Seaking opinion - admin "friendliness"

[dayz247 59]

Background: I typically run around helping people as much as possible, until shot at... then I defend myself. I have two other admins on my server. When I made these two individuals admins, the following are the general rules I gave them:

Never use admin tools to benefit you or others in any way

Do not use admin tools to assist in any sort of pvp

Admin is simply the ability to monitor the server for hackers/scripters and stop them before they cause trouble.

I gave explicit instructions that I was not expecting them to change the way they played, and that if they wanted to be bandits, or whatever.... that is their deal, so long as they leave the admin tools out of it.

Well, I thought this to be fair, even as the server "owner" I do not feel it is my place to dictate how anyone plays the game, including my admins. So long as they are within the rules of the game, and are not abusing admin powers, I do not see where their game style is an issue.

Now that's out of the way: Today a player raided these two individuals base... which the two admins prompty shot the player. Anyway, player goes on whining about admin abuse this admin abuse that. I get it, people whine, I can deal with that.

Finally my question(s):

Do you feel that admins of a server are in any way obligated to be "friendly"?

Do you see anything wrong with bandit admins.... so long as they are not using admin tools to do it?

I just figured I would ask, maybe I have the wrong idea of what admins should be. Granted, these two admins are not hard core bandits, they usually help people (though they do like to play the... put your weapon down, lay on the ground.... game a bit first.... but when players comply they always leave them much better off than they started.... ie some pretty decent gear (hell I don't even do that)). Should admins be obligated to be care bears?

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

TBH your always running the risk of being accused of admin abuse for as long as admins play on the server. You're asking for people to trust the fact that admins won't use their maps ect to find players. When someone is killed by an admin, there is a high chance they will claim admin abuse. It is possible for admins to play on the server once you have built up trust but it takes time. If people don't know you then asking them to trust you with all of the admin abuse that people are aware of is a tall order.

I don;t think admins should be helping players either TBH. People just want to play their own way with no interference on safe servers free from hacking. It's an admins job to do their best to make that possible, nothing else.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Fraggle

[dayz247 59]

Oh I know there is always going to be claims of admin abuse, I can deal with that lol.

I just get very aggravated when everyone thinks that every admin should be bending over backwards to help them out at their beck and call. I don't mind helping people out (in the form of giving rides, blood, helping loot areas etc...... I'm not giving anyone shit lol).

[Rage VG 4033]

That's perfectly fine.

Like you said, you do not want your admins to be forced to cater to a certain playstyle, and you do not want to dictate over how they play, as long as they are using their powers for the purpose you intended.

The keyword in "Admin Abuse" is "Abuse", which would mean they are misusing their position as admin. Since it is not stated anywhere that admins should not kill players, this is a baseless and incorrect claim.

To deal with these sorts of people, explain to them that in order for it to be admin abuse, they need to have misused something. Your admins were using everything involved for their intended use, and the only variable would be 'your two admins' and any 'two random players', which had no impact on the situation.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Rage VG

[FrankTheDuck 99]

Imo don't let on who your admins are. Server owner sure, People need someone to bring any complaints to.

But yours admins need not be announced. They can just always be present.

[Rage VG 4033]

Imo don't let on who your admins are. Server owner sure, People need someone to bring any complaints to.

But yours admins need not be announced. They can just always be present.

Many admins are simply too proud to keep it a secret, plus some situations could only be defused if both parties are aware that it is an admin handling the situation. Once the easy mistake of being found out as an admin is done, everyone'll know.

Secondly, that might give an incorrect impression of said admins; Players might take the apparent lack of admin attention/presence as bigotry or neglect, or paint them as unsociable and distant.

Also, @ title:

Seaking agrees with me.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Rage VG

[domistyle 221]

I think admins should just play like they want, they are normal players after all.

Of course the real difficulty is to find an admin which you can trust.

That's why I prefer to play on servers that I know the admins on or that I administrate by myself.

If you are unsure about your admins abusing their powers you could also create a log file of what they do.

Not sure about which tool you are talking about but for example you can log RCon and MySQL access.

If someone is complaining you can just check the logs.

However, stuff like this is exactly the reason why I don't use tools like TSW because it's really tempting to abuse it if you play on the server by yourself.

Instead I use selfmade stuff that does all the checks automatically and informs me about all the violations without showing off any detailed informations like player position, car positions or even player name.

For example: Player moved with 600km/h! Since nothing travels with 600km/h it was probably a teleport.

Edited March 23, 2013 by DomiStyle

[terrorizer33 131]

Imo like you stated yourself, it matters not how your admins play.. as long as they dont abuse any tools at hand. We (our admins) play like we want but for our community to gain new members I always think its better to talk to people in game.. Hahaha not every1 in our team thinks that way :-)

[dayz247 59]

Seaking agrees with me.

Lmao, me and my spelling =)

[Rage VG 4033]

Lmao, me and my spelling =)

Hehe, ya know I'm just kidding.

[M.I.A TIDNAB 13]

i have had this situation a lot. and can really understand where you are coming from.. they cry so much you start to question your own game playing ways.

at the end of the day if they want a carebear game then dayz is not for them. id suggest mylittlepony etc etc..

just add pvp welcome. or accepted in your server name or motd.. then they cannot moan when you point this out...

[Zionist Wabbit 154]

It's a tough one. I think Admins do to some extent feel obliged to help their Player base more then they would if it was a random Server, which lead's to friendliess ect. though it isn't a huge thing that comes with the position. Everyone want's their Server to be popular, at the same time realising that if you're Sniping fresh spawns you gain a reputation; As a solution, people assume they must do everything they can to help Players which shouldn't be the case. Sure, Bloodbag a few people or hunt some Bandits wouldn't hurt with how people see the Server but that doesn't mean you should bend over a table to please everyone.

As for the risk of being called abusive I think there is two separate things, each being called 'Abuse' just for the sake of doing it -- If you're killed by an Admin on the Hills of the NWAF then that shouldn't be considered 'Abuse', though if you're running around Pobeda Dam in a Ghillie and you're being killed I would think it time to switch Servers.

TL:DR - As an Admin you're in an elevated position and often looked upon as the guiding figure, banning Hackers, solving arguments ect. and by being in that place people also consider you one of the few people they can trust on a Server to help you when you're in need; Should you be obligated to preform such things as running across the Map to give a Blood-bag? No, of course not, though you should expect to be treated as such by the Player base and understand you may be scrutinised by people when you don't do such things. If you find it annoying then you ought to give a clear definition of what an Administrator or Moderator is on your Server & what duties they're tasked with, ie: 'Admins are here to Monitor the Game! Not be cuddly toys expected to be Friendly 24/7!' ( The MOTD I used on my Server )

I hope that's easy to understand. My mind decides to say 'LOLno' to English after 11:00PM.

[lugnutz86 0]

what a great guy, to just ban your two admins with no reasoning given. and still avoiding giving one.

[dayz247 59]

what a great guy, to just ban your two admins with no reasoning given. and still avoiding giving one.

Cleaning up a mess at the moment, one which you should be familiar with.

[eliX0r 4]

Wow what a shady owner of a server. We played on your server for 2 weeks, legitimately looting everything we had before you made us admins. You made us admins because we were on all the time and even caught 3 hackers in the time. Only rules you gave us were not to use admin tools for pvp and help other players. Which we followed because we do not like hackers nor abusive admins. You never gave us a rule that we could not use admin for our benefit of gear which we didn't need since we had everything x2 that spawns on the server. Then all the carebears cried and more carebears came to the server and would broadcast their position so we went and killed them and we even left their gear so they can come back and get it. We even changed our names so carebears would stay on the server so you can get more traffic. We offered our help in trying to get more traffic, Gave ya ideas because your server never reaches over 10 players.

So what happens next a carebear comes back to server crying. So you destroy our base and gear and vehicles as an owner to your admins. Sure thats fine, So we go and get our vehicles back and would gear up again. Yet since the crybabies on your server say admin abuse because we already found a heli and ural you ban us and our friend who is not an admin because why? You didn't even give a reason or had the balls to talk to us. Just ban 3 legit players because of crybabies on the server. Say whatever ya want Dan, if you say don't use your powers to benefit yourself then what do you do everytime you spawn in with the same gear or give yourself parts to fix a vehicle. Because whatever is good for the goose its good for the gander. Like i said you never told us not to use admin for ourselves since you felt the need to destroy everything we looted legitimately. It's just funny you never talked to your admins about whats going on in the server yet you just set us up to give yourself a reason to ban someone.

[Rage VG 4033]

You never gave us a rule that we could not use admin for our benefit of gear

Because that is common sense. I'm fairly certain that admins require a bit of it.

He also didn't say you couldn't micspam Gangnam style, but you know that's not acceptable due to common sense.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Rage VG

[eliX0r 4]

Because that is common sense. I'm fairly certain that admins require a bit of it.

He also didn't say you couldn't micspam Gangnam style, but you know that's not acceptable due to common sense.

common sense has nothing to do with the rules we were given. Edited April 1, 2013 by eliX0r

[Rage VG 4033]

what does common sense have to do with using admin for our benefit when we were told nothing of the sort that we couldn't. That right there tells me we can if you have common sense.

So, by your logic, because he didn't expressly say it, it's fine to do? I bet he didn't specifically say you couldn't scream racial profanities at the members of the server over side chat, that means it's fine?

I'm beginning to wonder how you got the powers in the first place.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Rage VG

[eliX0r 4]

So, by your logic, because he didn't expressly say it, it's fine to do? I bet he didn't specifically say you couldn't scream racial profanities at the members of the server over side chat, that means it's fine?

I'm beginning to wonder how you got the powers in the first place.

well yes of course when it comes to the admin tools.

why do you keep making stupid remarks that has nothing to do with admin tools. im beginning to wonder if you have any common sense.

[eliX0r 4]

according to your logic, it seems if a monkey flung his pooh it has to do with admin tools.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

common sense has nothing to do with the rules we were given.

Jesus. So you need a massive list of rules spelled out for you? If you can't apply common sense then I don't think you should be admining anything.

[Rage VG 4033]

well yes of course when it comes to the admin tools.

why do you keep making stupid remarks that has nothing to do with admin tools. im beginning to wonder if you have any common sense.

Okay, if you are honestly so obsessed with your precious admin tools that you immediately dismiss any form of logic that doesn't involve them, I shall indulge you.

What sort of warped logic would lead you to believe that he gave you those admin tools for gear? Logic would dictate if he gave it to you for gear, he'd just give you gear.

Secondly, you were not given the position/power for the purpose of giving yourself gear. The reason it was not mentioned was because it had nothing to do with what you were given them for. He gave them to you to ensure that the server continued running smoothly, not to give you an edge over everyone else.

And I say again, the idea that "Well, he didn't say I COULDN'T, so why not?" He didn't say you COULDN'T use your admin tools to ban literally everyone that logged in, because that is common sense. Just like it's common sense he doesn't want you screwing around with gear.

There we go. I tried to keep it as close to the subject of your dear admin tools as possible. Maybe you'll read it this time.

according to your logic, it seems if a monkey flung his pooh it has to do with admin tools.

That was a bad analogy, and you should feel bad.

Jesus. So you need a massive list of rules spelled out for you? If you can't apply common sense then I don't think you should be admining anything.

^This.

Obviously, if I had a choice between someone who'll do anything they feel like unless I tell them not to, and someone who can use some rational thinking, guess who I (and anyone with an IQ higher than that of an egg and chip sandwich) would go with?

Hint: The second one.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Rage VG

[eliX0r 4]

Jesus. So you need a massive list of rules spelled out for you? If you can't apply common sense then I don't think you should be admining anything.

Well if that is the case then the owner shouldn't be spawing in with full gear, teleporting or actually own a server either..

[Rage VG 4033]

Well if that is the case then the owner shouldn't be spawing in with full gear, teleporting or actually own a server either..

That is beyond the point. He has the right to do that as it's his server, all he is going to do is drive away his players and staff, so he only has himself to blame for doing something so silly.

However, you are not driving away your players, you're driving away his, which you have no place doing. So he does have the right to strip you of that position.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Rage VG

[eliX0r 4]

That is beyond the point. He has the right to do that as it's his server, all he is going to do is drive away his players and staff, so he only has himself to blame.

However, you are not driving away your players, you're driving away his, which you have no place doing. So he does have the right to strip you of that position.

you are obviously just trolling. you don't know the situation, you don't know what went on in the server and you obviously make bad assumptions and judgment calls on people you never met. you posts are irrelevant to what happened in the server. Heck you didn't even read what i had written as we were helping him to draw in more traffic. Edited April 1, 2013 by eliX0r