Remind me Never EVER look at AVEN again!

[PiF]

PiF, how many clubs have you been involved with that relied on volunteers to work daily for a period of years?

In real life quiet a few, internet is quite different as people tend to be short interest/fashion based and fickle..but I would add to this, Whilst asking for years for a system of accountability and a level of community involvement from those who volunteers....I have also said the workload such as checking every thread and every post every day is the biggest waste of volunteer time in aven and unnecessary...their job is not to police the forum but enable it...they have however become police, throwing people out, putting up more walls than ever before in avens history and the more walls that go up they are not just the locking out others but also locking out the members from cross community involvement.

It is the mods who are removing community involvement as so few interact and more than any other mod team...have created a wider divide of them and us and turning their back on their community is at the heart of it

but in return can I ask you Nancy ....how often have you seen some belong to something and the longer they are involved, the less involved they become but id anyone dares to say something to them like, "others could take your place you know if you do not want to do it any more?" and they come back with " do you know how long I've been here, I'm entitled to do f*ck all" Those will always be the people that refuse to be accountable

I ask, because I think you are overestimating the willingness of the average person to commit themselves to doing unpaid labor for an extended amount of time. Of course there will be a FEW who are willing to help indefinitely, but they are a very small minority. Most volunteers burn out quickly and lose interest.

I've never agreed entirley with this, I think if you as leaders of that community stimulate and interact within that community then in return often that community stimulates you. The lack of leadership is well know within avens backroom so the lazy fall back onto..."the members know f*ck all and we do not have to interact or justify ourselves to them"

It's just like work..at the momment, aven has a leadership where most of them do not want to or are unable to be community involved and often put down members genuine concerns and some of them act like DJ, they really do not want to be involved in the community, and their absence of involvement confirms this, but they do not want anyone else doing it because that is all they have.

A better question might be to ask those people Nancy, why do you stay in aven if you do not want to be involved with the community, refuse to be accountable to avens members and stifle any desperately needed changes for no other reason than you do not want too and see members almost as an inconveniance.....why are you still there?

[SkyWorld]

I can't speak for everyone, but I can say this. As much as I loved being part of the team, the team had a couple people that did basically all the work. I've noticed that with almost all the areas of AVEN I've been on. Anyone who has been on any section of admods knows that too. Meh, I might go back but right now I don't think I could handle being part of the admod team without my biggest supports and encouragements from the people that regularly helped me.

So, I stepped down.

I do think that if I were to go back and run for admods I'd get in again. Right now though, due to the giant slant in work ethic/lacking I'm slightly tiffed at asexual visibility and I'm going to enjoy not being a part of admods. It's going to be weird no longer having all the forums, but eh, comes with stepping down right? No more drama llamas for me

Preach! Such a shame likes are gone.

I've been gone from apos for a while and kind of behind. Granted, I did not read every single post, at least not thoroughly.

For a person who supported the idea of term limits, now that I think about it, AVEN will probably never be a true democracy and should probably stop pretending to be (and yes, that probably means getting rid of elections). I know that sounds absurd (and probably cause outrage), but I just really think it's not working out and only making things way more political and stressful than it has to be, at least AVEN's admods in general.

All I'm saying is, there should probably just be a new approach. But, eh...

[PiF]

true very few want to run for the team but removing elections is a bandage on a wound, it's still bleeding underneath....A bit like the bullshit around putting the walls up around forums.."honest, it's for the members safety"..what a crock of shit...it was to hide people like me posting links to see how silly aven had become as snowflake central and how it rarely resembles the asexual forum it once was

so whether you remove elections..put up walls...keeping doing tos updates that keeps telling the members the admods know best...ignoring members year on year term limit requests....you will always have the same issues as long as you have the same people back there..the rest is just trying to hide it

change the rules to hide the problem...doesn't make the problem go away...the problem is IN admods, not outside

agree there should be a new approach....but that is like saying the u.s. should have a female president...But really, Hilary?

Every step taken has always been to protect the admods at any cost, ..even at the cost of increasing the them and us divide..and removing what little accountability there is

Will there come a time when aven admods pick there own team?..probably..but at the momment, with the team you have...I would say your about 9 admods to be removed away from that

[KAGU143]

To be fair, if Apositive ever grows enough to need additional admods, I will pick them. Or, well, more accurately, I will offer the position to members that I have observed for a while, and whose judgement I trust. They won't be drafted or anything like that, but I do NOT want popular elections.
I think it's necessary to do things this way because I want Apositive to stay as consistent as possible despite the ever-changing demographics of the asexual community.

AVEN's identity is adrift because they have no active leader and they are governed by a series of temporary committees. I see that as a recipe for disaster.

[Spectre De Occulus]

I've had my fair share of problems on the site.

[Tanwen]

But you don't have a ton of regulations, you treat us like adults and in the main expect us to sort out our own problems.

[Spectre De Occulus]

Tho I do like this site as an escape from that one, just so much ado about nothing over there but Imma keep my profile up and update still on AVEN because while I do have my escape, Im not letting them chase me off.

[KAGU143]

It's good to see you finally de-lurking, Spectre. *waves*

Yes, Tan. I sincerely believe that the majority of people of all ages will act respectfully if they are treated respectfully. I mean, there will be some rare exceptions, but for the most part I find that people appreciate being treated like sentient beings.

[Spectre De Occulus]

Thanks KAGU143

[PiF]

If you have a look at the tos updates or announcements most are "you will do as you are told" very few are member led and it's pretty rare they make any rules to govern themselves with improvements or member wishes

I agree avens identity is adrift, look now and it is as much about gender, trans, sexuals and lgbt rather than it's identified target of asexuals. The whole point of aven was that there tonnes of other forums for sexuals, lgbt, trans, and gender but hardly any for asexuals

Certianly on the rules side, if you have admods unwilling to get involved in that community but refuse to step down then it seems a bit peculiar the way they deal with it is to increase the amount of admods, more than ever in avens history, and increase to tos to police members but also make the visibility network, less visible by putting walls up

Avens admods have turned from community involved enablers.....to distant and non relatable forum police

Too many admods..too many rules....too much policing...not enough community admod involvement...not enough admod accountability and openess...not enough of an asexual forum.

Welcome spectre by the way

[Tanwen]

Wow, now 3 mods have left AVEN's back room . Certainly a time of upheaval

[PiF]

3 out of 5 project team walked out....now 3 admods are walking out

When you look at what some of the trouble is

mods should not be checking every post everyday...that is a receipe for disaster and f*ck that for a game of soldiers..I have said this for years..they are supposed to be volunteer enablers..not full time forum police

some in the backroom are wearing the colour but not doing the role..we wouldn't tolerate it at work, in college so why there, why are some doing nothing and letting the others do it all?

Accountability and openness... since when did that not become acceptable for those elected by the community..since when did accountability stop because someone said "they might see what we do"?

You said the two year terms would cause more elections....using your way..we are about to have 6 elections in 4 weeks!!

A visibility site that most agree they lurked a lot before they joined...now has walls up all over the forum to "protect" the few whilst denying other noobies the same right...if visibility is being visible, how does drawing barriers up between them and us work?

you are getting more and more mass walk outs, more regulalry

Openly to those in the backrrom..even if you do not like me...some of the others in here..some in aven or those you rigged bans for just to keep them out

If your pride is so bad that you would rather see aven fall than make some very simple and easy changes..and they are easy..then please ask yourself...are you the same person who joined up to help asexual visibility through aven...or are you likely to be one of those through false pride and stubbornness.... about to take it down?

[SubHuman]

Wonder when Pooks become a mod again. 3 days, then he is back to a member again after 4 days

[PiF]

He does hold the record, he's in and out more than a porn stars love wand.

[PiF]

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/1407 ... own-forum/

Thankfully it seems to have been locked. Black and white there is no need, most members are 6 months members and have little interest in how the site comments or site archives works. The job it needs to do is already being done so doesn't need it's own forum unless they are after another mod position although on that route i'd offer..so far, quantity has not beaten quality

I saw a question and an attempt at an answer

What would be the reasoning for it?

I think one benefit of moving it out would be higher visibility.

I would say ...erm how could it help visibility..you just put a great big wall up around it? surely you can't have higher visibility if you drastically reduce the amount of people who can see it?

Simply put, the claim to increase visibility of that forum is in direct contradiction of the recent actions to reduce the amount of people who can see it

On this basis, it would seem the reason given may not be the actual reason behind it.

[Tanwen]

AVEN's problems continue and the new server is not anticipated until 'some time in the next year'

[PiF]

To be fair to Michael I think he did announce the server upgrade would not be done till next year

Our plan is to move to a new cloud based server in the next year, which will be better able to handle the weight of traffic we experience.

The mistake they made was opening up donations, this is the internet generation, they expect everything to happen at the speed of a google search.

What they should have done was NOT open donations until they had a definite date or at least a month before any move upgrade.

What they have done once again through not thinking things through ...is given them the opportunity for some to say..."hey I paid my money where is the upgrade?" ......from now till they actually upgrade

[Tanwen]

Something needs to be done sooner than that - I've spent over an hour today just trying to make three posts! Seems it doesn't like posts longer than one or two lines! Anyway haven't time to waste like that and how are they going to hold the elections that are needed after the 3 resignations or are the current team going to take up the slack?

[PiF]

I think it would help if the team involved could explain why given the same people will be doing the site swap, why it can't be done now rather than later...if for no other reason than to temper down the..wtf is happening

Again perception...here is our donation page for the server swap..keep paying in..but we are not telling you when or why it will take so long.

I have noticed the site is slower than even when they had squirrels

I rarely look to aven for correct asexual anything really as it is now more a social media forum than a asexual one..but for those who do use it a lot..it must be frustrating

Michael..I know you still look you rascal ...it might help the team, forum, members and the board perhaps if someone from the board could explain the current slowing, why the server swap cannot be done now and if not why, a clearer timescale than sometime next year...trust me...this will help you

[Tanwen]

If it is left for so long, then AVEN could lose ground it may never recover - which would be very sad. On the other hand. if people do lose patience and stop posting so much it could ese the pressure on the server which may then be able to cope. There was a thread suggesting a permanent move to the back up board for certain fora. That could also help - it wouldn't matter about JFF and the Arcade and that could help.

[KAGU143]

They could always come over here!


We're not using even a fraction of our server capacity.

[Tanwen]

Now there's a thing but they'd be far too 'proud' to accept help

I can't remember if you can read Site Comments, PiF, in case you can't in the htread suggesting some threads be moved to the back up board, Rising Sun posted

Do you know that Proboards, the backup "host", don't consider themselves a host, but the only owners of the database, they don't let anyone access any administration tools, they even refuse giving or selling databases and sue anyone who doesn't accept it ? (Same with Forumotion btw) Doing that kind of "migration" would mean giving Proboards full ownership of part of AVEN content, and permanently, with no legal way of ever getting it back. For nonprofit organizations, this is especially problematic

This would explain why admods can't declassify your disciplinary thread.

[KAGU143]

If they're going to solicit donations, why don't they just BUY a freakin' server? They are things. They can be purchased.
All data on a privately owned server is privately owned. Businesses do it all the time.

[PiF]

So does Hilary

[Tanwen]

If researchers can't access the site, then they'll go elsewhere.

[PiF]

True, so will lurkers/potential new members who are already restricted.

As much as they claim 83,375 members, on a daily basis the amount of contributors there is probably less than around 60-80 people a day contributing....that is a small enough number that a poor performing technically poor forum could suffer a large lack of visibility if quite a few walk away.

[Spectre De Occulus]

So I posted a new thread on AVEN and the shit hit the fan again cause some folks got salty.
http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/1409 ... 1061793923

[PiF]

Those links to some parts of the aven can't be seen by non members, apparently it aids visibility

[KAGU143]

How badly do you really want to see it?
I looked at it; it's still AVEN. Some good comments and some WTF?s, just like always.
Judging from the way that they can't agree on anything, you would think they were humans or something . . . sheesh.

[Spectre De Occulus]

Oh right ,just remembered that the Hot Box is invisible to non-members , my bad.
I don't care if they don't agree about stuff, it's the way alot of them handle things.