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graycardinalThis was originally going to be a comment to an entry in bcgphoenix 's journal (to which I was pointed by skygiants), but it got long and I decided that it makes more sense as a post of its own.
So. Fandom Against Racism is a thing, calling out the OTW for not moving quickly or thoroughly enough to combat racist activities on AO3. Their cause is unquestionably noble - but their call to action pushes some of my personal buttons, and thereby hangs a post.
///
Context first: I've been actively involved with several variously sized nonprofits over the years, and an inside-track observer of quite a few more. The most relevant for present purposes is SFWA, currently among the most influential & forward-looking writers' organizations around. In fact, though, SFWA went through over a long stretch of turbulent, complicated, and often very messy evolution in order to get there. That's because it's simultaneously large and small, with a widely dispersed membership, very concentrated governance, and (at one time) operating rules that had become inordinately difficult to change. It took consecutive Presidents committed to nurturing and implementing change for SFWA to evolve successfully, and even then there were some rocky periods along the way.
AO3 and the OTW are much like SFWA in this respect: they're at once both very large and very small, with assets that are highly concentrated yet extraordinarily diffuse. AO3 hosts millions of fanworks and has an enormous worldwide user base - all of it gathered on one Web domain. AO3 is supported by hundreds of volunteers; OTW regularly blows past its fundraising goals by several hundred percent. Yet OTW's governance resides entirely with a small Board of Directors - most of whom have careers and obligations outside of OTW in addition to their Board membership. To further complicate matters, AO3 users and OTW members are separate but overlapping sets, OTW members have almost no actual power beyond electing Directors - and the OTW has grown very quickly in institutional terms.
The result? Its Board, like those of many nonprofits, has more than enough to do just managing the OTW's various assets and activities. Most day-to-day operational matters are (necessarily and appropriately) delegated to volunteers and committees, with little time available for contemplating (let alone implementing) significant policy changes.
///
Now, then, back to Fandom Against Racism. As above, I acknowledge that theirs is a noble cause...but I have issues with their Call To Action.
Quality reform takes time.
SFWA took more than a decade (and three or four separate membership votes over a period of years) to fully implement a complex but necessary set of organizational changes, including amendments to its Bylaws and moving its corporate registration from Massachusetts to California. The present call is narrower in subject matter but at least as complex (if not more so) in terms of determining exactly what measures to implement and the means of implementation. At three years in, asking for a progress report is totally appropriate; expecting the work to be complete, however, is not necessarily realistic.
I will agree that the OTW's apparent effort here isn't at the level one would hope for, but as others have noted (see the post I mentioned above), this is a singularly fraught issue and one in which the simplest methods aren't necessarily the best. This is a job which really, really needs to be done right the first time - and needs not to be done badly because those doing it are in a rush to appease a (rightfully) angry mob.
Anger is a poor persuader.
Protest, especially protest against hate, is frequently and understandably an expression of anger. Here, though, that anger is arguably misdirected. Fandom itself has often been a marginalized and persecuted community; that's been changing somewhat since genre fantasy and SF have become a dominant force in popular media, but we're still "home" for members of lots of marginalized subgroups.
But lashing out with anger is rarely the best way to achieve positive change. Fly-catching rules apply; one will do better with honey than with vinegar. Anger, tactically speaking, is a tool for breaking things; this is a cause that says it wants to build something, to add structure to an existing thing. The protestors are AO3 users, and say they want an improved AO3. Taking out their anger on AO3's maintainers doesn't seem to me a wise approach to achieving that goal. The lion's share of organized fandom is highly predisposed to want to help achieve the goals outlined in this Call For Action - but not if the framers treat them as adversaries rather than as potential allies.
Implementing change is far easier from within.
Were I in this protest's shoes, the very first thing I'd try to do is field at least one candidate - if not a slate - for the next OTW Board elections. Where nonprofits are concerned, it's next best to impossible to implement major course corrections or changes in institutional behavior from the outside - the organization's Board holds all the power, and implementing change is a matter of achieving enough representation on the Board to set, or at least influence, its corporate agenda. The Call to Action and its associated FAQ assert that "fans of color are not outsiders" - but unless they are in fact members of OTW (a matter on which the Call and FAQ are silent), their critics aren't wrong to label them as outsiders with respect to the OTW in specific.
Note that successful implementation of this strategy requires either joining the organization or recruiting one or more sympathetic current members to run for Directorships - which, again, tends to be easier if you haven't recently published a manifesto denouncing the organization you're trying to reform. It is, however, an extremely effective strategy; just ask the ultraconservative Christian evangelicals who've taken over today's U.S. Republican party. With benefit of hindsight, I was on the ground back in the 1980s when they started that process by inserting their people precinct by precinct, neighborhood by neighborhood into ground-level positions and gradually working their way upward till they'd forced all the moderates out.
///
To conclude:
I'm fully in sympathy with the goals of Fandom Against Racism - but I think their rhetoric is badly targeted and that their tactics are inappropriate for their stated mission. There are issues and causes and levels of government where this kind of anger and confrontational style would be appropriate, but I don't think creating a safer OTW is one of them. (And if the sponsors are convinced that the OTW leadership can't be won to their cause, they might be better off licensing the open-source code underlying AO3 and setting up their own archive.)
bcgphoenix 's journal (to which I was pointed by skygiants), but it got long and I decided that it makes more sense as a post of its own. So. Fandom Against Racism is a thing, calling out the OTW for not moving quickly or thoroughly enough to combat racist activities on AO3. Their cause is unquestionably noble - but their call to action pushes some of my personal buttons, and thereby hangs a post.
///
Context first: I've been actively involved with several variously sized nonprofits over the years, and an inside-track observer of quite a few more. The most relevant for present purposes is SFWA, currently among the most influential & forward-looking writers' organizations around. In fact, though, SFWA went through over a long stretch of turbulent, complicated, and often very messy evolution in order to get there. That's because it's simultaneously large and small, with a widely dispersed membership, very concentrated governance, and (at one time) operating rules that had become inordinately difficult to change. It took consecutive Presidents committed to nurturing and implementing change for SFWA to evolve successfully, and even then there were some rocky periods along the way.
AO3 and the OTW are much like SFWA in this respect: they're at once both very large and very small, with assets that are highly concentrated yet extraordinarily diffuse. AO3 hosts millions of fanworks and has an enormous worldwide user base - all of it gathered on one Web domain. AO3 is supported by hundreds of volunteers; OTW regularly blows past its fundraising goals by several hundred percent. Yet OTW's governance resides entirely with a small Board of Directors - most of whom have careers and obligations outside of OTW in addition to their Board membership. To further complicate matters, AO3 users and OTW members are separate but overlapping sets, OTW members have almost no actual power beyond electing Directors - and the OTW has grown very quickly in institutional terms.
The result? Its Board, like those of many nonprofits, has more than enough to do just managing the OTW's various assets and activities. Most day-to-day operational matters are (necessarily and appropriately) delegated to volunteers and committees, with little time available for contemplating (let alone implementing) significant policy changes.
///
Now, then, back to Fandom Against Racism. As above, I acknowledge that theirs is a noble cause...but I have issues with their Call To Action.
Quality reform takes time.
SFWA took more than a decade (and three or four separate membership votes over a period of years) to fully implement a complex but necessary set of organizational changes, including amendments to its Bylaws and moving its corporate registration from Massachusetts to California. The present call is narrower in subject matter but at least as complex (if not more so) in terms of determining exactly what measures to implement and the means of implementation. At three years in, asking for a progress report is totally appropriate; expecting the work to be complete, however, is not necessarily realistic.
I will agree that the OTW's apparent effort here isn't at the level one would hope for, but as others have noted (see the post I mentioned above), this is a singularly fraught issue and one in which the simplest methods aren't necessarily the best. This is a job which really, really needs to be done right the first time - and needs not to be done badly because those doing it are in a rush to appease a (rightfully) angry mob.
Anger is a poor persuader.
Protest, especially protest against hate, is frequently and understandably an expression of anger. Here, though, that anger is arguably misdirected. Fandom itself has often been a marginalized and persecuted community; that's been changing somewhat since genre fantasy and SF have become a dominant force in popular media, but we're still "home" for members of lots of marginalized subgroups.
But lashing out with anger is rarely the best way to achieve positive change. Fly-catching rules apply; one will do better with honey than with vinegar. Anger, tactically speaking, is a tool for breaking things; this is a cause that says it wants to build something, to add structure to an existing thing. The protestors are AO3 users, and say they want an improved AO3. Taking out their anger on AO3's maintainers doesn't seem to me a wise approach to achieving that goal. The lion's share of organized fandom is highly predisposed to want to help achieve the goals outlined in this Call For Action - but not if the framers treat them as adversaries rather than as potential allies.
Implementing change is far easier from within.
Were I in this protest's shoes, the very first thing I'd try to do is field at least one candidate - if not a slate - for the next OTW Board elections. Where nonprofits are concerned, it's next best to impossible to implement major course corrections or changes in institutional behavior from the outside - the organization's Board holds all the power, and implementing change is a matter of achieving enough representation on the Board to set, or at least influence, its corporate agenda. The Call to Action and its associated FAQ assert that "fans of color are not outsiders" - but unless they are in fact members of OTW (a matter on which the Call and FAQ are silent), their critics aren't wrong to label them as outsiders with respect to the OTW in specific.
Note that successful implementation of this strategy requires either joining the organization or recruiting one or more sympathetic current members to run for Directorships - which, again, tends to be easier if you haven't recently published a manifesto denouncing the organization you're trying to reform. It is, however, an extremely effective strategy; just ask the ultraconservative Christian evangelicals who've taken over today's U.S. Republican party. With benefit of hindsight, I was on the ground back in the 1980s when they started that process by inserting their people precinct by precinct, neighborhood by neighborhood into ground-level positions and gradually working their way upward till they'd forced all the moderates out.
///
To conclude:
I'm fully in sympathy with the goals of Fandom Against Racism - but I think their rhetoric is badly targeted and that their tactics are inappropriate for their stated mission. There are issues and causes and levels of government where this kind of anger and confrontational style would be appropriate, but I don't think creating a safer OTW is one of them. (And if the sponsors are convinced that the OTW leadership can't be won to their cause, they might be better off licensing the open-source code underlying AO3 and setting up their own archive.)
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