Difference between revisions of "Community"

Revision as of 10:26, 12 June 2007

Community

Overview

The community on AVEN has around 10,000 registered members, though it is difficult to determine how many are active at any given time. Thanks to a respectful culture and to the hard work of the Admod Team the community is free of many of the disrespectful attitudes and flame wars which plague most communities on the internet, and remains an effective safe space for people to explore their identities and relationships. Discussion in the community ranges from personal to philosophical to inane, and the forum is actively used as an arena to build relationships or all types. Though the majority of forum participants identify as asexual, many active members also identify as sexual or questioning.

Like most online social networks, AVEN has a high rate of member turnover and the majority of member accounts on AVEN have not been active for some time, though efforts are being made to keep AVEN members engaged. Several major cities have reached a critical mass of AVEN members and have begun to hold regular meetups, though the overwhelming majority of the community still communicates exclusively online.

What We're Doing

Community Engagement

Not everyone has time to keep up with discussions on the forums. An important part of building community is creating an easy way for members to stay updated and involved. Media targeted at the AVEN community serves a vital role in keeping users engaged, creating a sense of common culture and driving discussion within the community.

Projects

• AVENues is a monthly newsletter which provides news, art, poetry and discussion from different AVENites.
• Love from the Asexual Underground is a weekly (sometimes) podcast put out by AVENguy, which focuses on issues surrounding asexual relationships.

Local Meetups

As AVEN's membership grows, meetups have begun to occur regularly in a few major cities around the world. These meetups are largely social, though local groups in Berlin and San Francisco have begun taking local actions. Meetups are arranged ad hoc in the Meetup Mart in the AVEN forum, here in the wiki, on the AVEN Frappr and through local e-mail lists. There is currently no system for connecting these different planning systems, or for coordinating meetups in general.

Ideas

• Let's do some Meetup Coordination so that we can support the formation of local groups and track where local communities are growing.--AVENguy 05:06, 19 January 2007 (EST)

Data Collection

The [SQL] database which runs AVEN provides basic statistical information about our membership, such as the number of registered members. The [Census Forum] provides interesting but largely unscientific polls aimed at the AVEN membership.

An effort is underway in the Project Team to create an AVEN Survey to track more in-depth data about AVEN's active membership.

Ideas

• It might be possible to create a system to track the number of current active members on AVEN using the SQL database. This could potentially feed into a live AVEN Stats Page--AVENguy 05:06, 19 January 2007 (EST)

Projects

• AVEN Survey

Events

We are not currently planning any regional or online events, if you want to post one here!

What You Can Do

• Write for AVENues or submit something to Love from the Asexual Underground
• Plan a local meetup or help figure out how to do Meetup Coordination