OTW or AO3
Whatever, same people involved at the top mostly.
I've tried reading the comments to that post that they tried to hide by posting two other quick posts. Yeah, the one that now has over 140 comments... Pretty amazing in itself for a place that usually get anything from zero to a handful of comments on their news posts... However, while I don't much care about the issue in the post (allowing to post "meta", whatever they mean by that, on the archive), I get pretty damn annoyed by how the staff or various committee members etc are replying to people's concerns or criticism on how this was handled.
When I say that I *try* to read the comments, that is what I mean. Ordinary archive-using folks' comments can be read just fine! And I enjoy lots of them, finding it interesting to see people's concerns and thoughts. And then I get to the replies to them, and I get two or three sentences in and my eyes glaze over and my brain vacates the premises.
The amount of extreme vague-speak is astounding! There is not a straightforward reply to be seen! It's all wrapped up in catchphrases, buzzwords, tangential vague explanations that have only half to do with the comment they reply to, etc.
What I manage to get out from it is that OTW and the AO3 board and/or committees first had a looooooong discussion about meta and whether to include it on the archive or not, and it was decided that nope, not allowed. But the beauty of having an organisation that's deliberately built as a behemoth is that it moves so slowly that before they had time or manpower (volunteers, that they btw keep turning away because they are reconsidering their volunteer accepting something or other and are and have been for a long time rebuilding that structure or just the form they have to fill out to be considered, I've got lost in the vague-speak sorry) to act upon it (like warn the ppl who have already uploaded "meta" in some form) half the board was switched out! And hey, that's an excellent reason to have a new discussion! Just as long. But now they have finally decided and actually announced that "meta" (however they will in the future define it) will be allowed! Yay for meta-writers.
Would be nice if there was a way to identify meta. Or vids. Or podfics. Or art. Or anything other than fic. Because they don't have that little structural thing finished yet, from what I understand of the comments.
What I also got out of the brain-breaking reading, is that the people who do reply are basically ordered to quote the same FAQ paragraphs or policy document draft paragraphs to everyone those can be even remotely connected to.
Another thing is that the news comments (or the whole damn site, I couldn't understand which) don't work on mobile services and the staffers push blame on the mobile devices' browsers, and add vagueness to it. In many many paragraphs.
They say they understand "concern", they promise "they will look to user input" in regards to how "meta" will be defined, but hey, they'd also said that before taking this particular decision about allowing meta or not they would also listen to user input, and guess what? There was no way for users to input their input. Although, some staffer said that oh, they did get user input "by various means" they didn't feel like divulging. Where from? Their friends? Or is this a case of "the users are supporting us in email"?
Don't get me wrong, I like and I use the archive for my fic. I post there. I sometimes remember to reply to the few comments I get too. But I don't read there because the tags are a mess, and I just read in Gazefandom anyway. But, I don't like how the thing is run! It's wonderful with the whole "protecting fanfic and fight for them being transformative works and therefore not copyright-infringing". I love that! But the organisation behind it is a behemoth! They've built it so that they get basically nothing done! And the hoops volunteers have to jump through to be allowed to volunteer has been ridiculous. So that's awesome that they're rethinking that. I just doubt that it will get better. And I doubt that the excellent, skilled coders and webservice designers and people who know how archiving and structuring data so you can actually find it (like librarians!!!) are going to come back to volunteer after getting the cold shoulder ages ago already.
Actually, I was unfair to the staffers/board members etc. There is one person who can write readable and fairly straightforward replies to the users, and that is Cat Meier. It was wonderful to read her comment(s) because my brain didn't bleed and my eyes didn't glaze over! (The co-chair of communications committee(?), Claudia, however. I'm still trying to convince my brain to come back to me...)
It feels so much like they're a bunch of people who're playing multinational corporation and having too much fun building committees and boards and thinks that the more structured they are and the more hierarchical this structure is, the better they are. Without seeing that all this structure is getting in the way of getting anything done, and of allowing the people who'd like to help to get in. Also, if someone is commenting wondering when the minutes will be updated with the info behind these meetings later updates their comment to say never mind, didn't realise the minutes were so vague there's no actual info in them, you're doing something wrong!
Minutes shouldn't really just say that you discussed the project or the question. That is not actually transparency. That's just posting something you can point to to make people shut up.
Okay, I'm done. I think.
In conclusion, yay for people who like meta. Boo for OTW who's still too busy with their playing being corporate hot-shots. Including the language. Gods, just write sentences that don't put people to sleep! How hard can it be? The fine people here at Dreamwidth manage all the damn time!!!
Okay, now I'm done. Maybe.
This entry was originally posted at http://ldybastet.dreamwidth.org/609402.html.
comments there. You can comment on either site.
I've tried reading the comments to that post that they tried to hide by posting two other quick posts. Yeah, the one that now has over 140 comments... Pretty amazing in itself for a place that usually get anything from zero to a handful of comments on their news posts... However, while I don't much care about the issue in the post (allowing to post "meta", whatever they mean by that, on the archive), I get pretty damn annoyed by how the staff or various committee members etc are replying to people's concerns or criticism on how this was handled.
When I say that I *try* to read the comments, that is what I mean. Ordinary archive-using folks' comments can be read just fine! And I enjoy lots of them, finding it interesting to see people's concerns and thoughts. And then I get to the replies to them, and I get two or three sentences in and my eyes glaze over and my brain vacates the premises.
The amount of extreme vague-speak is astounding! There is not a straightforward reply to be seen! It's all wrapped up in catchphrases, buzzwords, tangential vague explanations that have only half to do with the comment they reply to, etc.
What I manage to get out from it is that OTW and the AO3 board and/or committees first had a looooooong discussion about meta and whether to include it on the archive or not, and it was decided that nope, not allowed. But the beauty of having an organisation that's deliberately built as a behemoth is that it moves so slowly that before they had time or manpower (volunteers, that they btw keep turning away because they are reconsidering their volunteer accepting something or other and are and have been for a long time rebuilding that structure or just the form they have to fill out to be considered, I've got lost in the vague-speak sorry) to act upon it (like warn the ppl who have already uploaded "meta" in some form) half the board was switched out! And hey, that's an excellent reason to have a new discussion! Just as long. But now they have finally decided and actually announced that "meta" (however they will in the future define it) will be allowed! Yay for meta-writers.
Would be nice if there was a way to identify meta. Or vids. Or podfics. Or art. Or anything other than fic. Because they don't have that little structural thing finished yet, from what I understand of the comments.
What I also got out of the brain-breaking reading, is that the people who do reply are basically ordered to quote the same FAQ paragraphs or policy document draft paragraphs to everyone those can be even remotely connected to.
Another thing is that the news comments (or the whole damn site, I couldn't understand which) don't work on mobile services and the staffers push blame on the mobile devices' browsers, and add vagueness to it. In many many paragraphs.
They say they understand "concern", they promise "they will look to user input" in regards to how "meta" will be defined, but hey, they'd also said that before taking this particular decision about allowing meta or not they would also listen to user input, and guess what? There was no way for users to input their input. Although, some staffer said that oh, they did get user input "by various means" they didn't feel like divulging. Where from? Their friends? Or is this a case of "the users are supporting us in email"?
Don't get me wrong, I like and I use the archive for my fic. I post there. I sometimes remember to reply to the few comments I get too. But I don't read there because the tags are a mess, and I just read in Gazefandom anyway. But, I don't like how the thing is run! It's wonderful with the whole "protecting fanfic and fight for them being transformative works and therefore not copyright-infringing". I love that! But the organisation behind it is a behemoth! They've built it so that they get basically nothing done! And the hoops volunteers have to jump through to be allowed to volunteer has been ridiculous. So that's awesome that they're rethinking that. I just doubt that it will get better. And I doubt that the excellent, skilled coders and webservice designers and people who know how archiving and structuring data so you can actually find it (like librarians!!!) are going to come back to volunteer after getting the cold shoulder ages ago already.
Actually, I was unfair to the staffers/board members etc. There is one person who can write readable and fairly straightforward replies to the users, and that is Cat Meier. It was wonderful to read her comment(s) because my brain didn't bleed and my eyes didn't glaze over! (The co-chair of communications committee(?), Claudia, however. I'm still trying to convince my brain to come back to me...)
It feels so much like they're a bunch of people who're playing multinational corporation and having too much fun building committees and boards and thinks that the more structured they are and the more hierarchical this structure is, the better they are. Without seeing that all this structure is getting in the way of getting anything done, and of allowing the people who'd like to help to get in. Also, if someone is commenting wondering when the minutes will be updated with the info behind these meetings later updates their comment to say never mind, didn't realise the minutes were so vague there's no actual info in them, you're doing something wrong!
Minutes shouldn't really just say that you discussed the project or the question. That is not actually transparency. That's just posting something you can point to to make people shut up.
Okay, I'm done. I think.
In conclusion, yay for people who like meta. Boo for OTW who's still too busy with their playing being corporate hot-shots. Including the language. Gods, just write sentences that don't put people to sleep! How hard can it be? The fine people here at Dreamwidth manage all the damn time!!!
Okay, now I'm done. Maybe.
This entry was originally posted at http://ldybastet.dreamwidth.org/609402.html.
comments there. You can comment on either site.