Dangers of admin familiarity

I've only been on the server a couple of days and I have noticed a disturbing trend; Admins tend not to do anything against their friends breaking the rules, but will protect them against others doing the same thing.

I have seen the NLR broken multiple times with no reprocussions for the rulebreaker since they are apparently familiar with an admin. Admins do not even respond to messages even though I can see there is one online. Yet when something happens to these rulebreakers, admin(s) take immediate action in their defence. 

While doing some research, I have concluded that the playerbase has been declining quite a bit; Read the post from December 2020. This may indicate that admins are less likely to kick people they know for breaking the rules since they don't want even less of a playerbase, but at the same time they are disadvantaging new players by being extremely selective over who gets punished for breaking the rules and who doesn't.

The obvious danger here is that most new players will simply be scared away; Why play on a server where some people get treated differently because they have personal contacts with an admin?

As you may notice, I'm not naming any names here, as it is not the point of this post. I'm not here to point fingers at specific people. I'm saying this kind of behaviour is damaging to the community and will not go over well with new players. I have already heared multiple people complaining about this, as people are not blind and stupid. If the server is to remain active, I strongly suggest leaving personal affiliations behind when doing admin work on the server, as it is currenly heavily damaging to the server reputation.

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

I have noticed a disturbing trend

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How have you noticed this trend? Quite often Admins play, but do not necessarily actively play the server to staff it. They play to RP like the rest of us, and are only there to respond to the most important dispatches. Reports are there for a reason. I don't honestly know how you can come to the conclusion of staff bias in a few days of seeing what staffing looks like on the server. 

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

as it is currenly heavily damaging to the server reputation.

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Again, I don't get this. Other Arma servers do have a bad rep on their staff teams, which do have a bias, or ban people for stupid reasons because a certain person got shot etc. but the staff on RPUK have always had a generally decent rep in the Arma scene, with the only problems people have with the staff team bis that the are very strict about the rules, but even then that strictness is something which has eased off over the past year or so with the Fair Ban system etc.

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

I've only been on the server a couple of days and I have noticed a disturbing trend; Admins tend not to do anything against their friends breaking the rules, but will protect them against others doing the same thing.

I have seen the NLR broken multiple times with no reprocussions for the rulebreaker since they are apparently familiar with an admin. Admins do not even respond to messages even though I can see there is one online. Yet when something happens to these rulebreakers, admin(s) take immediate action in their defence. 

While doing some research, I have concluded that the playerbase has been declining quite a bit; Read the post from December 2020. This may indicate that admins are less likely to kick people they know for breaking the rules since they don't want even less of a playerbase, but at the same time they are disadvantaging new players by being extremely selective over who gets punished for breaking the rules and who doesn't.

The obvious danger here is that most new players will simply be scared away; Why play on a server where some people get treated differently because they have personal contacts with an admin?

As you may notice, I'm not naming any names here, as it is not the point of this post. I'm not here to point fingers at specific people. I'm saying this kind of behaviour is damaging to the community and will not go over well with new players. I have already heared multiple people complaining about this, as people are not blind and stupid. If the server is to remain active, I strongly suggest leaving personal affiliations behind when doing admin work on the server, as it is currenly heavily damaging to the server reputation.

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if you do believe a admin is favroutising report it to staff leads.
and at there end of the day there are plenty of admins not everyone of them will turn a blind eye to someone rule breaking

@Ind0ctr1n3If you believe that you are being unfairly treated by a member of the Staff Team, you can send one message on the forums to All three staff leads as recipients. With the current Staff Leads being Gordon, Stavik and Drew. 

As this is in regards to Altis and I am quite familiar with staff work on Arma I will address some of the points which you have made from my perspective and hopefully give a better insight as to why you see these things occuring.

With regards to players breaking NLR, just like many other rules, is something which is entirely situational. As the Portuguese writer José Saramago said - "Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is". Without being stood next to a member of the Staff Team for everytime a player is spoken to by us, it quite simply is not possible to grasp the full context of the situation. It is also worth noting that just because a ban hasn't been placed, this does not mean that no punishments have been issued. 

Selectivity of punishment - This is most certainly not the case. You may think, 'why has Player X recieved a 1 day ban for NLR and Player Y who has done the exact same thing only recieved a warning'. The fact of the matter is Player X may have recieved multiple warnings already for breaking this exact rule, had the rule explained to them, directed in the way of the server rules and still came back and done the same thing again. Whereas Player Y may have never been spoken to by staff previously. This is not selectivity, it is simply one player who has been given the opportunity to correct their mistakes and have not, whilst the other has never had to be spoken to by staff before. These are the things which cannot be seen on the surface but are taken into consideration.

Lastly, every attempt will be made with regards to responding to Admin Requests in-game. However this may not always be possible as other things may already be being dealt with at the time of your message being sent. If ever this occurs again whereby you have sent an admin request to no avail, you can always avail of the TeamSpeak (ts.roleplay.co.uk) and join the "Join for support" channel. This would be the best way to get a member of staff to attend to your query or concern. Also in the event that you see a rulebreak taking place, it is always possible to submit a Report a Player on the forums which will be dealt with accordingly by a member of staff. Unfortunately it is simply not possible to see what everyone is doing at once, especially at the busier times.

As was previously mentioned, you are able to contact the Staff Leads on the forums if you have any concerns or complaints with regards to a member of the team.

I hope that some of what I have mentioned here has addressed some of the concerns which you have.

You lost me at:

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

I've only been on the server a couple of days

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and more so when you then proceeded to give a load of speculation and personal opinion about stuff that it is quite clear you do not even have a clue about, such as the numbers of admins on our systems, or their proximity to each as friends or not.

If you have a specific complaint to make about another player - whether they be an admin or not - there are systems here for you to make that complaint and have it dealt with at (if necessary) every level of the organisation. You are politely advised to make use of them, if the need arises (but of course, we hope and strive to make sure it doesn't).

In my experience, when people make posts like yours, they've usually had one bad experience, had a call go against them, or a run-in with an admin and are now salty and hunting for either revenge, justice (as they perceive it, which isn't always correct, but obviously might be sometimes) or any kind of 'things different to the way I'd do it, in an ideal world' to highlight vitriolically. What they very often fail to appreciate is that they have zero idea of where the admins actually are on the servers at any moment, what is being watched and what isn't, what admins might or might not be saying to each other on private communications-channels, which ones are friends or rivals, which transgressions have been observed but are being dealt with later to avoid an interruption to ongoing RP, and which transgressions can be handled with a warning or other action because a player is known to the server (rather than being 'a friend', per se) and has a huge multi-year long history of high-quality RP but happened to slip up, fail, or otherwise make a plonker of himself on one dark night after a bad case of JagerMeister.

Some things matter more than others; some things require stiffer punishment and swifter action than others. We've been doing this a long, long time now, so please don't presume to have the credentials to stand in judgement on us and make slurs like:

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

it is currenly heavily damaging to the server reputation.

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It isn't. Our reputation has been built up over seven years of hard slog. Our staff try incredibly hard to keep the balance of fair play and non-interruption whilst dealing with offenders and scallywags that ruin things for other players. Sure, nothing is perfect, and I would not for one moment attempt to suggest that we are, but our constantly-reviewed systems, processes and policies have stood the test of time pretty darn well so far, and we're unlikely to change a huge amount on the basis of one salty drama-seeking post without any specific evidence, posted by someone who rocked up into the community fresh-faced on the last passenger steamer.

I think you owe us a wee bit of an apology, really, for that sweeping generalisation about our reputation and the slurs you've made against the wider admin crew, without so much as a shred of evidence other than:

Ind0ctr1n3 said:

I have already heared multiple people complaining about this, as people are not blind and stupid.

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I confess I don't quite understand how you can expect omnipotence and total impartiality from our admins and yet go into battle on the words of multiple unnamed people and a salty feeling you have yourself. If you're new in town, how can you possibly have canvassed opinions from the many multitudes of players here who have opposite or neutral opinions? Your research seems to have come from 'reading the forums' and cherry-picking stuff from similarly salty players who, let's face it, are not always 100% impartial themselves, especially when they've been told off for some misdemeanour they didn't agree with, and decided to exact retribution for it on the forums by dissing anyone but themselves.

Unfortunately, it's a fact of life that people rarely put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) to write reams of glowing praise and flowery prose about how much they enjoyed the server and how they felt the benefit and comfort of the unseen army of admins and developers who make everything possible. Some people do, it is true, and we love them for it, but sadly, mostly people seem to be much more likely motivated by salt in their gears than pleasantness in their hearts. C'est la guerre.

All I can go on myself is the numbers of players who play here (which is still very strong for an ARMA/AltisLife server so long down the road for this particular game-model), and the fact that our server still gets full at times. There must be a reason for that, and the fact that there are still several thousand active player accounts visiting our server, from the many hundreds of thousands that have come through our doors over the years. That, and the fact that all our staff are held to account for their actions internally by their peers and leaders, and they try their hardest to abide by a set of standards that have been crafted and tweaked over nearly a decade. This is not their, or our, first rodeo. It might, however, be yours, at least here, in this place.

You're welcome to your opinions, but bear in mind that your own reputation will very much be shaped by them if you post them up for all to see, and if longer-standing players than you (who have a much better handle on the ups and downs of life here) decide they disagree. Some might even agree, at least in terms of occasional-happenings, but they'll know where the right place to complain about that is, and where to get it dealt with properly, so that offenders can be corrected, re-trained, or even removed, if the event was serious enough.

With respect, my new and bold arrival, you need to learn this too. We have a rule against posts made specifically to cause drama, and yours came close to crossing that line. Tread carefully. Don't make drama; make a complaint, if it requires it. Don't make up facts or pass off opinions and personal judgements as evidence, if you're really trying to help and are not just 'stirring the pot' for a bit of drama because you're upset about something. We will listen, via the correct system, if there are things we can genuinely act on. Otherwise, it's just noise and grumbles from salty souls who are venting their spleen - and while we'll take that on the chin as 'part of the journey we're all on', we won't give it too much credibility, and we certainly won't tolerate outright slurs or defamation.

Clear? I do hope so. Here's to you enjoying your time here, honing your skills, making new friends and having fun.

I don't think you were familiar enough with TBJ to not get shitted on by his response

Staff team and dev team do a great job, that is under-appreciated. Especially the staff team, while they do make some decisions that are controversial, its usually with the best intent for the server. Do I think there is bias? Yes, there probably is. Is the impact of the bias minimal? Likely yes. 

You won't remember this as you've been here for two days, but the fair bans process was introduced to give people more chances to learn from mistakes, which would have removed a large amount of admin bias by removing quite a bit of the discretion.  

I am not a advance player. when I speak to staff they are always polite and listen to me. In all the admin work I have seen they do a good job. It's hard for them as they need to see different perspectives and judge it accordingly. Will they make mistakes yes but that is why they have dispute a ban. To me that shows a level of humility and they will listen to anything you disagree with.

tbf most of the staff i'm on good terms, or even friends with, make it very clear that even though we talk and have fun together they still would boot me from the server if i messed up, so i doubt being friends with staff(depending on the staff member i suppose) is a issue on here in the end

I don't think there's an issue with staff being lenient to friends, it's more that some staff members are generally more lenient whereas others go straight by the book. I've done some questionable things on the server where rules wise I should have been banned but instead I was just pulled aside and told to chill, as it wasn't disrupting anyones experience and I got to go back and enjoy the laughs I was having with the groups at the time. But then I've also been straight banned for pissing about and ramming a mate in the middle of no where at 4am, without a warning. So it's just potluck with whatever admin is around, as they all have their own personal ways of dealing with issues.

Title sounds like a good book

Only a couple days on this server and already telling this community how to manage their server?  They had a succes for more then 7 years now

This feels more like a unimformed rant rather than a statement of the servers policies , As with any good community the server is staffed daily and usually without us knowing so it is hard to state what action/actions are given to anyone .