A report, in which Muz goes over the membership survey that launched last month, and pontificates a whole lot, then posts up pictures to distract you from his verbosity. Brought to you by the letter B and the number 9.

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FOr the survey I launched last month, 100 members responded.

It broke down like this: Arcona (16) Naga Sadow (20) Odan-Urr (10) Plagueis (11) Scholae Palatinae (16) Tarentum (6) Taldryan (21)

Those members broke down in rank thusly: Pre-Knight: (11) Knight (15) EQ1 or 2 (35) EQ3 or 4 (24) DA (&) DJM (6) DP (2)

Additionally, most member responding said that the highest position that they have had was House summit (37%) with clan summit and DC both showing 16% each. only 12% of responders have not had any position yet. This shows one of two things: either more people are getting a chance to serve in leadership or alternatively that if people don't get to serve in leadership, they don't really hang around.

These are self-identified ranks, and as it is largely anonymous (aside from context clues) it is safe to say that there is little to no reason for anyone to lie about either of the two above questions. It does allow us to determine what various groups in the Brotherhood are feeling, however.

One of the biggest questions we asked was 'What brought you to the DB?'. This question allowed for multiple selections. The leading reasons for joining are friends (34%), other clubs (31%) search engines (28%) with the DB's concept being 21%. There was minimal responses for advertising, and gaming/gfx were in the 10-15% range apiece.

What that tells us is that the DB's growth is primarily social. Most of the DB recruitment comes from other members rather than advertising. We've all known that word-of-mouth is the most powerful advertising force that there is, but this confirms it in black and white. Once we get them hooked enough to check us out, we set the hook with what we are. We've known for years that we are the dominant darksider club on the web, so that's not much of a surprise. Seeing some of the individual reasons is eye-opening, though. Lots of praise for our story, our history, and how we have a clan system in place.

Another major question asked was 'What do you love most about the brotherhood?' This question was answered in user-entry format, so everyone who answered filled in their own answer. Overwhelmingly, camaraderie, the members and their friends in the DB were entered as answers.

Here's some selected answers:

_The community aspect. Meeting people, making friends with similar levels of nerdiness, and getting recognized for work I perform

The community! I'm here to hang out with nerds and write fiction. I do play TOR, but in truth, I tend to solo things

There are various types of activity supported, so everyone may find something enjoyable to do. There are also fair promotion requirements, which are known to public. It makes it easier to measure one's progress and to award them properly for their work. Finally, I appreciate very much the fact that there is constant improvement drive that makes whole Brotherhood evolve and become more adapted to changing conditions and circumstances. The leaders display courage necessary to introduce unpopular decisions.

It is a very friendly atmosphere, The members and leaders are extremely approachable. There is a lot of good information on the Force and especially the Dark Side.

All of us who love Star Wars want to jump through the screen and be a part of that galaxy. The Brotherhood, on it's best day, allows us to do that with like minded people. It, like Star Wars itself, is a fun little escape.

I love the Brotherhood's established laws and protocols, and how well they are implemented overall. The CoJ, the Chain of Command, and the Dark Council's authority seem to work together to make an environment that overall is quite mature and well-behaved.

To me it is an interesting platform for roleplaying and character development. Including a big range of activities. That the dossier reflect your roleplay and that you can (to a certain degree) adapt / change things so it is more personal. The idea that the DJB is a fictional society that has ranks, medals, and a huge story behind it._

As a counterpoint to that, I also asked 'What do you like the least about the brotherhood?'

The responses weren't nearly as cohesive as what people liked the most. This helps us see a lot of different areas to work on, so that is a good thing. Common answers include politics between the units and on the DC, concerns over how complicated the DB can be for new members, and difficulty with achieving higher ranks.

I'll post a few responses here and answer them as best I can. This isn't meant to serve as excuses, but rather reasons. There's a key difference there, because when you make an excuse, you think that it's not really a problem. We fully acknowledge that these things are problems and are working to resolve them.

The slow pace of implementation and the lack of transparency and delegation.

This is a beast. I'd love nothing more than to be able to lay all my plans out on the table and show you all what we have planned, what we have been working on (in some cases for years and years), but there's an issue with getting things coded in. I don't want to tease you guys with the cool plans and then have to keep telling you guys every three months that it is being delayed again. Even I have had times where I wonder if these projects are ever going to see the light of day, and given a lot of circumstances that have occurred, it'd be easy for me to give up on them. I can completely understand where you guys are coming from.

That said, we have a motivated, engaged and talented coder staff that is chomping at the bit to get our site fixed, modernized, and include a lot of the projects that we have been asking for/working on for years now. I can't say when yet, but it's looking promising.

The politics. Many people are driven by the idea of wanting to become more powerful in the club and it has lead to disenfranchising of members. This is lessened in recent years, but has left a bad taste in the mouths of some older jaded members.

Politics is one of those things that happens whenever you get a number of people together. It is sadly unavoidable. That said, there are certain things that I have tried to do to keep things from devolving too much into petty bickering and back-room deals. These things can often be misconstrued as trying to move to a more centrally-controlled Brotherhood, however...so there's a fine line in the sand there between leaving things to the houses and clans alone (and often subject to whatever political clique is going on right now) and having the DC sign off on everything (who often isn't as acutely aware as the situation as house and clan summits). It's tricky, but that's why we do it: to help mitigate potential bias and political machinations.

The seeming need to create more and more rules that stifle creativity (ie: specific promotion requirements for things beyond...let's say Guardian). I'm talking about the Master/Student program. It's stupid. If people are required to be masters, why in the hell are there still Quaestors and Aediles?

Also, in a same vein:

I would say when the Brotherhood loses sight of the goal in question 5, it turns more into a job than an adventurous escape. I already have a tedious job. I don't need another one that doesn't pay. When one first enters the DB, the promotions are earned through relatively fun activities, and that seems to drop off as you get higher up. Thus, in order to keep going up, you have to set aside having fun and start working. I believe the Brotherhood would be more enjoyable if we could extend how fun it is in the beginning throughout one's membership

Well, for journeyman, specific promotion requirements serve a purpose. The idea is that once a member becomes a Knight, they have essentially 'graduated' and should have a working knowledge of how the Brotherhood works... from the Shadow Academy to the Antei Combat Center, from battleteams to the Dark Council, from monthly competitions to Great Jedi Wars.

Moving upwards, the reason that we added the master requirement to the upper equite promotions is corroborated in the responses from what people enjoyed the most about the DB: interpersonal relationships, friendships. You can't really mentor a person without becoming some sort of friend with them. Having them separate from official positions serves a practical one. QUaestors and Aediles are responsible for many members. Masters are only responsible for one at a time.

There's also a distinction at the equite level in the shift from 'consuming' to 'creating'. You can only go so far in rank by just competing in events, in 'consuming' what the DB produces before you hit that wall and have to start giving back, paying it forward to the next new member, to give them stuff that they want to do. A lot of people have problems with that because it's a kind of whiplash to be able to go through so many ranks by just pounding away at competitions before you get told that it's not enough any more. It kind of mirrors real life, I'm afraid... but it's a necessary evil to keep the DB growing. We have to make what few incentives we have work toward the continued growth of the DB.

In a nutshell, it comes to this: If a member could get every promotion just by playing in competitions, what will motivate people to do the much harder work of running and grading them?

Somewhat the lack of people in what I'd call middle management being mindful of what is best for the group as a whole. Yes, you clan being awesome may be good for you, but losing sight of what's good for everyone is bad. I'd say the biggest problem is some people that get downright nasty with those from other units/new folks. That's not going to help us hold onto the people we have or get new ones.

What I feel that is a detriment to the DB is how fragmented it is. I feel that units need to be more involved with one another in order to continue to be a working and prospering club rather than a bunch of clubs within the club that may or may not hack it when numbers dwindle, and are inadvertantly left to flounder when others are struggling too.

Staff positions, such as Praetors, SA Staff, and ACC Staff don't get enough recognition for what they do, and that without them, the Brotherhood would grind to a halt.

Competitive power jockying and politics. There seems to be way too many people here worried more about their personal prestige, power, and the number of shinies on their dossier and not about having fun and creating something cool together.

I agree with all of these. A lot of it has to do with the age-old (and tired) politics and BS between the units, and while we've been trying to limit how that impacts people in official capacities, it hasn't changed the sentiments there. With several 'you gotta work together' things coming up, I hope that this will shift somewhat, but a decade of bad will is hard to break, no matter how spurious the original reason is.

The shift from being self-serving to wanting to serve the DB has been a common theme in all the promotion and medal recommendations i have processed lately. Simply put: if you are more concerned about the DB than yourself, you'll get awarded a lot faster than if you just do the minimum stuff that you are required to do to get the shinies.

The next question i asked was 'What would you like to see implemented?'

Implement the prestige system (I still have the calculations saved in a text file from 2007/8!!!)

Errr....done.

Bring back the importance of the Orders. Too bad I'm old school, eh?

working on it, and have been for some time. Order powers, order perks, revamped order descriptions (check the wiki) and the Disorder vendetta (that was purely an order war) all were parts of that. Yeah, orders are old school, but they are cool, and another facet of characterization.

No more order fued events, until the orders are more balanced.

Yeah, i read you there. The Obelisk kinda got the best deal running for them, and a re-balance will probably be happening soonish. They lucked out because they don't really exist in canon, so we could run with them however we wanted without the stigma of canon overhead.

I am wicked excited about the possession system. Cannot wait to see that happen.

Me too.

Accept that it's not 2000 anymore. I see lip service to it, but no realization. There aren't going to be real star wars games that attract members anymore, and more to the point - no more prequels to stave off the doom spiral of a dying club.

I agree. Games aren't what bring people to the club anymore. As a matter of fact, only 12% of members listed gaming as a reason for joining at all. Far more people joined for the social aspects, friends, and the rich history and environment that the DB has. We've been cultivating that for years now...and we intend to continue doing so.

That said, the Clone Wars TV show is still out there, and re-releases of the films generates attention. Add to that the potential for a new live action TV show, and these are promising things. But yeah, we long ago stopped relying on others (even Lucasarts) to recruit for us.

Improve the forums. They are outdated and don't get utilized properly.

Orv just updated them not all that long ago. But I'll have Jam3z look into it for us. I don't know that newer software would solve the lack of non-run-on activity, but it's worth a shot.

Fight a monkey with a knife

Okay...wait...do I get the knife, or does the monkey?

I'd love to see more of the individual units doing more together. They're too insular. They need to realize if the other houses/clans didn't exist, neither would they. There's so much they could do together fiction wise to improve things. Build each other up. Use each others strengths.

I agree completely.

Blackjack and hookers.

I agree compl...wait, what?

_Close the clans, consolidate the Dark Council.

Lie back and think of England. But really, kill off the clouses and the clans and try something new?_

That's an idea, but considering that 73% of people listed 'loyalty to my unit' as a reason that they have stayed with the DB, it's probably not a good idea to try it.

If you've made it this far, thank you. There's an awful ot of information that we gathered from the survey, and a lot more that I will be sharing with the Clan and House summits to try to tweak things for the better, so Thank you all for taking the survey. This kind of information and feedback is critical for the growth and survival of the Brotherhood.

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That's about all for this time. If you need anything, shoot me an email, look me up on TOR or PM me on IRC.

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