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Project Team Candidate Q&A and Campaigning


Kelly

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Hello, all.

We have the following candidates for Project Team:

newbornheart

Midnight-Poetry

AceofClubs

hexaquark

Their Bios:

AceofClubs

I'm running for PT again, because I believe in the old adage, 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again'.

I've always been fascinated by history, in general. It was my favorite subject in school & I still look up the history of things in my spare time.

Despite recent happenings (House, that blog post in response to the BBC's how sex works segment on Asexuality, etc etc), I still believe that visibility is important. Because with more visibility comes more awareness, which means more understanding, over time. -AceofClubs.

hexaquark

Hello, I’m hexaquark and I’ve never actually introduced myself here, so now is as good a time as any. I’m not sure how long I’ve been on AVEN because I lurked for a long time before joining, but it’s safe to say that the community has been a part of my life for a couple of years and I've identified as asexual for the same period.

I decided to try for this PT position (AVEN historian) because it is in precise alignment with what I have been doing in the asexual community for about a year now. I've researched the early days of AVEN and investigated the online records of various asexual communities, and I have compiled an AVENwiki article about this research, as well as making a handy timeline/infographic. I've done a lot of work updating AVENwiki in general; I re-vamped the main page and continue to try to keep it up to date, added navbars to many of the pages to improve navigation, and have been adding new articles and content periodically.

Less related to AVEN, I've also done extensive searches of news archives to find pre-community mentions of asexuality. This is an ongoing project but there are some articles linked on the wiki. And while it's anachronistic to apply the current asexual identity to anything in the past, I'm quite interested in researching pre-community asexual classifications, as well as external responses to asexuality, and the forces that lead to the emergence of the ace, grey, and demi identities. I’m a dedicated researcher because I love information and exploring new (and old!) ideas, and I keep tabs on various ace communities because our dialogue is constantly evolving.

tl;dr Whoever is elected, I hope to work with them, because I'm passionate about tracking our history, and I'm going to be doing it anyway. Being on the PT would help me to continue doing what I do more effectively. Thanks for your consideration!

HQ

Midnight-Poetry

Hello, AVEN! I'm Poe, your lovable AVENite running for PT. I'm disappointed with some of the runnings of PT, and while individual members have, on occasion, been very helpful I have seen very little come out of it.

I can't say I'm an expert historian, but I would like to be part of PT in order to push the whole project in the right direction. I'm willing to work, and have more than enough hours free each week to do it.

Other candidates--please feel free to submit a bio, as well as campaign.

All--feel free to ask questions and get to know the candidates.

This position is for Project Team member, with a specialization in AVEN history.

The election will begin on Sunday, 12 February.

Good luck to all! :cake:

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Good luck to all running ^_^ :cake:

Some questions for everyone:

1. Why are you running for the PT?

2. How much time can you realistically put into AVEN each week?

3. What skills and experiences, AVEN-related or not, do you think you can bring to the PT?

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What kind of ideas do you have in regards to AVEN history?

What is the oldest thread on AVEN (Yes this is a serious question) and when was the last post on this thread?

If you're working with AVEN history, you will probably be updating the wiki. Name a recent non-spam related change (and sorry, you can't use your own). (It will probably be unfair to AoC to continue asking this question at this point.)

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Guest member25959

Well, as you may know by now, you be working with some AVEN history. Now, it isn't necessary to know the answer to my following question but it would certainly give you an idea of what you may be working with. So, my question is rather simple really:

When was the Project Team founded, and for what reasons?

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Good luck to all running ^_^ :cake:

Some questions for everyone:

1. Why are you running for the PT?

A) Because I want to. B) Because I believe visibility's important.

2. How much time can you realistically put into AVEN each week?

A lot. I don't have much of a schedule and a lot of my time awake is spent online. Not sure just exactly how much time that would be, however.

3. What skills and experiences, AVEN-related or not, do you think you can bring to the PT?

I take pretty much every opportunity I see on other sites/forums I belong to, to educate others about Asexuality. In other words, I'm willing to educate others about Asexuality.

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1. We are a team that is in a quest to become more and more professional what abilities and talents do you have to help towards this end?

2. AVEN Project Team is a large time commitment . There are only five of us to do what is needed. Do you have anything that would stand in the way from you doing you duty to the Project Team.

Thank you for your Interest in joining Poject Team.

Tad

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Well, as you may know by now, you be working with some AVEN history. Now, it isn't necessary to know the answer to my following question but it would certainly give you an idea of what you may be working with. So, my question is rather simple really:

When was the Project Team founded, and for what reasons?

2007, IINM. To put the Visibility & Education in AVEN. And to help members with visibility and education projects.

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What kind of ideas do you have in regards to AVEN history?

Chronicling a list of events from earliest to most recent.

What is the oldest thread on AVEN (Yes this is a serious question) and when was the last post on this thread?

Question... Started by another in Musings & Rantings. (Or general Asexual rantings as it was called at the time). Last reply was July 8th, 2002. (That is, if you mean non resurrected thread, as I do remember seeing a thread a while ago that was resurrected from 2002.

If you're working with AVEN history, you will probably be updating the wiki. Name a recent non-spam related change (and sorry, you can't use your own).

Putting Montreal on the meetup list

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1. We are a team that is in a quest to become more and more professional what abilities and talents do you have to help towards this end?

Once I'm committed to something, I'm in it for the long haul. I'm dedicated to what I do. (In general). Speaking in terms of this particular task, I have a tendency to remember dates.

2. AVEN Project Team is a large time commitment. There are only five of us to do what is needed. Do you have anything that would stand in the way from you doing you duty to the Project Team.

No.

Thank you for your Interest in joining Poject Team.

Tad

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What is the oldest thread on AVEN (Yes this is a serious question) and when was the last post on this thread?

Question... Started by another in Musings & Rantings. (Or general Asexual rantings as it was called at the time). Last reply was July 8th, 2002. (That is, if you mean non resurrected thread, as I do remember seeing a thread a while ago that was resurrected from 2002.

Sorry I should have made that more clear, ressurrected threads do count. I want to know what the FIRST thread on AVEN was.

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A more general, non-AVEN-history-related question:

As people have noted many times in this thread already, and elsewhere as well, the goal of having a PT is to have organized visibility and education efforts. To that end, a lot of communication with people, both members of the AVEN community, as well as non-AVEN individuals (such as researchers, reporters, members of other asexual communities, and members of other communities that deal with sexuality, to name a few).

How confident are you in your ability to communicate in a clear, concise, yet informative way? That is, if someone seems to misunderstand your previous attempts to communicate with them, what are some methods you might employ to deal with the miscommunication?

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Lord Happy Toast

While on the issue of asking the candidates AVEN history questions, who was the first person on AVEN to use the term "demisexual," and what the date of its first use on the AVEN forums?

(I should add that I don't think that people wanting this role to help document the history of asexuality need to know the answer to questions of this sort--Off the top of my head, I know "who" but only recall the year for "when". What I do believe is important is that people know how to find the answer.)

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# of Asexual people in the population thread? Last reply on October 21st, 2011. Though I think there's another old thread from 2002 that was resurrected. Not entirely sure though.

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While on the issue of asking the candidates AVEN history questions, who was the first person on AVEN to use the term "demisexual," and what the date of its first use on the AVEN forums?

(I should add that I don't think that people wanting this role to help document the history of asexuality need to know the answer to questions of this sort--Off the top of my head, I know "who" but only recall the year for "when". What I do believe is important is that people know how to find the answer.)

The earliest date I found was December 10th, 2008, by R_R.

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This isn't related to AVEN history, but it's pretty important. As a member of the Project Team, you will have access to information that you may or may not be able to share with the general membership. Have you ever released information before it was ready to be made public? Are you able to keep certain information secret?

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A more general, non-AVEN-history-related question:

As people have noted many times in this thread already, and elsewhere as well, the goal of having a PT is to have organized visibility and education efforts. To that end, a lot of communication with people, both members of the AVEN community, as well as non-AVEN individuals (such as researchers, reporters, members of other asexual communities, and members of other communities that deal with sexuality, to name a few).

How confident are you in your ability to communicate in a clear, concise, yet informative way? That is, if someone seems to misunderstand your previous attempts to communicate with them, what are some methods you might employ to deal with the miscommunication?

Online? Pretty confident. Especially as keyboards come with a 'backspace' key, so one can erase what one wrote and start again, just in case one thinks one wasn't being clear enough. Offline, that's another story. As you can't take back words you have spoken.

Hmm... Am I just imagining things or have the only people that have asked questions in this thread (so far), been mods and PT members?

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This isn't related to AVEN history, but it's pretty important. As a member of the Project Team, you will have access to information that you may or may not be able to share with the general membership. Have you ever released information before it was ready to be made public? Are you able to keep certain information secret?

No and Yes, respectively.

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A more general, non-AVEN-history-related question:

As people have noted many times in this thread already, and elsewhere as well, the goal of having a PT is to have organized visibility and education efforts. To that end, a lot of communication with people, both members of the AVEN community, as well as non-AVEN individuals (such as researchers, reporters, members of other asexual communities, and members of other communities that deal with sexuality, to name a few).

How confident are you in your ability to communicate in a clear, concise, yet informative way? That is, if someone seems to misunderstand your previous attempts to communicate with them, what are some methods you might employ to deal with the miscommunication?

Online? Pretty confident. Especially as keyboards come with a 'backspace' key, so one can erase what one wrote and start again, just in case one thinks one wasn't being clear enough. Offline, that's another story. As you can't take back words you have spoken.

Hmm... Am I just imagining things or have the only people that have asked questions in this thread (so far), been mods and PT members?

I'm sorry... you must have misunderstood me.

I was talking about online things that have already been expressed and communicated... how would you clear those up?

Ironically, the very hypothetical situation I seem to be asking about has come up. o.o

As for mods and PT members asking... which members of AVEN do you think are most involved in AVEN? lol

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I was actually going to post something in here earlier but got sidetracked. =P Anyway, I'll start off the member questions.

Let me preface this by saying that while I obviously don't know exactly how the PT functions as a team, I believe that these are relevant questions for anyone who's going to be doing some sort of research, especially on a subject like the history of asexuality, where it might be difficult to find specific resources.

1.) Digging through old threads and webpages could become tedious after a while. Do you feel that you could do extensive research on a particular subject while maintaining your motivation and enthusiasm? Please give a brief explanation of why you feel you would/not be able to do so.

b.) If there should ever come a time when you've simply had enough of researching one certain subject, when do you think that would be? (In other words, what specifically would push you over the edge and make you say, "I'm done with this"?)

c.) Should the situation in (b) occur, what would you then do?

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1- Have you ever done anything to help AVEN visibility in real life, meaning besides online?

2- If yes, what and when was the last time?

3- If no, why?

4- Are you planning of doing something in the next future besides online and what?

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Wall of text coming up, apologies if I end up repeating myself.

1. Why are you running for the PT?

2. How much time can you realistically put into AVEN each week?

3. What skills and experiences, AVEN-related or not, do you think you can bring to the PT?

1. I'm running for the PT because the community is important to me and I believe history is a vital part of any community. There are projects related to our history that I would more efficiently serve on the PT.

2. It varies from week to week, but a hour or two a day is possible, even in my busy weeks.

3. I bring my patience, my commitment to following a clue or carrying out a search to the bitter end, and my extensive knowledge of and experience in reasearching the history of online asexual communities.

What kind of ideas do you have in regards to AVEN history?

What is the oldest thread on AVEN (Yes this is a serious question) and when was the last post on this thread?

I want to accumulate more firsthand information from individuals involved in the early development of AVEN and the community, especially since most of my work has been focused on written accounts from the time and it is difficult to know people’s motivations without asking directly. I also want to collect accounts of physical world events related to our history in general because, as we all know, not everything happens online. I’m going to be making a link-heavy timeline for the wiki since the article I put up is organized more based on concepts than dates, and I, for one, would find it useful.

The oldest thread on AVEN is 'Welcome!!' started by AVENguy on May 29, 2002. Please no one bump it, the poor thing has been necroed enough!

When was the Project Team founded, and for what reasons?

The PT was first proposed in the summer of 2006. DJ had realized that the community had grown to the point where it was too busy for him to handle visibility and projects on his own without a more organized group of volunteers. It was to be a team of individuals “dedicated to expanding and improving AVEN beyond the forum” with the additional motive of setting AVEN up for possible NPO status, in the sense that it would lay the way for a structure that could manage funds.

1. We are a team that is in a quest to become more and more professional. What abilities and talents do you have to help towards this end?

2. AVEN Project Team is a large time commitment. There are only five of us to do what is needed. Do you have anything that would stand in the way from you doing you duty to the Project Team.

1. Proofing-reading skills; I can write well, albeit clinically. Talents… I’d say I’m creative, but you’ve already got Cleander.

2. I do have a life beyond AVEN and have other time commitments, which include being an undergraduate in microbiology. So yes, sometimes I have exams, and I have a pathology midterm tomorrow, but here I am.

Did you know that Listeria monocytogenes co-opts the actin in your cells and uses it to shoot around like a comet and out to invade other cells? It’s

As people have noted many times in this thread already, and elsewhere as well, the goal of having a PT is to have organized visibility and education efforts. To that end, a lot of communication with people, both members of the AVEN community, as well as non-AVEN individuals (such as researchers, reporters, members of other asexual communities, and members of other communities that deal with sexuality, to name a few).

How confident are you in your ability to communicate in a clear, concise, yet informative way? That is, if someone seems to misunderstand your previous attempts to communicate with them, what are some methods you might employ to deal with the miscommunication?

When I deal with a miscommunication (they happen to everyone regardless of clarity and conciseness), I first seek to understand exactly where the misunderstanding arose from by trying to place myself in the context of the other parties involved. I then try to resolve the misunderstanding by discussing it (and apologizing if the miscommunication was inadvertently harmful in any way).

While on the issue of asking the candidates AVEN history questions, who was the first person on AVEN to use the term "demisexual," and what the date of its first use on the AVEN forums?

Sonofzeal (21 February 2006)was the first on the forums that I know of to use the term ‘demisexual’ and they originally coined the term to mean “someone who has both sexual and asexual traits. Or, someone who's borderline asexual. Or, someone who's sexual but not conventionally so and off the "low" end in some areas. Whichever makes most sense to you and fits with how you use the term "asexual".”

This isn't related to AVEN history, but it's pretty important. As a member of the Project Team, you will have access to information that you may or may not be able to share with the general membership. Have you ever released information before it was ready to be made public? Are you able to keep certain information secret?

I have never been an information leak. I have the utmost respect for confidentiality and privacy, just as I like my own information to be respected. Yes, I can keep information secret.

1.) Digging through old threads and webpages could become tedious after a while. Do you feel that you could do extensive research on a particular subject while maintaining your motivation and enthusiasm? Please give a brief explanation of why you feel you would/not be able to do so.

b.) If there should ever come a time when you've simply had enough of researching one certain subject, when do you think that would be? (In other words, what specifically would push you over the edge and make you say, "I'm done with this"?)

c.) Should the situation in (b) occur, what would you then do?

1.) I’ve been digging though old threads, the internet archive, mailing lists, blogs, and so on for about a year on this particular topic, and my enthusiasm hasn’t waned yet, so I don’t really expect it to, though to be reasonable, it’s impossible for me to know for sure.

b.) There is always more research to be done, more threads to connect, more trails to pursue, and that is a driving force for me, but not just in the area of asexual history. I have a love for the pursuit of understanding, and that particular trait is not going away.

c.) Take some time to work on something different. Look for inspiration. Tackle things from a different angle.

- Teamwork can be tough. How would you deal if you felt like somebody wasn't putting forth as much effort as the rest of the team?

- What would you do if you realized you didn't have the available time, commitment level, and/or passion that you initially thought you did for the Project Team?

-It wouldn’t really worry me, people have reasons (external to AVEN or not) for doing what they do, and I respect that. The people on the PT run because they want what’s best for AVEN, so I imagine if they feel they are still doing that, they are staying on for good reason.

-I would give the backroom as much advance warning as possible, and step down.

EDIT: I need to go sleep, so I'll be back for your questions later, ithaca.

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A more general, non-AVEN-history-related question:

As people have noted many times in this thread already, and elsewhere as well, the goal of having a PT is to have organized visibility and education efforts. To that end, a lot of communication with people, both members of the AVEN community, as well as non-AVEN individuals (such as researchers, reporters, members of other asexual communities, and members of other communities that deal with sexuality, to name a few).

How confident are you in your ability to communicate in a clear, concise, yet informative way? That is, if someone seems to misunderstand your previous attempts to communicate with them, what are some methods you might employ to deal with the miscommunication?

Online? Pretty confident. Especially as keyboards come with a 'backspace' key, so one can erase what one wrote and start again, just in case one thinks one wasn't being clear enough. Offline, that's another story. As you can't take back words you have spoken.

Hmm... Am I just imagining things or have the only people that have asked questions in this thread (so far), been mods and PT members?

I'm sorry... you must have misunderstood me.

I was talking about online things that have already been expressed and communicated... how would you clear those up?

Ironically, the very hypothetical situation I seem to be asking about has come up. o.o

As for mods and PT members asking... which members of AVEN do you think are most involved in AVEN? lol

That's what I thought you meant at first, but then... Well, why I thought you meant offline communication as well, I honestly am not sure. Anyway, I'd say, 'I mean...' or What I mean is/what I meant was'...

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I was actually going to post something in here earlier but got sidetracked. =P Anyway, I'll start off the member questions.

Let me preface this by saying that while I obviously don't know exactly how the PT functions as a team, I believe that these are relevant questions for anyone who's going to be doing some sort of research, especially on a subject like the history of asexuality, where it might be difficult to find specific resources.

1.) Digging through old threads and webpages could become tedious after a while. Do you feel that you could do extensive research on a particular subject while maintaining your motivation and enthusiasm? Please give a brief explanation of why you feel you would/not be able to do so.

b.) If there should ever come a time when you've simply had enough of researching one certain subject, when do you think that would be? (In other words, what specifically would push you over the edge and make you say, "I'm done with this"?)

c.) Should the situation in (b) occur, what would you then do?

1: Yes. In one word: Persistence.

b). When I feel I've researched everything there is to research about said subject. But even so, it'd only be a matter of time before I'm back to it. As I really am persistent.

c). Move onto something else for a while.

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- Teamwork can be tough. How would you deal if you felt like somebody wasn't putting forth as much effort as the rest of the team?

- What would you do if you realized you didn't have the available time, commitment level, and/or passion that you initially thought you did for the Project Team?

Talk to them about it, see what's up.

Resign. Not immediately, though. I'd probably give a week's notice, at least.

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1- Have you ever done anything to help AVEN visibility in real life, meaning besides online?

2- If yes, what and when was the last time?

3- If no, why?

4- Are you planning of doing something in the next future besides online and what?

1: No.

3: The topic of Asexuality doesn't really come up in RL conversation. And I've never had to deal with ignorant responses. (So far).

4: I suppose you mean near future? Anyway, that would depend on whether a) the topic of Asexuality comes up in conversation and b) I'm faced with an ignorant response such as pretty much any response in the 'worst responses' thread.

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I'm sorry about my english mistake, thanks for making me notice :) i'm italian and i try to improve my english skills every day.

I want to be more clear about my question. My question is not related to the history-researcher position, but it's just to get to know the candidates better.

I know Asexuality is not a topic that comes up in real life conversation. I actually didn't mean if it randomly happened to talk about asexuality in any of your conversation.

I meant if you ever planned of doing something "active" for Asexuality visibility IRL, like maybe go talking to LGBT meetings or giving info at universities and alike.

So, my questions are not about coming out with family/friends or random conversation, but with visibility projects in your area.

i'll retype them:

1- Have you ever done anything to help AVEN visibility in real life in your area, meaning besides online?

2- If yes, what and when was the last time?

3- If no, why?

4- Are you planning of doing something in the near future besides online and what?

Thank you for your patience. ^_^

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How proficient are you with the forum software, considering it would be one of the main methods of communication that you will be using (i.e. do you know how to use the different tags available, do you know how to multiquote, do you know how to link directly to certain posts and not just the thread, etc, etc)?

How do you rate your proficiency on other forms of communication that act as tools for teamwork (e.g. email clients, Google Documents, etc)?

What useful tools for organizing, managing, and working with a group of people online do you know of, other than forums and email, considering much of the work done in PT would be over the Internet?

If you don't consider yourself proficient in any of these, how would you rate your willingness to learn and your ability to learn?

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