ADMIN ABUSE: Admin "Karl" on TARKOVSKI server

[Gobbins 2]

mediumdifficulty.com TARKOVSKI server

I was sniping in cherno when suddenly I get kicked, message says "dont come back".

I get back in and ask wtf, the admin Karl says I was being annoying and talking about patch 1.58. I assume he was actually one of the guys I shot at.

I tell the guy he cant just go around kicking people because he got shot, so he bans me from the server with a message saying "blackmail with database threat" or something like that. I was then unable to join that server afterwards.

[karlnp 0]

Hi! Please direct all TARKOVSKY complaints to the relevant thread: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3809

or email dayz@mediumdifficulty.com. Thank you!

[mikeambrose3 53]

That's stupid of you to post Karl, you're trying to get out of trouble by taking things to e-mail aye?

Reply to his thread or don't reply at all.

[karlnp 0]

If he killed me, I don't know about it. I kicked him because he continued to claim that 1.5.8 was out despite repeated requests to stop. I then banned him because he was attempting to threaten me.

[Legacy (DayZ) 1091]

This entire thread will go downhill if we begin to have a hostile output.

A. OP Has no proof to back up his claim

B. The server admin/owner has every right to represent himself in response and may link said email as it may be a staff email that only the owners may access. (Assuming this person does not own the server.)

[Gobbins 2]

If he killed me' date=' I don't know about it. I kicked him because he continued to claim that 1.5.8 was out despite repeated requests to stop. I then banned him because he was attempting to threaten me.

[/quote']

Good admin practice right here, I have nothing else to add. The threat by the way, was simply to report his admin abuse.

[oilman 72]

Gobbins, why did you repeatedly say that 1.5.8. was out when it is not?

[Dorak (DayZ) 4]

Dramas without proofs.

Classic. Love it.

Hope it won't be a standard.

[karlnp 0]

The "simple" admin abuse reports were far more along the lines of "how dare you kick me, i'm letting Rocket know about this, he hates server admins.." etc etc. I don't like wasting time on drama or arguing w/o a legitimate claim - particularly when the defense is "oh i'm sure i shot you" as a derail - so I banned him, because I don't tolerate that kind of behaviour on my server.

Y'all have enough on your plates as it is, letting talk like that run seems like tacit encouragement to bug the dev staff with explicitly non-dev issues.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

The "simple" admin abuse reports were far more along the lines of "how dare you kick me' date=' i'm letting Rocket know about this, he hates server admins.." etc etc. I don't like wasting time on drama or arguing w/o a legitimate claim - particularly when the defense is "oh i'm sure i shot you" as a derail - so I banned him, because I don't tolerate that kind of behaviour on my server.

Y'all have enough on your plates as it is, letting talk like that run seems like tacit encouragement to bug the dev staff with explicitly non-dev issues.

[/quote']

Props to that.

I don't mind a little smack talk in my server, gloating about victories, blowing off steam. It's part of the game. It's throwing your hand up and waving at the crowd when you get a medal. It's about snarling and pumping your fist and swearing when you lose. And that's fine with me.

But shit like threats, harassment, entitled behaviour, smack talk that turns into deranged shit talk that lasts ten minutes? No way no how.

[Dorak (DayZ) 4]

Props to that too.

I just hope it won't become a standard. Like everytime someone gets kicked or banned = insta drama.

[MarKeR (DayZ) 57]

Well said mojo.

Exact same in mine, don't mind people having a bit of banter against each other.

But when they start the crass talk, it really annoys me... It also makes the chat box fly up and can ruin some encounters for people trying to comm in game...

Between that and total randoms who have never been in your server before trying to act like admins, really gets me going.

Had one guy the other day who would not stop talking nonsense for ten.mins. patience was running very thin, so after multiple warnings and making sure he knew who I was.. I banned him.for three days, instantly the thx from.other players came through the chat... 49 other players happy against 1 pee'd off player. I know which one I would go for..

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

49 other players happy against 1 pee'd off player. I know which one I would go for..

Bingo. That's any good administrator's priorities in a nutshell.

Had one guy today screaming about wrestling in our server (seriously, wrestling) that needed a warning, who promptly informed me that no fucks were given. He got gone.

Had one player try to announce server restarts. Nope. Gone too.

[Dorak (DayZ) 4]

49 other players happy against 1 pee'd off player. I know which one I would go for..

Bingo. That's any good administrator's priorities in a nutshell.

Had one guy today screaming about wrestling in our server (seriously' date=' wrestling) that needed a warning, who promptly informed me that no fucks were given. He got gone.

Had one player try to announce server restarts. Nope. Gone too.

[/quote']

Talking about server restarts, i'm so fucking sick of people wanting server restart because " I GOT NO LOOT IN MY BARN " you can't even imagine.

It's like i'm back at World of Warcraft private servers all over again.

[karlnp 0]

That and "what server is this?"

On that note, if someone wouldn't mind giving me a hand about timed server messages in that thread, I'd appreciate it.

[tiri 21]

I really think players should know their place, or at least the cumbersome task it is to administrate a server/forum/etc.

I really feel that they think the admin is there only for them, and not for anyone else. And then when a guy get kicked or banned, they create a thread often without a proof.

I am amazed to see the number of threads complaining about an admin compared to the number of threads reporting players cheating, or bug exploiting. That's a strange sense of priorities.

To the attention of regular players: please, if you see an abuse, at least get some proofs, it will be easier to see who's wrong and who's right. And remember there are 49 others players on the server you're playing.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

That and "what server is this?"

On that note' date=' if someone wouldn't mind giving me a hand about timed server messages in that thread, I'd appreciate it.

[/quote']

I can understand "what server is this" to a degree; a lot of players are eager to play and attempt to get into whatever server they can. Take it as a compliment -- they're having a good enough time then and there to want to bring their friends, or come back to your server if they leave.

Now, as for batch scripting, I have several batch scripts lying around that I might be able to adapt for your use. How comfortable are you with environment variables, or would you like to do it all verbose?

I really think players should know their place' date=' or at least the cumbersome task it is to administrate a server/forum/etc.

I really feel that they think the admin is there only for them, and not for anyone else. And then when a guy get kicked or banned, they create a thread often without a proof.

I am amazed to see the number of threads complaining about an admin compared to the number of threads reporting players cheating, or bug exploiting. That's a strange sense of priorities.

To the attention of regular players: please, if you see an abuse, at least get some proofs, it will be easier to see who's wrong and who's right. And remember there are 49 others players on the server you're playing.

[/quote']

The problem isn't that players complain of abuse without proof -- honestly, what are you supposed to do, have a dedicated hard drive available just to Fraps your entire play sessions to capture totalitarian admins? -- it's just that you can often tell the bullshit from the real stories by the way they're generated.

Without taking sides between karlnp and Gobbins, allow me to present our players with the correct method for bringing problems with myself or my other administrators to our attention, by rephrasing Gobbins' original complaint:

Negative experience with Karl and Tarkovski server
Gobbins

I was playing earlier today on mediumdifficulty.com Tarkovski server. Set up outside of Cherno and sniping into it when I found myself kicked from the server with a message saying "don't come back".

Admittedly I did rejoin the server because I was curious as to what my alleged bad conduct was. When I asked, Karl (presumably the admin) told me I was being annoying by talking about patch 1.5.8. I'm unsure if he felt that I was just talking about the patch was being annoying and speculative, or if he felt like I was trying to depopulate the server by discussing it.

Regardless, my assumption is that he is one of the players I killed (or was shooting at) and I told him that he was conflating his administrative powers with his role as a player, and that with the burgeoning popularity of the mod, he was risking a blacklist by alienating players, and to consider that as much power as he had, others had more and could be appealed to.

At this point, I was banned from the server for making "blacklist threats".

Again, and without taking sides, I will take that complaint much more seriously than I do the OP.

Even without evidence, the complaint is organized, non-hostile, simply attempts to describe the player experience from the view of the player, and, while it lacks evidence in and of itself (given that, again, people can't have Fraps running 24/7) it does at the very least serve as a simple affirmation that can attest to a pattern of behaviour. If an admin is abusive with one player, he will be abusive with many players -- and if many players come forward over a period of time attesting to the same behaviour, this does in fact become evidence with or without screenshots, video, or audio.

Trust me, as a server host (and I feel confident that I can speak for the majority of hosts on this) my first priority is to provide any player coming into the server I provide as a service to have a positive experience, and allow that positive experience to foster a community that feels safe to play a game free from anything but the game itself.

If somebody has a problem with me as an administrator, I want to be the first to know.

Conversely, players who foster a negative experience -- and killing people in PvP in a full-PvP game doesn't constitute that, as that slippery, sneaky fuck Busey (who pegged me in the back at the North East Airfield) can attest to that I take that stuff pretty well, having a laugh about it as part of the game -- are not welcome on my server(s), be they either of my game servers or my TeamSpeak server.

Understand that as a player, doing that, you will get gone. And understand that if you're a problem player, you will (as our hypothetical abusive admin above) continue to be a problem player. You might trololol one or two admins, but when you find that list grows to twenty or thirty who run an average of three servers a pop and the only servers you can get into are unadministrated hell-holes, you might just stop to reconsider what lead you there and why you're suddenly the victim of your own bullshit. Likely not though -- entitled people, be they administrators or players, never understand that they are the problem, just like only sane people worry that they're going crazy; crazy people know they're sane.

At the same time, admins, ask yourself this about a problem player: Have I given him fair warning? Have I let him know that I am a presence on this server, and that order is enforced here? Have I given a clear statement that his behaviour is disruptive, and have I given him a chance to modify his behaviour? Am I hectoring him and trying to emasculate him by demanding apologies, forcing him to become more stand-offish and hostile, or am I permitting him the dignity to save face, accept the rules, and get on with the very thing I'm telling him he's disrupting, that is, playing the game?

Ah, the age old problem of responsibility vs. empathetic frustration (which I am equally guilty of, having blown on the DevTeam yesterday) vs. plain, out-right dickfuckery.

[fenrix 9]

I think the fact that the developers are shutting down/ordering server owners about will foster more and more of this kind of revenge seeking complaint.

complaints like these should go to the server they are about not the day z devs. they are busy enough as it is.

[Gobbins 2]

Good post Mojo.

You will notice that the Op is short and to the point. I also did not email the dayz team or rocket or anything like that since I believe it would be just a waste of their time.

The purpose of this post is a searchable precedent in case there are more episodes of the admin in question behaving in a dubious way.

About the specific accident: I really was not spamming nor given a warning. After I rejoined and got banned the guy acted very defensively when the rest of my friends started arguing with him about the reason of the kicking. I really felt the guy did not act to make the server better but purely out of admin power trip.

Now these things happen, hopefully it will not happen again.

One last thing, I have played the mod quite intensively for the last month without any problems. This server was about one day old when the problem appeared (http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3809&pid=41334#pid41334).

Some admins think they can open up a new server and run it like their private playground. The only way we players can keep it from happening is documenting episodes of perceived foul administration, which is what I did with my brief report.

I wish karl and the tarkovski server good luck and hopefully no more issues like this one. Peace :)

[karlnp 0]

The server's been up for almost a week. Thread start =/= server start. I made sure it was running well & optimized it before making a thread here.

---

Now, as for batch scripting, I have several batch scripts lying around that I might be able to adapt for your use. How comfortable are you with environment variables, or would you like to do it all verbose?

I'm fine with either; it's really just the DOS commands that I have trouble with, because it's been years since I had to set an IRQ channel.

e: also, Mojo, I'd love it if you split out your post and stickied it. I think there'll be a lot more threads like this one in the coming weeks.

[demine0 43]

I'm the Administrator of the Server that my DayZ server runs on, so I have access to see the console which logs all of the chatter. I believe It also saves chatter in the logs as well, so when I ban someone, I always take the snippet out of chat that they were banned for, incase they dispute it.

Other admins who only have admin password access could take a screen shot instead.