I am honored to have been asked to write a recommendation for James. He is, without a doubt, the person I look up to most in the Brotherhood, and one of the few people I feel the urge to buy a plane ticket to go meet and shake his hand in person.
He has been Seneschal for nine months now, and constantly a member of the SCL staff as either Lord Archon or some form of Magistrate (including Special and Empowered) since his promotion to Dark Side Adept.
My mind boggles when I consider the work he has been a part of in the various efforts to maintain and expand the Dark Brotherhood website. I truly believe that without James, our current website would be crippled or dead, and a replacement website nowhere in sight.
However, thanks to James, the current website is serviceable and a new - faster, better, stronger - website is just around the corner. His work hosting a beta site, and managing the hoards of people who have access to it is commendable. His improvements and additions to it are consistent and top quality. For all this effort, he is never "above" listening to and taking action on feedback; or scrapping an idea if he finds a better solution.
If he needs something tested that he has just implemented, he'll generally ask people who are on on IRC and prompt them for feedback. He even helped me realize I hadn't paid enough attention when testing the new Character Sheets, as he explained what I was asking to be changed about it was already in place.
Once the new main site for the Brotherhood was in a state he was happy with, where the main bulk of the work was complete, he spearheaded the start of the development of a new Shadow Academy site.
He told us to list everything we wanted out of the new site, and not to limit ourselves to what the current site could do. The worst that would happen if we requested something that couldn't be easily coded was that it may be delayed until after launch, or an alternative looked into.
Fortunately, James managed to take our massive list of requests and work flow, and turned it into a workable spec sheet, incorporating all that we had asked for. I have no doubt that under James' guidance the Shadow Academy will become every bit as awesome as it needs to be.
James has also developed a tool called Promotheus, which I believe was once intended to help the summit of Arcona, but now services the entire Brotherhood. This tool helps keep track of Journeymen and when they are eligible for promotions. This has helped dramatically in making sure that no members fall through the cracks when they deserve a promotion.
Promotheus, on the current site, is pretty slow. I understand it takes over an hour to check every member of the Brotherhood currently, but James managed to speed it up dramatically as part of creating the new website. It now take maybe a minute or two to check every dossier, and is so fast that it can be made to re-check a dossier whenever something changes on it (like a member getting a medal.) This will speed up the recognition of a potential Journeyman promotion dramatically.
James has since assisted me in extending Promotheus, such that it can check for people who are eligible for, and eventually award, Dark Side Degrees.
All of the above is to say, James is, in my opinion, one of the most stand up and influential guys in the Brotherhood. His work may not always be in the face of every member, but he touches every members "Brotherhood lives."
Congratulations James, and keep up the Kick-assery.
~Solari, Headmaster
James is one of the few major contributors to the club over the years that I don't know well. So what I'm forced to do is "know him through his work." Each time I log onto the new website, I get to know James a little better. With every click I can see the passion he has for the club. With every new function implemented I can feel how much James cares about our corner of the Star Wars universe.
Most recently I've seen his passion for the material shift into a whole new gear with his work on the new Character Sheet coding process. Literally overnight James had a working model based off the "proposal" CS document. Overnight. We've seldom had that kind of power at our fingertips when implementing new systems. With James on our team I am truly excited to see what comes next. Because with him, every day is like Christmas.
-Raken, Shadow Hand
Hey Jam3z, can you take this ancient website coded by multiple people and convert it to a new language, on a new server, and replicate every single function it currently has, but you need to make it better. Thanks buddy. This sums up what we have asked Jam3z to do for the Dark Brotherhood. The final product is nearing release and we are already stacking new requirements on Jam3z and he is completing them at a rate that can only be described as incredible. Our coders have always been slow to receive awards despite the tremendous amount of pressure and work we have put on them, but those days are long gone. It is truly an honor to recommend our SCL for Dark Jedi Master. Congrats buddy!
-GM Pravus, Voice
Jam3z is a god. He erupted fully formed from the womb of Ada Lovelace and studied with Babbage and Turing. He killed his father, an Olympian god of copper and silicon, using nothing but a few lines of code and a shot of liquor. When he woke up from a fifty year nap, he was offered jobs with Microsoft and apple, Cisco and Bell labs. Instead, he has blessed us with his presence, almost singlehandedly creating a new website for us that is clean and awesome, drawing in elements from suggestions as easily as I am typing this right now. When Shadow, Sarin, Raken and I were discussing character sheets, he got copied and CODED IT UP ON THE SPOT, to explain it better. My mind = blown. So... Jam3z Entar != Dark Side Adept. Please take this as a token, a sacrifice, O god of the code. For all that you have done, and all that I know that you are currently doing, thank you.
DA James Lucius Entar Arconae (Krath)/EM:SCL-TYR-M:MAA/Qel-Droma of Arcona [TOR] [ACC: WEB] RS / SB / GC-PoTP / SC-CoP / AC-RoF / DC-BP / Cr-2D-2R-2A-2S-4E-1T / CF / CI-GC / DSS-AgL / SI-AuL / LS-AgL / SoL-BE / S:-2M-1R-1Al {SA: MVN}
I remember seeing James show up a few months back after a long absence. He was once an integral part of the coding staff in this club, with many of our current systems having been molded by his hands. I was thinking that it would be great if he were to jump back in and start helping us out once more...thankfully he did just that (and how). His efforts have been astounding. He has helped do some general maintenance to the DB site, helping stabilize some of the wonkier (technical term) aspects. However, it is the "new" work he's done that has truly blown my mind. He first introduced a new Master-Student option to our dossiers, further cementing the Master/Student Programs of the various Houses and Clans. Next, he completely overhauled the competitions system so that both the front and back-ends work so much better. It even does all of the work of rec'ing the medals for you! It hasn't been officially released yet, but he has worked on an activity tracking system that will really help everyone keep track of their activities and ensuring no one gets forgotten in terms of rewards and promotions. Last, it is his efforts that have allowed us to now have an automated system for doing AWOL checks, which has been a great boon to everyone in the club. These are 4 projects that have directly benefited everyone in this club, and his efforts are more than deserving of this award. Congratulations and thank you!
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DJM Halcyon Taldrya
Deputy Grand Master
Jam3z was one of the heavy coders in this club when I joined. There's prize few things that are on this site that he didn't have a hand in putting there, or otherwise know about. And when he retired, back when Jac was still GM, we all made a collective frowny face. Sure, we have had some great coders since then (and Orv is the man), but losing someone with that level of skill and understanding about how our site works is always a blow. Many people underestimate the role that coding takes on our site, because if their work is done right, nobody complains. It's a constant fight with the site to keep the Brotherhood moving. There's scriptkiddies lurking around the corner, and so many bits of functionality that can trash the whole kit and kaboodle because it hasn't been updated in a few years. Orv has been working his tail off just keeping us afloat and using the odd minute free to put in work on expansions. And then James came back. I really didn't expect him to do a whole heck of a lot, to be fair. Most dudes post-retirement will just stick their head in, chat a bit, maybe play a game or two, then vanish back into the Real World. And I didn't want to get excited at the thought of having another coder back around prematurely. I am glad to say that I was very wrong. Since his return, James has dove in and fixed problems as well as worked to expand things for us. In a time when every man-hour helps us drastically, James came to the rescue with time and energy, working on stuff liek the Master-Student functionality ont he site, Awol automation, and an activity tracker that is in beta testing right now. That's a whole lot of work for a retired guy to show up and do in short order. And I wanted to properly express our appreciation for his work quickly (and to encourage him to keep at it, because we need him around). As a token of our esteem, I hereby award James Entar an Emerald Dagger. Thank you very much. ~Muz Ashen, Dark lord of the Sith
Seal of Reminiscence Awarded x 21