Event Details

Event ID
98973
Target
Gavriel Kadesh
Old Rank
Dark Side Adept (Elder 1)
New Rank
Dark Jedi Master (Elder 2)
Requested by
Ascendant James Lucius Entar
Primary reason

From the moment we started working on the new Dark Brotherhood website, and from the moment I announced I was interested in moving to Ruby on Rails - something Arion has been pushing for years - Arion has been very enthousiastic and proactive in helping to bring the new site to fruition.

Arion has done excellent work in the coding department, submitting over 40% of the revisions in the code repository over the course of ten months, resulting in a very functional new site that's at the point of being released. This is no small feat, and certainly should not be overlooked, as the new site as it exists today would certainly be not where it is now without Arion, and would most likely even have failed. After the launch of the new site, Arion has been an enormous asset as well - fixing bugs and implementing suggestions all over the place, often before I even had the chance to wake up :)

For me personally, Arion has been a driving force for my own productivity. Committing code at times when my productivity was in a lull, and thereby motivating me to pick it up again, as well as somehow magically picking up and coding the pieces of functionality I was less motivated to code myself.

What's even more impressive: Arion has been doing all of this while taking care of a newborn and taking on the work of an entire coding team on his own at work.

Adding the above together, along with his past work for the Chamber of Justice, Shadow Academy, his work as Magistrate to the Deputy Grand Master, I think a promotion to Dark Jedi Master is long overdue. Congratulations, Arion, you truly deserve this.

James Lucius Entar Arconae, Seneschal of the Brotherhood

Ascendant James Lucius Entar, 2013-07-27 12:56:35 UTC
Additional reasons

I've had the pleasure of working with Arion in capacities ranging from our time together in Revan to his work on the DGM team. Arion has always had a great deal of enthusiasm and energy. He is a member who can deliver a lot of work in a very short period of time. Normally this comes in the form of his coding skills. But what many don't realize is Arion is also a budding author.

He isn't content to be known solely for his ability to program. He also seeks to help us tell our story using his gifts as a writer. Arion recently provided me with an outline for a future Great Jedi War story. It's one I'd very much like to pursue some day. He is a member who is constantly trying to broaden his range of talents and offer more to the club. Personally I would love to see him take that next step in his career here, not as a coder, but as a fellow writer.

Talent and drive like his deserves to be rewarded.

I was grateful to be a part of Arion's last promotion and I am even more honored to be part of this one.

Raken, Deputy Grand Master

Raken, 2013-07-27 12:55:03 UTC

The Dark Jedi Brotherhood is one of the oldest and largest Star Wars fan clubs on the internet. We possess a rich and complex history that is told through our complex and often finicky website. Over six years ago, Arion, began a campaign to upgrade our website to a new coding system. The plan was to take our unreliable, exploitable, and often frustrating website and turn it into a modern design with modern coding. Arion's plan and patience have finally come to fruition with the release of the new Dark Jedi Brotherhood website. Arion's dedication to the project can be described in near Odyssian terms due to working with multiple club leaders and their competing demands for our website's form and function. Patience, love, and thousands of lines of coding have resulted in something we can all be proud of. I wholeheartedly support Arion's elevation to Dark Jedi Master!

Mandalorian Declan Roark, 2013-07-27 12:55:28 UTC

I have a confession to make: I have known Arion for his entire career in the Dark Brotherhood, and I have seriously misjudged Arion. I've underestimated him. I did not give him the benefit of the doubt. When I heard of the project that he and Jam3z were undertaking, my reaction was negative. I didn't think it could be done. I thought that, like me and my attempts to rebuild the DB website, this attempt would end in failure.

Some of my misgivings were based on history. From my count, this is the fifth full-blown attempt to redesign the DB website. We tried first with ASP.NET, then PHP, then traditional ASP, then PHP again. All attempts failed. The website was too massive; how do you quickly rebuild a decade's worth of functionality? History was against the idea that the site could be rebuilt in Rudy on Rails. Other misgivings of mine were more personal, almost born of jealousy. There was no way, I thought, that Arion and Jam3z could accomplish what those before them couldn't.

I was wrong and foolish. And I'm very glad I was wrong and very sorry for my underestimations. The Brotherhood has been given a gift from our coding team: a way to stay alive and relevant for years to come. Arion was a central to that effort. When nigh every other coder left our Seneschal to his own devices, Arion was there to work through the massive coding efforts and undertake a huge amount of responsibility. Arion stepped up to the plate and hit a homerun right when we needed him to.

There's no promotion or medal that can adequately express my gratitude to our coding team for what they have accomplished. Hell, they programed the many lines of code that are going to make this promotion show on the site. After you've done that, a few pixels matter little. I think what will be better in the end is the pride that this team can hold in designing an amazing site. There is no other club like ours on the internet that has such a robust website, and that is testament to our team.

That said, having a bigger and better dossier is always, well, bigger and better. And Arion deserves that. He deserves to be elevated to the rank of Dark Jedi Master. He deserves our thanks. And he has it.

Thank you, Arion.

Jac Cotelin, 2013-07-27 12:55:48 UTC

There are two kinds of people in this world: creators and consumers. There are those who are content to just enjoy the fruits of other people's labors, and those who take joy in being the one who does the work. Arion is one who would prefer to do the work. And work he has. He has served as Seneschal, putting forth a proposal to take our dying site and recode it into Ruby on Rails, an under-represented code language at the time. We were afraid, afraid that there wouldn't be enough coders to continue the work, to maintain the work, to keep things moving forward. We were wrong. Here we are, a few years later, staring at a nearly complete recode done in ruby. We have a solid staff of coders, and without the efforts of Arion Sunrider, it would not have launched. I can't tell you how many hours he has ground away, deep in the source of our site, or deep in the bowels of our old, decrepit site, trying to mine for data so we can have it in our shiny new one. Almost twelve thousand lines of code were penned by his hand alone. That's a monumental achievement for someone who is 'just' a praetor. Coding isn't fun, it's not easy, and at the end of the work, people don't look at the site and go 'dude, that dude's character is amazing with a lightsaber', because that is not how this work goes. So, It's important that we recognize these men, sweat and dead segfaults on their brow as they continue to do their best to make us all look good. To the men who cook, rather than just eat, to the builder and not just the tenant. To that end, I am proud to recommend Arion Solnatus for an elevation to the rank of Dark Jedi Master. Thank you Arion, for all that you have done. The Brotherhood would not be the same without you. ~Muz Ashen, Dark Lord of the Sith

Lord Muz Ashen Keibatsu, 2013-07-27 12:56:10 UTC

Since he first came back to the fold and started working on DB code again, Arion has been at the front lines of every big project since. From the Shadow Academy to the new website we are all reaping the benefits of, we have several people to thank for the mass amounts of time out of their lives while performing one of the hardest jobs the DB has to offer. I'm not much of a programmer, but just looking at the clutter on the FTP site left me with a deep pit in my stomach as I searched over the mess that these guys had to navigate everyday just to perform a simple dossier fix. When I first heard Arion talk about Ruby on Rails, it was during his term as SCL, and his hopes for the future to use it as a blueprint for the long awaited site recode. Well, he's not SCL anymore, but he's darn close to being one of that office's top gear heads and troubleshooters that keep us above water every day we enjoy this club. I'm extremely proud of the work our team of coders have been producing, and there is no better way to reward one of this club's best, by promoting him to the rank of Dark Jedi Master. Well done, old buddy. ~Taigikori Aybara

Driftan Balephor, 2013-07-27 12:56:25 UTC