Sigh...

[quinara]

So, the OTW has found itself in its semi-annual clusterfuck. Or, not really, but it's currently having its autumnal donation drive which seems to be interacting in an odd way with its election process (namely, no one who becomes a member during the current drive will be able to vote). The more interesting point is that despite now asking fandom

Comments

[quinara]

It's difficult, because there is so much wank around the OTW and I want to believe it's not all a sign of doom, but sometimes they don't help themselves at all.

I think the cost supposedly comes from the idea that they own the physical server, rather than just rent space from somewhere else. But it's also an issue of the requests that get sent to it, rather than the data that's stored on it. The techies around the place seem to suggest that the main issue is the AO3's fairly ropey code, which makes every search for fic a more burdensome action than it should be on a well-built database, which gets worse the busier the servers become. More worryingly, there seems to be some suggestions around that the attitude of the board is that as long as there are donations coming in to pay for upgrading hardware, there is no need to improve the efficiency of the system. It seems incredibly short-termist to me...

I think they're grand plan is to never meddle - but in exchange for that, at least in the way the org is communicating with direct comments on the AO3, there is a definite pressure that as they provide a service everyone should be paying for it. I think my problem is that they do provide a service, which I would be willing to pay for, but they're asking me and everyone to pay for it by throwing money into a wishing well, which is supposedly related to the service I use by some underground pipes...