Posted by Russell Watt in Questions for the Candidates - All Tickets
This is just a general question for all candidates, both those in currently and those who may run between now and the end of the nomination period.

Assume I am a new member who joined let’s say 2 months ago and am currently on one ship in the Academy. (I believe that two months is enough time to qualify this hypothetical new member to be involved as a voter/nominator/endorser/etc in the election.) This member has decided to vote in this election, but has no idea who anyone is in the club outside of those on their Academy ship, and no one running in this election is on their ship, that is, they know none of you from a bar of soap.

Could you share a bit about yourselves such as
1 where in the world you are from,
2 what role/s you currently play/perform in the club,
3 your favourite and least favourite roles in the club,
4 why you joined the club,
5 why you’ve stayed in the club for as long as you have been here, and
6 advice for a new role player to help them in their role playing,
Please.

This is to help this hypothetical new member get to know about you and the club.

Let’s call this new member … Gobias Koffi. And Gobias is using a smart phone to post so doesn’t want to read large blocks of text, such as this post.

Many thanks, Russell

Hi Gobias,

I am from Illinois, in the United States. I’m in what you’d call a “micro-urban” area, so there is a nice town around me, but drive a mile out and it’s all cornfields until you get up towards Chicago.

Currently, in the club, I am on TECH. TECH is the group that handles all of the technological portions of the club - the server, the website, all of that. I was actually the primary author of TECH’s framework - it was many years of hard work that I am glad came to fruition. TECH recently deployed the site’s new software that was codenamed Exodus. I was the design lead on that project. The first sketches of the site you’re using now were drawn by me back in February of 2013. I don’t have any active RP positions, I’m going through kind of a difficult time in fiction writing because I’m so absorbed in non-fiction stuff these days - but I have a pretty long RP history too.

My favorite roles in the club from an OOC position are probably TECH (shocking, I know), and maybe AFComm. You get the benefit of interacting with a fleet, but not the quite the same amount of trouble. From an IC position, I loved playing the CO of the USS Montgomery, Captain Klinger. It’s my best-written role every, and someday I’d like to bring him back. I also like playing CNS positions, but I started out as an Engineer. My least favorite is probably Security.

I joined the club… Close to eight years ago. I was doing a lot of fan fiction writing back then, around the Fallout games specifically. I was watching The Next Generation and was in one of my “obsessive” phases where I needed a lot more content. I was googling around for Star Trek fan fiction and found STF. I joined up on an Academy ship, was a very timid writer, but really enjoyed it.

I stayed in the club because I developed a lot of friendships here. Since this is a campaign setting, I won’t name-drop, but there are people here who I have probably spoken to every night or close to it for the past eight years. Without a doubt I am most notable for my OOC work - I’ve been Fleet Commander for several fleets, Internet Director, and President once. I stay in the club because I like the work that goes on in those capacities, even if it has been tremendously difficult, at times.

I would say the most important piece of advice I was ever given (and ignored, as is the tradition) when I joined was this: don’t overload yourself. Quality and Quantity are very often close to mutually exclusive. There are some writers in this club who can be on ten ships, post constantly, and keep their quality up - but they’re few and far between. I know I’m not one of them. For a long time, I had a Rule of Two - no more than two characters. Now I pretty much keep only one active character, and I have to be confident in the ship, the crew, and my own writing to go forward with it. My other advice is read! If you don’t read, you won’t be able to write (well). Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling with that kind of writer’s block a lot lately.

Hope that answers your questions, welcome to the club Gobias!

-Thomas
–Adam W / Thomas B