Department of Technology (History)

General

When the department structure was first created at the 2004 Admin Meeting, this department was started under the name Department of Information Technology. Its first director was Lyoness al'Thorn t'Morsin.

2004

During this year, the department worked on getting a Java Chat applet up on the main site, as well as the creation of a more structured IRC system with three chatrooms and dedicated OPs. The role of City Developer was created and filled by Randle al'Ren. This year also saw the beginning of the migration to new servers, so the creation of subdomains could begin for the different groups.

2005

Overwhelming community growth created issues with the forum hosting company, which caused our account to be suspended twice early in the year. By May, the decision was made to move to a virtual server. In April of this year, Yenie Antagar became the new IRC Administrator, with Sela Narian taking over as Assistant to the IRC Administrator.

2007

The Department of Information Technology experienced its name change to the current Department of Technology. There were many staffing changes during this year. Zhareen Narelle became the Director, and the Master of the Watch was filled by Melana al'Cairera. The position of Server Administrator was filled by Defen Estrator and Miriya ay'Anne became the Assistant to the IRC Administrator, which oversaw Chat Operators and IRC technology management.

After the creation of the Department of Moderators, with Melana al'Cairera becoming its new Director, Defen Estrator was promoted to Master of the Watch, and the position returned to that of a security and system administrator.

2008

The subdomains were rolled out during this year, with each community group getting its own subdomain hosted on the server. It was also decided the forums would convert from phpbb2 to phpbb3.

2009

This year saw the migration from our previous custom-coded website to a highly supported content management system.

2010

The formative months of 2010 were filled with the slow and steady migration and integration of data into the new Drupal Content Management System. The integration was delayed until the details of the PHPBB2 to PHPBB3 data migration could be finalized. In April and in response to unforeseen changes with the forum virtual host, a decision was made to perform a limited import of accounts directly into Drupal/PHPBB3 and to provide a read-only copy of the old PHPBB2 forums and the Membership Manuals Wiki for archival purposes.

2011

At the start of 2011, the transition to the integrated Drupal Content Management System (CMS) and phpBB3 forum was relatively complete, with most previous issues resolved. 

2012

At the Spring 2012 Admin Meeting, the decision was made to abandon the Drupal/phpBB3 system, which needed copious amounts of work to meet the demands of our growing community. Instead, the decision was made to move to vBulletin, and over the summer the Technology team created and tested the new system. The site went live on August 26, 2012.

Several major staffing changes also happened in 2012. Erin al'Denael took over as Director, and Azi al'Thone joined Defen Estrator as Master of the Watch. The new position of Tower Gatekeeper was created to help with usergroup management within the new vBulletin system.

2013

During the Spring 2013 Admin Meeting, the department gained approval to purchase and implement a SSL certificate for our website. In July, Siera al'Cere was hired as a new Site Designer, and in October Elorenya d'Rahien began a major effort to change and improve our raising tests.

2014

On October 5, 2014, the site was switched from vBulletin 4 to the newly released vBulletin 5. However, in November the decision was made to rollback the site to the previous version 4, due to massive glitches and errors in the user experience. All data posted to the vBulletin 5 version of the site was unfortunately lost.

2015

On October 16, the retirement of Erin al'Denael as Director was announced. Mendo Cath, was chosen as the new Director, and assumed responsibility on December 1.

2016

The version of software that runs the TV.Net forums was subject to a SQL injection vulnerability that was exploited and discovered in August. The team worked quickly to implement a hotfix to protect the site, and a new password change policy was put into place.

Azi al'Thone stepped down from Master of the Watch, and Erin al'Denael was promoted to the position.

2017

The replacement of vBulletin with XenForo was completed during this year.

Mendo Cath resigned as Director, and Deoan Kakarot was hired as the new Director. Erin al'Denael also resigned as Master of the Watch and Ariadne Davion was hired to fill the position.

2020

In March, Barmacral Tigana replaced Ariadne Davion as Master of the Watch.

In July, Zashara Sho'am was hired as Mistress of the Watch with a focus on Moderation, to prepare for the dissolution of the Department of Moderators and Operators. That took place after the Fall 2020 Executive Meeting, and with it Moderators and Chat Operators moved into the Department of Technology, serving under Zashara.

2021

In March, Mendo Cath returned to the department as Co-Director alongside Deoan.

At the end of August, Barmacral Tigana and Zashara Sho'am both stepped down as Masters of the Watch. In late September, Jaryd Kosari was hired to replace them, and served three months in the position.

On the very last day of the year, two new Administrator positions were announced, replacing the role of Master of the Watch (specifically the Infrastructure and Interface focuses). Defen Estrator transitioned into the position of The Illuminator and Qamra Daielin took up the role of Wansho.

2022

In January a new restructuring of the department took out the positions of Forum Moderators and Chat Operators outside the Department of Technology and they now are positioned outside the department structure. This also made the vacant Master of the Watch position overseeing the moderators redundant.

In March, Deoan Kakarot stepped down as Co-Director, leaving Mendo as the sole Director. Mendo oversaw the long awaited transition of the forum software to XenForo 2.0.

In late April, a new staff position was introduced in the Department of Technology, that of the Mason. The first member on this position was Kerwin Thaumiel.

In August, Mendo Cath resigned as Director, and the Department passed into the hands of Qamra Daielin. She had been promoted from the position of Wansho, which remained vacant.

2023

In March, the long awaited dark theme for the forums was made available.

2024

In April, the Discord Gatekeeper position was created, and hiring began for a new Wansho. In May, Fenya al'Caem was announced as Wansho.