Hello all (mainly staff ) I'm here questioning the acceptance of backseat admining! I would like to give my encounter of backseat admining I got yesterday: I killed player A for walking past an unIDed body. Player B is specting me while I -RDM- A. B suggests to A that A reports me. B then continually harasses me through private and public chat about why I'm not slayed B then moves to questioning the staff online while I'm not slayed B then sends a false report saying in the lines of "Hey, this guy RDMed, why isn't he slayed" B then returns to harassing me through private and public chat about why I'm not slayed B finally gets the staff to explain why I was slayed Now, is something like that -accepted- in this community? (Especially by staff) Because as a third party B had no idea the situation yet continually tried to get my slayed.
We promote staff for a reason. Often times, a "backseat moderator" is not fully aware of the events that went down that led to the death of player A. This does not often help our jobs as staff members. Even if a detective is blatant mass-rdming, telling us about it won't do much, because we get the reports from our RDM manager, check the logs, and punish accordingly anyways. TL;DR: Backseat-moderating doesn't really help us but we're not going to stop you from doing it.
If B harassing you then it becomes an issue. If they merely state their opinion a couple times it's fine.
Just try to explain to him what is up. If someone is backseat moderating, usually they have good intent. If you explain yourself, it would probably be enough. I always record my rounds so if anything happens, i have an actual record of it. So if someone thinks I rdm and no staff are on, and they continue to ask/harass me about it, I'll show them the recorded footage and that usually shuts them up.
If you're often backseat moderating you should just make an application to be a moderator. Of course, if you've been denied then acting as if you were accepted probably isn't going to improve your odds the next time you apply. The only times I've done something along the lines of "backseat moderating" is either A) I and a majority of other players are dead and I see someone sitting in one spot for a prolonged period of time. I'll just PM them and remind them not to camp while a majority of players are dead. B) Someone says "livecheck or KOS" I'll just point out that you can't KOS for not responding to live check on STTT servers.
I wouldn't consider either of those backseat moderating. Helping explain the rules to players is really helpful, saves the mods from future reports. I usually warn people not to camp because they will get slain.. So It's more of a courtesy thing for me. Also, nothing would aggravate me more than to lose a t round because my t-buddy camped too hard. If you were telling players to slay themselves or generally trying to enforce the rules instead of explaining them, I'd consider that backseat moderating. arguing with mods is something id consider backseat moderating, too (I used to be infamous for this). I've learned that arguing with mods ingame is not the way to handle things. I just tell them what I think the rules are, and if they disagree or we have problems, I immediately take it to the forums. (Arguing with mods in game is just a lose lose for everyone involved.)
