Talk:2023 OTW Management Controversy
Timeline
I based this off the info from the End OTW Racism page, and tried to fill it out with the link round-up posts and the latest OTW news post on the matter. I created an empty timeline section because it might make sense to get a bit more detail. My guess is this fannish happening isn't over yet and we'll need to update this page a couple more times in the next couple months. Thank you to everyone in advance for the help on this. -- FBV (talk) 01:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Possible addition
Can this post by Yishaqeni (User:Yishaqeni) be mentioned? (I'm not knowledgeable so I'll just leave this here.) --Potpotkettle (talk) 09:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- Added. It's also relevant to the election page.--aethel (talk) 12:59, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, but did you intentionally avoid mentioning the username? I thought it's okay to mention, of course unless User:Yishaqeni feels uncomfortable being named here. Currently the line reads: "A former Board candidate makes a tumblr post (...)" --Potpotkettle (talk) 03:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Conflict of interest concerns
A concern that's been on my mind about Fanlore's coverage about Fanlore itself and other articles about the OTW, such as Archive of Our Own, is that such coverage presents a conflict of interest to Fanlore staff and editors that are affiliated with the OTW. Namely, leaks from OTW internal communications and quoting or citing such leaks. While the OTW does have an internal communications privacy/confidentiality policy, leaks from OTW's private internal communications are posted frequently in public or semi-public spaces online, such as Dreamwidth and Discord, and these leaks are often of concern and interest to fans. This presents a conflict of interest to staff and OTW-affiliated editors on if such information is allowed on Fanlore or not, and whether Fanlore's mission or OTW policies that they are asked to abide to take priority. Much of the information surrounding the 2023 OTW controversies fall under this banner, thus why I am posting it here, but this is also a more general concern about Fanlore's policies. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 23:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for the heads up on this matter! I'll raise this issue for an internal discussion. Currently, the content on this page cites publicly available information such as websites like FFA, DW, and OTW/AO3 news posts. While I doubt that anything will be directly leaked from OTW internal communications here, I'll watch the page just in case. -- FBV (talk) 08:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think the issue is not (only) that OTW staff will leak info directly to Fanlore, but that (also) the Fanlore committee may be asked to edit OTW-related pages to conceal information. I don't know that such edits have ever happened, but it would be a good idea to have a policy page explaining that these types of shenanigans aren't allowed. Should there be a rule that all current Fanlore staff (all OTW staff?) with a Fanlore account need to identify themselves as such in their user profiles? (Another issue I encountered while a volunteer is that very occasionally [like once or twice at most] people will try use backchannels to get you to remove information or lock a page when unfriendly people show up to edit. I'm not talking about identity protection stuff. [they may not have thought that's what they were doing, but] At the time I thought it was gross and ignored it, but NOW I think actually do we have a page that says explicitly it's unethical to undermine the integrity of the wiki like that? I would expect to see that on Fanlore:Ethical Standards for Community & Content, but I don't.)--aethel (talk) 13:24, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- aethel, (as a member of P&A myself), I’m confirming that all Gardeners and P&A Fanlore (OTW) staff do identify themselves in their profiles, and the list is also on the Gardeners page and the P&A page. Joanna R (talk) 00:31, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think the issue is not (only) that OTW staff will leak info directly to Fanlore, but that (also) the Fanlore committee may be asked to edit OTW-related pages to conceal information. I don't know that such edits have ever happened, but it would be a good idea to have a policy page explaining that these types of shenanigans aren't allowed. Should there be a rule that all current Fanlore staff (all OTW staff?) with a Fanlore account need to identify themselves as such in their user profiles? (Another issue I encountered while a volunteer is that very occasionally [like once or twice at most] people will try use backchannels to get you to remove information or lock a page when unfriendly people show up to edit. I'm not talking about identity protection stuff. [they may not have thought that's what they were doing, but] At the time I thought it was gross and ignored it, but NOW I think actually do we have a page that says explicitly it's unethical to undermine the integrity of the wiki like that? I would expect to see that on Fanlore:Ethical Standards for Community & Content, but I don't.)--aethel (talk) 13:24, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- FBV and aethel, to clarify, my COI concern is that OTW volunteers are leaking private information onto publicly available sites (such as FFA and Kutti's Dreamwidth posts), those posts then become of interest to fans, which then raises a conflict of interest on if Fanlore staff and OTW affiliated editors can cite those public posts which contain private OTW information. I haven't encountered OTW volunteers leaking information directly to Fanlore, though I do agree that it remains a possibility to address. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- Hey Pinky, I know that leaking directly to Fanlore wouldn't be allowed, as [Insert Chat Platform Name Here] is a private space and cannot be cited or quoted on Fanlore, per our citation policy. We'd also be able to remove anything that outs a volunteer, or links volunteer names to fannish names/wallet names, because of our ID protection policy.
- But, in general, I think leaks that are publicly posted and discussed online can be included on Fanlore pages. There may be consequences for the volunteer who initially leaked the info, but the editor documenting the leak would not be at fault. I don't believe there is a conflict of interest - it's probably more of an ethical question for individual volunteers. Is it in the public interest for this to be documented on Fanlore? Is the information one-sided because of additional comments/context that has not leaked? etc. --Auntags (talk) 21:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- My understanding on this aligns with Auntags: anything publicly available is fine. If there's a public discussion of it, it can be included, even if the public discussion began because an OTW volunteer leaked internal OTW comms. While that might be a problem for the volunteer who leaked that information, the info is now out there and being widely discussed by hundreds or thousands of people in public, and so may be documented. -- FBV (talk) 21:52, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- FBV and aethel, to clarify, my COI concern is that OTW volunteers are leaking private information onto publicly available sites (such as FFA and Kutti's Dreamwidth posts), those posts then become of interest to fans, which then raises a conflict of interest on if Fanlore staff and OTW affiliated editors can cite those public posts which contain private OTW information. I haven't encountered OTW volunteers leaking information directly to Fanlore, though I do agree that it remains a possibility to address. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Another addition
Thanks for all the clean up. I think it would still be good to find a link to rahaeli's Twitter thread, if we can get it via webarchive and nitter? That had a big impact. Cesy (talk) 15:57, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
- When you added the request for the rahaeli twitter thread, did you mean this June 15 one: https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1669350441971494914 or this June 26 one: https://nitter.net/rahaeli/status/1684024424096309248 ? If it's either of those, I think both have been incorporated into the article now, which may be why that "nice to have" from fan reactions was removed. -- FBV (talk) 09:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)