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.