Candidate for the position of Assistant Manager of X-Day : Darren Duncan


1. Name / Alias

  • Darren Duncan
2. Public e-mail address
  • darren@DarrenDuncan.net
3. Current occupation
  • Web/Oracle/VFP Programmer with Anthony Macauley Associates (http://www.amavi.com). I started this recently after graduating from college.
4. Number of years online
  • 7
5. Number of years creating web pages
  • 5
6. Names of websites & urls 7. Major awards won by your websites for web design / programming
  • The only actual "awards" that I have gotten were for the chronology site, and they were from x-men fandom. I got 3 awards, plus several "I like your site" emails, the most important of which (because it was determined by vote) is the X-Fan 5th annual runner-up reference site award.
8. Comics-related mailing lists you are / have been a member of
  • comfort@tux.org
  • gambit-guild@topica.com,
  • xbooks@yahoogroups.com
  • excalibur-l@cis.um.edu.mt
  • genxfans@yahoogroups.com
  • clubnate@yahoogroups.com
  • plus a few smaller ones, and I was also on stripe-l for about a year around 1997-8.
9. Classes you have taken, languages (spoken and computer programming) you have learned, abilities you have that will help you in your role as x-day manager (spanish, french, perl, java, web design fundamentals, flash etc)
  • I know a wide variety of computer programming, scripting, markup languages, including perl, java, html, but not flash. I speak english natively and have forgotten most of what I knew about any other languages. I have good organizational and documentation skills, and can be a good teacher. My web design favors compatability with the widest number of web browsers or operating systems, and fast operation so the majority of people using modems don't wait forever.
10. Number of years collecting comics
  • 9
11. X-Titles you collect
  • Before 2001: all of them (but not deadpool/maverick/mutantx/etc).
  • After 2001: Claremont's X-Men, various limited series, Unlimited, some non-x marvel titles like Thunderbolts, Black Panther, Avengers, Earth X, and some non-marvel titles like translated manga.
12. Favorite X-Title
  • 1970s - Uncanny X-Men
  • 1980s - New Mutants, Excalibur, early-80s x-men, plus Power Pack
  • 1990s - how do I choose? - Fabian Nicieza did the best work though
  • 2000s - non-x-related books
13. Favorite X-Character
  • I don't know, I like many of them, particularly in the 1970s/80s/early-90s.
14. Favorite quote / scene
  • Too many to decide, but it was one of Claremont's from the 1970s/80s.
Short Essay Questions
  1. In the past years, many changes have been made to the category structure for the X-Day competition. What changes and improvements do you have in mind for the way that the contest is run? Are there any categories that you think should be added or removed? Are there additional subcategories that you think should be employed? (An example might be the subcategory  Website : Best use of Flash Animation.)
  • I would emphasize creative works like fanfic/art since few other contests even take note of them - sort of like how it was done this year (2001). I would organize websites partly based on whether they consider content or appearance more important, separate small from big, separate focus (character/team/creator) sites from "everything" sites, have special categories focusing on their use of certain technologies like flash, etcetera.
2. You have designed or will design a sample X-Day 2002 website... What have you done with this site to make it:
  • a. fast to load, even on slower modems
  • b. easy to use and understand
  • c. interesting (graphically, textually or otherwise)
  • d. automated and easy to update (scripts etc)
  • I am not making a sample x-day site. However, you can see what I contributed to X-Day 2001 and also look at chronology.net to get an idea. The X-Day site will have a few graphics on it, but they will load quickly. I will not use frames and I will keep tables to a minimum, so pages render quickly, keep images to a minimum for speed, and avoid javascript because of all the havoc it can cause. But since I'm only going for assistant manager, the main manager will do what they want, I just offer suggestions.

    // Darren Duncan