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March 5, 2006: Report Twenty-Nine </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="5"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <center>

- The Jim Report -

- The Word -

- The Saber Stuffs -

- The Robes -

- The Initial Advancement Survey Feedback -

- The /dbjedi/ Folder Clean-up - </center></td> <td valign="top"> <center>

- The Honeymoon -

- The New Coding Staff -

- The DV Update -

- The Errors -

- The Props -

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Jim Report</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

I can't believe it's March already....it seems like just yesterday I was saying "I can't believe it's 2006." Time just seems to fly lately.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. I appreciate it. I had a nice one. Went out for a big steak with the wife. She bought me some cloths for our upcoming cruise.

Man, I can't wait for that. I haven't been on a true vacation in almost two years. Every time I even think of taking a break from school, I go somewhere and get conned into doing some form of work here or there. Luckily that can't happen this time.

Just starting week 8 of the semester. Classes are boring right now -- not much to do but just read read read. I've been writing cover letters this week for my upcoming summer-job search. That's fun stuff. I hate writing those things. :P Need some money though....so I need to get a job.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Word</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Speaking of money...that brings us to today's word(s):

2 cents

Everyone has them . Your opinion, point of view, outlook......every person forms it on their likes and dislikes. It's not a bad thing either -- everyone is entitled to their opinion. And really, everyone is entitled to voice their opinion. As the saying goes, you can throw in your two cents.

The problems that always come up however are two: people either don't throw in their two cents or the opinion they put in isn't really worth the pennies. If you've been following the news on the site and the comments with it, you know exactly what brought this word up. We've seen a lot of people throwing in their two cents about the robes -- some have been good examples of the way to give an opinion...others have been terrible examples. Muz has talked about the situation some in his report, but I feel I need to hit it up some more.

"The robes suck" is a valid opinion to hold -- you may not like them and that's a way of expressing that. However, when you just say "the robes suck" your two cents might as well be two pesos -- the value is virtually nil. It adds nothing to the discussion to just give conclusory statements -- if doesn't give any tips for improvement, it doesn't help us figure out what you didn't like specifically, and it makes you look like a dick (pardon the french, but it's true). A lot of people throw around the words "constructive criticism," but I don't think many people really know what they mean. All we mean by constructive criticism is back up your conclusory statements with a little bit of info. "I think these robes suck. Let me tell you why..." or "i think the robes are sweet, but I'd like to see a few improvements in this way or that way." You would be surprised what just a little bit of an explanation can do for making your comment useful.

I don't like saying it, but really, it's true: if you can't be constructive with your statements, you might as well just not say it. Really. It does nothing but breed pissed off people when you just flat out say a conclusion without explaining it. Especially when you do it on the main news page. Constructive criticism though is always welcomed -- it's helpful. Even if the person you are talking to doesn't agree in the end, at least they heard what you had to say and why. When you give a little more than just a conclusion, you are less likely to hurt the person or piss them off. When you just say "this sucks", you're demeaning the hard work of others without giving a good reason. Be careful with what you say -- we are all volunteers and we are all people.

And the other side of this is when you put out your two cents and who you give it to. There's nothing that is more annoying for a person working on a project than to post a couple times on the status, give some previews and then after all is said and done for people to come back and have something to say. I go through it all the time to the point where I expect it now...but I shouldn't have to. There's a ton that I talk about through in my news posts or in my reports that people don't comment on, but then once something's done I get a lot of bitching. I don't mind it so much, but I gotta tell you, if I were Muz, I would be ready to rip some heads off. He was quite nice in his report, but the fact of the matter is that he did a lot to get comments and no one gave him the time. You have every right not to like the robes, but for gods sake, tell that to him when he's in the first stages of development and previews rather than the last one.

When you are going to say something, make sure you do it in a timely fashion and even more important: say it to the person it needs to be said to. I have a bunch of people that joke with me about being a Big Brother on IRC. It's true -- I read everything. I go through the logs for the day, I read the clan email lists. I'm not as good on the MBs, but I try. I make irc highlights for specific projects and events that are going on....why? Well because I've learned that if I don't do that, I miss what people are bitching about. Most members don't come talk to me about things...I'm not sure why: I have an awesome open door policy and love to hear from anyone. I'm not going to snap at you if you have something bad to say. I welcome it when it's constructive -- and even if it's not I'll prod you until you give me something constructive. But it annoys me to no end to read things that are said in forums where there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it unless I happen upon it by chance. So the lesson is this: talk on IRC about things like the robes, but if you haven't taken a minute to email your constructive thoughts to the right person, your comments are literally falling on deaf ears. There is no productivity in that.

So anyway -- that's enough of me bitching. I hope that you found this to be constructive. I could have just said "quit bitching!" but I didn't -- I included ways to help you make your comments more useful all around...Please take mine and Muz's four cents and put it to use.

And that's the word.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Saber Stuffs</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

If you haven't checked it out already, go and look at the new releases from the HRLD office regarding sabers. We have released the new saber images for DJK+ using the saber constructor and then we have released the new Custom Lightsaber Request form...good stuff.

Big thanks again to Muz and his staff and to those that did the coding (pyr and shin did the first iteration of the request form, I upgraded it for the site and added some functionality and then completely re-did the saber picker, Radek reviewed my code). Some of you may not think that this is a big deal, but it's been a long long long time coming from many people that have worked on the projects. Good to finally get it out the door.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Robes</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

I just wanted to emphasize something that I didn't really get to do in the word: temporary. Please make sure you read the news posts that are on the site carefully. These robes that are there now are temporary until we get the final version ready. They are meant to tide things over for a while and are not in the final form. I don't mind the commenting on these, but please keep the context in mind.

I also just wanted to take a moment to point out the magnitude of this project: over the last 4 years I have seen over a dozen people pick up the robes project and try to complete it. There have been varying degrees of success, but the one thing I know for sure is that Muz is the only one who has even made it past the second robe. Let me repeat that

4 years. Don't take that for granted. Also, as for the old robes, Chi Long created them a long long time ago and they have been on the cutting board for a while. He told us when he left that we didn't have to take them down, but I didn't want to leave them up any longer -- he no longer wanted us using any of his work and I intend to respect that, permission or not. So that's another reason why the temporary robes are up.

Final point on this today: Muz was up until four in the morning today resizing the robes so that they fit better on the dossiers. Refresh your browser if you don't see the robes side-by-side with the warbanners.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Initial Advancement Survey Feedback</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

We've received a ton of the advancement surveys and I am pleased so far with the results. I have been replying to each one personally, thanking everyone for their time and responding to major issues as I se them. One of the things I have seen consistently that I wanted to address here is the visibility of the Dark Council. There was a 50/50 split on the visibility level of the DC -- a lot of people said that they want to see more from us by the way of emails and message board presence. Others said that there was plenty already. I personally tend to fall into the former, there's always more we can do to communicate.

Here I just wanted to tell you a few things that I am personally working on. First, I am going to put more effort into keeping my reports coming. I tend to not do them when there's not much new to report...some weeks are just on the in-between of everything. However, I need to get past that. Second, I intend to start passing more emails down the email chain through the Consuls. Third, on my plan for the next couple months is an intention to restart the Holocron. If you don't know what the holocron is, that's because it hasn't been in use for the last 4-5 years. It use to be a weekly mailing of all of the news from the DB site in one nice email. I am going to try and get that re-done so that people can have some more flexibility with their news.

Anyway -- just figured in the interests of good communication I'd tell ya what I'm up to there.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The /dbjedi/ Folder Clean-up</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

If you never get the occasion to work on the current DB site, consider yourself blessed. :) The thing is a mess right now, and Radek, Aerick and I are hard at work trying to fix her up. One of the things that was my initial job was to clean out the main web site folder /dbjedi/....It only took about 8 hours but I got through it. For perspective on the time since this was last done: there was a temporary site in there that was for the EH Training Office...I deleted that. For a numerical perspective: I killed of 12 folders, moved a few more and deleted or deprecated 104 files...that brought the folder down from 316 to 212 files.

Now our task is to do through and standardize all of those files. For each script, it takes a couple hours to do the standardizing. There are a little over 200 more to go. That's going to be a lot of work. The DB site is a lot more massive than it may appear to some. Thanks for your patience as we get through this.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>THe Honeymoon</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

On the 18th of March I will be leaving for my Honeymoon. The wife and I are going on a cruise in the Southeast Caribbean. It will be fun.

However, I'll be completely out of contact during that time. I expect that I will be able to get on email a couple times, but that's it. Kir and FF will be in charge and I expect good behavior boys and girls!

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The New Coding Staff</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

As announced a couple days ago, I've added Radek to the Dark Council as Seneschal and he has taken on Aerick as his Praetor. I've been working with these two for a while now and they are going to be phenomenal in these jobs. Lots of great stuff is on the way.

The best part for me is that this will allow me to really just move into a supervisory role. I will be spending more time simply coming up with requirements documents and reviewing things rather than actually coding. That will free me up for some other stuff -- that will be a nice change.

Also to note here, Radek and his staff will be handling MB moderators now....yaaay!

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The DV Update</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Quick update: Ziltopia is having some trouble getting me the files for the DV. I am going to post what I have in a couple days if even if I still haven't gotten everything. My apologies for the delay. Regardless of when this DV comes out, the following one will be released on April 12 for our anniversary.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Errors</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

As a piggyback to the coding stuff, but something that is important enough for its own section: We are doing a ton of work on the site and that means you are going to be getting some errors here and there. Please please please, when you see an error, don't ignore it. Even spelling mistakes. Send a copy of your error and a brief description of what you did to webmaster {at} darkjedibrotherhood [dot] com. Your 30 seconds will help a ton in getting things under control!

As a little inspiration: I just recently awarded a medal to Storm for his constant emails pointing out errors here and there on the site.

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BIG PROPS

--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Props</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

<center>- Big props Muz for the hard work as HRLD! -

• Congrats to Radek and Aerick on their new positions! -

• Props Aabsdu on getting to SW! -

• Yay! Impetus got a lightsaber! -

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