Where are the admins? Payload+ | US

[S_O_C_K_S]

Hey Guys! I love playing on Skial servers but you could really use some admins. (more active admins or admins that play on the server I use) I play mostly on Payload+| US and some days the voice chat is just Crazy. Voting doesn't always work. You always have a few people who think it's funny and F2 the vote or people who don't vote at all. I read the rules but sometimes there's a line where we need an admin. I understand I can report players but I don't have time for that. I'm not an admin. It's a great server when half the players are players donate because everyone knows everyone and you can enjoy yourself.

I'm sorry if I come across wrong but it's just that I enjoy myself 50% of the time on the server and have to leave and find another payload server the other half. I don't know who the admins are so I apologize if your on the server I just don't see any action taken place.

I hope someone can help with this.

 

[Meowcenary]

We have few admins and lots of servers making it not realistically possible to keep a regular presence on every server. Admins are also just like everybody else in regards to having server preferences

Because of this we largely rely on reports

If you don't want to go through the hassle of making reports you can instead add some admins to your friends list and ask one to get on the server if someone is breaking the rules https://steamcommunity.com/groups/skial-admins

A lot of people add us so they can call a admin in when someone's doing something, and we're always happy to help. If we're busy at the time we'll see if another admin can hop in

 

[S_O_C_K_S]

We have few admins and lots of servers making it not realistically possible to keep a regular presence on every server. Admins are also just like everybody else in regards to having server preferences

Because of this we largely rely on reports

If you don't want to go through the hassle of making reports you can instead add some admins to your friends list and ask one to get on the server if someone is breaking the rules https://steamcommunity.com/groups/skial-admins

A lot of people add us so they can call a admin in when someone's doing something, and we're always happy to help. If we're busy at the time we'll see if another admin can hop in

Meowcenary....thanks for your response. Looks like reporting and adding admins is the way to go. Thanks again for your response and advise. Look forward to seeing you on the battlefield.

P.S. Do you know what servers most admins like to play on?

 

[Meowcenary]

Meowcenary....thanks for your response. Looks like reporting and adding admins is the way to go. Thanks again for your response and advise. Look forward to seeing you on the battlefield.

P.S. Do you know what servers most admins like to play on?

I'm not sure where most of the other admins play so I'm not sure if there's a particular server a lot of us happen to play on

I play on turbine, 2fort, payload, deathrun and VSH depending on my mood (the servers hosted in the US) but not sure about the other admins

But like I said you're a lot better off adding admins to your friends list and asking one to join the server if someone's causing trouble, its better than hoping a admin happens to be on the server at the time

 

[S_O_C_K_S]

I'm not sure where most of the other admins play so I'm not sure if there's a particular server a lot of us happen to play on

I play on turbine, 2fort, payload, deathrun and VSH depending on my mood (the servers hosted in the US) but not sure about the other admins

But like I said you're a lot better off adding admins to your friends list and asking one to join the server if someone's causing trouble, its better than hoping a admin happens to be on the server at the time

Thanks! :)

 

[haytil]

Hey,

I was on the Payload+ US clusterfuck last night with the mic spammers (I was the one who ended up bringing an admin on to deal with it). Here are a few things you guys could really do to help us to help you keep these servers clean:

1) Friending admins and calling them on is great, but it's very difficult because admins aren't easy to identify by name. A tag or ID mark in their screen name would make it much easier.

When I need to call an admin, I have to check my friends list - and I have no idea which of these guys is Skial admins. People change their names all the time and I've been playing for years - so I don't recognize most of my Steam friends. I certainly won't recognize a Skial admin since - by definition - I don't play with them often. Cross-checking with a separate, outdated list of Skial Admins is onerous and prone to failure.

But if your admins had "SkialAdmin", "SA", or something else in their name, it'd be a lot easier to call them up when needed.

2) The "Votemenu" policies make it quite difficult to deal with a spammer situation. For one, when the map changes, you can't start a vote for several minutes - this makes no sense (especially since Payload+ US changes maps every half hour or so), so a spammer has free reign.

It used to be that Skial regulars could start votes quicker - but this has gone away. I don't understand why you would take away this self-policing power from regular players, given that you don't have enough admins to staff the servers all the time.

3) Furthermore, even if you successfully votemute someone, you can't votemute anyone else for some time after. Why is this?

Take last night for example - two mic spammers log on at the same time. One started spamming, so he got muted. Instantly after, his partner takes over - and we're stuck with this guy for a while because we can't start a second votemute. So one spammer takes the bullet for his friend, leaving the other to have free reign.

And if you don't successfully votemute someone? That guy is immune to votemutes for a while. Why is this? Often the first votemute on a server will fail, but in my experience, a real spammer can often get nailed by a swift follow-up repeat vote.

I think the Skial servers would be well-served to:

A) Not prevent a second votemute from being called if the prior votemute on a different target was successful
B) Not prevent a second votemute from being called on the same target if the prior votemute failed but passed at least a 40 or 50% threshold.


4) The 90% threshold for votebanning hackers almost never passes. All it takes is a hacker to bring one or two friends and he's immune - and you know how hard it can be for a team to voteban their own hacking teammates (since they aren't the victim, some don't notice or "believe" their teammate is a hacker).

 

[Meowcenary]

Hey,

I was on the Payload+ US clusterfuck last night with the mic spammers (I was the one who ended up bringing an admin on to deal with it). Here are a few things you guys could really do to help us to help you keep these servers clean:

1) Friending admins and calling them on is great, but it's very difficult because admins aren't easy to identify by name. A tag or ID mark in their screen name would make it much easier.

When I need to call an admin, I have to check my friends list - and I have no idea which of these guys is Skial admins. People change their names all the time and I've been playing for years - so I don't recognize most of my Steam friends. I certainly won't recognize a Skial admin since - by definition - I don't play with them often. Cross-checking with a separate, outdated list of Skial Admins is onerous and prone to failure.

But if your admins had "SkialAdmin", "SA", or something else in their name, it'd be a lot easier to call them up when needed.

2) The "Votemenu" policies make it quite difficult to deal with a spammer situation. For one, when the map changes, you can't start a vote for several minutes - this makes no sense (especially since Payload+ US changes maps every half hour or so), so a spammer has free reign.

It used to be that Skial regulars could start votes quicker - but this has gone away. I don't understand why you would take away this self-policing power from regular players, given that you don't have enough admins to staff the servers all the time.

3) Furthermore, even if you successfully votemute someone, you can't votemute anyone else for some time after. Why is this?

Take last night for example - two mic spammers log on at the same time. One started spamming, so he got muted. Instantly after, his partner takes over - and we're stuck with this guy for a while because we can't start a second votemute. So one spammer takes the bullet for his friend, leaving the other to have free reign.

And if you don't successfully votemute someone? That guy is immune to votemutes for a while. Why is this? Often the first votemute on a server will fail, but in my experience, a real spammer can often get nailed by a swift follow-up repeat vote.

I think the Skial servers would be well-served to:

A) Not prevent a second votemute from being called if the prior votemute on a different target was successful
B) Not prevent a second votemute from being called on the same target if the prior votemute failed but passed at least a 40 or 50% threshold.


4) The 90% threshold for votebanning hackers almost never passes. All it takes is a hacker to bring one or two friends and he's immune - and you know how hard it can be for a team to voteban their own hacking teammates (since they aren't the victim, some don't notice or "believe" their teammate is a hacker).

Which admin list are you checking? The Skial admin's steam group is kept up to date https://steamcommunity.com/groups/skial-admins

If you add some of them and worry they may change their name, I recommend using the 'nickname' feature Steam has. When they're on your friends list right click them and click 'add nick name'. You can put "Skial Admin" making it easy to search your friends list to find them

As far as the voting problems go its a issue of vote abuse. There's no perfect solution, if the vote feature has one change to deter vote abuse it could hinder people who call legitimate votes. But if there's no methods in place to help deter vote abuse people can vote abuse relentlessly with nothing to stop them or slow them down. It's a double edged sword so the best that can be done is finding a middle ground.

As far as why we don't use tags, it often causes more problems than it fixes. If someone's breaking the rules we need to see it to take action. Most people breaking the rules immediately stop the second they realize a admin is on the server and then start back up once they see the admin is gone. Having a obvious tag makes it difficult for us to take action on these people since we can't do anything if we don't see them breaking the rules

 

[haytil]

Which admin list are you checking? The Skial admin's steam group is kept up to date https://steamcommunity.com/groups/skial-admins

Yes, that is the list I am checking.

If you add some of them and worry they may change their name, I recommend using the 'nickname' feature Steam has. When they're on your friends list right click them and click 'add nick name'. You can put "Skial Admin" making it easy to search your friends list to find them

Thank you, I will investigate this feature, as I wasn't aware of it.

As far as why we don't use tags, it often causes more problems than it fixes. If someone's breaking the rules we need to see it to take action. Most people breaking the rules immediately stop the second they realize a admin is on the server and then start back up once they see the admin is gone. Having a obvious tag makes it difficult for us to take action on these people since we can't do anything if we don't see them breaking the rules

I understand this reasoning, however I've seen some admins change their name before logging in (after a request for help) as a matter of course anyhow, so it seems that would be a non-issue. Nevertheless, I will check the "nickname" feature to see if this ultimately doesn't matter.

As far as the voting problems go its a issue of vote abuse. There's no perfect solution, if the vote feature has one change to deter vote abuse it could hinder people who call legitimate votes. But if there's no methods in place to help deter vote abuse people can vote abuse relentlessly with nothing to stop them or slow them down. It's a double edged sword so the best that can be done is finding a middle ground.

Yes, I understand that, which is why I made the specific suggestions I did. I feel that it is a "middle ground" that cannot be used to help vote-abusers. Let me requote those specific suggestions:

A) Not prevent a second votemute from being called if the prior votemute on a different target was successful
B) Not prevent a second votemute from being called on the same target if the prior votemute failed but passed at least a 40 or 50% threshold.

4) The 90% threshold for votebanning hackers almost never passes. All it takes is a hacker to bring one or two friends and he's immune - and you know how hard it can be for a team to voteban their own hacking teammates (since they aren't the victim, some don't notice or "believe" their teammate is a hacker).

I think it's fair to say that if a large portion of the server feels like a votemute should have passed (indicated by voting "Yes"), then that almost always indicates that the vote WASN'T a vote-abuse and had legitimate merit to it. On the other hand, if someone is spamming votes abusively, then the votes aren't going to pass or have a high "Yes" percentage - in which case, the above suggestions wouldn't kick in and vote abusers wouldn't be any more enabled by the above suggestions than they already are.

Does that make sense? If not, could you explain how the above rules could realistically help illegitimate vote-abusers?

The voting function is a way for users to help protect and clean the servers when admins aren't around (as is frequently the case). I think the spectre of rarely-seen "vote-abusers" shouldn't be used to shackle us from those tools, especially when certain improvements can be made that only kick in when a vote appears to be legitimate in the first place.

 

[ly_dee]

I think it's fair to say that if a large portion of the server feels like a votemute should have passed (indicated by voting "Yes"), then that almost always indicates that the vote WASN'T a vote-abuse and had legitimate merit to it.

The voting function is a way for users to help protect and clean the servers when admins aren't around (as is frequently the case).

Haytil, meow was on the server the other day and specifically said that the guy you and other people keep wanting to votemute every single day wasn't breaking any rules. He uses his mic and says the same shit all the time, namely "push the cart" but in a toxic way. Toxicity isn't against the rules and i have a hard time understanding why even people in their 30s and 40s refuse to accept that.

Starting a vote against people who are not breaking any rules is considered vote abusing too in case you didn't know. I don't want to start reporting every single one of you who tries to votemute him again.

Spoiler: stuff

• Demeaning teammates isn't against the rules.
• Killing the atmosphere of the server isn't against the rules.

Those two things aren't considered harming the team for an extended period of time. Just because everyone (including myself) agrees that he lacks some brain cells and is toxic doesn't mean it's ok to start a votemute. I don't understand why people are taking him seriously as he's literally trolling. It's the same thing that happened with TCA ENGY, who wasn't breaking any rules by being retarded in chat yet everyone kept votemuting him.

 

[haytil]

Ly_Dee, I don't know why you're talking about AngryMan. This thread, and the suggestions I made, were a direct response to music-blasting mic spammers who worked together to get around the insane shackles that the votemute system places around legitimate players. You were actually there for this, but let me remind you what happened:

1. Micspammer A and B both logged on.
2. Micspammer A began blasting music on a non-stop loop and was votemuted.
3. Micspammer B then began blasting HIS music on a non-stop loop and could NOT be votemuted because a votemute on Micspammer A had just been called (and successfully passed).
4. Micspammer B had free rein to blast his music for an extended period of time.
5. I actually contacted an admin to log on and deal with Micspammer B - but said admin could not hear ANYONE talking on the server, because of some client configuration issue on his end. He tried to listen to YOUR livestream to see if he could confirm the mic spam, but since you had him personally muted on your stream already, Admin was not able to hear the mic spammer through your stream.

Is it not clear that step 3 is insanely ridiculous? Why should the server regulars be hampered from votemuting Micspammer B just because they (rightfully) votemuted Micspammer A? Especially since this WASN'T an issue before.



Also, putting aside your out-of-context discussion of AngryMan (who is currently banned so, yes, he WAS violating the rules), I would please ask that you not quote me out-of-context using cherry-picked lines from a server chat, where you can't even see what the larger thing I'm saying is, or what point I'm respondi ng to (either via in-text chat or voice discussion).If you want to have a discussion, I have no problems having a discussion and elucidating my viewpoints (a willingness I feel I've already demonstrated here). But please allow me the courtesy of doing so, rather than taking bits and pieces of what I've said and putting me in the unfair position of having to defend an incoherent or irrelevant argument..