OTW elections, or I am conflicted and tl;dr
Edited on Nov. 21 to add: I see this got linked to by the Smallville newsletter. Since the election is over now, I'd really prefer not to host discussions about this entry at this time, since it no longer seems productive to me. I thought about locking this entry, but I won't at the moment for archival purposes. However, if you want to discuss the issues raised in this entry please take it to your own journal. Thanks.
So I'm seeing a lot of posts in which people say they wish they had paid the OTW membership fee so they could have voted in this election. Frankly I wish I hadn't, because the more posts I read the less I feel like I know who to vote for.
First of all, since every single post I've seen talking about the OTW has at least one comment asking "what the heck is the OTW," . Basically, the Organization for Transformative Works (or OTW) is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 that runs the Archive of Our Own and a number of other projects such as the academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures, the fandom wiki Fanlore, the Open Doors project (that does things like preserve fannish history and fandom links on closed websites like Geocities), as well as doing legal advocacy to protect fandom. More information on OTW and all these projects is available at their website here .
In the past couple months, there have been a lot of good posts about the candidates and their stands on various issues; this links to all the candidate statements; this links to all the chats; this is a very good roundup of links to discussions of the election from late October to about November 6, and this post rounds up some of the debate from Nov 6-12.
Then one of the candidates, Lucy Pearson, withdrew her candidacy; A03 had a new code push that changed the look of the archive and had some bugs that led to outrage from some users, and subsequently the resignation of one of the coders most involved in the new skins on AO3; and the board president made a public post discussing organizational problems facing her initiative to implement a strategic plan. This has led to an explosion of posts; some roundups of responses to these events can be found here, here, and here. I have some more links about these specific controversies
These are mainly about lim's resignation and how it might relate to broader structural problems in the organization:
FFA (panfandom anonymeme)discussion talking about larger structural problems in OTW if one coder had so much responsibility
Facetofcathy's response to lim's resignation/the problem of one individual in an organization having too much responsibility
Helens78's discussion about volunteering and coding--with comparisons between A03 and DW-- is toward the bottom of the post, and the comments are very interesting
Kassrachel thanking the A03 coders, with some discussion in the comments about the experience of being on the other end of complaints
Ellen Fremedon's discussion of user complaints and structural problems
Schmevil's call for volunteers to take care of themselves, and why more than paid members have a stake in the election
Sarah T talking about the problem of attracting coders
OTW apology for problems caused by the code push.
Another good place to find links about this is pinboard entries for OTW.
To be honest, though I skimmed through the candidate chats when they were posted, I wasn't that invested in the issues a lot of them seemed to be talking about--when I read "organizational transparency," for example, my first thought was "oh my god, like I don't already have to scroll past all those otw updates I don't actually care about." I support the overall goals of the organization--especially the legal defense of fandom--but I give them money for the Archive, so when I read a bunch of posts complaining that Naomi Novik only cares about the archive, my general response was "well, good, that should be the priority."
However, I had insomnia last night and stayed up until 5 a.m. following all sorts of links about volunteer burnout, volunteers feeling like their suggestions aren't taken seriously, people feeling that the organizational structure itself works against communication . These sorts of conversations have led a bunch of people to advocate for an "Everyone but Naomi" ticket because the general tenor of these volunteer complaints is that the culture created by certain powerful members of the board--Naomi Novik and Francesca Coppa being most frequently mentioned-- has created an atmosphere where volunteers can't be heard, suggestions for change get overlooked, burnout is inevitable, and volunteers are likely to flee the organization en masse. And that suddenly makes organizational transparency and sustainability (a) comprehensible to me and (b) actually central to continuing the Archive, since the archive runs on volunteers.
But in spite of that, I feel like I'm only hearing one side of the story. I want more context! Are the complaints pretty much representative of all volunteers, or just a few committees? Is the board fundamentally divided, and we're only hearing one side? There have been a few attempts at rebutting the idea that volunteer burnout and resignations are the fault of Naomi or other founders and a couple general arguments for Naomi's importance to the organization , but I guess what I want to hear is more perspectives on the work culture of the OTW, or maybe statements from all the candidates addressing volunteer burnout in light of recent events. I have read some extremely informative posts on non-profits and volunteering and dysfunction and burnout, but I still think this is a problem the OTW needs to address.
Sigh. I really wish some of this stuff had been posted earlier, since the election is in two days. And I am still very conflicted, because a number of people I respect are supporting Naomi's candidacy, but the arguments about volunteer burnout and long-term organizational sustainability seem very persuasive, right now.
ETA: mollyamory's post defending Naomi on dreamwidth (the one I linked to above was on LJ) has some great discussion in the comments, both bookshop's specific arguments for why not to vote for Naomi and mollyamory's rebuttal and specific comments on Naomi's managerial style. Also, apparently right before I posted this svmadelyn posted another defense of Naomi.
So I'm seeing a lot of posts in which people say they wish they had paid the OTW membership fee so they could have voted in this election. Frankly I wish I hadn't, because the more posts I read the less I feel like I know who to vote for.
First of all, since every single post I've seen talking about the OTW has at least one comment asking "what the heck is the OTW," . Basically, the Organization for Transformative Works (or OTW) is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 that runs the Archive of Our Own and a number of other projects such as the academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures, the fandom wiki Fanlore, the Open Doors project (that does things like preserve fannish history and fandom links on closed websites like Geocities), as well as doing legal advocacy to protect fandom. More information on OTW and all these projects is available at their website here .
In the past couple months, there have been a lot of good posts about the candidates and their stands on various issues; this links to all the candidate statements; this links to all the chats; this is a very good roundup of links to discussions of the election from late October to about November 6, and this post rounds up some of the debate from Nov 6-12.
Then one of the candidates, Lucy Pearson, withdrew her candidacy; A03 had a new code push that changed the look of the archive and had some bugs that led to outrage from some users, and subsequently the resignation of one of the coders most involved in the new skins on AO3; and the board president made a public post discussing organizational problems facing her initiative to implement a strategic plan. This has led to an explosion of posts; some roundups of responses to these events can be found here, here, and here. I have some more links about these specific controversies
These are mainly about lim's resignation and how it might relate to broader structural problems in the organization:
FFA (panfandom anonymeme)discussion talking about larger structural problems in OTW if one coder had so much responsibility
Facetofcathy's response to lim's resignation/the problem of one individual in an organization having too much responsibility
Helens78's discussion about volunteering and coding--with comparisons between A03 and DW-- is toward the bottom of the post, and the comments are very interesting
Kassrachel thanking the A03 coders, with some discussion in the comments about the experience of being on the other end of complaints
Ellen Fremedon's discussion of user complaints and structural problems
Schmevil's call for volunteers to take care of themselves, and why more than paid members have a stake in the election
Sarah T talking about the problem of attracting coders
OTW apology for problems caused by the code push.
Another good place to find links about this is pinboard entries for OTW.
To be honest, though I skimmed through the candidate chats when they were posted, I wasn't that invested in the issues a lot of them seemed to be talking about--when I read "organizational transparency," for example, my first thought was "oh my god, like I don't already have to scroll past all those otw updates I don't actually care about." I support the overall goals of the organization--especially the legal defense of fandom--but I give them money for the Archive, so when I read a bunch of posts complaining that Naomi Novik only cares about the archive, my general response was "well, good, that should be the priority."
However, I had insomnia last night and stayed up until 5 a.m. following all sorts of links about volunteer burnout, volunteers feeling like their suggestions aren't taken seriously, people feeling that the organizational structure itself works against communication . These sorts of conversations have led a bunch of people to advocate for an "Everyone but Naomi" ticket because the general tenor of these volunteer complaints is that the culture created by certain powerful members of the board--Naomi Novik and Francesca Coppa being most frequently mentioned-- has created an atmosphere where volunteers can't be heard, suggestions for change get overlooked, burnout is inevitable, and volunteers are likely to flee the organization en masse. And that suddenly makes organizational transparency and sustainability (a) comprehensible to me and (b) actually central to continuing the Archive, since the archive runs on volunteers.
But in spite of that, I feel like I'm only hearing one side of the story. I want more context! Are the complaints pretty much representative of all volunteers, or just a few committees? Is the board fundamentally divided, and we're only hearing one side? There have been a few attempts at rebutting the idea that volunteer burnout and resignations are the fault of Naomi or other founders and a couple general arguments for Naomi's importance to the organization , but I guess what I want to hear is more perspectives on the work culture of the OTW, or maybe statements from all the candidates addressing volunteer burnout in light of recent events. I have read some extremely informative posts on non-profits and volunteering and dysfunction and burnout, but I still think this is a problem the OTW needs to address.
Sigh. I really wish some of this stuff had been posted earlier, since the election is in two days. And I am still very conflicted, because a number of people I respect are supporting Naomi's candidacy, but the arguments about volunteer burnout and long-term organizational sustainability seem very persuasive, right now.
ETA: mollyamory's post defending Naomi on dreamwidth (the one I linked to above was on LJ) has some great discussion in the comments, both bookshop's specific arguments for why not to vote for Naomi and mollyamory's rebuttal and specific comments on Naomi's managerial style. Also, apparently right before I posted this svmadelyn posted another defense of Naomi.