How not to be a horrible, hated Admin

How not to be a terrible, hated admin on the Dark RP game mode.

Intro

EDIT 2020 - This guide is about 5 years old. The new version is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1750720335

Okay, I had the idea to write this guide because of all the horrible, mean, and just downright unprepared admins all over the Gmod net. They don't react in the right ways to situations and don't seem at all ready for the things they have to pull as an admin. Some people just don't realize what being an admin means and from that poor start, they turn into some forms of beast. In this guide, I will teach you how to do well by the players, yourselves, and how to act around other admins on your server, and others.

Prerequisites for being an Admin

There are a few things someone needs before becoming an admin. These things are required to be a good admin and do help.

-A calm disposition
-A temper that isn't easily flared
-A strong sence of respect
-The ability to simpy take a step back and breathe in heated situations
-The ability to control your own mouth

Let's start with number one, shall we? You need to be calm and considerate of problems and think about the players induvidually. Don't think of them as another paser-by that'll never come back, because you want these people to come back and to do that you need to supply them with a good time. They also need adiquite help for their problems and to provide THAT you need to be calm. An admin that is calm is much like a hostage nagotiator. If you're calm, the player will be calm, and, somethimes, hearing a calm voice can really soothe people.

Number two: Temperment is a big thing. If you get easily agrivated, can't help but yell at people, aren't good with people, this position of athority isn't for you. You're the admin. Act mature and control yourself, no matter what players throw at you (may it be words, or props.)

Three: ALWAYS SHOW RESPECT! Always. No matter what. Players may never give you the kindness, but you can give it to them. Be the better man/woman. Show that you can be mature and treat them like a human being. Even troublesome players need to be treated this way.

Number four: Sometimes, players just get to you and you feel like nothing you say is working. All you need to do, is stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths, and resume with the same composure you had to start with. Rasing your voice to match the player's is only going to make things worse, so don't let it happen.

Number five is the biggest one and is the largest problem with Gmod admins. CUSSING DOESN'T MAKE IT BETTER NOR MAKE YOU SEEM MORE MACHO. Cussing at a player that is getting to you only shows that you are willing to stoop to their level like a dog and egg them on. Cussing causes arguments. Cussing makes people mad. Would you like it if you called 911 and got a mouthy operator that seemed to scream every offensive blurb they could think of instead of helping you? I wouldn't.

(This next point was added thanks to the user Brisplid. Thanks man.)

DON'T BE BIASED! I can't believe I missed this one. This is big. For those of you who don't know, biased is to be unfairly prejudiced against someone or something for personal reasons. A good example of this being used in an admin situation would be the following:

Let's say there is a player as a cop in DarkRP. He's going around, minding his own business, having fun. Then, he sees a thief breaking into a local store. Promptly, he arrests that thief. Well, sadly, that thief was a friend of the admin. The admin didn't like that his friend was arrested, even if it was for the right reasons, so what does he do? He bans the player who arrested him.

You don't have to ban a player to be biased, though. Being biased can be harassment via words or actions as well. Slaying a player because they killed you or a friend in, let's say, a raid? That's being biased because your reasoning is completely unjustified and wrong.

I have a situation myself with an admin being biased towards me. I was playing on his server for a little while as a swat. He and three of his buddies decided to raid the PD and I killed him and one other raider while my police friends picked off the rest of them. Well, the admin ordered a full scale RDM fest upon me, making it a server-wide law that if I was seen, I was fair game. Now, everytime I join one of those servers, though most have forgotten or don't know about the 'Kill Bucket' rule, this admin still refuses to help me when I need it and kills me when he's feeling especially pissed. He never bans me, though, which is rather strange. It's a shame, though. That server was actually a good one prior to this admin's full scale freak-out.

GOOD admin, BAD admin, and the correct punishments for rule-breakers

Let me give you some examples of things I've had to deal with over the years. Let's start with a bad admin.

BAD: I was on a server and we had just had a map change. I got into a conversation in OOC with another player about how much I liked the other map. We talked about all the nice things the other map had and how we hoped the server would switch to it more often. Well, one admin didn't seem to like having his choices questioned, and called me out instead of the other player and screamed for me to stopp 'spamming OOC' by spamming OOC with five messages in a row containing vulgar language. I'd never talked to this admin before. I had no idea why he was going off at me so viloently and I was willing to voice it.

I told him that I wasn't spamming OOC, I was having a conversation with a player that wasn't near me and we'd only sent three messages total between eachother. I also noted that his choice to scold me for spamming by spamming wasn't helping his case any. I was then banned from the server promptly for three weeks.

Now, not only did this admin display the fact that he had none on the required skills to admin, but also seemed to not understand adiquite punishment for whatever crime I had comitted, which I wasn't aware of. I still haven't found out what I did wrong and the admin hates me. Another note: Don't hold grudges. People can change and sometimes do stupid things. Always have room in your heart to forgive. Especially with younger players.

GOOD: I observed an admin sit where a troublesome player had been screaming at people over OOC about how someone had shot and killed him without reason. The admin came, sat him down (Literally. He had a chair and told the man to sit in it), and calmly took care of the problem. The offender was jailed for ten minutes as a warning then later kicked for repeating his offence. The other man was jailed for ten minutes for OOC spam and to give him time to cool off. Needless to say, we had no other problems with him the rest of his stay and he turned out to be really fun to be around.

This is the kind of admin you want to see. He was calm, considerate, and knew what to do. He made the punishment fit the crime and everything worked out.


TYPES OF PUNISHMENT IN GMOD RP

-First warning
-Second warning
-Prolonged jailing
-kick
-temporary ban
-permanent ban

These should be carried out in that order.

KICKING: Usually for players who have caused minimal trouble and just need to be removed for a short time.

TEMPORARY BAN: Players needing to be removed for longer periods, sometimes even days. Usually for players who have caused considerable trouble, but in their first offence.

PERMANENT BAN: For players who have caused trouble on multiple occations and show no signs of stopping or cooperating. They are the trolls and the minges that get kicks out of doing these things. Often, they won't take things serious and want to ONLY cause trouble or grief.

Paid Ranks are a BIG NO NO

This section is being added just for the FNAF RP admin Snugzz. >:)

PAID FOR RANKS ARE A BAD IDEA, YOU MONEY ♥♥♥♥♥!

Why are they a bad idea? Well, BECAUSE PEOPLE BUY RANKS JUST FOR THE SOUL REASON OF DESTROYING SERVERS! I don't care how money hungry you are, you should not own a server for the reason of earning money or if you show simply disreguard for its well being. Ranks should be earned, not bought. The other day on your server, Mr. Owner Snugzz, I saw a man buy superadmin and go on an RDM spree. The only person who gave a ♥♥♥♥ was a moderator and he wasn't allowed to kick or ban him. Why? BECAUSE HE BOUGHT SUPERADMIN!

Another thing about you, sir, is that you don't give a damn about what people do on your server. RDM and 5-year-olds doing Erotic RP is A-OKAY! You get mad about normal players doing normal things, however, because normal things like making a store and talking to people are simply a distraction to the role playing experience.

Badmin of the month, everyone. A ROUND OF APPLAUSE!

Final Notes

I hope this guide has been of help to starting admins and teaches older ones the propper way to behave. I also wish to point out that the weight does not fall on the admin alone. Choose your other admins and Mods carefully. Make sure they can follow these guidelines just as well as you and that they can only strive to make your server better. Never settle for second best.

Good luck!

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(Update: I was really worried about opening this guide back up to the public eye because of the mixed feedback, [Some of it about my profile picture of all things] but you know what? Say what you want about me. I don't care. I have to deal with it in real life and I can deal with it on the internet, and even better so, seeing as what you say to me is simply words on a screen. I stand by my content and my motives and won't let your hate antagonize me anymore. Good day, Sirs and Madams. *Puts his hat on his head and walks away*)

[Cloaker]

Huh, rather useful and, still relevant...

Thanks dude, will keep this in mind for all the cases.

[SatyrToon]

You understand that this guide is over 5 years old, right?

[Christian GamingYT]

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[Dusty]

I love this guide im a Mod on a server and i wanna learn to be better at my job as staff Thank you

[Kenkade™]

Try out lawless rp servers, lawless ones in general but wolfless is good, 0 rules practically and 0 bad admins.

[jakkass]

Finally. Someone who actually gives a crap about other people on servers. I never ran into a crappy admin my self but I have ran into many good ones. I'll favorite and like this guide mainly because it's good, and if I become an admin my self i'll know what to do... Instead of throwing the chair at the minge...

[Daddy Kermit]

The best way to deal with abusive/shitty admins is to be a hobo.

It's literally your job to pester people.

[Asuri]

Great Guide.... Im still waiting a Day when some Admins will respect and dont act like better than a player.

[hoobers]

This helped me out a bunch! Thanks :)

[SatyrToon]

@[DANK RP] mrmo1969 I am SO SORRY for not replying sooner. The best way to get new players is to invite your friends and let them have fun. Don't pressure them to tell anyone else, just let it happen naturally. They'll eventually invite more people because they had fun, their friends will have fun, and new players will roll in.