From: Lady Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2023 04:18:26 +0000 (-0500) Subject: [2023-11-16] racism_otw_end X-Git-Url: https://git.ladys.computer/Blog/commitdiff_plain/798cd431a91f1d8ddbc672e33c78a28da018c2cf [2023-11-16] racism_otw_end --- diff --git a/2023-11-21/racism_otw_end/#entry.rdf b/2023-11-21/racism_otw_end/#entry.rdf new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f358c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/2023-11-21/racism_otw_end/#entry.rdf @@ -0,0 +1,299 @@ + + Racism, the O·T·W & the End There·of + 2023-11-21T23:18:26-05:00 + "Organization for Transformative Works" +[end_otw_racism]: "End Racism in the O·T·W" +]]> + Since the posting of our original plan in 2020, we have completed or +> made significant progress on a series of goals to help protect our +> users and volunteers against harassment: +> +> - We implemented the ability to freeze comment threads and turn off +> comments on your works entirely, giving you more control to +> moderate interactions on your AO3 fanworks. +> +> - User muting was introduced to help you avoid encountering works, +> bookmarks, or comments from specific users when browsing the +> Archive. +> +> - We have implemented comment blocking to prevent specific logged‐in +> users from commenting on your works entirely. +> +> - You can now opt out of receiving gifts on AO3, as well as opt out +> of allowing your works to be invited to collections. +> +> - We have improved admin tools to facilitate investigations by our +> Policy & Abuse team. +> +> - Internally, we have updated our Code of Conduct to make it explicit +> that discrimination based on caste is not tolerated in the OTW. +> +> - We also implemented methods for volunteers to contact and submit +> feedback to the Board anonymously by introducing a separate +> feedback form. +> +> We are still committed to working towards giving you more control +> over how you experience the Archive going forward. To that end, we +> will be expanding blocking features to cover more user interactions, +> and further limiting how guest users can interact with you on the +> Archive. + +Note how ⓐ almost all of these changes are technological in nature, +and ⓑ none of these changes are actually specific to *combatting +racism*. I didn’t participate in the End O·T·W Racism action because I +wanted “more control” over my Archive experience, I participated +because I wanted the O·T·W to cease being a racist organization. +Absolutely none of the points listed tackle that problem. + +Astonishingly, in a very “senpai noticed me” moment, [the Fandom Against +Racism team seemed happy just to have gotten a response at +all][EndOTWRacism-Response], and did not offer any of these criticisms. +This made me severely doubt whether the Fandom Against Racism team +actually knew what they were protesting. + +That one specific response to that one specific action aside, the O·T·W +clearly demonstrated, in the lead·up to its latest Board election :⁠— + +- That it has a Legal staff with far too much power and influence over + the organization, whose area of expertise is narrow and misguided in + relation to the whole scope of things a platform like + [A·O·3][AO3] needs to handle (e·g sexualized photography + of minors). + +- That it has a Policy & Abuse team which is hopelessly overworked, + unable to tackle big problems (due, in part, to afore·mentioned + overreach of Legal), and unable to moderate even the comments of + A·O·3’s own blogposts. + +- That there are individuals in the O·T·W with long histories of racist + and abusive behaviour, at least one of which who was a member of the + Board and who *still* is a sitting chairmember of a committee. (There + are not good processes, or maybe any processes, for removing these + people from their posts.) + +- That members with·in the organization are completely willing to wield + its Code of Conduct as a retaliatory tool for silencing criticisms of + racism. + +- That East Asian volunteers, and mainland Chinese volunteers in + particular, have had an extremely rough time of it. + +- That the O·T·W still doesn’t know how to manage money and still is + not capable of hiring needed staff. + +- That the A·O·3 codebase is still a mess and there is still no + organizational interest or capacity to bring the contribution + pipeline up to the norms and expectations of your average open source + project. + +I’m not providing citations for the above facts because most of the +discussion surrounding them happened informally on places like +Dreamwidth and Tumblr. You should approach them with the level of +rigour you generally would use for word‐of‐mouth utterances from people +who were there and watched it happen, and I welcome anyone with the +time to chronicle them in a more durable and comprehensive fashion. + +It is important to note that the O·T·W Board has changed, seemingly for +the better, since most of this stuff went down. What this likely means +in practice is just that the systemic problems in the organization have +gone back to being hidden now that there are competent people in the +role of acting as the organization’s face. However, they are finally +moving forward on having an external audit with respect to diversity +and inclusion, and that could, eventually, result in some actual +change. + +## Developments in Fandom Antiracism + +These have likewise been largely disappointing. I was initially excited +about the End O·T·W Racism action, because it seemed like a potentially +very effective tactic at raising the issue and building an activist +base for future antiracist work. I think that it was, but that base was +squandered and the movement now seems to have died out. + +After their initial Call to Action, Fandom Against Racism announced +[their second one,][EndOTWRacism-CtA2] a voting drive to elect a new +O·T·W board. It’s important to understand that voting in an O·T·W +election is restricted to those who have recently donated, which means +this was *in fact* [a massive fundraiser][EndOTWRacism-Donate] for the +very organization which they were supposedly critiquing. To add to +this, there were (and still are) very serious doubts among many fans +regarding the capacity of the Board to actually enact change (given the +relative power of committee chairs), and it’s also worth noting that +voting (a silent, confidential activity) shares none of the qualities +which made the first action successful. To top it off, this second +action was announced *prior to the announcement of candidates*, meaning +it was unclear initially whether there were even any good antiracist +candidates to vote *for*, or, indeed, whether there were enough +candidates that voting would even matter. As it turned out, by the time +elections rolled around, there were only as many candidates as there +were open seats and voting was largely ineffectual. + +Poor choice of action aside, End O·T·W Racism spent much of this time +cosplaying the very image of a large, ineffectual liberal nonprofit, +introducing a mascot and promoting a [weekend of +love][EndOTWRacism-WoL] in place of further radical disruption. They +made analyses of each Board candidate (as tho᷎ they were experts) which +generally fell short, rating them more‐or‐less on how many buzzwords +they employed in their answers. They refused to comment on the long +list of institutional failings of O·T·W as an organization, with the +excuse that they were “focused on the topic of racism” (my paraphrase), +as tho᷎ being an inept organization with no capacity for structural +change wasn’t a primary means by which racism in the O·T·W has been +perpetuated. + +There was a board meeting during this time, which they encouraged +people to attend, and people did and it was a glorious mess (the extent +of Fandom Against Racism’s influence in this is unclear). This was not +followed up upon. After the (uncontested) elections wrapped up, [the +Fandom Against Racism team seemed largely satisfied with the +result][EndOTWRacism-Review] and went on haitus. Unsurprisingly, +whatever base they had initially managed to gather is now nowhere to be +seen. + +## My Position as a Fan Author + +In my previous post, I pledged to title all of my fics “End Racism in +the OTW” until such a time as the demands of the movement were +satisfied. Given the above, I am now rescinding the pledge, with a +note‐to‐self that in the future I should probably add a stipulation +that if everyone involved throws up their hands and says “good enough”, +it’s fair to walk away. + +The thing I’m walking away from, tho᷎, isn’t antiracism but +A·O·3 and the fannish culture surrounding it. I’m not +interested in fixing a racist organization or a broken platform, +personally. I don’t think it is too big to fail, and honestly, I think +its failure is inevitable. In the past year, more and more people have +locked or removed their works out of concerns regarding harassment, A·I +harvesting, or simply not wanting to share space with bigoted content +anymore. This trend doesn’t seem likely to abate and consequently I +think fandom does need to start treating the platform as fundamentally +unreliable! Being a reliable, persistent archive is of course +A·O·3’s big selling point so who can say where things will +go from here. + +In terms of personal practice, *I’m* going to stop treating +A·O·3 as persistent or reliable by simply not continuing +to do the work of keeping it that way. I’m going to delete more, post +less, and communicate less often regarding changes. This of course +raises the question of where the persistent home of my fanworks *will* +be, but in the meantime feel free to shoot me an email if you’re +looking for some·thing I wrote and it suddenly isn’t there anymore. + +For the things I do post to A·O·3, I still stand by these +points and aim to be as blunt about them as possible :⁠— + +- O·T·W meets any reasonable definition of a racist organization and + A·O·3 meets any reasonable definition of a website which + promulgates bigotry and hate. + +- It is irresponsible and unethical to monetarily support such + organizations and websites, especially in the form of donations or + membership drives. + +- O·T·W, the organization, must earn your vote by being a welrun, + democratic organization with good processes before any candidate + running for any organizational position possibly can earn your vote + by having good positions. (And O·T·W miserably fails that objective.) + +I think there is value in continuing to stress these things to users, +but as the size and strengths of movements wane, I think the tactics +need to become more personal. Personal connections, communications, and +investment are how durable activist networks are formed. + +When thinking about these problems, I’m also increasingly realizing +the troubling implications of the fact that fandom “isn’t what it used +to be”, by which I mean a space to be your authentic, weird, kinky self +and nerd out about your passions, in a place where other people are +also being their authentic, weird, kinky selves and doing likewise. +Instead I think fandom has taken on different, more mainstream social +functions, which is to say that I think that it has shifted from being +counterculture to being culture. This is a problem because while fandom +in its first formulation was some·thing to care about and fight for, +fandom in its more recent incarnation is much harder to organize +around. I think we need a concerted effort to bring about fandom in +the former sense, and I think the starting place is not in “media” +fandoms but in lifestyle ones (furry fandom, fashion/esthetic fandoms, +musical genre fandoms, and so forth). In these latter examples, the +word “fandom” might as well be replaced with “scene”. + +I want to be a part of scenes which give a shit about the silly things +I care about (romantic c·dramas, anime, Pokémon, Nintendo). I want that +much more than I care about belonging to any “fandom” or “fanspace” in +the vernacular sense. And I think that having those scenes can form the +bedrock of culture, not only fan culture but also culture in a general +sense, a culture which produces interesting content for an audience of +like‐minded people, some of which may reference some person or +corporation’s Intellectual Property but a lot of which probably won’t. +Plenty of “original content” is produced by S·F·F fandom, furry fandom, +⁊·c, and the willingness of people to create unique works within those +spaces as opposed to without I think is a testament to the fact that +they have some·thing which other spaces lack. + +I’ve made my own small efforts at building these sorts of scenes, with +the Mastodon instance I moderate and the Discord server I run and the +[wiki I set up for my friends][Wiki]. I don’t think spaces like these +are enough (I’d love a forum), but I think they are a start. We need +bigger ones, tho᷎, ones that are big enough to host events or +challenges or other sorts of community happenings, and big enough to +where they can adequately serve the function of introducing one to new +people and ideas. I’m very interested in the inflection point from +“friends and family” to “community” and think that transition is the +only kind of scale which matters. + +I’ve been pretty busy with life, work, and [inane highly‐technical +Ecmascript programming][Piscēs], but I hope to get back to this sort of +development soon. + +[AO3]: "Archive of Our Own" +[EndOTWRacism-CtA2]: "#VOTE TO END OTW RACISM" +[EndOTWRacism-Donate]: "DONATE To the OTW & Become and OTW Voter" +[EndOTWRacism-Response]: "The OTW has responded to our campaign…" +[EndOTWRacism-Review]: "2023 OTW BOARD ELECTION REVIEW" +[EndOTWRacism-WoL]: "♥ WEEKEND OF LOVE ♥" +[OTW]: "Organization for Transformative Works" +[OTW-Update]: "An Update from the OTW Board and Chairs" +[Piscēs]: "Piscēs" +[Wiki]: "Lady’s Wiki" +[end_otw_racism]: "End Racism in the O·T·W" +]]> + Lady +[Fangirl Extraordinaire]. +Some rights reserved. + +This blogpost is licensed under a Creative +Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. +]]> +