Plagueis QUA Report (25-7-2013)

   12

Plagueis QUA Report (25-7-2013)

Another Quaestor report rolled out in a timely manner! Let's cover some Dark Crusade stuff, AWOL info, and summit updates.

More Shifts in Summit?!

New Aedile, Rollmaster, and KM BTL

After two weeks operating as Aedile, Ka'Hava'Ve decided that he would prefer to work as a regular member, submitting his letter of resignation to me and the rest of my summit. Not only is this indicative of the high expectations I place on my leadership, but it is also a perfect example of how a member should act when he or she is presented with the choice to either do better or step down. Too often do we hear about leaders who, despite perhaps not living up to standards, stick around and do little to nothing except hold down a slot. Kave showed all of us on the summit a profound level of self-awareness and maturity, and I thank him for that.

That being said, there was a fairly large shift in summit leadership after Kave's departure. Arden Karn has been elevated to the position of Aedile/Wrath, while Celevon Edraven, previously battle team leader of Karness Muur, has been appointed as Rollmaster/Overseer. Keeping the momentum going, Arturis Schulen, previously XO, is now Karness Muur's BTL. Please take the time to congratulate all of our new and existing leaders.

Karness Muur XO

With Arturis vacating the XO slot in KM, we need someone new to step up to the plate. We do have some people in mind, but I follow a precedent in that members should demonstrate interest in the position to the house summit in order to be given the job. Therefore, if you are keen on becoming the newest addition to our bro-team (yes, that's what I decided to call it on a whim), please contact me, Celevon, Arden, and Arturis with a brief blurb on why you are interested in being XO and what you plan to do whilst in the position.

Dark Crusade

Phase II, Chapter I: Athiss

As stated in a previous e-mail to the house, I would like to thank each and every one of you who participated in the vendetta. Our challenger was Naga Sadow, a clan known for its gold-winning writers and artists, so this was not an easy chapter. Because grading is still underway and we don't have a lot of new updates, some of the info I will be putting down here may be repetitive, but you will also find new nuggets of knowledge strewn throughout the spiel.

Just shy of the 1.5 participation ratio we needed to keep our extra Special Forces team member, we managed a 1.43 participation ratio for the Athiss campaign. The activity tracker shows that Plagueis as a whole sent in 66 submissions - out of those 66, 23 were from Karness Muur and 31 were from Ajunta Pall. While the Special Forces team amassed 43 submissions, the General Troops amassed 23, meaning that the General Troops accounted for 0.61 out of the participation ratio.

Quaestor's Thoughts

Obviously, there's a lot we can work on. Back when we were facing Naga Sadow, Odan-Urr, and Tarentum on Khar Delba, we managed a solid 2.05 participation ratio (which means 2.05 submissions for every member of Plagueis). That's a solid ratio, and it is something we should aim to beat this next round, not just reach again.

While the Special Forces team has been constructed in order to produce high-quality submissions, given the size of our house, I'm expecting the General Troops to overshadow Special Forces in terms of quantity of submissions. Your participation does assist toward a potential Nova in the General Troops categories, such as the recent regular member run-ons, which guaranteed every GT Plagueian participant a medal. Also, without a ninth Special Forces member, we are caught at a disadvantage compared to other clans and houses who have reached 1.5 in participation. That is why I will reiterate that the General Troops are important to keep the entire house strong, as well as help the Special Forces team stay in top shape. Our work intertwines. Remember that.

In-House AWOL Check

As of right now, summit members are currently communicating with Plagueians to see if they are still active and present within the house before Plagueis officially commences with an AWOL process. Those of you who were active in the recent Dark Crusade round have proven to us that you have a presence in the unit, so do not expect an e-mail from us. We are instead contacting various members who have not shown obvious activity in the past few months or more, in order to check on them and see where they are in real life and in the Brotherhood.

With the help of its advisors, the summit will produce an AWOL list to be submitted to the Master at Arms by July 28th. Even if this AWOL check is not directly affecting you as a member, we on the summit believe in an open channel to the house once decisions have been finalized and operations confirmed.

Quaestor's Thoughts

I personally feel like there is a lot of stigma surrounding the idea of being transferred into the Rogues due to inactivity. Like having that in your ID line makes you a dead weight, or a loser, or a traitor to your former unit. The truth is, I find it more honorable of a member to leave a house when he or she is not active than a member sticking around on the roster just because they clicked on an AWOL link from time to time.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a break from the Brotherhood, and just because you go to the Rogues doesn't mean you're stuck there. When you have more time readily available in order to participate in vendettas and maintain an active presence in Plagueis - well, you can always come back. The bottom line is, our participation in vendettas (which are a huge part of Brotherhood activity these days), is now being weighed by ratio, not just quantity, which is there in order for smaller houses like us to compete with member-heavy titans like Arcona. Basically, we are judged not only by our active membership, but also our inactive membership.

So if you happen to be an active member, here's a high five and a drink from me - awesome work. If you do not happen to be an active member (yet are somehow reading this report due to some crazy, convenient happenstance), then perhaps it is time to reconsider your staying in Plagueis. Don't get me wrong, we'd hate to see you leave - but we place a lot of value in your doing things if you decide to stay on the roster. We need participants, writers, artists, gamers, leaders, and mentors more than ever before.

Conclusion

This was kind of a doozy of a report, so thanks for sticking around. Keep watching the new Brotherhood website and let me know if there's anything about it that should be addressed - I'm in good contact with James and Arion, our code monkeys. Arden's Aedile report will be soaring atcha on August 5th, and we will deliver any and all Dark Crusade news to you as it comes along (such as grading results, planet selection, in-house awards, and future round expectations). Stay awesome, Plagueis!

Cheers, Ronovi Tavisaen, Quaestor of Plagueis

"We missed the participation mark to get an extra special forces member in the next round. BTW, there's no shame in going rogue if you're not active. These points are completely unrelated."

I don't believe I ever said they were unrelated. I believe I typed out the total opposite of unrelated. :P

Hey, who you calling member-heavy titan?

It's a compliment. It means you have a lot of active members, and you're an enormous war-winning machine.

Nice report, Ronovi. Looks like some well formed Markdown you've got there :D

Excellent report, Ronovi. You are already taking steps to overshadow your predecessor and I look forward to watching Plags continual growth as a unit. See you guys on the Battlefield hopefully! :).

If people are reading this, why encourage them to leave? In all seriousness, I get the push for increasing your ratio, and frankly thats what I believe the current AWOL check is to help with, but there is a huge difference between removing people we aren't engaged and removing those that don't perform in competitions. If they are reading these reports or checking the news page, they are showing some sort of interest in the DB and should not feel this kind of guilt. Again, I do understand the desire to remove deadweight that don't read this report or the newspage; they aren't engaged and should be removed. But for those who are reading, they shouldn't feel pressured to leave just so a ratio looks better. You are pushing out a potentially active member in the future from this club just for a present day desire.

Change how the Vendetta is scored/run and maybe leaders won't be so militant about this. I agree with the general sentiment as well, but with the way things are currently being run anyone not participating is "hurting" their unit. Maybe that will change? So far, it hasn't.

I know for a fact that Ronni isn't trying to push out active members, full stop. There are a lot of people that have in the past resisted going Rogue not because of activity, but because it makes you feel bad that you're somehow failing people. She talks about there being some sort of stigma attached to going to the Rogues, and a lot of that DOES in fact happen. I know it's kept me in a few times when I wasn't giving the DB the time of day. The idea here is that members who go rogue shouldn't feel bad, and members that don't shouldn't look down on those who do.

Further, on the subject of Plagueis and it's participation ratio, nobody is encouraging people to leave to improve that ratio. We ended up only missing the 1.5 ratio number by about four or five entries (depending on how accurate our in house activity tracking is). That was with a couple of members suffering from the "scourge" that is real life (injuries, moving, etc), including a couple who have been consistent 100% participators. Add to that the fact that to meet the 1.5 ratio with the exact same number of entries we had this last round we would only have to have been 2-3 members smaller then what we are now. Please tell me if you know of an AWOL check in recent memory when a house or clan didn't lose at least 2-3 members just based on AWOL'ing people that fill out the join form, get shunted to a house, and never communicate. And as things stand now, anything over 1.5 doesn't help a unit's placement in the Crusade since everything above that is gravy. The leadership of Plagueis is well aware of that reality (as I'm betting most everyone else here is as well). So turning this into "Jump on Plagueis" day because somebody said "Hey, if you're not active right now don't feel bad if you get AWOL'ed/Transfer to the Rogues" is ludicrous and, frankly, a bit insulting. Especially since I've seen many people even in recent times express the exact same idea a bit more militantly without getting smacked (e.g. "If you're not entering competitions every X amount of time you should go Rogue. The unit is for active people").

^ What Solus said. Don't think I have to reiterate anything.

I will add, though, that in my report, I encourage inactive members to become involved because we need them more than ever (see "participants, writers, artists, leaders and mentors" clause). There is a trend that some members go inactive because they don't feel like they're contributing anything to the unit, and it's important to remind them that they are crucial to a unit's progress. I'll let you all know that shortly after I released my report, I had an inactive member e-mail me, state that they did not realize how important they were to the unit, and offer to become an active participant again. That's notable. When you raise the stakes on the membership, they begin to realize just how important of a role they need to take in the unit in order to make it successful.

The problem with scoring systems is that they are never going to be perfect and they are never going to make everyone happy. I complained about the systems when I participated in Vendettas and I've defended systems that I helped develop. The bottom line is that we need to circulate the scoring systems prior to going live, receive feedback, and adjust them as needed. I believe the GM/DGM did a fine job of doing this with both the general population scoring as well as the special forces scoring. I'm also in favor of the polls going on and taking a look at the potential of revising where we can.

I also like the idea of a little less pressure and stress on the units. The DB is here for all of us to have fun and participate in those areas that we enjoy. If you like to write, write, if not, don't. A competition capturing fake planets should not ruin your DJB experience. If leaders are pushing in another direction (we must win or else!), then they should re-look their priorities. In the end, does losing a vendetta really ruin your experience in the Dark Brotherhood? I don't think it does.

I know a lot of people like to talk about the perennial losers and a unit getting shut down every once in a while, but the GM/DGM are not going to close down anyone for losing a GJW. They might close you down for other reasons; usually a history of inactivity that includes a great more than these competitions, but it isn't going to be as petty as coming in 3rd in one Vendetta.

In the end, we try to get better as leaders and members each time we run one of these events. Hell....we had one that was never even graded. We've had others where the scoring system was released after the event. Progress has been made and more will be made in the future.

You need to be logged in to post comments