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Last year StackExchange became a member of TUG. With that come eight individual memberships, that were given out to some members of the community. The time has come to select our representatives for 2013.

Following the model from last year, I'd like to ask people to put themselves forward. 'Highly-active' TeX-sx members, on the main site and meta, are particularly encouraged to consider 'standing'. There are no restrictions on standing: in particular, the existing 'representatives' are very welcome to put their names forward to continue. [Note: I've called the people we put forward 'representatives', but that's mainly because I can't think of a better term. Nominees should not feel the need to represent TeX-sx other than being members of the site and therefore interested in TeX in some way!]

The model for answers follows the pattern from last year. Each person who wishes to be considered should post an answer, where they can (if they wish) say what makes them a good choice. Everyone should take a look at these answers and vote for deserving candidates: remember there are eight places available!

Based on the time-frame from StackExchange, we have about a week to fill up the slots. I'll therefore close the question late on 2012-12-08 (next Saturday), so we (mods) can send the names along in time. In the event of a tie in number of votes, the mod team will decide which of the tied members are put forward to StackExchange.


Voting closed with the following result: there were nine names put forward, the top eight by votes were:

  • Paulo Cereda
  • Stefan Kottwitz
  • topskip
  • Aditya
  • Jake
  • Alan Munn
  • azetina
  • Martin Scharrer

These names will be passed to the StackExchange staff to be forwarded to TUG.

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  • 24
    Not part of the question, but of course many thanks to StackExchange for continuing this :-)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Nov 30, 2012 at 19:21
  • 2
    Yes, it's great that this commitment continues!
    – Stefan Kottwitz Mod
    Nov 30, 2012 at 19:26
  • 2
    To preempt questions: The nominated persons will get all the benefits of a personal TUG membership. In particular that includes a printed copy of TUGboat delivered by mail.
    – Caramdir
    Nov 30, 2012 at 20:01
  • 7
    Of course I'm happy to have my membership renewed, and I've added a separate answer as a self nomination, but I think that it would be great to spread the memberships around each year. So I suggest the following candidates should throw their names into the hat. These are all people who have made significant contributions to the site over the past year, and yet are not directly involved with TUG already (as far as I know). - Werner - Gonzalo Medina - Paulo Cereda - Jake - percusse - Peter Grill
    – Alan Munn
    Dec 1, 2012 at 20:59
  • 1
    I've deliberately left out egreg and David Carlisle, who I think are TUG members independently. (Although percusse has graciously declined in the comments to the original version of this comment which was a question.)
    – Alan Munn
    Dec 1, 2012 at 21:00
  • 1
    @AlanMunn I am already a member of TUG, but thanks for considering me. Dec 1, 2012 at 21:40
  • 1
    @AlanMunn yep I am a member already, thanks for the mention though:-) Dec 1, 2012 at 21:59
  • 2
    I am definitely not going to nominate myself so there is at least one slot going free. My purpose in asking for one of the slots last year was as a way to see if I wanted to be a member of TUG and after the year then if I wanted to continue I would take out an individual membership. This is what I will do. Dec 2, 2012 at 17:49
  • Just to make sure: are all the slots available to TeX.SX, or does StackExchange plan to give the membership to someone else as well?
    – yo'
    Dec 3, 2012 at 14:31
  • 2
    @tohecz StackExchange is a member of TUG specifically because of TeX-sx: all of the slots are 'ours'.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Dec 3, 2012 at 14:36
  • 3
    So, if we have more then 8 entries it is decided by a steel-cage TeX coding match, right? N > 8 Men and/or women enter, 8 men and or women leave. :D
    – Canageek
    Dec 5, 2012 at 14:05
  • @JosephWright Thanks a lot for the consideration of everyone here at TX.SX. How will we be informed about the process of subscription or requirements of it?
    – azetina
    Dec 9, 2012 at 20:54
  • @azetina I pass the names to the StackExchange staff. They will then e-mail the successful people to get the info needed by TUG (postal address, etc.)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Dec 9, 2012 at 21:42

9 Answers 9

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My first idea was to wait for the deadline to come and, in case of still having available slots, I'd add my nomination. Stephan prodded me to do it right now, for the sake of democracy. :) So here it goes:

I would like to have a chance to a TUG membership for the next year.

That said, I'd like to mention a few things.

  1. I'd like to have a chance of earning a TUG membership if and only if the existing representatives decide to pass their own subscriptions in favour of someone new. I know this thread is about a democratic process, but I wouldn't feel comfortable of taking somebody's place.

  2. I really love this site, the atmosphere and, most of all, all the great friends I had the honour to know. I want to see this place growing every day, and I want to contribute with it, even with my language deficiencies and lack of TeXnical knowledge. We have great answers, great bloggers, and fantastic users that post interesting questions every single day. This makes our community full of life. That said, I'm not sure if I could attend any TeX conference on behalf of TeX.sx, since it's very difficult for me to obtain subsidies for travelling abroad. Besides, I really don't have anything so TeXnical to offer, besides of cute ducks (or tortoises). Brazil doesn't have a local TUG - I'd love to try to found one, but still some sort of minimal infrastructure would be needed, and have at least a quorum - so the only way to get in touch with the TeX world would be through an international group.

  3. I share Alan's suggestions, so I'd kindly ask you guys to prefer such great users instead of me. Of course, we are teasing them to nominate themselves. :)

Well, that's it. :)

I'm tempted to post another duck here. Must... resist... posting... duck... reference...

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I'd like to continue to be a member of TUG.

Why:

  • My wish to be a member of TUG initiated the institutional membership of Stack Exchange and I would do something to continue.

  • I traveled from Germany to India to the TUG 2011 conference to speak about TeX.SE, and would even go to TUG 2013 in Japan if possible.

  • I like reading the TUGboat, where I published also an article with a special focus on TeX.SE. I'm in contact with editors from time to time regarding contributions by me or by TeX friends and currently I'm involved in editing for PracTeX, another TUG journal.

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  • I'd like to continue being a member of TUG, because I enjoy reading the TUGboat.
  • The more community reason is: I keep advertising tex.sx on all DANTE and other TeX meetings.
  • I'll publish another LuaTeX article if I keep the membership :)
  • I will vote for new people wishing to be part of the sponsored TUG membership, because I totally agree with Alan Munn.
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  • BTW: I wouldn't be offended to receive downvotes to help the newcomers go to the top of the list!
    – topskip
    Dec 5, 2012 at 15:50
  • If you want to let people 'reconsider' their voting, a quick edit will 'unlock' votes :-)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Dec 5, 2012 at 21:50
  • done, should be downvotable now
    – topskip
    Dec 6, 2012 at 7:47
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    I will never downvote you. ♥ Dec 6, 2012 at 9:54
  • I was thinking more people could remove upvotes, if they feel it's appropriate. I'd hope voting on this question is an all-positive thing :-)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Dec 6, 2012 at 17:51
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Since there aren't 8 nominations in the tray, I'd like to nominate myself for a sponsored TUG membership.

  • I was a TUG member a few years ago, but in recent years I stopped being a TUG member in favor of being a member of the ConTeXt group.

  • I enjoy reading TUGBoat and have contributed semi-regularly in a ConTeXt for Users column.

  • I like the model of TeX.SE, but given the none of the ConTeXt experts answer on this site, I am not convinced that this is the best forum for asking ConTeXt questions. So, for any non-trivial ConTeXt question, I'll still be prodding users to post it on the ConTeXt mailing list. So, perhaps, I am not the best choice to be a representative of TeX.SE.

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I hereby add an answer nominating myself for one of the TUG memberships. I've certainly appreciated the membership this year, and continue to be fairly active here on the site.

But I am also perfectly content to pass my membership on to someone new, as well. In particular, I've added in the comments to the main question a list of names of people who I think should nominate themselves for one of the memberships.

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I would like to nominate myself.

I'd love to be a TUG member for a year, and I'd take it as motivation to finally write the TUGboat article on using PGFPlots to create Tufte style scatter plots (a follow-up to the bar chart article on http://latex-community.org/know-how/437-tufte-charts).

25

I would like to join and be a TUG member.

  • In my country LaTeX is not taken seriously or at least not extensively used. I am struggling introducing it to others and along with a colleague of mine, we are trying to form a group here to promote its use.
  • Unfortunately having a credit card here is expensive with about 17% interest rate so its a luxury to have one and thus purchasing a membership for TUG is sometimes in second thought.
  • I know I am still in the process of mastering several aspects of TeX and LaTeX but I bet that with more support I can achieve it. I am not a prominent user here but I am learning.
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I like to continue to be a TUG member.

  • I'm enjoying reading the TUGboard and would like to write an article for it.

  • I'm also prepard to go to the next TUG conference and represent both TeX.SX and present some of my LaTeX work. Unfortunatly the final stage of my PhD didn't allowed me to I go to the last TUG conference.

21

I very humbly add my nomination, after a short chat with Joseph. I'm not so active TeX.SX member recently, basically because I got involved in TeX elsewhere and I cannot procrastinate on it so much ;)

The reason why I nominate myself is that I consider becoming a TUG member anyways, and I think I can benefit from the membership.

On the other hand, as soon as there are 8 other approved nominations, I'll stand down.

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