Headmaster Report: The one with lots of report padding before SA Society news
Up til 2:30am watching the launch of the Shadow Academy Society.
Three hours sleep before work.
Out of coffee in the office.
Report time!
Month in Review
With the conclusion of the Third Chapter of Phase Two of the Dark Crusade, the marathon Vendetta has ended. Congratulations to all who participated, won, have or will receive shinnies and promotions.
I've seen some epic new unit specific robes from Muz, wear those with pride. Remember that it was your blood and sweat that earned them.
During the chapter we hosted another Shadow Academy event, Crusadeology. Yes the name (and exam itself) was rather tongue in cheek, but people seemed to like it. Also the variety of questions/puzzles seemed to slow people down compared to what we saw on previous events.
New Docent of History named!
Welcome Zenon to the SA Staff, he is our latest Docent and is grading the two Debate courses. Feel free to give him a workout and go and take those courses now!
Member Spotlight: Marrek Gunstinson
This month Member Spotlight is pointed squarely at Marrek. He's been a busy guy lately, taking seven Shadow Academy exams, getting a Dark Maven degree and being promoted to Dark Jedi Knight!
Good effort Marrek!
Degrees awarded
What?! An actual list of degrees?
- Ragnar Rothblood
- Mark Maven - General History
- Selika Roh
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Garloaf
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Taranae Rhode
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Cyrinity Lokar
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Tae'is Vall
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Raistline Majere
- Dark Maven - Philosophy
- Initilus
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Dralin Fortea
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Dark Maven - Combat
- Zednich Wolfram
- Dark Pundit - Essentials
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
- Zenon
- Dark Maven - Philosophy
- Marrek Gunstinson
- Dark Maven - Flight
- Kintocass
- Dark Pundit - Vendetta
Scrolls Galore
The Shadow Academy has two scrolls we can award, the Scroll of Foundation and the Scroll of Indoctrination. There used to be a form on your admin page which you could fill out to request one. In essence though, all this did was email me so that I could write a rec and submit it to the MAA.
Ood and I are working on a better system for catching people eligible for these scrolls, but in the mean time if you or someone you know is meant to have on, drop me and Ood an email and one of us will get it sorted.
Note, you can request one for yourself. We do double check before putting the rec through.
Crusadeology Answers
A few people asked what the answers to the brain teaser questions were, so I'll go ahead and list them out...
Johnny’s mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child’s name?
The answer is the very first word in the question... I even made it bold.
What number do you get when you multiply all of the numbers on a telephone's number pad?
One of the number on a phone is 0, multiply anything by that and the answer is also 0.
A clerk at a butcher shop stands five feet ten inches tall and wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh?
I commend people for trying to guess how many pounds the guys weighs, but as a butcher he weighs meat.
There is a chain nailed to the wall. The chain is 10 feet long and the center of the chain dips down 5 feet from where each side of the chain is nailed to the wall. How far are the 2 ends of chain from each other? (Answer in feet.)
In order for a 10 foot chain to go down 5 feet, and back up 5 feet, it would need to be going straight down, then straight back up. The ends then need to be 0 feet from each other, i.e. they are nailed to the same point on the wall.
Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
It was still Mt. Everest, it just hadn't been discovered yet.
Mr. Smith has 4 daughters. Each of his daughters has a brother. How many children does Mr. Smith have?
5, one guy is still the brother of all four sisters.
How much dirt is there in a hole that measures two feet by three feet by four feet?
None, it's a hole because of the absence of dirt.
You have two books. One of them is upside-down and the other is rotated so the top of the book is facing you. What is the sum of the first page in each book?
It doesn't matter which way you turn or flip a book, each on is still going to have one first page, so the same is 2.
What word in the English language is always spelled incorrectly?
Umm... incorrectly unless you miss-spell it inkorrectly.
If you have two twins, three triplets and four quadruplets; how many people do you have?
This one is a bit of a play on words to try and trip you up. There aren't multiple sets of each, e.g. there are two people who ARE twins, not two sets of twins.
2+3+4 = 9
Billie was born on December 28th, yet her birthday always falls in the summer. How is this possible?
I had to include this one because of the high concentration of Americans in the DB. There is this little area known as the southern hemisphere (or the other side of the globe.)
Down here our seasons are the opposite of those in America, out Christmas is in Summer, and we celebrate it with sunny BBQ lunches, preferably at the beach or river.
Long story short, Billie was born and lives in the southern hemisphere.
2 men catch 2 fish in 2 minutes. At this rate, how many men could catch 50 fish in 50 minutes?
2 men, 2 fish 2 minutes. You're meant to think that because of the repetition that it would take 50 men to catch 50 fish in 50 minutes, but it would only take 2.
In British Columbia you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?
Wooden legs don't take pictures... a camera would be handy.
If you take 3 apples from a group of 5, how many do you have?
I think you guys have spend too much time answering math questions... you took 3 apples so you have 3 apples.
If you were running a race and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?
For some reason people like to think that you'd be in first, but you'd have taken 2nd place from the person you just passed.
How many eggs can you put in an empty basket one foot in diameter?
- Once there is an egg in there, the basket is no longer empty.
Which is correct to say, “The yolk of the egg is white” or “The yolk of the egg are white?”
Considering Yolk is Yellow, neither option is correct.
You have a large number of friends coming over and they all get thirsty. Your first friend asks for 1/2 a cup of water. Your second friend asks for 1/4 a cup of water. Your third friend asks for 1/8 a cup of water, etc. How many cups of water do you need to serve your friends?
The amount of water requested is halving for each friend, if this continues you'd never need more than one cup.
A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four haystacks in another. How many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in one field?
Key word is combined, there would be just one large stack.
On a clock, how many times a day do the minute and hour hand overlap?
This was a little tricky, but makes sense if you sit and play with an analogue clock for a while :P The answer is 22.
Markdown 201
Markdown 201 has actually been active for a few days now. Other than mentioning it in #db on IRC this is the first time it is being advertised.
If you're wanting to learn some more advanced topics regarding Markdown, including how to center align images, get on in.
SA Society
I guess I've made you wade through enough report, this is probably the section you're actually looking for.
The SA Society has finally launched. It's been a long time coming and a lot of hard work.
I'd especially like to thank Muz for creating some amazing goodies for those who choose to climb the ranks of the Society.
Of course I can't ignore the awesome coding work by James, it's the glue that sticks the whole thing together.
So I saw people demanding a list of requirements last night once the Site Update notification on IRC and emails went out informing people they were now part of the society. The thing is, one of the cornerstones of this society is discovery. So no, I wont be handing out a "list."
I saw a lot of theories flying around too, which I really liked to see. There was a bit of, I have x courses and y degrees and am this rank, but that guy is a higher rank and has a courses and b degrees.
While I'm not going to give you the list of requirements, I encourage you to try and figure it out. Hell, start a wiki page on the topic to centralize your theorycraft and analysis of the roster (which you can find here) or in the Rosters menu up top there.
I will tell you this: All requirements are contained within the Shadow Academy. You don't need to play games, or enter competitions, or write fiction (other than what you might write for an exam) to progress through this Societies ranks. I'll also tell you that Journeyman Hall courses and Degrees aren't part of the requirements, so people counting Pundits as Degrees when trying to figure this out... don't.
You'll now notice a new "Accessory Construction Tool" on your administration page. Yes, you can unlock things for this through the SA Society. If you were on IRC earlier today, you would have heard that ranks 1 and 4 give you new options for you War Banner. I believe this are getting the final touches and will likely end up on the wiki.
What else can you unlock? Poke around and find out, document it on the wiki if you think you know the answers. This is also slightly answered in the following section.
Also, ranks within the SA Society have been added to the Journeyman Promotion Guidelines (more ways to progress!)
Think outside the box, there may be more to the SA that meets the eye (Autobots, roll out.)
Ask the HM
Yes I stole it from Muz
Nero Inferni asks: "What are some of the new perks with the SA Society?"
And Rosh Nyine asks: "Is there anything that the SA Society is going to give us besides accessories and robes?"
We've already discussed War Banners in very light detail, and accessories. Rosh brought up Robes, so I assume he was high enough rank to see those (and now we all know.) Yes there are other things, tell me and your mates when you find them.
Cethgus asks "With the creation of the new Shadow Academy Progressions will their be a guideline out or is it a trial and error way of going up in this system?"
I mentioned this above, but it's worth stating again, I won't be publishing a list of requirements, but I encourage all of you to try figuring out (and documenting them) yourselves.
And no, pestering on IRC won't make me cave :P
Two more question from Rosh, 1: "Is there anyway to access the tests that are not available anymore to attain a best rank?"
I'm going to assume you're talking about the scores, in which case yes and no. The courses themselves may come back from time to time during "blast from the past" events (keep an eye out), but we'll also be hosting IRC trivia themed after old exams from time to time where the winners will be credited with some of those old exams.
If however you mean using the old exams to rank up within the SA Society, rest assured that retired exams in no way affect your rank, i.e. gaining an old exam will not give you an extra rank in the Society.
2: "Is there any way to increase your rank in the society beyond rank V without the Service/Leadership degrees?"
You're assuming you even need those to get to the maximum rank?!?
Andrelious asks "What is the actual purpose of the SA Society? Also, are the US names permanent? We're Dark Jedi, not American students."
The purpose of the Society is two fold: Give those who enjoy the Shadow Academy (yes there are some of them!) an activity other than just filling their training tab on their dossier and getting a bunch of letters added to their ID lines (also rewarding them with sweet loots is pretty cool too.) Secondly, and this should be obvious to most, it's meant to increase interest/traffic in the Shadow Academy.
As for the US names, if any one has better suggestions I'm all ears. The problem with the DB after running for all these years is that there are so many names for so many things. Ranks have names, orders have names, fictional positions have names, robes and sabers have names. It's like trying to find a new gmail address, they're all bloody taken!
So to answer the question, they are permanent until someone comes up with something better.
Nero Inferni, Rosh Nyine, Cethgus and Andrelious all get Dark Crosses for submitting their questions for this report (in the mail.) If you have more questions, about the Society or any other topic, leave them in the comments below and I'll attempt to answer all of them (but I won't tell you how to rank up!)
Conclusion/TL:DR
- No sleep, no coffee, makes HM a dopey boy.
- Crusade overs, grats all!
- Marrek is a really cool dude.
- Degrees awarded, I actually listed them!
- Remember to email about your Scrolls. I have a new ointment.
- Answers to Crusadeology brainteasers (maybe report padding?)
- Markdown 201, more delaying before Society news.
- IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE!
- Peeps asked, HM answered.
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Small point I'd like to clarify:
If you're interested in theorycrafting on how to advance in the Shadow Academy Society (or any society, really), please and make use of the DB Forums. The wiki is not the venue for this type of in-depth discussion. Plus the forum could use the activity :P Thanks.
I was more envisioning collaborative editing, but Shadow is right on all points.
Wahoo Secret Society stuff! It is awesome. Can't wait to figure more stuff out on it. Great work guys!
Pretty sure we all agreed a year ago or so in a long comment thread that hidden goodies are fine but hidden/secret requirements are bad :P
Yeah...going to go on a bit of a rant here. Sorry Windos, but since you're the latest Society this is what happens :P Anyway, the entire concept of keeping what is a defined list of requirements "secret" is completely ludicrous. I agree that the "perks" should be hidden...that's where the fun in getting to those levels in. Working towards the goodies is fun. Keeping the information on how to get those goodies; not so much. I have always disagreed with this, and will continue to do so. It is not fun for the membership to have to figure this stuff out. We want to get in and be active. Putting up artificial roadblocks is counter-productive. Your job is to make it easier for us to be active, not to lessen it.
I had hopes that this society would be different; that we would actually be given the necessary information. Instead it's same-old, same old. I did want to participate and try to raise my level. Now? Not so much. I have heard the arguments...all of them. I heard them for the GMRG Society and for the ACC Society. I disagreed then and I disagree now. This does not help the membership (the people you work for) nor does it help activity levels. As Malik said we already went through all this and the MEMBERSHIP wanted details released versus having to "figure it out" ourselves.
For a change can we not be so secretive on everything, and actually bring the membership into the conversation. Actually help the membership, rather than hinder them wherever possible. Try to see it from the prospective of those you are supposedly doing all of this work for. We want to be active. Don't throw obstacles in our path
I think that the intention of keeping the requirements hidden is to bring more activity to the SA, not just on people taking courses but on all other matters (like collaborating writing courses, offering to proofread stuff, test courses, etc.) I would like to know the requirements as well, but if keeping them hidden are going to increase the SA activity, then it's more than welcome.
Being rank V and comparing myself with other members in the society, I would say that Ranks up to V (maybe VI?) are obtained due to passing courses, while the higher ranks are granted collaborating with the SA. Just speculating tho. Anyway, the SA brought me to the DB in first place, I loved it then and I keep loving it, and now that it has its own society, I love it even more, with hidden or not hidden requirements.
Thanks to Solari, James and all those involved in the project, it's really looking good and I cannot wait to see more of it!
I'd be more likely to take more courses if I knew that doing so would get me to rank VI, I'm not going to randomly take more SA courses in the hopes of getting a new society rank.
Some people like discovering things. Some people like having a checklist and following it. Do it one way and the other side complains.
Instead of whining, just wait until those who enjoy discovering and theorycrafting this society solve the puzzle. Then follow the checklist they provide. Everyone wins!
Hint: Do more courses.
Well, seeing as we've never given a checklist for these things before, there's no way of knowing if people will complain about it? :P
It's not so much whining (I get that it may look like that) as it is pointing out that the general membership voted against this approach a year ago or so.
Windos - We could always create a wiki page for the info that gets confirmed. The forums and wiki, working in tandem!
Never been given a checklist for Societies before? The GMRG requirements for promotion have been completely laid out for everyone at least two years.
I'll have to dig back on the News Posts, but I thought the consensus from membership was hidden requirements outside a societies sphere (GMRG requiring Mavens to advance) were what the main issue was. I'm operating under the assumption that taking courses and earning degrees will advance your SA Rank. So long as that is true and there's not some requirement to win 23 ACC battles hidden in the SA society promotion requirements I don't really see an issue with it.
All that said. I know absolutely nothing about the SA Society promotion requirements, but I think it's cool. The hidden requirements don't bother me at all.
Funny. If there was a vote, it wasn't put up by me.
As Solari said: while we aren't publishing the actual requirements, you're free to follow those who sort it out first-hand. Besides, being one of the guys who gets it figured out first may get them some cool medals or something. ;)
Challenge accepted
For some reason, in normal website mode, the Shadow Academy drop down lists can not be found on a computer. I have to oberstify it to use it. can you check in on it. Sorry posting here, but dont know who to send it to.
What do you mean drop down lists, Brimstone? There was a change a while ago which stopped multiple levels of drop down ness being a thing, so if you're at the SA and click on Departments and Courses, you then have to click on a department which will load a whole new page listing the courses, rather than selecting them from a sub list from the menu.
I'm with the old folks on this. Hidden requirements and nebulous goals don't interest me. I applaud you on the effort and work but this bugs me.
It wasn't a vote but you asked for peoples opinions in your report
Damn, Mal beat me to finding that report. To Val, the GMRG ranks were always meant to be a secret, just like the ACC and current SA ones. They were just released mistakenly by the FIST at the time, if I remember correctly. Muz makes mention of it in the report Mal linked to. So yes, all requirements are meant to be a secret.
Now, here's the thing. For those who don't mind, or like the concept of having this stuff hidden from you, would the release of the information stop you from participating? Would you be against participating for this reason? I know I'm not the only one, but I don't want to participate because of the information being hidden from me. I don't need to know the perks, but I do want to know how to get to them. I don't want to have to go digging around for that information that can be made readily available. Now, this may be because I've been around awhile so I don't have to do a SA course. However, even us olden-types are still members of this club. We have had a lot of people speak out against the secret nature of things, and have stated that it is a barrier, for us, against being more active in certain areas.
Again, this doesn't apply to everyone, but as a leader in the club you have to look at the bigger picture. Do you or do you not want to get as many people active in as many areas as possible? Where are the pain points? Where can issues be resolved to help facilitate activity? This one area is such an easy "fix" and I can almost guarantee it will be a net-win for the club.
However, if the status-quo remains the same (as the current leadership does not appear to want to change) then I'm sure we'll have this exact same conversation again when the new ACC is open and the ACC Society goes up again
In any case, and trying to don't give my opinion on if the requirements should be public or not, I started a forum post with the requirements needed for promoting in the society. Granted, they're not 100% accurate and much is based on analysis, but it's a start. At least the first five ranks are more or less clear for anyone who wants to get them.
Will we get to see the SA warbanner pattern?
I've been marshaling my thoughts on this one for a little while, because as Halc has pointed out... the general consensus most people took the last time this was brought up, is that hidden requirements for a promotion are bad, but we still keep getting new systems. That indicates to me that this is a case of the DC simply being "we know better than you, shut up", which is entirely acceptable. They're running the place, we're not. I like to see discourse from people, and I would like to think that arguments from both sides are being weighted and measured, but at this point, the debate over hidden requirements vs open requirements has basically been dragged through every type of mud out there, and it's filthy and not going to get cleaned up any time soon.
That got me thinking to the various gaming systems I play that have hidden requirements or achievements. Generally, those hidden achievements do nothing except give me a couple more gamer points, and don't get in the way of me playing the game, but you could argue the same thing for the SA/ACC societies (excepting the dossier perks).
So basically, I started wondering why I didn't hate those achievements, and why I despise the hidden achievements in the DB. I think a lot of it boils down to what happens after we achieve something. If I'm playing a game on the Xbox, and I pull off some crazy move, or do something that triggers a hidden achievement, I get told I did it. Not only do I get told I did it, I get told what I did in order to earn it. It's a backwards opacity that I think would solve a lot of the issues we have in these systems.
Right now, I'm rank 5 in the SA Society. Do I know how I got there? Not the foggiest. Am I likely to ever find out? Well, no, because I'd have to try to backwardly reconstruct 4 other ranks, and figure them out, and even if I guessed entirely right on certain phases, I'd never know for sure because nobody is going to tell me. So unless I was to go through, and carefully catalogue every thing I do, and ask for course to be removed here and there in order to let me test varying combinations of factors, I'm never going to know why I'm Rank 5, and why Halc is rank 4.
You can allow for both aspects of this system that people seem to appreciate/hate in equal parts quite easily. Essentially, you make the mini-game of discovery into a first past the post system. Give awards for people who decipher a levels requirements, and then once it's discovered, make it open to the public. This allows for puzzle hunters to "break" the system as for their desires, but once it's broken, it opens up for all the rest of the people who just want to have defined goals. Give the breakers some sorta medal, or title, or something.
Just food for thought, like I said, I expect nothing to change :P
Technically, even if the Old Folks don't like this, this is about new people and attracting new members. If we completely did everything based on what the Old Folks thought then I don't believe we would move forward. Solari is trying something new and we need to support him in this. And to throw my two cents in, I like the idea. Kudos, Solari.
The SA society is not for attracting new members as far as I know, it's meant as a way to get more people interested in doing SA courses, both new and old people that is.
Yacko, that's actually a good idea, and kinda what we were going for, except we left out the 'explanation part (i don't have an xbox, boo) Now, to figure out how to get it done...
Yacks' idea has been implemented. People who are interested about their current rank (for which they have received an e-mail without explanation) can approach Ood, Solari or myself and we'll explain it.
Thanks for hearing and understanding guys. Cheers Muz, James, and Solari!
_DJM Shadow Taldrya says: Windos - We could always create a wiki page for the info that gets confirmed. The forums and wiki, working in tandem! _
...what a concept? :D +1 to this concept
Well, with all that settled and a new course of action for releasing these perks (which was an awesome idea Yacks) I do still have one problem
What is with the Accessory Construction Tool and the funky language (latin?) at the top? Is that suppose to be part of this hidden trial thing?
It's Lorem Ipsum dummy text, as we launched it without something official to put there... so put something lol
Leaders would have all just recieved a bunch of SA elevations, I noticed a large plateau between ranks 5 and 6 and made some adjustments to ease that somewhat...
I see...I definitely put way too much thought into it last night then. I had sith language out to try to translate and everything - didn't go well.
I can confirm that elevations are base upon academic credits, according to the manual email I just got from our Esteemed Headmaster. What we need to determine then, is what awards credits, and how many are awarded, and what the thresholds are.
TR, wasn't the idea not to spoil it for people that wasn't to figure it out themselves? :p
*want
I think a bit of transparency with the ranks might be a good idea. It might help motivate people to work harder and achieve them, and provide a clear path to get where one wishes to be. I'm in agreement with Halc, Keirdagh, and others who have posted similar thoughts.
@Macron, and Yacks thoughts have already been implemented :)
What Halc and Yacks said.
Nothing much else to say, just do all the things they said :P
Solari: please enroll macron and cexatus in a remedial reading comprehension class. ;p
Can I enroll for this too, just in case? :P
It's nice to see completed, awesome work guys.
I would say that 75% of the requirements have been solved, the progression system decoded and rewards revealed. I have made a compilation of everything here, so anyone who wants to know what they need for the next rank can check the requirements: http://forums.darkjedibrotherhood.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7001
Sorry, I hadn't read the above comments before I posted. Good deal on making things more clear.
It could be noted, around a couple hours after this report was posted two more exams I had finished earlier in the day were graded and I received a Dark Maven in General History, on top of the Dark Maven in Flight which I received yesterday. I have actually completed a total of ten courses in the past seven days, receiving two Dark Mavens in that time, and being probably one of the first to receive a promotion beyond my starting SA Society Rank of III going to Rank IV. I have also already developed a theory of how the promotion within the SA Society is determined based on when I was promoted, but I will keep said theory to myself until I read through the forum posts about it and maybe add to the posts.
Thuper Thecret Requirementths. Yeeeth.
sooper seekrit*
Acks! I clicked something and I got something now showing up on my dossier. And I have NO idea what this is or what it is meant to be. Or even how to remove it again. I can't control whether it is shown or not.
From the name of the picture it is some sort of "Shadow Academy Scroll". (Actually SA-scroll, but I hope new people figure out that SA = Shadow Academy).
(Yes, I am aware this is something from this new "Shadow Academy Society" - that was mentioned at the beginning of the year - and that no new member has any idea about - since they are new ).