Master at Arms Report 3
A few things this week – and one general reminder that I’m going to put right at the top. When you’re emailing in a request (say, you need a competition edited, or you have a question), please use the MAA Staff Google Group (the link is at the bottom of this report!) or email both Teylas and myself. Why? Simple! Then you’ve got two sets of eyes looking at something instead of just one, and it’s likely your thing will get fixed or answered even faster! Thanks!
News from the Medal Bot
The Master at Arms Policies page has been updated with some changes:
An additional note on offensive names can be found. It states: “While there is no formal list of names that are considered offensive, the Master at Arms Office reserves the right to review potential or actually offensive names.” --- These cases are few and far between, but in the interests of transparency, it is appropriate to have something in writing.
Rewards for Brotherhood activity may not include non-Brotherhood or otherwise non-fictional based incentives, and must be spelled out in competition details. The reasons for this statement are below.
Please take a moment to review these pages, and let me know if you think there’s anything that needs to be added, deleted, or changed!
I am running another puzzle competition. Click the puzzle!. It runs for about a week!
Notes on competition awards
The above policy statement on competition (and honestly, all sorts of awards) is a formalization of something that has been in place for a long time. The basis behind this? Brotherhood activity of all sorts should be recognized with Brotherhood based things. There have been instances in the past where people have wanted to buy members games, or generally spending their own money.
The issue with this? Not all of our members (or leaders) are of the same real life socio-economic status or age, and it might place an unfair obligation or burden on that 14-year-old consul who is just scraping by, versus the 31 year old leader in a different clan that has a full time job and disposable income. If you take that to the second or third order, there could be a situation where non-Brotherhood incentives may drive people towards a different unit when they otherwise might not have transferred.
Notes on recommendations
Overall, I’ve been very (double very!) happy with the quality of recommendations for promotions and medals in the past two months. There are just a couple of things I want to comment on.
Primary recommendations, in most cases, should be the meat and potatoes. Yes, there are going to be situations where a more junior leader knows a member better but does not have the medal or promotion authority to put it in themselves. That said though – part of your (and everyone’s!) responsibility as a leader is to do the work when you’re putting in a medal or promotion recommendation.
Real life stuff really doesn’t have a place in promotion or medal recommendations. I get that people know their members, and that they want to demonstrate that – but sometimes it can cloud the issue – which is what we in the Brotherhood care about – making sure all our members are recognized for what they do for and on behalf of our club.
People love bolding things, maybe because they think I’m old and I can’t see. You really don’t need to do it. I can read just fine. :P
Notes on competition grading
People make mistakes when grading competitions, they miss a screen shot, they make typos – it isn’t a big deal, these things happen. I’m happy to help people fix them, but the release of possessions has complicated things. For example, if you have to regrade a competition, the Regent staff also have to do some work, they need to remove the credits from all the participants (plus those that were awarded crescents). For some competitions, this is 40 people, so it is quite a bit of leg work. So all I ask is that everyone double check their competitions so we don’t create work for the Regent staff unnecessarily. I appreciate it!
Promotion assessment tool
The promotion assessment tool makes life easier for the Master at Arms staff and life easier for leaders, but I think there is a bug with it. James is currently on leave, so he hasn’t been able to confirm it – but we suspect that there’s a bit of an issue when using it when a member has unawarded (i.e. since last recognition, or last medal, or last promotion, whichever tab you’re using) competition activity from before the launch of the new database. It seems to not count things properly.
So the number of cases this will actually impact is pretty low, given that the site launch was July 2013, but I would ask that all leaders in the Brotherhood double check your recommendations when including activity from that date and beforehand.
Medals and Promotions of Note
Tamashi Adaephon Delat earned a Grand Cross for his work in/for Odan-Urr.
Mako Henymory earned a Grand Cross for his work in/for Odan-Urr.
Celevon Edraven Erinos earned a Steel Cross for his service in Clan Arcona!
Mactire earned a Dark Cross for his work in Naga Sadow!
Maré Littus aka Celahir was promoted to Reaver for his long service to Clan Arcona!
Kah Manet was promoted to Seer for his work in Clan Tarentum!
Aul Celsus was promoted to Savant for his service to Naga Sadow!
Important Links
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Good stuff! I enjoy hearing about the changes, but not only that, the reasoning as well.
Transparency and growth/development in protocols. All good stuff!
Many thanks indeed for the updates, it will be interesting to see how these are implemented as time goes by.
Good report with a lot of helpful information for leaders and members alike. I dig it.
So many shinies!!
Who lets these two guys in charge of MAA things?
Word!
Death to the Howie