I skipped writing a report last week, thinking that you all might be tired of hearing from me and that I keep saying (or at least thinking) that I likely won't be writing weekly reports. But writing this report felt more difficult after taking a week off, so now I'm thinking that I will indeed have to write something every week, just to keep those 'muscles' in shape.

Staff changes

Dash has stepped down as my Praetor. I'm very grateful for his service in this position, as Korras was. I wanted to award him appropriately for serving as Praetor to the Master at Arms, but a quick look at his dossier reminded me that Korras already did that recently.

With his departure I have moved Howlader from Magistrate to Praetor. We're discussing possible ways in which one or two Magistrates may be useful going forward, but have not decided on anything quite yet.

Promoting the Promotions

When I first joined the DB, Dark Jedi Knight was the first rank that I was super excited about hitting. There's just something about finally receiving that rank that made me feel like I had finally 'arrived', and I've heard various comments from other members over the years expressing similar sentiments. With that in mind, I want to congratulate Cello on being promoted to Dark Jedi Knight.

Wasn't there going to be an AWOL Check?

In my last report (two weeks ago) I said that I would be running the new AWOL check for the DB the following week (last week). That obviously didn't happen. I felt it was better to wait until I had a clearer idea of when the next and final chapter of the Dark Crusade was going to begin, so that the AWOL check would be synced up with the next big event. And now I have that information.

Next week (October 25), I will be sending out the very first round of AWOL warning emails. The following week (November 1) will see the first round of members moved to the Rogue list as appropriate. Which leaves another whole week prior to the planned start of the last chapter of the Crusade for members to transfer back to their desired units if they feel so inclined.

How is this going to work?

The AWOL system built into the site considers members that have not logged into the site over the last 30 days as being potentially AWOL. As mentioned in my previous report, summit leaders can see at any point in time who is in danger of being moved to the Rogues list by viewing the 'Administer your members/students' page.

I intend for this process to become more automated over time. Eventually it should consider members to be active if they have done any one of the following during the preceding 30 days:

• Logged into the site
• Earned an award
• Received a promotion

For now, however, the system only tracks logging in to the site. If exceptions need to be made for members that haven't logged into the site, please email both myself and Howie with the necessary details: member PIN, name, and what they have done to be considered active members. Aside from the items listed above, the only other currently acceptable reasons are:

• Active on IRC
• Active on Unit email list
• Submitted to a competition not hosted through the site

I have heard concerns from some people that feel that, historically, the unit summits held the mandate to determine who was and was not AWOL in their units. In talking things over with Muz and Raken recently, we all agreed that while that may indeed have been the case once upon a time, it hasn't been for a while. At least one of the more recent AWOL checks run by Korras required you to log in to the old site and click a button to confirm that you were active.

If there are any questions or concerns about this new AWOL policy, please feel free to either email me directly or leave a comment below, and I will do my best to address them.