Another update from the newly instated M:SCL. Yeah – now that I have a legitimate purpose I’m doing regular updates. It may be weekly, it may be bi-weekly, it may be whenever I get to it - but it'll be more often than before. This time I’ll review my role in the DJB and what it means to the membership.
Forums
As of last night I am the Master and Commander of the Forums. My experience and longevity in the DJB have granted me the right to act as the SCL. Plus Rax says he hates dealing with the forums. As such, regular pruning and clean-up will occur. I’ve already axed people who have been inactive in the last 8 months. Anyone who hasn’t logged into the forums since 01/01/06 and had less than 10 posts is gone.
I plan on wiping out the spam boards too. It’s not because I’m totally opposed to spam – hell I’ve been guilty of the same crap I get on other people about (but it’s the level of excess that separates me from them – one or two posts like that a month are ok). Cleaning out the spam boards reduces the amount of data the forums has to keep track of, thus making the site run faster.
Another measure I’m going to try to get automated is the closing of topics after 45-60 days. This will put a lid on all the thread resurrection that’s been going on. I’m all for new people joining in to a conversation, but dragging up a 2-month old topic is kind of stupid. This is especially true when the topic was rather time-sensitive, as in the case of a specific clan activities or the GJW.
The Secret Project
Sadly, I haven’t done a damned thing for it in about two weeks. I went through a huge editing frenzy, trying to establish a framework for future expansion. This had me linking and creating about 70 different items in one night, and an additional 40 or so the next morning. I just wanted it to be in place and knew if I left it I’d never get it done. I think that little stint burnt me out a tad.
I can’t wait until it goes public only so I can ease off inputting so much information, though we’re not quite near that point since a lot of the templates are not in place.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Late August Update
Another one in less than a month? Could it be true? Yep.
Magistrate to the Seneschal
This is the primary reason for me posting another. While working on all that secret stuff for Jac I was asked how much time I spend on the Forums. My answer:
"Well I went there 29 times today since 7:30 AM. It was a slow day at work."
Long story short they needed someone to admin some of the back-end of the forums, and this paired with my other project... why not? I actually had no idea I was made M:SCL until someone said "congrats" on IRC, to which I replied "for what?"
The Forums
The next day I got an e-mail saying I was all set up. My first task was to clear out all the rogue admins. There were something like 12, and Jac wanted there to be 5. After logging into the forum manager site, I figured out how some functions worked and - a click or two later - There were 5 Admins.
My next task was to clean up the Moderators. There were something like 78 - and most of them were former Summits. I went to DJB.Com and nabbed a list of all current Summit members and matched forum ID's to DJB dossier numbers. I then made all the non-Summit people go back to the Member level.
I threw some tasks on my list, such as a Renaming Event (members can ask to have their forum name changed) and changing the Summits people from Moderators to the Clan Summits level... harder than it sounds because I had to do it individually. I then re-titled the DC people, removing the 'Herald' from myself. It was a sad moment, but then I re-titled myself as Dark Prophet.
The Other Project
I'm hoping we can really hammer out more standardizations and get it to a point where the gen-mem can access it. I'm getting burnt out making up most of the content. Still - I knew what I was signing up for! No excuses.
And Another Thing...
I've decided to allow comments. I can always edit/delete ones I don't like.
Magistrate to the Seneschal
This is the primary reason for me posting another. While working on all that secret stuff for Jac I was asked how much time I spend on the Forums. My answer:
"Well I went there 29 times today since 7:30 AM. It was a slow day at work."
Long story short they needed someone to admin some of the back-end of the forums, and this paired with my other project... why not? I actually had no idea I was made M:SCL until someone said "congrats" on IRC, to which I replied "for what?"
The Forums
The next day I got an e-mail saying I was all set up. My first task was to clear out all the rogue admins. There were something like 12, and Jac wanted there to be 5. After logging into the forum manager site, I figured out how some functions worked and - a click or two later - There were 5 Admins.
My next task was to clean up the Moderators. There were something like 78 - and most of them were former Summits. I went to DJB.Com and nabbed a list of all current Summit members and matched forum ID's to DJB dossier numbers. I then made all the non-Summit people go back to the Member level.
I threw some tasks on my list, such as a Renaming Event (members can ask to have their forum name changed) and changing the Summits people from Moderators to the Clan Summits level... harder than it sounds because I had to do it individually. I then re-titled the DC people, removing the 'Herald' from myself. It was a sad moment, but then I re-titled myself as Dark Prophet.
The Other Project
I'm hoping we can really hammer out more standardizations and get it to a point where the gen-mem can access it. I'm getting burnt out making up most of the content. Still - I knew what I was signing up for! No excuses.
And Another Thing...
I've decided to allow comments. I can always edit/delete ones I don't like.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
July - August 2006
Another month has slipped away… where does this time go? I’ve been busy, though most of it needs to remain secret.
Working Undercover For The Man
The assignment that occupies the majority of the time I allocate to the DJB is for this ‘secret’ project – though, truth be told, it’s not a huge secret. The entire DC knows about it. I think there are about 10 people (DC and non) involved, but I’ve only seen work from about 4 not including myself. Let’s just say I’ve written a lot of definitions. Like about 250+ in the past week.
The task is a daunting one, and I feel that some people might get overwhelmed with the scope of the project. They can do as I do – start somewhere small and build on it. Put something in place and others will build it up as they find it. That is how I managed about 240 of the 250+ I’ve done… I’ll add to them as I see fit or find time.
Aside from that, I feel my primary role in this project is standardization. I’m trying to make sure all these pages look the same or are at least formatted in a similar context. Last thing we need is the format to change between each one or have like 6 different formats competing. I’ve already imposed formats on a few pages and I think they look fine. The beauty of the coding format is that you can change a template and it’ll update all the relevant sites, much like CSS. If it turns out that the format I’ve made isn’t as great as I think it is – and it’s really nothing special – we can easily change it. The point is to get the style down for now so we can build upon it. Cosmetics are easy to change at any time.
When it goes ‘public’ I hope it’s rather complete. I’d hate to see chaos spreading across this project like it does so many others – especially how it ignites on the forums. There are measures in place to stop vandalism or spamming, but I don’t want it to become a full-time position of monitoring and moderating. That would be silly.
Keeping Active
I’ve talked to a few people – who shall remain nameless – about their feelings on activity. Some of these people are former DC members, Clan and House Summits, and long-standing members. The range really fluctuates between “I like everything about the DJB” to “I’m so bored I can’t understand why I come back to the site” and this makes things complicated. Some people on the “love everything” side are just good writers/gamers and enjoy participating in the comps because they’re usually in the winner’s circle. Others in that category just like the interaction with their net-friends.
On the “hate it” side, reasons are as varied as the people I talk to. Some just don’t like the games much anymore. Others are tired of the fiction. Other still feel like there’s nothing they CAN do. It’s not that these people are bad at any aspect of activity. It’s not that they’re bored. It’s that they don’t see a point in doing anything – they’ve allowed the DJB to fall out of favor. They want to be active but can’t seem to generate enough interest in the club to bother with the usual activities.
This leads to me, in a round-about way. No I’m not bored with the club – quite the opposite in fact. The secret projects remind me of when I was HRLD, and playing ‘support’ for the DJB is what I really enjoy, but I digress. Perhaps what could spark these people, along with me, is to interact with the membership more often. IRC is a dead zone, in my opinion, and the forums offer very little in the form of interaction. Maybe what can spark more positive feelings for the DJB is to just be an average member, or even just more outgoing within the DJB.
I’ve recently played some JA vs Kat. It wasn’t for CF’s or some sort of comp – just for practice and fun. We had some truly cinematic moments (think of the gymnastics in Duel of the Fates when it gets to the catwalks) and we weren’t really keeping score (though I won in a rather unbalanced approximate 12 to 1) it was very fun. Maybe some in-character JA RP could spark some activity?
I’ve had this plan where people do a JO/JA match, others observe and write about it in a pumped up, fan fiction way. Maybe I’ll propose that as another comp – though it’s a proven fact that no one does my comps anyhow.
Working Undercover For The Man
The assignment that occupies the majority of the time I allocate to the DJB is for this ‘secret’ project – though, truth be told, it’s not a huge secret. The entire DC knows about it. I think there are about 10 people (DC and non) involved, but I’ve only seen work from about 4 not including myself. Let’s just say I’ve written a lot of definitions. Like about 250+ in the past week.
The task is a daunting one, and I feel that some people might get overwhelmed with the scope of the project. They can do as I do – start somewhere small and build on it. Put something in place and others will build it up as they find it. That is how I managed about 240 of the 250+ I’ve done… I’ll add to them as I see fit or find time.
Aside from that, I feel my primary role in this project is standardization. I’m trying to make sure all these pages look the same or are at least formatted in a similar context. Last thing we need is the format to change between each one or have like 6 different formats competing. I’ve already imposed formats on a few pages and I think they look fine. The beauty of the coding format is that you can change a template and it’ll update all the relevant sites, much like CSS. If it turns out that the format I’ve made isn’t as great as I think it is – and it’s really nothing special – we can easily change it. The point is to get the style down for now so we can build upon it. Cosmetics are easy to change at any time.
When it goes ‘public’ I hope it’s rather complete. I’d hate to see chaos spreading across this project like it does so many others – especially how it ignites on the forums. There are measures in place to stop vandalism or spamming, but I don’t want it to become a full-time position of monitoring and moderating. That would be silly.
Keeping Active
I’ve talked to a few people – who shall remain nameless – about their feelings on activity. Some of these people are former DC members, Clan and House Summits, and long-standing members. The range really fluctuates between “I like everything about the DJB” to “I’m so bored I can’t understand why I come back to the site” and this makes things complicated. Some people on the “love everything” side are just good writers/gamers and enjoy participating in the comps because they’re usually in the winner’s circle. Others in that category just like the interaction with their net-friends.
On the “hate it” side, reasons are as varied as the people I talk to. Some just don’t like the games much anymore. Others are tired of the fiction. Other still feel like there’s nothing they CAN do. It’s not that these people are bad at any aspect of activity. It’s not that they’re bored. It’s that they don’t see a point in doing anything – they’ve allowed the DJB to fall out of favor. They want to be active but can’t seem to generate enough interest in the club to bother with the usual activities.
This leads to me, in a round-about way. No I’m not bored with the club – quite the opposite in fact. The secret projects remind me of when I was HRLD, and playing ‘support’ for the DJB is what I really enjoy, but I digress. Perhaps what could spark these people, along with me, is to interact with the membership more often. IRC is a dead zone, in my opinion, and the forums offer very little in the form of interaction. Maybe what can spark more positive feelings for the DJB is to just be an average member, or even just more outgoing within the DJB.
I’ve recently played some JA vs Kat. It wasn’t for CF’s or some sort of comp – just for practice and fun. We had some truly cinematic moments (think of the gymnastics in Duel of the Fates when it gets to the catwalks) and we weren’t really keeping score (though I won in a rather unbalanced approximate 12 to 1) it was very fun. Maybe some in-character JA RP could spark some activity?
I’ve had this plan where people do a JO/JA match, others observe and write about it in a pumped up, fan fiction way. Maybe I’ll propose that as another comp – though it’s a proven fact that no one does my comps anyhow.
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