[Actionchix] Some discussion?

[Terri Oda]

On Oct 10, 2004, at 5:21 AM, Mary wrote:
> 1. What projects would you like to work on that fits in with  
> LinuxChix's
> goals (supporting women in Linux)?

Well, this article that Fazia posted to her blog reminded me of  
something that's bugged me for a while:
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=1995

It's talking about how most game designers are men, and how this winds  
up with few games that are specifically female oriented, although  
plenty are specifically male-oriented.  Of course, there are plenty of  
games that appeal to both genders and women will play plenty of "male"  
games, so I don't think this is a crisis or anything, but I thought it  
would be nice if linuxchix could work on games that *we* would want to  
play, and maybe those games would turn out to be stuff that other  
women/girls would like.  (This means that we'd probably want have to  
have women doing most of the game design, but there's no reason the  
guys can't help with actual implementation and such.)

There have been some commercial initiatives that were hoping to address  
this for younger girls (Some info can be found in the essay at  
http://www-cse.stanford.edu/classes/cs201/Projects/gender-gap-in- 
education/page18.htm), but I haven't seen many open source initiatives.

There are of course plenty of other projects I'd like to work on, but  
games particularly appealing to me. :)  There are some neat projects  
that could stem from this base: creation of different types of games,  
teaching other women to make their own games, or teaching younger  
women/girls to make them.

If I had unlimited time and budget and all, I'd love to run courses in  
game design for teenage girls/young women, since I know so many of my  
sister's friends have amazing talents as writers and artists and would  
be able to create amazing adventure games if they had time to acquire  
the other skills needed to translate their worlds into a game format.

As you can probably guess, I was always a big fan of the adventure game  
format, and grew up on the King's Quest games (designed by a woman!)  
and other similar fare, such as those great lucasarts games.  I loved  
Monkey Island I and II as a kid (and as an adult!)

> 3. What are your experiences in previous volunteer projects?

Well, when it comes to game-related stuff, this is where I fall down --  
I haven't done game work in years and years, and even then it was a big  
text-based adventure that a friend and I made as a science fair  
project.  Not quite cutting edge nowadays. :)  I did help to run a MUD  
(as an implementer, meaning that I actually did write code to alter the  
way the things worked), and a MOO (again, building stuff as well as  
just handling people), though.

(For those not familiar with the terms, MUD = Multi-User  
Dungeon/Dimension.  It's usually a hack-and-slash dungeons&dragons kind  
of setting.  The one I worked with was populated almost exclusively by  
my sister's then 13-year-old female friends, so our dynamic was a  
little different.  MOO = MUD, Object Oriented.  It's a much more  
educational environment, usually focussed more on chatting and building  
of new things than on a "game" where you're off killing stuff or  
accomplishing given goals.)

But I have been programming for years and years now and can do the  
standard C/C++, Java, as well as python, perl, php, and on down the  
line to xml and html-related stuff.   Although I typically consider  
myself a low-level programmer by experience, I have had a decent amount  
of training in UI design and human factors.  (In fact, I'm a teaching  
assistant for a UI design course.)

As for volunteer projects, as most of you probably know I help to  
manage more-or-less all of the linuxchix mailing lists and have been a  
volunteer here for years.  I'm the documentation team for Mailman, as  
well as an occasional developer.   I've been a volunteer for  
Pathmakers, a local program of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)  
that sends young women out to speak to schools in the area, although  
it's been a while since I actually went out and gave a presentation.  I  
used to be a leader with Girl Guides of Canada, although school  
commitments made me stop a few years ago.  I used to run education  
programs for a space-related club in high school (with a friend, we  
used to run education programs for several hundred students aged 6-14  
every year.)  I've taught programming on a number of occasions (I've  
been paid to teach perl, but I've educated a number of friends and my  
little sister on other topics).

I think that covers most of the important bits, but I'm sick and may  
have forgotten stuff.

  Terri