Event Details

Event ID
149289
Target
General Ood Bnar
Award
Grand Cross
Quantity
1
Non-site XP
932 XP
Requested by
Adept Farrin Xies Tarentae
Primary reason

Anyone who knows Ood knows that he has a penchant for two things: an "Ood" sense of humor and, more importantly, the ability to flawlessly execute projects that he's been assigned. Under Bubba's Headmastership, Ood began work on yet another proof of the latter quality. The Shadow Academy is comprised of almost 80 courses, and when you take into account not only the course notes and exams but also the images in each, it's a huge number of files. Previously, there has been no easily accessible and usable backup of this information... until Bubba put Ood on it.

This was not a quick project, nor an easy one. It involved the kind of thorough mind and attention to detail that anyone familiar with Ood's work knows is his hallmark. And, like so many other things Ood has touched in the SA, his project went above and beyond its original remit: while backing up the information into a GDrive archive, he also set it up so that the SA staff would have places to easily work on their course(s) without disrupting the live versions. This has made our efforts to do a full audit on the SA so much easier, as we can grant access to a certain course or group of courses easily for people that need it while maintaining quality control over the process. Even after he stepped down as Praetor, Ood continued his work on this project; he even taught my Praetor, Marcus, how to do it in case we ever need to again.

Ood has been a fixture in the Shadow Academy for over a decade, and so it's fitting to me that this project - backing up the entire thing in a usable format - went to him. After all, the vast majority of what he was working with was stuff he had a hand in getting written, edited, created, or posted in the first place. This Grand Cross is a fitting reward for someone that has accomplished such a service to the Shadow Academy. Thank you, Ood.

-Farrin Xies, Headmaster
Marcus Kiriyu, Praetor to the Headmaster

Adept Farrin Xies Tarentae, 2016-07-25 13:34:04 UTC
Additional reasons

When I became Headmaster in 2014, the Shadow Academy had a massive and convoluted back-up system that encouraged the proliferation of multiple copies of the same course notes/exams in different folders. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the old system worked against us and actually slowed down progress: there were days when I would spend half an hour or more digging through folders just trying to identify the current working draft of a document. Those days are over.

Ever since Ood assumed the mantle of Special Magistrate, he has thrown himself into the slow, grinding work of fixing the SA's archive system. He has spent months fighting to bring some semblance of logical organization to a system that long outlived its intended purpose. As a result of his work, on-boarding new staff members and setting up courses for editing is now a much simpler and less aggravating process.

I no longer have to deal with the SA archive, but I know that Farrin and his staff will have fewer logistical nightmares thanks to Ood's work. This is about as behind-the-scenes as things get in the Brotherhood, but the arcane processes of the SA do have a real impact on this club -- especially on our novitiates and journeymen. Ood has a long legacy with the SA, and this is legitimately one of the most impressive things he has accomplished.

Congratulations, Ood, and thank you on behalf of all Headmasters past and future (I'll let Farrin speak for himself :p).

Lord Dacien Victae, 2016-07-25 13:15:08 UTC