Aro website - help us fund it!!

[bydontost]

The aro website is happening! We'd be grateful for help with the costs for domain, hosting and e-mail, so if you can and want to support this project your money would be very much appreciated. You can chip in here:
https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8e0zrbpbIW

 

The website is going to aim to be an official front for aromanticism, featuring faq, resources, e-mail contact for press/media, glossary and such. 
Currently the team is me, Magni @Magni, Neir @running.tally, HotRamen @HotRamen, and @bananaslug aka aroacepagans on tumblr.

 

We'd be happy to answer questions should any arise too

[Neir]

I'm the person primarily handling the funds at the moment, so if anyone has issues with the fund specifically, I can be contacted.  

 

We have a thread running about our organization name that explains the purpose and layout of the website as well: 

 

[Mark]

On 4/19/2019 at 10:25 PM, bydontost said:

The website is going to aim to be an official front for aromanticism, featuring faq, resources, e-mail contact for press/media, glossary and such. 
Currently the team is me, Magni @Magni, Neir @running.tally, HotRamen @HotRamen, and @bananaslug aka aroacepagans on tumblr.

A problem I see here the lack of allosexual representation.
What are your plans to address this issue before anything goes live?

TBH I'm a lot more concerned with what will (and won't) be on this site than what it's called.

[eatingcroutons]

8 hours ago, Mark said:

A problem I see here the lack of allosexual representation.
What are your plans to address this issue before anything goes live?

@bydontost is alloaro. I know her well, and can absolutely vouch for her dedication to the aro community as a whole, and inclusivity for alloaros specifically. She and I hosted the second Carnival of Aros precisely because we wanted to build something positive out of the dog's breakfast it started with. 

[bydontost]

15 hours ago, Mark said:

A problem I see here the lack of allosexual representation.
What are your plans to address this issue before anything goes live?

We're going to be an aromanticism site, not asexual + aromantic site, which means asexuality itself won't be a focus. We'll also have some resources for allosexual aros. Since aromantic communities in general are less established than ace ones and ace ones have some resources on aromanticism, we'll end up with a lot of links to ace+aro resources (for example in the "in-person groups" section, which has groups for aces and aros together). The solution to that is that we'll specify which resources are specific to aros and which are aspec, so that people who want to interact with the aro-specific ones will be able to access them easily. And, as @eatingcroutons pointed out, I myself am allosexual, so this perspective is definitely not going to be overlooked and while there may be a disproportion in resources, in the informational sections we will be including allosexual and asexual parts of the aros' experience both.

[Mark]

8 hours ago, bydontost said:

We're going to be an aromanticism site, not asexual + aromantic site, which means asexuality itself won't be a focus.

I would be rather more comfortable with this project had a majority aro allo leadership.

 

8 hours ago, bydontost said:

Since aromantic communities in general are less established than ace ones and ace ones have some resources on aromanticism, we'll end up with a lot of links to ace+aro resources (for example in the "in-person groups" section, which has groups for aces and aros together).

Will you ask such groups what they do to specifically include aro allo people before deciding how to list them? Especially if they have a history of being ace groups.
In the case of many written resources a better option than linking might be a rewrite and reference.
This applies even to aromantic terms. Be they the fairly obscure quoiromantic to aromantic itself. Given that there are some rather poor definitions around which are easy to find. An ideal medium to long term plan would be to get the likes of AVEN to link to an aro resource site for all matters aro.
There's also a huge need for resources about romantic coded  behaviour, romance repulsion, monogamy repulsion, how to communicate with alloromantics about aromanticism in ways which are easy for them to understand.
 

 

[bydontost]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

I would be rather more comfortable with this project had a majority aro allo leadership.

 

Understandable, however at the moment we don't have a majority of aro allo leadership and identity was a secondary criterion when picking members.

1 hour ago, Mark said:

Will you ask such groups what they do to specifically include aro allo people before deciding how to list them? Especially if they have a history of being ace groups.
In the case of many written resources a better option than linking might be a rewrite and reference.
This applies even to aromantic terms. Be they the fairly obscure quoiromantic to aromantic itself. Given that there are some rather poor definitions around which are easy to find. An ideal medium to long term plan would be to get the likes of AVEN to link to an aro resource site for all matters aro.
There's also a huge need for resources about romantic coded  behaviour, romance repulsion, monogamy repulsion, how to communicate with alloromantics about aromanticism in ways which are easy for them to understand.

We haven't yet, but we're going to ask them about their policies about including allo aros. Due to the nature of this project, it may be not finished when the site goes live, but we're going to work on that. As for the links, yeah, what I meant was that the references would be to ace-first sites/groups/communities.
Our glossary isn't going to be a collection of links and we're right now in the process of tracking down coinages, divergences in use and all that. We're especially aware of the issue with quoiromantic and its definitions. And our plan is to be that resource for all matters aro. 

 

As for the resources about romantic coded behaviour, romance repulsion, monogamy repulsion and talking about aromanticism with allos - thanks for bringing those up, we have resources in mind for romance repulsion and explaining aromanticism to allos, we'll write in romantic coded behavior as a project and as for monogamy repulsion, I'm not sure if it's an aromantic issue, could you elaborate/provide a source?

[Mark]

19 hours ago, bydontost said:

As for the resources about romantic coded behaviour, romance repulsion, monogamy repulsion and talking about aromanticism with allos - thanks for bringing those up, we have resources in mind for romance repulsion and explaining aromanticism to allos, we'll write in romantic coded behavior as a project and as for monogamy repulsion, I'm not sure if it's an aromantic issue, could you elaborate/provide a source?

I seem to have ended up effectively coining the term monogamy repulsion as a "cousin" of romance repulsion.
Whilst I've brought up monogamy, be it of the sexual, social or activity variety as something I don't want do at all in several places. I've only found people agreeing with me that they feel similarly on an allosexual aromantic Facebook group. My experience with polyamory forums is there tends to be a consensus of monogamy as desirable/non-monogamy as hard. As shown in this article. 
I think that romance repulsion and monogamy repulsion things experienced far more often by aromantics than alloromantics. Which makes them important on a site intended to educate, and inform about aromaticism.
Similarly Amatonormativity is not aro specific, whilst possibly of more importance to aros than aces. 

There are articles like this one which critique the Relationship Escalator from allo ace and aro ace points of view. With, of course,  any aro allo perspective missing.

[Coyote]

On 4/22/2019 at 12:53 PM, Mark said:

There's also a huge need for resources about romantic coded  behaviour, romance repulsion, monogamy repulsion, how to communicate with alloromantics about aromanticism in ways which are easy for them to understand.

 

3 hours ago, Mark said:

There are articles like this one which critique the Relationship Escalator from allo ace and aro ace points of view. With, of course,  any aro allo perspective missing. 

 

...Dunno to what extent you're interested in suggestions, but if there's a topic that you'd like to see more people talking about and writing on -- which could be a useful step there, towards getting an even broader sense of what could go into a resource or guide -- then that topic could be a good theme choice for a Carnival of Aros.

 

'Course, there's plenty of room for any newly-launching project to be generative in its own right. Not trying to talk anybody down from that. Just saying, that's an option too. For what it's worth.

[sennkestra]

On 4/22/2019 at 9:53 AM, Mark said:

I would be rather more comfortable with this project had a majority aro allo leadership.

 

On 4/22/2019 at 12:55 PM, bydontost said:

Understandable, however at the moment we don't have a majority of aro allo leadership and identity was a secondary criterion when picking members.

 

Can I ask why you think that an umbrella aromantic organization should necessarily seek majority "aro allo" leadership (as opposed to say, parity or just letting things fall based on who volunteers?) I'm familiar with all the arguments and reasons why it's important to have both ace and non-ace aro representation (as well as representation from those in the grey-areas in between!  Let's not forget that seeing "allo vs. ace" as a binary in itself can cause harm), and I don't think there's anything bad with a hypothetical majority-aro-allo group in and of itself, but I also don't think that necessarily translates to "more allos than aces is obviously better" and I think it's important to talk about why that's being suggested instead of taking it as a given,

[bydontost]

8 hours ago, sennkestra said:

 

 

Can I ask why you think that an umbrella aromantic organization should necessarily seek majority "aro allo" leadership (as opposed to say, parity or just letting things fall based on who volunteers?) I'm familiar with all the arguments and reasons why it's important to have both ace and non-ace aro representation (as well as representation from those in the grey-areas in between!  Let's not forget that seeing "allo vs. ace" as a binary in itself can cause harm), and I don't think there's anything bad with a hypothetical majority-aro-allo group in and of itself, but I also don't think that necessarily translates to "more allos than aces is obviously better" and I think it's important to talk about why that's being suggested instead of taking it as a given,

 

From what I understood, Mark would be more comfortable with the majority of the team being allo aro, because they're allo aro themself and it'd probably protect allo aros' interests better. We can't provide that comfort for Mark, but I can share what the criteria were for choosing people for the team, so maybe it's more understandable why identity wasn't the most important.

 

First of all, I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted, as the initiative is more serious than a blog, involves money and our personally identifying information being shared.

 

Then, we wanted people who were active in the aromantic community, informed, contributing to it, people who could really do the work that we set out to do in a way that would be good for the community.

 

We also looked for people who were facilitating discussions and stayed reasonable during them, were willing to hear all arguments and try and reconcile multiple points of view instead of jumping to conclusions, as well as be responsible. 

 

And we also considered identities. Out of the people who met all those criteria and were contacted, we gathered our team. One allo aro who we asked couldn't participate in the project and we're still waiting for a response from another one. 

[assignedgothatbirth]

Just for future reference- you may want to look for alternatives to PayPal if you plan on getting more money in the future.

Here's pages from the Better Business Bureau, Consumer Affairs and a YouTube video from an artist they screwed over. The video I linked has a couple of alternatives linked in the description but I'd recommend doing your own research as well, because it's not an exhaustive list by any means.

[Neir]

Thank you @assignedgothatbirth! This is really useful.

This first time around Paypal did its job, but really good to know about other options.

[assignedgothatbirth]

@running.tally You're welcome!

[Mark]

On 4/24/2019 at 9:33 AM, sennkestra said:

Can I ask why you think that an umbrella aromantic organization should necessarily seek majority "aro allo" leadership (as opposed to say, parity or just letting things fall based on who volunteers?) I'm familiar with all the arguments and reasons why it's important to have both ace and non-ace aro representation (as well as representation from those in the grey-areas in between!  Let's not forget that seeing "allo vs. ace" as a binary in itself can cause harm), and I don't think there's anything bad with a hypothetical majority-aro-allo group in and of itself, but I also don't think that necessarily translates to "more allos than aces is obviously better" and I think it's important to talk about why that's being suggested instead of taking it as a given,

Given the current chronic lack of allo aro representation, anywhere other than arocalypse (here), along with the widespread misunderstanding of aro as a subset of ace I don't think an ace spec majority group is the best course of action.

 

On 4/24/2019 at 5:54 PM, bydontost said:

First of all, I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted, as the initiative is more serious than a blog, involves money and our personally identifying information being shared.

I don't know much about these people.
 

On 4/24/2019 at 5:54 PM, bydontost said:

Then, we wanted people who were active in the aromantic community, informed, contributing to it, people who could really do the work that we set out to do in a way that would be good for the community.

What are you defining as the "aromantic community"?

 

On 4/23/2019 at 9:27 PM, Coyote said:

...Dunno to what extent you're interested in suggestions, but if there's a topic that you'd like to see more people talking about and writing on -- which could be a useful step there, towards getting an even broader sense of what could go into a resource or guide -- then that topic could be a good theme choice for a Carnival of Aros.

I don't know much about the blogging thing. The likes of Tumblr appear very poor for quotation. How do you use them for discussion?
(Even forums like Arocalypse can't do multi level quotes as easily as usenet could thirty odd years ago.)

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, Mark said:

The likes of Tumblr appear very poor for quotation. How do you use them for discussion?

 

I didn't say anything about Tumblr. And my impression is the same, actually. Don't look to me for advice on how to use that place for discussion, because I don't try.

 

Anyway, nbd, was just a thought. 

 

5 hours ago, Mark said:

Given the current chronic lack of allo aro representation, anywhere other than arocalypse (here), along with the widespread misunderstanding of aro as a subset of ace I don't think an ace spec majority group is the best course of action.

 

This... makes it sound like you think aces are more untrustworthy, somehow.

 

For frame of reference, I could take what you're saying about aces and make basically the same argument about the treatment of quoiros and grayros by aromantics. I'm not interested in actually making that argument here, to be clear, but I think the same kinds of evidence is there. A lot of it's even recent, too. For instance:

 

• There's the recent ace of spades accusations reifying the great divide -- and what that means for people who don't use romantic orientation.
   
• There's been multiple recent claims that queerplatonic is "an aro term" exclusively for aros and/or definitively-nonromantic relationships (example, example). This neglects the fact that not everyone involved with the term's earliest history was aromantic or wanted to map their relationships to the romantic/nonromantic binary.
   
• There's been the (now pervasive, apparently) reclamation of "split attraction model" for the categorization of people according to whether they "use the SAM" (example, example)... in a way that assumes you can split everybody between divergent rosol identities and convergent non-rosol identities. This has involved more generally treating differentiating-subtypes-of-attraction & identifying-with-multiple-orientations as the same thing -- which is a problem for me, a divergent & non-rosol quoiromantic who does differentiate between subtypes of attraction.
   
• There's even been this bizarre trend of splitting "the aromantic spectrum" apart into something that does not include aromanticism (example), isolating the "spectrum" as something that applies to grayros and other not-specifically-aromantic folks -- as if it's important to have some kind of hard line boundary there. The push for this kind of talk and the more general hard-dividing-line approach behind it has negative consequences for grayros.
   
• And now we've got this "oriented" vs "angled" kerfuffle, thanks to an aromantic introducing a specific term for non-axial identities & presenting that as something exclusively for core aro aces, unavailable for gray-aces or grayros, in a way that crunches what grayness even is. This is a case of an aromantic talking over gray folks about our own identities (which -- surprise -- can involve haziness and many other factors, not just clearcut "infrequent attraction").
   
• Plus, as you noted, the wrong definition of quoi/wtfromantic is the one that is featured in most glossaries, including, until recently, here.
   

...and although that's a similar litany of offenses and widespread misunderstandings, I'm not coming to the same conclusion about it. It wouldn't have even occurred to me to ask how many people on the team are quoiro or grayro, let alone ask that the majority be quoiro or grayro. I'm more interested in reviewing what specific work they put out and checking it for fairness.

 

But even if we were going to ask these kinds of questions/express these kinds of evaluations of what identities/what majority would make the best team, I think an even better question would be something like "How many people on the team are people of color," for instance. And even then, I'm not sure about that. I don't want to put anyone in a position of having to play the token aro of color who has to be the poc spokesperson, like Queenie has talked about being asked of her on panels.

 

So like I said, I'm really unsure about and wary of looking at the team composition in this way. It's not totally off-base, I guess, but I don't think any given identity comp is going to please everybody, and what matters most is the results they produce. As far as addressing grievances is concerned, I think even the "best," most ideal team comp would be wise to solicit feedback before going live with anything. That's really the best thing any team could do.

 

 

[HotRamen]

13 hours ago, Mark said:

On 4/24/2019 at 9:54 AM, bydontost said:

First of all, I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted, as the initiative is more serious than a blog, involves money and our personally identifying information being shared.

I don't know much about these people.

I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted, as the initiative is more serious than a blog, and involves money and our personal information being shared. For the core team it's important that we keep information such as my address (which is something that is being shared) as private and confidential as possible. While I don’t know these people in person I do know them through many facets of the internet such as multiple discord servers, tumblr, as well as these forums. And we interact with each other enough to where we do feel like we can share that kind of sensitive information with each other. 

 

I’m sorry if you feel uneasy, but we all want to make sure the entire aro community is represented while at the same time respecting each other's privacy concerns. We all come from different parts of the community, with different identities and backgrounds. Our core team is for administration, but we will always be talking with the rest of the community (yourself included) about things that go on the site, before and after it goes live.

 

8 hours ago, Coyote said:

Plus, as you noted, the wrong definition of quoi/wtfromantic is the one that is featured in most glossaries, including, until recently, here.

For quoiromantic specifically, even though I feel like the definition that tends to be around the internet these days can be seen as problematic there are people out there who identify as quoiro with that definition so it would be unfair to take that away from them. That’s why we are going to include both meanings.

Just in general the glossary will have multiple definitions for each word, the original definition/ how the coiner first defined it, and the modern/how people usually or currently define that word today because sometimes words do change overtime. And we will have links to the original definition. Although some words have always kept their original meaning. We are still in the process of compiling everything not just for the glossary but for the resources and the FAQ too.

When we do publish our website there will be a way to contact us if you think something should be added changed or updated. So please give us comments when the site is live.

[eatingcroutons]

15 hours ago, Mark said:

Given the current chronic lack of allo aro representation, anywhere other than arocalypse (here)

Arodynamics has a majority alloaro mod team, just sayin ?

 

FWIW to the organisers, I'm happy to sanity check or proofread/comment on content, I just can't commit to being formally involved with everything else I'm doing in my life right now. 

[Holmbo]

On 4/24/2019 at 9:54 PM, assignedgothatbirth said:

Just for future reference- you may want to look for alternatives to PayPal if you plan on getting more money in the future.

Here's pages from the Better Business Bureau, Consumer Affairs and a YouTube video from an artist they screwed over. The video I linked has a couple of alternatives linked in the description but I'd recommend doing your own research as well, because it's not an exhaustive list by any means.

I'd also prefer not to use PayPal to donate. They're really unpleasant I think. Always setting a default that I pay in my own currency rather than USD. The only reason companies do that are to offer crappy exchange rates.

Great initiative about the website. And IMO don't feel like you have to justify your desicions to us. It's your time and initiative. If someone else want it done differently, no one is stopping them from doing their own initiative.

[assignedgothatbirth]

20 minutes ago, Holmbo said:

And IMO don't feel like you have to justify your desicions to us. It's your time and initiative. If someone else want it done differently, no one is stopping them from doing their own initiative.

Er, there's a lot actually that could stop them? Money and time being the biggest things.

If there were already twenty different aro orgs out there I'd be more inclined to agree but since this is supposed to be a broader, larger initiative so trying to accommodate as many people as possible should be a main goal. It obviously can't be everything just because of how competing needs work but that doesn't mean we should just go "eh do whatever you want" (especially if they're asking for our money).

 

[Coyote]

14 hours ago, HotRamen said:

On 4/26/2019 at 12:26 PM, Mark said:

On 4/24/2019 at 12:54 PM, bydontost said:

First of all, I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted, as the initiative is more serious than a blog, involves money and our personally identifying information being shared.

I don't know much about these people.

I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted

 

It sounds a bit like you two are talking past each other here. Tost and Ramen are saying that the team members trust each other, while Mark is saying that they (Mark) doesn't feel as much of a reason to trust the team. 1) Is that interpretation of what everybody's saying correct? 2) To the team in general: are you interested in soliciting trust or convincing anyone else at Arocalypse that you should be trusted with this (pretty big and serious) task? 3) Mark, what would be some things you would like to see that would help build your trust? 

 

14 hours ago, HotRamen said:

When we do publish our website there will be a way to contact us if you think something should be added changed or updated.

 

I don't think that's just an "if," but more of a "when." Nobody's perfect, right? 

[Neir]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

It sounds a bit like you two are talking past each other here.

Thanks for clarifying this, Coyote!  

 

The team just isn't quite sure how to respond, if we can be honest. We wanted to make clear that those of us on the core team are us because we work well together, are dedicated to inclusivity, and have time right now. What we're asking from everyone else isn't for your personal trust right now, but for your support and feedback. That's why we were confused by Mark's comment at the beginning. We welcome their feedback but know we can't fix them not trusting us with simple words. You will have to see the site to judge and this conversation will be circular until you see what we have created. Please don't assume we will misrepresent you. That's why we're here and listening, you know? What can we do better?

 

We get the apprehension behind blindly supporting us without seeing our content (especially with money). You don't have to do that and we're not asking for that if you don't know us. The financial support we've garnered is from people who have seen us around and know what our personal goals and stakes in this are. We have also reached our initial goal for finances so if you've been apprehensive about donating, don't feel you need to. It might also be worth mentioning that most of the funds were covered by just our core team.

 

I don't think @Mark is the only apprehensive one but we appreciate them speaking out. Allow us to work on it first and then we, community-wide, can talk about constructive criticism and feedback. Hope that helps!

[Holmbo]

23 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

Er, there's a lot actually that could stop them? Money and time being the biggest things.

What I meant is that we on this forum don't have any mandate to neither ensure nor stop anyone from creating aro content. We can have comments but in the end it'll be up to the creators to decide, because they are the ones responsible.

[Mark]

On 4/27/2019 at 9:21 PM, Coyote said:

It sounds a bit like you two are talking past each other here. Tost and Ramen are saying that the team members trust each other, while Mark is saying that they (Mark) doesn't feel as much of a reason to trust the team. 1) Is that interpretation of what everybody's saying correct? 2) To the team in general: are you interested in soliciting trust or convincing anyone else at Arocalypse that you should be trusted with this (pretty big and serious) task? 3) Mark, what would be some things you would like to see that would help build your trust? 

I can see what the team members have posted on Arocalypse, quite easily.
I can also what one team member has posted on tumblr, since that's listed. Possibly also some other team members with some investigation.
What they have written on other platforms I have no idea of.

The kind of things I'd look for would be challenging the notion of aro being a subset of ace; understanding that experiences of people who are ace(spec) and aro(spec) can be quite different from the experiences of people who are aro(spec) and allo(sexual); being good allies to aro-allos.

I do have a concern that someone who's ace(spec) might not recognise how an "aro resource" is ace(spec) specific (or how to change it to be more generally applicable).

This, rather long, tumblr post is certainly worth a read.

[bydontost]

15 hours ago, Mark said:

I can see what the team members have posted on Arocalypse, quite easily.
I can also what one team member has posted on tumblr, since that's listed. Possibly also some other team members with some investigation.
What they have written on other platforms I have no idea of.

The kind of things I'd look for would be challenging the notion of aro being a subset of ace; understanding that experiences of people who are ace(spec) and aro(spec) can be quite different from the experiences of people who are aro(spec) and allo(sexual); being good allies to aro-allos.

I do have a concern that someone who's ace(spec) might not recognise how an "aro resource" is ace(spec) specific (or how to change it to be more generally applicable).

This, rather long, tumblr post is certainly worth a read.

Again, we're not asking you to trust us at this point, but to be willing to suspend your distrust when you see the website and then judge if we're doing good or if we need to work on allo aro inclusiveness more. I think that actions speak louder than words and in this case, the actions is the website and I'm not sure if our assurances that (as one example) we all don't see aromanticism as a subset of asexuality would convince you. Thank you for the suggestion of issues we should be mindful of, I can happily tell you that everyone on the team is familiar with alloaroworlds and hir work on tumblr. At this point I'm not sure further conversation is leading anywhere.