Editing Newsletter/Fall 2008 (section)

== Get to Know '''Anthony Keen'''==
compiled by [[herbalsheila]]
[[Image:Anthony Keen2.jpg|left|400px|thumb|Anthony Keen: The Tough Administrator]]
'''What is your favorite color, book, food, drink and movie?'''

Book: The Belgariad by David Eddings. Film: Alien. Author: Well, I am going for Bill Bryson. Colour: orange (as in the website orange I use on ST:F) Drink: Becks, which is a beer.

'''What is website orange as opposed to any other orange?'''

Burnt orange if you like. The boxes around the wiki are orange; that's the colour I mean. I also put it in as the orange colour of the wormhole image and the orange colour of the font of the forums.

'''What do you do for a living?'''

I am the computer manager for a large secondary college called Melbourne Girls' College in Melbourne, Australia. We're one of the biggest schools in the State of Victoria. We have 1251 girls, 350 computers, 35 printers, about 100 laptops and 16 servers. It's my job to make them all work all the time.  Dealing with printer jams and supporting the staff in using ITC is always my main job. ITC is the acronym for Information Technology and Communication. I am one of the administrators, an SSO or School Service Officer. There are 20 or so of us. The rest are teachers. Our total staff including teachers numbers over 60.

'''Do your students take good care of the equipment or are you always having to take them apart and replace stuff or what have you?'''

My girls are not into damage of a physical nature. The computers aren't broken or intentionally damaged.
[[Image:Wendyandanthony.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Wendy and Anthony Keen]]
The computers themselves are under an expensive 4 year warranty. I call and someone else fixes them when they have a hardware problem. The servers are my problem and I have them in bits quite often when the email stops or the internet gets too slow.

'''Where do you live?'''

We're about 50 kms or 35 miles from Melbourne. Our little area is called Sandhurst. We built a house about a year ago; a nice place in a new area. We have exciting features such as recycled water and a swimming pool around the corner. 

'''Other than writing posts in Star Trek Freedom, do you have any hobbies that you do in your spare time?'''

I swim a lot, got back into that recently. We also recently bought some bicycles. Where we live there is 50kms of walking tracks. I do a lot of computer work for other schools, websites and so on, and that includes of course the work and updates on the STF site.

Apart from that, we also get stuck into the garden, and I don't overly hate gardening! At the back of our house, we have pebbles and rocks as ground cover. We have some grass at the front. I plant stuff the wife hands me. I have no idea what the plants are.  Wendy would know. I know they are green and don't require a lot of watering!

'''What do you feel is the best most rewarding thing you have ever done in your life?'''

I'd say it would be moving to Australia from the UK when I met Wendy through the FGN and then married. Moving to Australia about 12 years ago has opened doors and a lifestyle I wouldn't have ever enjoyed in the UK.

'''What got you involved with Star Trek Freedom and writing for characters in a Play by EMail game?'''

Okay, that takes a bit of explaining; in Dec 1997 I just got the internet after resisting it for ages. I saw a newsgroup advert for the Federation Gaming Network. It mentioned giving the Borg a hard time and so on. A friend of mine and I joined up together. He didn't make it on the shuttle to the Academy but I stayed in. 

I bypassed the Academy and went directly as Counsellor of the Spectre. When the crew got together, I started talking to a few of them via ICQ. The ACMO was Wendy and she joined at the same time. It turned out she went for Counsellor too!

Much later on after a lot of events, FGN Freedom became Star Trek Freedom and Jeremy and I decided to take the game off on its own and it was agreed by the entire game to do so.
[[Image:SunsetAustrAnthony.JPG|400px|left|thumb|Sunset near Sandhurst, Australia]]
My main character was a Bajoran called Remae Ktell, an anti-religion Bajoran.  I played him for many many years. He was CO of many ships and had a habit of crashing most of them into any planets he could find.

At the end, the Spectre crew were quite adept at making launch ramps for the Spectre to get it off any planets she crashed into.

'''Was Remae Ktell your first character?'''

Yes indeed. I believe he was the first Counselor to make CO.

'''Have you anything in your background that may have helped you with writing adventures on a PBEM game?'''

Oh no, not at all! I never wrote before PBeMing. Reading was also rare. I wasn't into RPGing or any D&D or anything like that, so I had no idea what I was getting into. It helped me get spelling under control and I enjoyed creative writing, although I still don't think I am much of a writer. My posting was always average and I am always blown away when I read the work of people like Liz and Jeremy can come up with. I'll never be that good.

'''What, in your opinion, is the hardest part about Star Trek Freedom and why?'''

Generally, in running a game, the hardest part will always be anticipating and adapting to the needs of the members, which should come first anyway. As a non-CO and someone who just administrates the game, the hardest part for me personally at the moment is making sure we have enough support from members to go beyond posting their characters and getting involved into things such as using the Forums, and the Wiki and reading the Newsletter, and even making personal logs. That shows anyone coming in from the outside that we're an active game, something worth joining and committing to. 

The Academy is rough on new people. We don't let just anyone in. You have to complete the Academy and we lose 90% of all applications that way. Since March 2003, we've had 2300 applications to the game, and we have 60 members. That's the kind of ratio we have to deal with.
[[Image:ServersMelbrnColg.JPG|350px|right|thumb|Computer servers at Melbourne Girls College in Melbourne, 'Down Under'. This particular section shows only seven servers.]]
'''I guess I should feel privileged. I had no idea how elite ST:F was/is.'''

The big example is Bravofleet. There is no Academy and everyone has a ship. They have 200 ships and most of them have 2 PCs on them, a CO and an FO. That's not for us. A long time ago we made the choice; you have to earn it. In the long term its sucky for those who want to be a CO. It can take years.

It's not so elite. We just take out the 13 year old boys who just want to kill Borg. Our average age of members is a lot older than most PBeMs.

'''What is the best part about ST:F and why?'''

The best to me means rewarding; seeing someone get through the Academy, begin posting and being truly proud to be on their ship, and posting, that's a big one for me. I see it a lot. Undiscovered talent is another one. Someone who never thought they could write or join a group and get something out of it, that's another one. I've seen that. I think every CO has and that's a big reason for being a CO, given the job isn't a fun one. I've never heard a CO ever say, I love being a CO... its a hard job! Overall, the best part is to see everyone have fun playing. If the posts are flying along and everyone is engaged, making friends on and off the lists; that's the best part.

'''If there was one thing on ST:F you wanted to change, what would it be and why?'''

For me, seeing the website go unused, that's a real killer for me personally. These resources just sit there and members do their part and post, which is great but there's no debate or interaction beyond. That's a real shame. A really active forum would make me very happy.

'''If there was any one thing in the world you could change, what would it be?'''

It may be the flavour of the decade to say so but poverty seems to be something we can do without. I think it's required to define what this actually means. From Wikipedia: '''Poverty''' is ''the deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens''.
 
I think it can be easy to forget or ignore hundreds of millions of people in the word living without these basics that can be taken for granted.

'''So what are all the things you currently do on ST:F?'''
[[Image:Anthony's_garden_1.JPG|300px|left|thumb|Anthony's adventures in gardening]]
Not a lot at the moment to be honest, currently I am CO of the Fleet, which means I am in charge of the Council, but it's not what you think, we don't tell everyone what to do we just try to solve big problems, and fill in the gaps of the overall direction of the game, such as what kind of aliens will the ships meet? What are subspace tunnels? and so on.

I maintain the website. I am the Academy CO, which means I allocate graduates to their ships.

I found time to also player a character, a Cardassian on the Mithrandir. He's a doctor, just a Medical Officer. I've no plans to rise in the ranks again.

'''What, no CO-ing again?'''

I seriously doubt it. Being a CO means you dedicate yourself totally to your ship. I've done that for years, 7 years or more. Patrick (FO of the Spectre) said once its frustrating for people coming up the ranks to see 'old' members just walking into CO roles. I agree with that; I want to give as many people as I can a chance to be a CO.

'''When and how did you first hear about Star Trek in general?'''

Basically, in 1987 when the new Enterprise launched as TNG is when I got hooked. I'd always seen TOS on re-runs on BBC2 (UK TV Station) and I watched a little but when the new one came out, and I was already 15 or so, all my friends got together for a viewing of Encounter at Farpoint. From that point on, I bought every VHS of all the series. By time I was 26 I had all the TNG, DS9 and VOY videos that were out. I had to ship them to Australia in a container!

I am still not a TOS fan but I will purchase the remastered TOS when they come out in December.

'''Here might be a tough question for you. Which character from all the Star Trek series and films is your all time favorite and why?'''

That's easy actually. It's going to be Miles O'Brien, for the main reason of the depth of the character, shown a little in TNG but in DS9 you get to see this person. He's a real battler as the Aussies would say! '''''shiver''''' He is someone who worked his way up, had strong family values, and a strong moral centre. If anyone is looking for someone to emulate, you can't go wrong with Miles O' Brian.
[[Image:Miles_O'Brien_2364.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Mikes O'Brien: A real battler!]]
'''O Brien was played by Colm Meaney.  Have you gotten to meet any of the actors from Star Trek?''' 

Not personally, but my few claims to fame is that Will Wheaton and I have exchanged a few emails over the years. He's a very nice person and happy to talk to fans. The other person no one probably knows of, is the person who designed the Enterprise, Andy Probert. He was happy to answer my questions about his designs on the Enterprise and some of his Battlestar Galactica work. And finally, I've spoken to Rich Sternback a few times. He was the technical adviser to Star Trek. His technical books are required reading for anyone wanting to know how the warp drive works.

'''Do they ever have Star Trek conventions of any kind in Australia?'''

They have a few, usually in Sydney and way too expensive for us to attend. There was a BABCON conference in Melbourne but no one really went to that apart from us!! Although, while we were in Canada, Katherine (ex CO of the Boudicca), took us to Vulcan and we dressed up in front of a cardboard set! No one gets to see that picture.

'''I haven't gotten much of the lowdown on this trip around the world you and Wendy took. Tell me about this trip.'''

We went to the UK again to see my parents a few years back and it was cheaper to go around the world rather than go direct so we went to Hawaii, Canada, the UK, Germany, Prague, Hong Kong and then Melbourne. On the way, we tried to see as many members as we could.

Wendy and I ended up going around the world on this trip and it was a pleasure meeting such types as Kaweo, Adrie, Liz, Kat and others that have long since left the game. 

''Thank you Anthony and we hope that you will eventually be able to do another trip to see other players again.''