Good day!

[Asgand]

Good day fellow nerds 

I stumbled across this forum whilst looking online for volunteering opportunities in the UK. I am pleased to see communities like this still exist online and I'm looking forward to exploring the site and have conversations with you all.

So I have a degree in English Literature but decided not to become a teacher. I still needed a real job so I work full-time for a major car manufacturer in the UK.

I have a wide range of geek related interests. MMO's & PC Gaming, books, writing, tabletop, cards, mobile games, films, comics, etc. I've applied for volunteer/admin/support roles via your forum and I'm sure I'll at least post more in the future.

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend & looking forward to talking to you more 

[Jubal]

Hello, welcome! I'm Jubal (known as James in real-space), I'm a junior academic working in Vienna (though I'm originally from Norfolk). Do make yourself at home, look round and let us know if you have any queries about how anything works

[Asgand]

Awesome stuff! Thank you for the welcome. I'm Tom and known as Asgand or Adelbern online.

For anybody interested my name comes from an MMO called Guild Wars. One of my favourite characters Gwen is assisted by the ghost of a dead warrior - his name is Asgand. The name is quite unique and not used often but sounds quite Nordic and is the name of my character in other MMO's also.

Whats the main idea behind the forum/site? What are you looking to achieve?

[Jubal]

Mine uses my actual initials with vaguely Punic names (I'm JubalBarca on a lot of sites). I was going through a Carthaginian phase when I was about 13/14 and it kind of stuck.

So, I guess we have a fairly broad remit for "support cool geeky creative stuff, especially of an indie/hobbyist/unusual nature". Originally Exilian was mainly a game modding site, which then expanded to include sections for writing etc etc, and then shifted more into indie game dev stuff as the scene for the sorts of total conversion mods we made shrank in recent years. It's also generally expanded beyond the site in various ways, particularly in that we have our social media accounts which we use to plug/support people's projects, and we've run some conventions in the past though those have sadly stopped since I moved out of the UK. Our formal mission statement is found in clause 1a of the Constitution, which stipulates all the various details about how Exilian is run etc (it's collectively owned by the site's voting members):

a) Exilian exists to:
- Promote and support independent and hobbyist creative and academic projects of all kinds, especially those created by its members and citizens
- Provide resources and support to help individuals, especially its members and citizens, with independent and hobbyist creative endeavours
- Inform and inspire both members of Exilian and members of the public about creative and academic topics, especially those that are less well explored or known
- Promote a friendly atmosphere among all its citizens and members
- Give its members and citizens a place to talk about things of their choosing

These days, the main things we're doing are providing the forum space/keeping that running, helping to plug indie & hobbyist creative projects, and providing/writing/hosting interesting articles to give inspiration and ideas to people doing any sort of interesting creative things. We occasionally also run on-site competitions, do charity fundraising, bits of advocacy for the sorts of creators we work with (when there was a big fiasco over Patreon making a really messy set of changes to its terms of service, we helped organise a petition against them & compiled a rapid article on patreon alternatives to help people who wanted those, for example). I guess we also have quite a lot of useful tutorials and guides and suchlike across the site which it'd be good to expand on and promote better.