View and vote on the article here: Lets Talk: Interview with CinC Adv. Chawmp
Lets Talk: Interview with CinC Adv. Chawmp| Category | | | Summary | | Commander in Chief Advisor Chawmp is probably one of the most intriguing Staff members CA has ever had. Chawmp has been here since the beginning (long before I joined), always doing something up there, in the high spheres, and I - and many o |
| | Body | h3raLd: Could you tell me more about yourself, and the reasons why you decided to join CyberArmy? Also, when did you join?
Chawmp: I joined CA, as far as I can determine, on Aug 26, 2000. I had been looking for example source code to help with a project, and found a program on files.cyberarmy.com. From there I signed up and started on the challenges, instantly becoming hooked, and got through most of them in a couple of days. It did however take me until Sat Sep 02, 23:09 GMT to reach Kernel.
This was the "third era" (third round of Zebulun, after 2 resets previously), and at this time there was no General challenge. A while later, however, after becoming more involved with CA beyond the challenges, I became the first to achieve the rank of General by exploiting some site code. I was followed shortly afterwards by wa1800z, who we all know and who has subsequently contributed greatly to CA, and a guy named bashar, who disappeared again after not too long. Each of us exploited a different part of the site, but all three exploits involved injecting SSI into pages that the webserver would later parse.
h3raLd: What are your tasks and responsibility nowadays?
Chawmp: My responsibilities in CyberArmy, for some years now, have included technical maintenance and software development (our web and IRC software and servers), general administration tasks, and positions within the brigade system. I have also worked regularly with colleagues to safeguard our members' interests.
h3raLd: On the CyberArmy Wiki it says that you wrote the Brigade Scripts. Could you tell us more about that, such as any difficulties you encountered when coding them? Do they differ a lot from the current scripts, and if so, in what ways?
Chawmp: Someone had previously had a vague idea for a system by which to organize people into teams, hierarchically, and it was actually the first incarnation of this system that I exploited to become a General. That system was then scrapped, and I worked on something to replace it - brigades - from scratch in Perl.
The brigade system survived in its original form for a good while, and allowed us to organize ourselves in much the way we do today. You might even remember the Java applet D-Cypell wrote to display the tree of brigades. It was eventually rewritten by wa1800z as part of dinah when we re-launched the site, in such a way that it was more closely-integrated with other systems. We had been having some stability problems previously as the brigades were becoming quite big and complex, but these were overcome by the switch from Berkeley DB to MySQL with dinah.
Brigades allowed an extremely divisive, fundamental change to take place some time later - a shift of focus towards promotion through commitment and achievement in brigades, rather than by completion of challenges. The Zebulun challenges, while quite entertaining, were not a good test of a person's commitment, character, or even technical ability; many of the tests required knowledge of archaic exploits, which were then applied in inappropriate contexts, and the difficulty of other tests varied wildly at random. When I led a team to build the z8 challenge, I believe we succeeded in producing something that did not rely at all on luck, and that would be achievable through appropriate technical research. However, we didn't believe challenges would ever become the best means to foster commitment in the long term.
h3raLd: When did you become Commander in Chief, and for how long? Could you tell me something about that period? Something which was accomplished in that period, maybe, and some good and bad memories.
Chawmp: I was promoted to Marshal after completing the brigade system, and after continuing to be involved heavily took on the title "Acting CinC." while Pengo took some time away for personal reasons. I took over as CinC. full time some time in 2001.
I'm sure you realize that being CinC. places tremendous demands on anyone to hold that position. This was even more the case in previous years when our situation was less stable than it is today.
Scanjack and I, assisted by each other and our colleagues in our respective administrations, fought campaigns of reform within CyberArmy that took place on several fronts and were often acrimonious in their nature.
We sought an end to the situation where any individual could have complete control over CyberArmy's assets, therefore having the power to resist the collective will of the membership. Of course, this reform was resisted by a rotten core who had vested interests in assets they controlled (ownership of our domain name or servers, for example). No tactic was too immature for certain of these members who, as a result of this inequity, were able to hold the rest of staff to ransom for long periods of time. Long negotiations and a number of concessions (such as a change of domain name) were required before we could claim success in this regard.
On another hand, it was our belief that everyone on staff should be committed to the cause, share in our core values, and have the motivation to participate constructively. Members who had gained (very) high ranks in years past through the old challenges and personal favours would only now be deserving of those ranks if they met these new criteria, as a gulf was forming between them and people newly appointed on that basis. Some of the same people had also been placed in other positions of responsibility, such as on the IRC network and at the top of the brigade structure, and after continuous attempts to work constructively with them despite their opposition to our goals, it was our duty to clean up the system by removing them.
The time investment and emotional and psychological pressure brought by the political turmoil involved in making these controversial changes were obviously very draining, and left us no great desire to remain in the position for longer than was necessary to see them through. But thanks to the sustained efforts of all involved we succeeded, leaving a situation today where no individual is in overall control of any asset and everyone in a position of responsibility is there to serve the membership.
Scanjack in particular must be commended. He was never someone to let an injustice go unresolved for too long, and he really did put an extraordinary amount of himself into carrying these reforms through.
Our CinC. today, snarkles, still has a very challenging and demanding job, and is carrying it out marvelously. I am very pleased that we were able to solve the problems mentioned above before she took on the role, as I hope it allows her to concentrate her time on more constructive issues, and take the organization forward.
h3raLd: What was the position you had before becoming CinC? Who was your successor?
Chawmp: When brigades were first introduced I commanded Internal Command, a brigade with vaguely similar responsibilities as SAS has today. When I became CinC I obviously had to concentrate on other duties, but left the brigade in the capable hands of axem, who's unfortunately not around any longer.
h3raLd: Unlike others, even after retiring from your CinC position you have always been active, and this made various people wonder why you didn't become the new CinC again, when Scanjack retired (with all respects to CinC snarkles, of course, who is doing a great job). What happened there? Can - eventually - a Ret. CinC become CinC again or there's some sort of "restriction"?
Chawmp: Except where it would be inappropriate (for example, in the cases of some of the aforementioned who were not welcome in the administration after their tenure on account of the underhanded tactics they employed to hang onto power and resist positive reform), there is no particular reason why a CinC. can't return to the job after having been retired. But there is no precedent for such a situation either. Generally, it is considered sensible to always have someone with fresh ideas at the top.
I expect the pressures of the job motivated people like Scanjack to move on to other things - he is still looking after our interests as president of ISPAN, for example, but is not involved in day-to-day matters here anymore.
I have stayed on because I always feel I have something more to offer, although the time I have been able to commit in most of the last 3 years or so has been reduced somewhat as I've been busy IRL with other things. I have been quite active behind the scenes on a number of occasions (working with Scanjack on the issues discussed above, and since then in taking care of general site/network maintenance), but I had preferred to retain my "retired" status to avoid confusion of my position within the organization with the CinC's.
h3raLd: Could you tell us when and why you got the new rank (Commander in Chief Advisor) and why an official announcement was never made?
Chawmp: I was given that title at the end of Jan 2005, basically for the reasons above - I hadn't been inactive, despite my "retired" status (and indeed, had been promoting the use of "retired" only as a reward for committed former colleagues, rather than a licence for occasionally-active members to avoid participating in activities), but didn't want to cause confusion by returning to "CinC". We eventually decided on the "Advisor" title, as it resolves these inconsistencies and sums up a lot of what I do these days.
I don't think we thought it necessary to make a big announcement, although it was announced. A note about it appeared in "Promotions Digest Jan-Feb 2005" (zZine, Issue 11), for example.
h3raLd: We are still using brigades, even if some people maybe prefer a more "free" system, with projects and leaders. This has been partially implemented in SAS. There was also a rumour or a proposal to get rid of ranks and introduce some sort of more organization-like hierarchy, in part to get rid of the old CyberArmy reputation... Is this still a possibility or not? I personally think that ranks and brigades gives CyberArmy a unique charm and add distinctiveness to the site/community. What is your position regarding this?
Chawmp: I believe that, as a result of the hard work being put in by all our members we have indeed been successful in overcoming our old reputation. There is always much more to be done to increase our recognition outside the organization, but we are no longer held down by a resistance to change. Our challenge today is to attract and retain more of the committed and motivated members who have helped bring about this turnaround.
There are plans to provide a project management system that is supplementary to brigades, and that will allow brigade-independant collaboration on projects, allowing a lot more flexibility in a number of circumstances. This system has been in development, and is currently in a trial phase.
There are no plans to do away with the system of ranks as, after debates on the topic, there is a general consensus that nothing has been suggested that would adequately replace it. It isn't an ideal system, but has on the whole served us well for quite some time.
h3raLd: The recent opening of dinah code to the public and the SNEAK project may be seen as a first attempt of CyberArmy promoting Open Source and public development. Is it true? Some brigades developed (and are developing staill, as far as I know) software with open source-like licenses. Will CyberArmy as a whole start producing CA-branded software on a regular basis?
Chawmp: There hasn't been a particular decision to go down this route, but supporting and educating about open source is, of course, one of our core commitments. We encourage and are happy to provide whatever support we can to brigades undertaking relevant open source projects.
h3raLd: What do you see as the weaknesses and the strengths of the CyberArmy community, and what do you see in CyberArmy's future? Do you have any "advice" for new (and old) members, C/Os, and Staff you'd like to make public?
Chawmp: We have come a long way, but we must continue to push towards our goals. Members need to remain motivated, brigade commanders need to keep their members motivated and productive, and we as staff need to provide all the help and leadership we can to ensure this happens.
Very recently, staff have taken steps to revitalize communication on some issues of policy and brigade activity. We are now holding regular meetings to keep on top of all of these issues, and hope and expect to be able to improve productivity in a number of areas where it may have gone unchecked.
We are always eager to involve every member as much as possible in the wider picture. Our feedback system has become very efficient; every suggestion we receive is discussed (I am happy to say that we receive many suggestions every week), and many of those go on to be implemented. It is also now a matter of policy that *all* day-to-day staff business takes place on a forum to which Kernels have access, and are invited to contribute. We hope to be able to roll this out further over time, onto the other rank-based forums.
h3raLd: Thank you so much for accepting to answer these questions, I'm sure everyone will enjoy reading this interview!
Chawmp: Let me finish by commending the staff of zZine, who in recent months have made vast improvements to the magazine's content, organization and regularity. Please, keep up the good work - I never miss an issue. :) |
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: h3raLd)
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