[FAILED] [Citizen] Major Darling (Patron: Ducale)

[Каие]

Client Major Darling

Client: Major Darling

Hello Again to the esteemed members of CdeC, I wish you a belated Merry Christmas or just, Happy Holidays! For those of you who don't know me, I am Major Darling/Major. I have been a member since late May this year and have thrown myself into this forum with a passion. I have applied before and I feel that it was fair that I failed, to put it bluntly. Hopefully through this application, you can understand why I wish to become a Citizen. I'll try and be as clear as possible BUT if you need any clarification please feel free to PM me..

Now before I begin, I would like to begin with the problems which were raised after my first application,

1) A sense that you were still too new a member and had a lot more in the future to contribute and to do

I thought about this and I thought that in my original application, I hadn't actually mentioned everything which I had contributed and that even though I have been a member for just over 6 months, I am a member who contributes more than regular. I can usually be found online during the day most of the time.

2) An incident of impersonation (to which was not given any details, so cannot go into detail)

I don't want to run away or avoid this point in any way. Yes there was a very small issue of impersonation. Very much so in jest and not in a serious way to cause trauma to any member of the forum. I gave an unreserved apology to the member involved and he replied telling me not to worry and that he accepted my apology. I hope that this shall not impeed my application at all, I did not recieve any notes or warnings from this incident.


Now, on to happy thoughts! On TWC, I am mainly a content based member. I am a member of the Scriptorium and have been a Librarian since around August 15th. I was extremely grateful when Pontifex granted me the chance to work in the Script, I feel it is one of the most important parts of the forum and is responsible for ensuring that our best minds don't become unknown. Although I am not a great submitter, I am involved behind the scene. I help run the Anti-Plagiarism part of the Script and also helped with the Writing Competitions and also keeping the Script squeaky clean. I also make sure Legio doesn't take too many happy pills ()..

In the Content World I am also a member of two TWC Content Publications. The One I have been a member of for the longest time is the Eagle Standard (ES) I joined in early August, around the same time as the Script and have been writing in every issue since. (Apart from one absence due to a trip to China). I feel that this publication is one I have great commitment to the Publication and find it my main staple for TWC. I run the 'Captain's Cabin' in the ES which was Ducale's and then Calvin's team respectively before passing to me. We are responsible for all the Interviews in the ES and we try to cover each TW game each issue. Apart from the Captain's Cabin in the ES, I have also been a writer for the Artist's Gallery in the area of Community RPGs. I have written only one article so far for them but it is a continuous thing. The RPG article can be found in the 4th Issue, (1st Issue, 2nd Issue & 3rd Issue 4th Issue ).

In more recent months I have become a writer for the other major TWC Community publication, 'The Helios.' I like the Helios for several reasons, firstly I like it because it does not revolve around the world of Total War. I have written 3 articles for the Publication. The First one was an interview with Pontifex about the 'Myths of Moderation', the second was about the standard categories for any teacher and the third was an article on the amazing cricketer, Donald Bradman.

Recently I have become a writer outside the TWC Community Publications. I have a story stored in the Scriptorium called 'Takeoff', this is a story of lost families and compensation. It was met with positive attitude hence the addition to the Scriptorium. I have also had two pieces of Historical Fiction in the Writer's Study, My favourite is the semi non-fiction story, "My-Lai, My Story"

Outside the content arm of this forum, I am a local moderator for certain areas of this forum. I am a member of the TWC Community RPG moderation teams. I am along with Winter and others in charge of new RPGs being created and becoming active. It also makes me slightly responsible for ToS breaches within the forum. I feel this is good as it allows me to understand Moderation at it's best. I am also the Chief Mod for the Kampf um Europa RPG and am also going to become game mod for La Cosa Nostra in the Coliseum.

In the areas of mod in the forum, I am and have been involved in several. I cannot script, skin etc but am in fact a researcher. I am the Chief Historical Researcher for the God Save the King Mod and also a beta tester for it. I was also a Historical Researcher for ToonTotalWar's American Revolution mod along with La de Dah Brigadier Graham's earlier music Mods. I have also done one time researching for mostly ETW Mods.

Now, I feel over all that in this community that I am a helpful member. In the Q&S I regularly answer questions that are asked by members and sometimes help people with issues on TWC I also am very interested in Site Politics and try to get involed as much as I can from the Q&S forum. I am interested to become a citizen mainly for this reason and also because I find the quality of verbal jousting and debate in the Symposium is a lot better. So in conclusion, thank you CdeC for listening.

He also told me to add this;

In the end, although being away in China for most of December I was just able to organize the Captain's cabin, format etc but sadly could not write an article. I did however introduce, format and write the last word for it as the team leader should.

Patron: Ducale

Patron; Ducale

Major is the most active person on TWC I know. He posts whenever he can and he will bludgeon the average person with new ideas and enthusiasm. I have known Major since he joined here in May. Even though he has gotten on my last nerve and has driven me crazy in the past, I know he's intentions are well. If you allow Major into the Curia. He will make it bustle with activity and no doubt present many proposals and the like.

Regards,
Ducale

[Hesus de bodemloze]

I am still investigating this member but i just need to say this.

Rome we all think your doing a great job but is it really necessary to start linking the clients names to your own profile?

[Каие]

Hahaha my bad. Man I need to sleep more than 4 hours a night.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

I am leaning to a no for the moment,

For the scriptorium :

The anti - plagiarism and writing competition is the work of the entire librarian team noting much to add to this. He added 1 article to the scriptorium, a bit of a low contribution for some one who is a member since August. Keeping the script clean? I didn't know we had a housekeeper.

ES and Helios :

There are some nice interviews with some of our members but i would like to see a bit more of his work in future issues of these publications.

The RPG community :

I don't really see theses games (the once in the community RPG and Coliseum) as a huge contribution so they won't tip the scales in favour of a yes vote.

Modding :

I am the Chief Historical Researcher

Is there any proof of this because i don't seem to find anything about this.

His attitude seems to be oke, a friendly, willing to help other members with there questions. He definitely is going the right way with his contributions but i would like to see a bit more of him.

Going to do some more investigating but this is my opinion for now.

[Legio]

In his favor, he does have a lot of enthusiasm and really cares about the badge.
Against him, his low contributions for the Scriptorium. Also the case of impersonation and his involvement in site politics- I personally don't care much for them.

I'm on the fence with this one.

[Augustus Lucifer]

As near as I can tell the Scriptorium contributions amount to one article, as Hesus mentioned. I may be completely oblivious to something behind the scenes there, but if his fellow librarians aren't vouching for him in that respect it seems doubtful.

With the ES articles, I think his head is in the right place but the resulting content isn't anything spectacular. He's done 3 interviews and 2 RPG write-ups if I'm not mistaken. The thing with interviews is the ES has a somewhat standardized list of questions, so the bulk of the actual content is the result of the person being interviewed, not the interviewer. With the write-ups, the first one could have used direction and some grammar, the second one was a lot better in that respect and was certainly aided by the new format. It should be noted that he runs a team now for the interviews section, though this is only a recent development and I'm not sure he's involved in the canvasing of interviewees.

The Helios articles are a bit better in my opinion. I especially think that his article on 'Teachers...' is a very creative topic, and well executed in every respect. But it does remain that he's only thus far contributed to two issues, and the better articles were in the December issue. His historical fiction stories are also of good quality, and I can see that as being something he'll continue to excel at. The only thing I generally dislike about AARs and fiction, is people start them and never finish which leaves something to be desired, and something which seems to have happened with his first HF story, so sticking to 1-part stories would probably be in his best interests.

My problem with the way the Community Games section seems to be heading, is it seems like a glorified hotseat game. I don't have a problem with using TW to aid the forum rpg medium, but the level of quality and depth I remember from YATS way back when doesn't seem to be prevalent in the current games, or at least not in Kampf um Europa. He's made ~150 posts in there, and from those I looked at they're mostly just back and forth dialogue. I can appreciate the allure of a forum rpg, having run a rather complex one myself in days gone by, but I just can't see it as a contribution that members are essentially playing a hotseat game with some discussion aspects.

As I've said before, if there's a lot of managerial aspects involved, that part I can consider a contribution since it's providing for the players enjoyment. But I'm not seeing enough of that really and the KUE base seems to be notably small. I could be totally off-base, as this is not my area of expertise.

As for the mod historian business, that's something I'll consider but I expect a lot from mod historians. Being a mod leader I've gone through a bunch of historians who were sub-par and only posted pictures or cited something they found on google. True 'mod historians' like HamilcarBarca of RTR are absolute assets and I'd support Citizenship on that merit alone. I'm not really getting that vibe though, and would need to see a sample of his research if it were to be considered of substance.

Last but not least, his posts. He posts way too much. Not going to hold that against him, but it's downright impossible for me to look through them and find anything of decent length. A large number of the posts I've looked at have fit in the search box, which only allows something like 200 characters with spaces. By comparison, the post I'm currently typing as of this line has ~3,500 characters with spaces. I'm not saying more is necessarily better, but chatting is just something to do for fun. I got no problem with it, but it's not a contribution.

---

So in summation, I feel like he's a bit all over the place, but not in the jack-of-all-trades sense. He plays a lot of forum games, but ultimately it's just playing a game. We don't award members for playing a lot of hours of Total War and showing us their Steam record. On the flip side he's on the right track with the Helios articles, running his ES section, and writing Historical Fiction. He may also want to consider trying his hand in the D&D, but I don't know if that would be his element.

My advice to him would be to keep plugging away at the ES and Helios, and to look to write more articles like 'Teachers...' or 'My-Lai, My Story', which I thought were good and something to build on. It couldn't hurt to be more active in the Scriptorium either.

Gonna be a No for now unless someone can persuade me otherwise.

[y2day]

Previous attempt here

Not sure he has done much more since his last attempt and still has the impersonation incident to think about.

y

[Belisarius]

Well the previous case of Impersonating was used in the previous case and he was told it was a reason to us voting no. Thus it should not be used again if he has not done it since.

On his contributions, I will go through them, I am someone who appreciates effort and if I see that effort I'll vote yes. If I see a genuine want to make TWC better I'll vote yes. If that's not what I see, with contributions not being that "impressive" I will vote no.

[Gertrudius]

My main thoughts: I thought his Helios articles were quite good, but I would have preferred to see more. He seems to be an amiable sort of fellow, and has a clean nose as far as moderator interactions go. The RPG element of his application really doesn't do anything for me, at least from the posts I saw it didn't really seem to be an intrinsic contribution. I'm kind of disappointed at the apparent lack of content in his posts in general as a matter of fact. I think he has potential, especially if he keeps up with writing for the Helios.

My initial thought is no, but I am more than wiling to reconsider if someone can provide a different interpretation of his contributions. Also, I can't help but think that perhaps if he dabbled in the mudpit, or Garbs fight club it might improve the overall content of his posts, but I guess that's just the debater in me thinking.

@Belisarius

I'm totally with you on not taking the impersonation thing into account this time around. If it was going to prevent him from gaining citizenship in the future, it should have been made very clear that future applications would meet with rejection for the same reason. Barring that, I don't think it should be a major consideration.

[Astaroth]

I like his enthusiasm and the fact that he is a member of both the ES and the Helios. It shows that he tries to contribute and effort is always a first step into the right direction. However, I'm not quite sure if his contributions are sufficient yet. I like his articles but I think they could sometimes be a bit more in-depth. Furthermore, he hasn't been on the Helios or ES team for that long so naturally he hasn't written a huge amount of articles.

However, I have to second Hesus's thoughts when it comes to his Scriptorium contributions. He has only submitted a single article so his contributions in that field aren't that significant. Playing RPGs is also not a real contribution in my opinion.

He also mentioned that he is a researcher for some mods but without any examples of that I can't really take it into account. Perhaps you could PM him or his patron about this, Rome?

All in all, he seems to be a pretty promising candidate and has shown that he is willing to contribute to the forum but I don't think he's there yet. Therefore, I'm currently leaning towards a no.

[Каие]

He also mentioned that he is a researcher for some mods but without any examples of that I can't really take it into account. Perhaps you could PM him or his patron about this, Rome?

What should I ask? What kind of evidence are we talking here?

[Nikos]

I'm in agreement with most everyone on Major. He has a good attitude and apart from a regrettable incident that was already mentioned, posts in a very respectful manner. However, I don't think he has contributed enough just yet. The way things are now, he is well on his way though. If he keeps up the good work, I think he will surely pass on his next go around. I think this should be made clear to him if he fails this vote.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

I'm in agreement with most everyone on Major. He has a good attitude and apart from a regrettable incident that was already mentioned, posts in a very respectful manner. However, I don't think he has contributed enough just yet. The way things are now, he is well on his way though. If he keeps up the good work, I think he will surely pass on his next go around. I think this should be made clear to him if he fails this vote.

If he doesn't submit more of his work most of us will still have the same opinion. I think a month would be a bit to short as i am sure he will try again a month lather. Don't put it in a time frame but more in a enlargement of ES/Helios and scriptorium contributions.

Just a thought.

[Nikos]

If he doesn't submit more of his work most of us will still have the same opinion. I think a month would be a bit to short as i am sure he will try again a month lather. Don't put it in a time frame but more in a enlargement of ES/Helios and scriptorium contributions.

Just a thought.

It depends on when he tries again. It didn't occur to me that he would apply again in a month, but you are right in that it is something to consider.

[the Black Prince]

He's a good guy, nice, fun and friendly.

And thats really the problem, much as I like him, it would never occur to me patronise him. I'm not saying he should stop being a good guy of course, but behind the nice smile, there's not much in the way of solid contribution.

The fact that he's all over the place, as someone said, doesn't really bother me. Contribution is cumulative if you like, its the total weight of it, rather than how much per project, but even with this view, there's not much solid work.

I'm leaning toward a no, I can be convinced, but I would say this for this member.

He's a member of the Script, he's a writer for the Helios, he's a writer for the ES and he's involved with the community RPGs. All this guy needs to do to get his badge is carry on contributing to all these areas and come back to us with a greater weight of achievements under his belts and he's practically guaranteed (to get my vote at least). All he needs is time. Its not enough to be a member of all these projects and teams, he has to be able to show he's actuively contributing to them, and given time, I have no doubt he will.

That said, if someone can come back to me and show that his modding work is significant, maybe that will swing the balance.

@Rome, evidence of his research I guess. Researchers have a hard bar to pass though, since most just seem to copy paste info into the fora. Valuable, yes, but doesn't involve as much work as someone who's patiently gone through a 10,000 lines of code....

[Каие]

Is it really necessary though? I mean will it substantially change someone's vote? Like you say prince, it's mainly a copy and paste job... it's hardly as if he claimed to make the mod all on his own or something. Meh, if the CdeC wills it, I guess I'll have to do it.

[Augustus Lucifer]

@Rome: From my point of view I wouldn't recommend it. As you have stated, I don't think any votes will be swayed by his research contributions. Now we could be terribly wrong and he could be the best thing since sliced model files, but it seems poignantly unlikely and even then I'm unsure the scope of the mods he mentioned would illicit enough research to change my mind.

The reason I say this is not to deny the applicant the chance to clarify one of his contributions, but because I'm thinking of it from if I were him and I got a message about clarifying that, then was later told it wasn't sufficient. It would perhaps feel baiting even though that wasn't the intention, or like everything I do just isn't good enough. I'd much rather we mentioned concrete examples of research as something to include in a future application, unless there are a number of Councilors who will be swayed by the presence of that evidence.

[Каие]

Precisely what I was going to say. It would give false hope... as with all indicators here, we seem to have forgiven him for the ''impersonation'' thing, but still think he should wait a while and contribute more.... it would be unnecessary hassle to give a false horizon and give the impression that his passage depends on that research.... when it actual fact it depends on his length of membership and lack of forum maturity.

[Astaroth]

Good points. I guess we should leave it at that and judge him based on the contributions that we see here.

[Каие]

That'd be preferable, thanks.