#1 of 2: On OTW & AO3 (the personal-practice post)

[graycardinal]

The latest news out of OTW, involving the resignations of three OTW Board members, finds me increasingly thoughtful about the state of the organization and of the sizeable body of material I have on AO3. It's absolutely clear at this point that the OTW is badly in need of reform on both an administrative and a structural level (that is, they have both "people" problems and a tangle of organizational issues in play).

This is therefore the first of two posts addressing these issues, this one focused on my own participation in/on AO3 and Fanlore (I have an account over there under a different hat, and have done a fair bit of editing on that site over time). Post #2 will be longer; I want to take a fairly specific look at just what sort of reform OTW/AO3 is likely to need, which is a subject I think has been under-examined in most of the online activity I've seen to this point.

First, for the record: I am not now and have never been a paid member of the OTW; at present - and despite some of the recommendations I've made previously and expect to make in the next post - I am not inclined to donate money to the organization in its present state.

The short version: While I recognize the severity of the issues facing the OTW and largely agree with those calling for major reform of the organization, I plan to continue posting to AO3 and participating at Fanlore. (At the same time, I expect to investigate alternate venues, such as SquidgeWorld, and to consider creating an old-school personal site specifically for my fanfiction.)

The explanation: There's no denying that the OTW is facing very serious problems involving its treatment of volunteers and the ways in which it's failed to handle those problems effectively. Even so, as a user of AO3 and a participant in Fanlore, it's my view that the results - the enormous resource that AO3 has become, and the smaller but invaluable body of knowledge contained at Fanlore - are valuable in and of themselves, and that they're worth supporting and preserving irrespective of the conduct of some of those involved in their creation and oversight. In posting to these sites, I am in no way endorsing the personal conduct of any individual OTW/AO3 volunteer or Board member, now or going forward.

Comments

[senmut]

Completely justifiable on all accounts.

I am specifically not calling for folks to LEAVE the AO3. I would very much like to see NEW OPTIONS while we have these growing pains.

My biggest concern outside of the tangle of mess that is the OTW right now, is that they accidentally (on purpose?) became THE GAME in archiving. My understanding at the beginning was a focus on getting a stable and workable archive system that could then be adapted for other, more specific archives. Instead, Open Doors has pulled most of those smaller archives directly to the AO3, and few people have wanted to attempt the code sort needed to make the otw-a platform work for them. (I'm on both of the ones that are public at this time, SquidgeWorld and Ad Astra)

I WANT them to untangle the systemic organizational issues and find responsible people capable of the neutrality of character needed to run an archive.

But for now, I personally need to disengage, and hope future!me feels safe coming back.

[graycardinal]

Also a completely justifiable response on all accounts.

As the now-posted follow-up may suggest, I am of mixed minds as to second-guessing the founders' intent. I think it's fairly clear from context that they were selling the idea for the nonprofit as slanted toward scholarship and advocacy (which is to say, they were targeting academics and lawyers rather than fans). At the same time, the AO3 code (which had been/was being developed fairly explicitly as a successor to the then-decaying code for the old Yuletide archive) was their major existing asset, and Open Doors was created specifically to enable the eventual import of said Yuletide archive to AO3.

Also drawing on that follow-up post: whether or not the founders foresaw (or could have foreseen) AO3's tremendous growth strikes me as largely irrelevant now. What I'll say is this: I suspect that whether or not they anticipated AO3's success, their primary intent was to keep the organization under fairly tight personal control rather than to create a broad-based fan-run entity. I regard that choice as short-sighted at best and selfish at worst; fandom at the time was actively looking around for alternatives to fanfiction-dot-net, and the timing was (as history shows) exactly right for the formation of a well-run fan-friendly Webspace.

Either way, though, that's water under the bridge. The way the wind's blowing just now, I think reform may in fact be possible - but I also think it will take individuals who are not fixated on punishing the sinners to make a success of that reform, and I don't think we yet know if we have that kind of talent on deck.