Dun dun dun da da da da DUN DUN DUN – MAA Report; GO!

News

If you haven’t heard, the new DB-wide promotion requirements are out and have been posted to the wiki. You can find them here. I updated them this evening to version 1.1. Most of the changes were simple clarifications but there were also a few substantive changes that you’ll want to glance over if you’re a leader or if you’re pursuing a Journeyman promotion.

These requirements are designed to do more than just give you a checklist for promotion. In fact, we rather discourage the checklist mentality – you’ll get more out of the Brotherhood if you avoid gunning for promotion quickly by running through every requirement. Furthermore, some of these requirements can’t be completed in a week. Lastly, there are time requirements to get you people to cool your jets on promotions and – hopefully – earn some merit medals! Remember, Equite promotions take much longer to achieve than Journeyman promotions: get used to it.

I would really like to emphasize that we’ll still be adjusting these requirements periodically to make sure they actually work. If everyone is having problem with one or two of these requirements then we’ll make adjustments. If the time requirements are causing everyone to bottleneck, then we’ll make adjustments. We are not married to these requirements in their current incarnation.

There are two ways you can respond to these requirements and make yourself heard. One is by speaking to your House and Clan leadership and sharing your concerns or comments with them so that they can report to me about systematic problems or, God forbid, praise. The other way is to post on the forum here.

Finally, I want to explain where we’re going to be going with these promotion requirements. This is not the end state of the promotion system. It is merely an intermediate step towards a much more flexible system that we intend to implement down the line. We decided to introduce these requirements now instead of waiting until we had ‘perfected’ the new system because we wanted to address our concern on disparate guidelines now instead of in the indefinite future. One needs only think of Rebirth to understand my reasoning :P

Oh; on an unrelated note, thanks for the promotion to DJM guys. It means a lot that you promoted me before I actually released these requirements. Of course, that may not be saying much: how many DC members have been rewarded before they completed their projects? A ton. And some never did finish their projects… <

I can’t even say thank you without getting a snark in. Hah!

Policy Updates and Clarifications

There are just a few quick policy updates this month. Firstly, all competitions that are designed to create a new motto or logo for a unit will be summarily denied. This policy had apparently been implemented under my predecessor but no one mentioned it to me until a week ago. Quite frankly, there are just too many of these. We don’t want a unit’s motto and logo changing constantly because the unit leadership wasn’t creative enough to come up with a different type of competition. Exceptions can be made for new units or after major events – but you’ll need to contact me and Muz first. Needless to say, exceptions will not be common.

Secondly, we’ve changed the denial policy. We have been remanding a lot of stuff that should have been denied. From now on, we will deny anything that is insufficient on its own merits. This means that if you aren’t specific enough in your request for a medal or a promotion then we’re going to deny it. We’re not going to remand it and ask for more information. Remanding is only going to be used for requests that are fundamentally correct but technically incorrect. So, for example, say you request a crescent and forget to use the competition drop-down menu: the crescent is correct but you made a mistake. We’ll remand that. If you submit a request for a DC and say “Wow this member is active,” we’ll deny that instead of remanding it and asking you to give us more information. Considering that a lot of people are still having trouble resubmitting remanded requests, I don’t think this will impose a large burden on people who want to resubmit – it may make it easier. Additionally, I like to deny things. The word “DENIED” is big on the screen when I deny things. So yay for denying things.

Projects

The Next Big Project: dun dun DUUUUN

Actually, this isn’t that big of a project. Our next target will be the medal system. We need to revise the medals before we can begin work on the final promotion system. Our first step in revising the medal system is to go through the current descriptions of the medals and make sure they are consistent with what they are actually being used for. In other words, I want to make it clear when you should award someone a DC or a GC or whatever. We’ve already started working on this and I will release the update as soon as it’s completed.

Super AWOL Check: Will be done after the new CSes are implemented. They are currently in beta testing.

Promotion Requirements: Released – updated to version 1.1

Staff

Tarax was elevated to Arbiter Magistrate finally after much grappling with the database. It apparently was also shocked at the thought of him having more power. Regardless, Tarax can now see most of the requests but he will not actually be processing anything. Sklib fails.

Sklib Says

Speaking of Sklib, it’s time for another installment of SKLIB SAYS! Here, pasted verbatim, are the inane musings of my failure of a Praetor. Enjoy.

_Sklib Says! #2: Attention to Detail

Today’s topic is an important one; one that is quite underestimated but greatly significant. If you’ve ever been denied a promotion/medal/competition from the MAA’s Office, there’s a more than likely chance it was due to a lack of specifics. We don’t know what you’re thinking and cannot guess or give you the benefit of the doubt. What is attention to detail, specifically? Put clearly, it’s essentially “being thorough in accomplishing a task with concern for all areas involved, no matter how small.”

Read that again.

No matter how insignificant a detail may be, when in doubt whip it out (settle down, Shad). Things like shadow academy passing dates will aid greatly in speeding up the approval process because it saves us that much time to having to go look at their dossier instead. However, don’t try to slip by false dates. If we catch you… there will be consequences, namely me shitting on your soul. The absolutely WORST thing I hate about approving/denying anything that comes through is when people simply have too many generalities. It really serves no purpose whatsoever other than making the person who’s receiving the award feel nice and fuzzy on the inside. If you can include specifics WITH those generalities, be my guest. However, don’t have a tantrum when something gets denied because all you had in your rec was “they’re active and a friendly member of the Clan.”

The goal here is efficiency. Think of submitting a rec like turning in a paper at school. If you spend time on it, make sure you meet the criteria for a good grade, and hell, maybe had a peer read over it, then you should never ever fail. Same applies for a recommendation – it will almost never get denied unless there are extenuating circumstances that aren’t under your control. We’re cutting down on the remanding of medals/promos because that function should be for fixing things like spelling/grammar, maybe a typo on the level of crescent… whatever. We aren’t going to remand things anymore when a person is clearly short on requirements. Don’t expect us to look at a person’s dossier and say “oh well that wasn’t in the rec, but they obviously did it.” If it’s not in the rec than it ain’t my consernnn! Bottom line is: know what you’re doing, ask help from your next step up in the chain of command if necessary, and use common sense. Medals and promotions have been exponentially better than say six months ago, but there is always room for improvement._

I agree with Sklib. Take note.

Ask Kaek

I moved Ask Kaek up because it seems stupid to have Ask Kaek after the Closing Remarks section. This month’s first question sucks but what can I do? I’m a mere servant of the people.

_Dear Kaek, how can I be as awesome and as cool as you?

<3 Shikyo _

I didn’t have an answer readily available for our lovable Herald. It’s really difficult to imagine how someone could possibly become as awesome and as cool as I am. But then: inspiration struck. Here is my response:

_Dear Shikyo,

I am at a loss to explain to you how to become as awesome and as cool as I am. However, I am reminded of the Great Stickhatbootman. I quote from his wiki page:

**Question: Can I have sex with Stickhatbootman?

Answer: Unfortunately, Stickhatbootman is too good for you. Get a life you sick bastard.**

While this doesn’t answer your question, I think it’s an important thing to remember. I’m not as awesome as SHB – but I’m pretty sure that answer is illuminating…somehow.

Love, Kaek_

This month’s second question is much better.

Kaek: what happens if a noob gets their trials done long before the time prescription in the trials? –Love, Muz

Aww – I love the promotion requirement question. This is much too serious for Ask Kaek though. I’ll answer it anyway because it’s Muz and he’s my boss.

_Dear Muzzles,

If a n00b finishes their trials before the time requirement, they have to wait until the time requirement has been completed. They can use their extra time to do anything they please and can be given merit medals for any extra work they complete. Yay for merit medals!

Love, Kaek_

And that’s enough from the mailbag for this month.

Closing Remarks/Rant

This month’s closing rant is on cloning. I’m actually going to keep it pretty short and simple. Cloning: don’t do it.

Kir and I aren’t stupid and the database tells us when your IP is being used in multiple locations. It’s very easy for us to detect when someone is cloning. In fact, I find it rather fun to track you down, build up evidence and then watch you squirm as Kir emails you and you either attempt to deny it stupidly or accept it. Seriously: don’t do it. You will be caught.

Oh I almost forgot: my obligatory shout out to the MOVE4POWER family: the d’Tanas. Seriously: this family sucks. If they ask you to join, you by all means should not. I mean…Pho is a member. Come on. That is complete and utter failure. I think this family measures close to 300 SK on the Chaosometer. Watch out.

Be Safe. Be Smart. Watch out for Chaos failure.

Dark Jedi Master Syn Kaek

Master At Arms

DJM Syn Kaek (Sith)/MAA-P:SCL/Dark Council [ACC: JUD]

AK/GC-PoTP/SC-SoH/AC-ToSC/DC-GP/SN-BL/Cr-8A-2S-3E-4T-3Q/CF-SF/DSS-BL/SI-AuL/SoL-TC/LS-AgL/S:-9M-3R-1C-2D-3Do-4Dk-1Rm-14P  

{SA: MVN}