View and vote on the article here: Interview with CinC icklenewt
Interview with CinC icklenewt| Category | | | Summary | | Commander in Chief icklenewt talks about her recent promotion, the plans she has for CyberArmy as a whole - and a few other bits and pieces about herself. |
| | Body | Myers: What was it about CA that caught your attention?
icklenewt: I was interested in CA as a whole - the idea of the challenges, the 'army' style CoC, and the brigades. Generally it was an organisation trying to help fellow netizens, which really appealed to me - specifically the learning/teaching aspect, as I knew absolutely nothing (computer related!) when I signed up.
Myers: As you progressed through the ranks, what was your motivation for CinC?
icklenewt: I never believed I would become CinC, and rank didn't motivate me in my brigade work. I was motivated by rank when zebulun was around I suppose, but that was the aspect of completing challenges. I always wanted to contribute to the community and help in some form, the more I was able to help then the better. However, when I received my first non-challenge promotion (kernel) then I was very happy indeed. It was recognition for my work and showed that I was helping and being useful!
Myers: You were recently made CinC. Everyone has their own motivation after seeing what their predecessors have done for CyberArmy - what changes and improvements do you intend to make with your leadership?
icklenewt: I see my role as leading and organising the community. That might be obvious, but in implementation I want more direction and input to come from the membership itself rather than one person (CinC) - though final decisions will have to be made by me with consideration to the input given. I want to make it clear that every single member here needs to give input both in the form of suggestions/views and in work within the community. CA exists through its members, so we need to know what members want and do our best to work towards that.
I hope that I will be an approachable commander and be better at opening up decisions and discussion to the membership. Depending on the extent to this is achieved, then I feel this would stand out as different from previous CinC's. Obviously I hope it will be the right way to approach the role for the current climate within CA.
Myers: As a developer for CyberArmy, what improvements have you made and seen over the past few years? How have they affected you and your working skills, and what made them so successful?
icklenewt: Well I think the main changes are obvious - the site redesign, the projects system and the library. During my time as a developer those are the main changes to dinah, iirc. The projects system and the library have altered things greatly, adding some very useful tools/features to the community. What we have also managed over the past year or so is to process feedback requests quicker. Because I've run feedback for a long time now, when I started to develop for dinah then I could quickly implement some of the features requested, reducing the time taken to respond to users.
The change that I think has been most beneficial for CA in recent times is the library. It has brought content back to ca.net, rather than people having to go to satellite sites. It has also reduced the websites we need to maintain. These effects are important in drawing more people to the main website, and freeing up members to work elsewhere.
Working with dinah has allowed me to aid CA at a more fundamental level, and made my work more obvious to the membership. Something that most people are not aware of is that I had never even seen perl/mod-perl before coding for Dinah, let alone know how to code it. Now I've done a lot of large modifications to Dinah, so I think it is possible for any programmer to give it a go - and we do need to get more coders on board!
Myers: From your post statement located here (From your topic "The Next Chapter") From a recruitment point of view, a lot of people come and go. What is your vision for expanding and retaining the community through the brigades?
icklenewt: Well I want to raise that kind of discussion with the members. If I choose something for us to concentrate on then it may not reflect what people are actually interested in - but polling views from the whole membership will give us a better idea of why people are actually here. As I've stated a lot before, I do believe that educating is a key goal in this community and that will remain a focus.
But, deciding on other specific areas to work on - or subjects to educate people with, will need to be a discussion for all. What are the current issues that netizens are concerned about? Where are there holes in information? What methods of education could we pursue that are less common elsewhere, and are clear to learn from? There are a lot of questions we can ask that will help us figure out what it is we want to work on, and where we can make a difference. So, in the near future we will need to address these, and get as much input as possible!
Myers: How do you feel about CyberArmy, and do you feel you're in the right position to lead the community?
icklenewt: My honest feelings about CyberArmy are that I am worried about where we find ourselves today. For a long time our numbers have dwindled, and with this we have had problems maintaining a level of productivity or advancement. Although some members try to point out the problems of the past, the realism is that different things have contributed to where we are today - some out of our control; now we need to move forward. We have to realise that we need to adapt and assess our position.
We need to build ourselves in a way that is maintainable with few members, but be open to expansion in order to offer work to any new members that pass by. We also need to be aware that every member here counts - we need every single person to be involved and be able to use their skill set to help the community advance. It is also important that we consider the issues and threats that apply to the internet and technology *today*, not 5 years ago - and see how we can educate on these. Obviously the other goals and ways in which we move forward will depend on input from the membership in future discussions.
I do think I am in the right position to lead the community, though I think only time will tell exactly how suitable I am for the position and how well I apply myself! It may also depend on the route the membership wants to take - as if they wanted to focus on an area I know nothing about then this will be more of a challenge in terms of leadership. So we shall see!
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On behalf of the CyberArmy Academy and community, I would like to thank icklenewt for her time in providing this interview.
Gamma Lieutenant Myers
CyberArmy Academy Class Organization
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library. |
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