Speed Dating Too Exclusive

[jacksch]

  I have noticed that the event "Speed Dating" is exclusively for men seeking women and vice versa. It seems like it might be an oversight, but why is it an exclusively "straight" event? A large population of the people at Fanime are gay and I'm sure a few would be interested in the event. Not to include them in any event is ridiculously homophobic. I suggest there also be a section of Speed Dating for the LGBTQ community.

[Maxiboi]

I've noticed this as well. Fanime is such a welcoming, all-inclusive event that the absence of a LGBT Speed Dating event is very surprising. Can we make this an option?  I'm sure that there would be just as many applicants as there are for the current Speed Dating event.  If it isn't being considered at the moment why is that?  Is there a need for more volunteers?  More people demanding such an event?  What would it take to make this happen at Fanime?

[M]

(Not sure how to word my answers... If parts of it comes off as negative, I'm really not trying to be)

Wow. I'm not sure what to make of this (mainly the "ridiculously homophobic" line).

FanimeCon does not discriminate - we work really hard to ensure that all of our members are safe being who they are. It would just seem backwards to spend all of our time to let people be free and safe, yet discriminate against anyone. Just seems like a huge waste of time.

To answer your question, there are two major reasons. 1) Speed Dating is still a relatively new event. It started as a semi "lets see if this works" so things may have been skipped. 2) There is not enough interest.

"Not enough interest" doesn't necessarily mean that we'll never do it. It's just not fun to do a speed dating event for anyone if there's only going to be 3 people there. I have passed this onto the division heads of Speed Dating and I'm confident that they'll look at this and see what we can and can't do.

Sidenote: We have these forums for the purpose of our members to propose and discuss various parts of the convention in order to cater towards you all. Many of our events have been started this way and I see us continuing this trend for years to come (maybe until we run out of space? O_o?).

[EDIT: Of course, after I post a staffer of Speed Dating posts! BAH!]

[renalcul]

 I have noticed that the event "Speed Dating" is exclusively for men seeking women and vice versa. It seems like it might be an oversight, but why is it an exclusively "straight" event? A large population of the people at Fanime are gay and I'm sure a few would be interested in the event. Not to include them in any event is ridiculously homophobic. I suggest there also be a section of Speed Dating for the LGBTQ community.

It isn't. You're just reading the page from last year which hasn't been updated. If you read any of the other two Speed Dating Threads, you'd have noticed my confirmation on an attempt for LGBTQ branch this year.

Though, i have run into a problem with formatting, i'm thinking some sort of round robin, since we can't use the same standard across orientations.

[renalcul]

2) There is not enough interest.

"Not enough interest" doesn't necessarily mean that we'll never do it. It's just not fun to do a speed dating event for anyone if there's only going to be 3 people there. I have passed this onto the division heads of Speed Dating and I'm confident that they'll look at this and see what we can and can't do.

Sidenote: We have these forums for the purpose of our members to propose and discuss various parts of the convention in order to cater towards you all. Many of our events have been started this way and I see us continuing this trend for years to come (maybe until we run out of space? O_o?).

We're going to gauge interest when we open it up, but me and the head need to sit down and figure out how we're going to open up the floodgates, whether we're going to do something bold and chaotic and try and catch everything, or if we're going to try and create an organized structure in which to direct individuals.

Also we've basically been allotted an entire room for all of fanime, whether that holds true or not we're yet to see, but so far it looks like we can basically do as many as we have the distribution for (Or the personal time, we're a pretty small division, all things considered.)

[jacksch]

Thank you very much for clearing this up renalcul. And to MPLe, I didn't mean to sound reactionary. I saw what must be the current yet non-updated page for Fanime's "Speed Dating" event and it ticked me off. Mainly because it didn't make sense that such an open and accepting convention would have such a closed-off event.

As for the actual functionality of the event I personally think a more open, flowing form would work best. When there are a lot of instructions and directions that need to be carried out it can bog down on actually meeting and connecting with people. As it is a big convention of course there should be definite structure to it, but hopefully not so much that it distracts from the actual reason people are in the room. ^_^

[jacksch]

Also, if there needs to be more staffing for the event I'd love to help out. I know some others that would too. Is there a way to sign up to volunteer?

[renalcul]

Thank you very much for clearing this up renalcul. And to MPLe, I didn't mean to sound reactionary. I saw what must be the current yet non-updated page for Fanime's "Speed Dating" event and it ticked me off. Mainly because it didn't make sense that such an open and accepting convention would have such a closed-off event.

As for the actual functionality of the event I personally think a more open, flowing form would work best. When there are a lot of instructions and directions that need to be carried out it can bog down on actually meeting and connecting with people. As it is a big convention of course there should be definite structure to it, but hopefully not so much that it distracts from the actual reason people are in the room. ^_^

Well you need to consider the concept of speed dating is to meet all the people in the room for a specific amount of time.

an "open, flowing form" would just be a mixer; and you'd probably still have the problem of the wall flowers being foreveralone, and the socialites dominating the entire thing.

We would prefer to have everyone meet everyone for at least a little while, then to have anyone left out.

Which is why we don't just split it in half.

You'll excuse me for ten minutes whilst i just do some math and figure it out.

[renalcul]

Edit: A far better solution was found.

Opening May 1st.

[M]

It's funny watching MPLe change his avatar constantly.

So as far as my brain can wrap around.

LGBT dating will likely be limited to only around 16 individuals per batch (Please don't worry about not getting in,  there can always be more than one batch, or we can just do 16 gay, 16 lesbian batch at the same time [ the problem is with the math the higher you go up])

Because at 16 i can easily divide a batch into 1-8 Blue and 1-8 Red.

The First half would work as standard Speed dating, splitting into two halves and rotating, and it will take anywhere from 24-40 minutes depending on how we plan on rolling it.

Then the math would become

1 -> 2,3,4,5,6,7,8
2 -> 1,4,3,6,5,8,7
3 -> 4,1,2,7,8,5,6
4 -> 3,2,1,8,7,6,5
5 -> 6,7,8,1,2,3,4
6 -> 5,6,7,2,1,4,3
7 -> 8,5,6,3,4,1,2
8 -> 7,6,5,4,3,2,1

This may look crazy so some but it basically would look like this

You would get your form to fill out and according to your number it would say on the top something like

8>5>6>3>4>1>2

and after each round everyone would go meet up with the next number on that list.

But again, i just thought this up like... 5 minutes ago. So whether or not this sticks, or if we will just do the first half and go with a simple approach and leave some individuals without meeting each other is hard to say.

Again, i'm going to try and meet up with my head before March to get this all figured out, so we can try and open things up for public discussion and sign ups.

-Blah

Note: My avatar changes on its own. I forget how many different ones there are, but there are a bunch.

Also, we should probably wait until more details are squared away before announcing specific rules. :P

[renalcul]

Also, we should probably wait until more details are squared away before announcing specific rules. :P

I'm putting it up for feedback.

In all honesty, that's likely going to be how it works out, unless there are too many votes against.

I mean, right now it's mostly figuring out logistics, so we can figure out how to open the gates.

Then when they're open it's just a matter of keeping tabs of the applicants, ratios, and size allotments.

[princesskitty18]

renalcul...no offense..
that numbers thing confused the crap out of me! XD

but goodluck wit the logistics of it
and i wanna go..or help..or something :D

[renalcul]

renalcul...no offense..
that numbers thing confused the crap out of me! XD

but goodluck wit the logistics of it
and i wanna go..or help..or something :D

It's basically just a "go to this number at this time" deal.

[princesskitty18]

It's basically just a "go to this number at this time" deal.

ahh for sure for sure
gotcha now

[Tsubasakissu]

@renalcul: What about trans people? ;w; Like, would gay trans men be welcome in the gay men pool and would lesbian trans women be allowed in the lesbian pool? Like, Im a trans lesbian, but I havent gotten around to changing my ID yet and all the stuff. bufrcndejsdnfrd IDK. ;3;

[renalcul]

@renalcul: What about trans people? ;w; Like, would gay trans men be welcome in the gay men pool and would lesbian trans women be allowed in the lesbian pool? Like, Im a trans lesbian, but I havent gotten around to changing my ID yet and all the stuff. bufrcndejsdnfrd IDK. ;3;

Case by case, i'm not quite sure. I'll shoot you a message.

[Kertus]

I hope all this extra work isn't going to waste and the people that complained about no LGBT option will actually participate to make it worthwhile and grow the next year.  As it is, from my perspective at least, alot of speed dating has people already in relationships that are doing it more as a lark or for fun than for serious, wasting everyone's time involved and taking up slots that could otherwise be filled by people honestly looking for companionship at con.

However I don't think there's a way to stop people from doing that, so you can ignore me  :P

[Rurutie8]

At another convention that I attended, there were three speed dating events.  One was for minors, seventeen and under, another was for adults, eighteen and up and the last was for gays and lesbians.  One of the rules was that you can only attend the event in your declared group, in other words, strait people were not allowed to even watch the gay and lesbian speed dating event.

[renalcul]

At another convention that I attended, there were three speed dating events.  One was for minors, seventeen and under, another was for adults, eighteen and up and the last was for gays and lesbians.  One of the rules was that you can only attend the event in your declared group, in other words, strait people were not allowed to even watch the gay and lesbian speed dating event.

Under 18 is a liability we aren't willing to risk.

And all speed dating events are behind closed doors.

[TheMaKaKi]

Just to address to everyone, we DO have LGBT Speed Dating this year. It is on Saturday from 2-4PM and 4-6PM. Please sign up on our official site: http://apps.fanime.com/2012/speeddating/

If you have any more questions or concerns for this year's Speed Dating event, please direct them to our Main Thread: http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/topic,16967.0.html

If you have any more new suggestions for future events, please don't hesitate to tell us or start a new thread here in the Ideas and Suggestions section. Thank you all!