New Volunteers Needed!

[Jubal]

Another repost of this regular thread - we're looking for a number of additional volunteers to join the Exilian team! Our small core team, currently comprising four members (Chair/Exec, Treasurer, Tech officer, and Senior Moderator) is urgently in need of additional support to keep Exilian running.

All of the available roles will come with the best support we can give: we're happy to train people in their roles, and have a strong ethos of supporting our volunteer officers and ensuring help is at hand. For all roles, there will be volunteers around with experience in the role who can help with any problems or queries. If you have any questions about any of the posts and what they entail, please leave a comment below.

The roles are as follows, with the information on how to apply in the post below.



Social Media Officer

Key roles
The Social Media officer will help promote Exilian and our members' creative projects across our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and Mastodon). This role is subject to regular ratification votes by the voting members. A formal title choice of "despot" or "heteriarch" may be made by the successful applicant.

Important powers/functions
- Managing & building up Exilian's social media accounts
- Recruiting new members for the site
- Promoting Exilian's content
- Feeding back to the rest of staff on public perception of our activities

Regular tasks
- Schedule regular social media posts
- Engage & chat with interested parties on social media
- Find optimal audiences for specific pieces of content
- Directly message and invite creators to the website

Content Editor

Key roles
The Content Editor will be responsible for two significant areas: the Exilian Articles section, and the monthly newsletter Updates from the Forge. This is a wide role that involves commissioning and editing/formatting articles, as well as keeping an eye on news from across Exilian's activities. This role is subject to regular ratification votes by the voting members. A formal title choice of "despot" or "heteriarch" may be made by the successful applicant.

Important powers/functions
- Editorial control of Exilian's main front-end "voice" via our newsletters
- Commissioning & engaging with article writers
- Representing the needs of the content section in staff meetings

Regular tasks
- Editing & helping write "Updates from the Forge", our monthly newsletter, and getting it released on schedule
- Finding news items from across Exilian's activities that can go into the newsletter
- Finding volunteers to write weekly articles for the articles section
- Editing and formatting the articles and posting them on time

Membership Development Officer/Forum Admin

Key roles
The Membership Development officer is a more classical "forum admin" role. The holder of this post will be there to engage with and support creative project managers across the site. This role is subject to regular ratification votes by the voting members. A formal title choice of "despot" or "heteriarch" may be made by the successful applicant.

Important powers/functions
- Works with Exilian's creators and users to support their use of our website and other systems
- Wide-ranging remit to improve forum structures & functionality to help users
- Feeds back to other staff on how regular members & creative team leads are finding the website
- Responsible for keeping & updating our email list and getting monthly emails out to members

Regular tasks
- Greet new members, discuss projects with game developers and writers and be willing to engage with their work
- Get project developers settled into the site, creating new subforums for them where necessary
- Let developers and new members know about Exilian's democratic features/system and help enable them to take part
- Running creative competitions and/or game jams for the site
- Putting a brief email out once a month with links to our recent newsletter and announcements of other important upcoming events or similar

[Jubal]

How do I apply and what is the process?

Just post a reply below this post with any details you want about yourself. Applications in this thread are open on a rolling basis: after a round of posting advertisements, we usually leave it 1-2 weeks for applications, to allow multiple people to apply for the same role, so it may be a little while between you posting and your application being processed. You are not required to state any particular details as part of this; you could mention particular experiences or skills if you have them, but enthusiasm is probably the most important thing. This thread is the only application place & process: we are not accepting applications made by any other avenue. If you wish to, you're encouraged to make a thread in this subforum in which voting members can ask you questions.

If there are multiple applicants, the site's voting members (known as citizens) will elect one of them to the position; if there is only one, the citizens will be asked to ratify them in the position. If there are no applicants in two weeks' time, the role remains open until someone does apply and that application is then forwarded to the citizens.


Other FAQs

...can you explain what Exilian is?

Exilian is a nonprofit, volunteer collective that supports geeky creative projects. We've existed for over 10 years, and among other things along the way, we've run three small conventions, provided forums for classic game modification titles such as Warhammer: Total War and Mount & Blade Southern Realms, supported projects including the dieselpunk tabletop RPG Frozen Skies, the indie beat 'em up/roguelike Son of a Witch, and the ant-based strategy game Empires of the Undergrowth, and also hosted a wide range of other competitions, discussions, writing, artwork, and more. We quite like llamas, or possibly guanacos. There's a minor debate about that one. Anyway - if we're going to keep doing all this awesome stuff we need people to help us keep the infrastructure behind it running.

Who will I work with?

In any of these roles, you'll work with various other Exilian staff - in particular the executive officer & head of staff (currently both being done by Jubal, a digital humanities doctoral student based in Austria). On a day to day basis you're essentially your own boss, though you should maintain a line of communication with the head of staff; ultimately all staff answer to the citizens (voting members) of Exilian, which includes providing them with brief updates on the current state of the site's infrastructure on a twice-yearly basis, and occasional ratification votes to signal that members are happy for staff members to remain in post.

I don't think I have the skills for this job but I have time and would be willing to learn
Then you're very welcome to apply. Our current staff members have all the relevant skills and are happy to provide any training and mentoring needed. We do our best to take looking after our staff seriously, and we want new staff to get as much out of the role as possible - if that means we provide help teaching new skills, then great!

I have a question not covered here

Comment below, PM me, or email exilian (at ) exilian (dot) co (dot) uk - we're very happy to answer any queries

[Leafly]

Hello everyone,

I would like to volunteer for the Content Editor post. I can create copy for newsletters and articles.

Kind regards,
Leafly

[Jubal]

Duly moved forward for consideration, many thanks