf_Princess) was that we weren't necessarily given any instructions when we were first given admin powers (which in most cases was
over a year ago, in my case almost exactly two years ago). The way things are currently going, I feel confident that every active admin right now has read and understands the rules.
It seems the only way to lose admin powers is to consistently misapply rules. Obviously the safest route for admins is to not apply the rules at all. "I didn't see it" is far safer than "I classify this particular instance of bro-coding as ban-worthy." Not only do admins risk losing their power from a poor decision but they risk being ostracized by the community.
There is also the risk of making the community a worse place by enforcing a draconian interpretation of the rules without considering context, or even making up addendums to rules in order to issue punishments to players that haven't done anything wrong. A lighter touch may seem like it's just an excuse not to take action, but in many cases getting involved would mean acting without certainty, which would result in punishments given to players who do not deserve them. That's far worse than a few people getting away with a single case of misuse of the game that does not actually have a specific rule attached to it.
You lose the power by abusing the power. There hasn't yet been a case of an admin who simply
refused to do anything even when he should have that I've seen. I don't know what else would qualify someone for losing the position, if they're doing their job.
Also, any decision made or not made is bound to garner flak by some portion of the community. All the current admins understand this by now. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Nobody
likes to be punished and taken out of the game, even if their intent is to break the rules. People also don't tend to like seeing rules go broken without action taken against the offending parties, but there's only so much an admin can do. We're expected to act in every instance of a broken rule, but when we can't make a decision without guessing, taking action would be more irresponsible.
We're bound to take criticism either way, and at this point one must be able to handle it well to uphold this position. The unfortunate downside is that constructive criticism tends to get lumped in with more baseless accusations of abuse and general nay-saying.
Make all admins re-apply for the privilege every month. Rotate the head admin title through senior admins frequently. Remove inactive admins.
I don't quite see the point behind this, it seems entirely arbitrary. The only thing the head admin is in charge of beyond the typical in-game enforcement and ban request handling all admins do is adding new admins and removing ones who are misusing their power. We could use more new admins, of course, but the current ones are not making grave mistakes and causing problems. Changing who's in charge of adding admins "frequently" wouldn't necessarily mean the admins as a group understand the rules any better. I'm not quite sure what you mean by making admins re-apply, but I assume you mean in order to have someone (a rotating head admin) gauge their efficacy and understanding of the rules? Under the assumption that some of them wouldn't be accepted a second time? I don't see how that would accomplish anything beyond the way things are currently handled, except potentially cutting our count of admins down even more. Plus inactivity doesn't inherently make for a bad admin when they do come around, but I suppose there isn't a reason to have the power if you are not there to use it.
It just seems like you want us to swap out people in every position constantly, but lack of experience can be as dangerous as bad judgment. I don't think an entirely rotating team of people would do as good a service as a group who has understood how to enforce the rules in-game for a longer period of time. If anything it would make things far less consistent. Let the merits of each individual speak for themselves. If someone needs to be removed, so be it. I'll try and appoint new admins sooner.
A bit of clarity for the rules, perhaps with more examples like I posted before, could do the community a lot of good and cut down on apparent inconsistency. Maybe I'll work on that.
