User:Studenterhue/Adminhelp

What to Adminhelp

• Grief
• Custom AI Law Interpretation
• Bugs
• Security Punishments
• Syndicate Currency Trades

Need a fact check on that last one, only ever heard of one admin (Cirrial) say they do TC trades, never have seen them actually do them

What Not to Adminhelp

• Becoming an Antagonist
• Revivals
  • Exception: Bugs
• Item/Power/General Requests
  • Use *pray

Three Key Principles

Give as Many Details as Possible

You don't need to recall every single detail, but "someone is griefing me" is more useful than "admins help" and "barman is beating me with extinguisher for breaking in" is more useful still. It's good to include job and/or name, because admins can easily link both to the player they need to investigate, as well as action, since it helps the admin know what to look out for.

If you're ahelping about something from a previous round, be sure to mention that. If you don't, the investigating admin might be very confused! Otherwise, it's usually not necessary to include time something happened, though sometimes it is relevant, e.g. asking if it's alright to execute someone who keeps breaking into security and trying to steal sec gear for 20 minutes, reporting someone who's been spamming a text wall every few seconds, or, for the roleplaying server, describing how someone immediately outed you after they saw you order gear and just generally not giving you a chance.

Appearance isn't too useful, since appearance really logged, and , like in-game, those searching by appearance can be beguiled by disguises That said, if you saw a bunch of people with the same appearance that joined at similar times and think they might be metagaming or raiding, or see someone who resembles a racist caricature, then by all means, mention that!

Server (e.g. Goon Roleplay or Goonstation main) is not essential, unless for some reason you're reporting something someone did on another server. The bot that relays adminhelps to the admins' Discord channel also includes server it was sent from, and admins on one server don't get adminhelps from other servers, so if they see an ahelp while on that server, they can pretty much assume it's for the server they're on.

In general, try to give as many useful details as possible, like what the person's name is and what they did. That said, you usually won't be punished for sending little info, or for that matter, too much info.

After the Adminhelp

Once you've sent your ahelp, hopefully an admin will see it!

Goonstation does not use a ticket system unlike other servers, so you'll know an admin's noticed your ahelp when they send you a reply PM saying they're looking into it. Some admins are slower than others with responses, and if you don't get a response, that doesn't necessarily mean admins are actively ignoring it. They might be AFK, busy with other people, have adminhelps/admin mode off so they can safely stream or enjoy the game as a normal player, or actually looking into it after all, but have simply forgotten to send a response. If you're not getting a response, it's usually safe to ahelp again once a reasonable amount of time (say, 5 minutes) has passed.

Admins will try to do all they can. They'll comb through logs, look up player stats to get much time someone's spent playing, pull up any notes on a player other admins have left previously about past behaviors, question and talk to the relevant people, and use the information of all of that to craft an appropriate response. Rest assured, things are getting investigated!

Parting Thoughts

Notice how the Admin page depicts the administration team as a bunch of weirdos with odd but charming tastes in music and funny powers, rather than omniscient, eldritch overlords or iron-fisted authoritarians? Because that's what the admins are: they're people, and more importantly, players, just like you, who want everyone to have a good time. Like everyone else, they sometimes need help stopping people who break the rules and do things most people find unfun, because they really can't see/know everything at once. If there's nothing else you gain from this guide, it's that when you ask an admin to intervene through ahelp, you're really looking out for everyone's fun.