Yasmin Lane: You started out in the NationStates staff as tech modling, how did you get that position?
SalusaSecondus: My story with NS is really one of being the exception to the rules. I got the position because I asked for it. You might remember that in June of 2003 there were some players who were able to get custom pretitles. (Back then, only moderators could.) By this time I was
already friends with some of the moderators so I asked them if I could
look into it. I got permission and figured out the problem and sent a
recommendation on to [violet]. While doing this I noticed some
interesting things about how NS worked and so I got permission from the
Mods to poke around a bit deeper to check security. Over the next month
I developed several other exploits including the only known "hacks" of
NationStates. I finally was able to steal nations both individually (in
in mass). I sent all of this information on to [violet] (as well as
possible patches) and asked to be brought onto the team so that I could
work more closely with the staff on security problems (and to act as a
technical adviser to the less technical staff).

(Note: To anyone who wants to try something similar to this on
NationStates (please don't, the position is filled) or other sites,
notice that I ALWAYS ASKED PERMISSION FIRST! If you do any of what I
did without asking permission, you are asking for the FBI to come
knocking on your door for hacking.)

Yasmin Lane: How were the reactions to this?
SalusaSecondus: Happy. Excited. I had the chance to explore and practice my skills.

Yasmin Lane: Later you were promoted to GameAdministrator, was this a big change for you?
SalusaSecondus: Yes and no. Ironically, the promotion to Game Administrator came with
no new powers. I already had the powers of a Game Moderator (even if
that wasn't public knowledge) and I wouldn't be getting the full powers
of administrator until we moved to Jolt. So, it was really a change in
how the players viewed me more than anything else. It was very exciting
though. It was both an acknowledgment of the amount of work that I did
on the game and a bestowing of freedom. With the authority of
Administrator, I could work harder to subtly shape the game through my
actions, posts, and discussions (both with players and mods) because I
was secure in my position and didn't need to worry as much about
stepping on peoples toes. This is the most important part of being an
admin (in my opinion). I can do more first and ask permission (or
forgiveness) later. This means that I can react more quickly to
problems and that I can shape the game and its interactions as I see fit
(and more than 90% of the time both Max & [violet] are in agreement with
me).

Yasmin Lane: The picture with the mask has become your trademark, could you tell us more about it? Is it really you, how did you come up with it?
SalusaSecondus: I originally joined the team as a security consultant (though this
wasn't public knowledge). This meant that I wanted to preserve some
degree of mystery about me. It makes it more difficult to sidestep my
investigations, rulings, thought processes, etc. So, I selected the
name of the Imperial prison planet (from Dune) which is the home of the
galaxy's second fiercest warriors (the Sardukar) and I used a masked
photo of myself as my avatar. I happen to enjoy masks and that was one
from my freshman (or sophomore) year Masquerade Ball at my college. I
just used it a bunch and it naturally became my trademark.

I'm thinking about using it more again to resurrect it.

Yasmin Lane: You got placed in the top 3 of one of the categories in the modolympics, any reason you became more active in modding?
SalusaSecondus:I was out of school and the mods needed someone to pick up a bit of the
slack then because the others were busy. I also wasn't doing any
coding/admin work at the time as that workload was low.

Yasmin Lane: What do you see as your biggest achievement?
SalusaSecondus: The successful migration to and integration with Jolt. The primary
breakdown of the workload (though there was some working across fields)
was: [violet] maintained the existing server, I managed the setup of the
Jolt server, and Max kept an eye of everything (a lot of this had to do
with Time Zones). So I really was one of the primary forces in making
the move to Jolt work properly. It was a lot of work, but I'm very
proud of how it turned out. I'm still amazed that we got the game up
and running on our first try.

Yasmin Lane: Any bloopers you would like to share?
SalusaSecondus:Yeah. Remember a long time ago when about half of the regions lost
their delegates (including Francos Spain)? That was me making a typo.
The worst part was that was without admin powers (I've since patched
that problem). Another one of my favorites was right after I finished
tweaking the daily update (to make it much faster) and the rankings were
reversed because I got confused as to the sort order.

Yasmin Lane: What situation you had to deal with in NationStates amazed you the most?
SalusaSecondus:That's a really tough one. I've been amazed in so many different ways:
"Wow! That's great!"; "Can people really be that dumb?!"; "Can people
really be that mean and nasty?!". So much stuff has happened with
people doing stupid things and with people building great things in the
game and off the game.

I think that the best might have been within the first 8 hours of my
modlingship. I had no powers then (something that we all made very
clear) and I jokingly said to someone that if they called me "Second
Salad" then I would carry out lots of malicious tests on their nation.
I was immediately accused by another player of abusing my powers and
threatening someone. That really amazed me.

Yasmin Lane: Anything else you would like to add?
SalusaSecondus: Not really except a "Thank you" to all of the players and moderators and
"Remember to buy Max's books!" I've seen lots of people asking how they
can donate to NationStates. Buy his books. He gets money, you get a
good read. (I enjoy "Jennifer Government" and love "Syrup"). It's
win-win situation. If you want to donate more, then just buy them as
gifts for friends. And remember, "Company" is coming out soon, so be
sure to get a copy of that.

Yasmin Lane: Thanks for your time!
SalusaSecondus:Not a problem.