Thoughts on OTW (Formerly Fanarchive/Archive of Our Own)

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Title:	Thoughts on OTW (Formerly Fanarchive/Archive of Our Own)
Creator:	hector_rashbaum
Date(s):	Sep. 29th, 2007
Medium:	online
Fandom:	multifandom
Topic:
External Links:	Thoughts on OTW (Formerly Fanarchive/Archive of Our Own); another link; archive link
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Thoughts on OTW (Formerly Fanarchive/Archive of Our Own) September 2007 is a discussion by hector_rashbaum started on Fanthropology. It includes a link to their post, Organization for Transformative Wank.

hector_rashbaum stated they "had some concerns" about the then-recent post by a spokesperson for the OTW, An Introduction to the Organization for Transformative Works. In that post, rashbaum called Archive of Our Own a "a bloated, overambitious, doomed-to-fail vanity project."

Note on context: hector_rashbaum was an early, high visibility supporter of Laura Hale's project, Fan History Wiki, as well as an archivist at RockFic. hector rashbaum is likely worried about these two sites would be supplanted.

Some Topics Discussed

• the newly-forming Organization for Transformative Works and Archive of Our Own
• a link to hector rashbaum's post, Organization for Transformative Wank
• Fan History Wiki, Laura Hale, FanworksFinder
• RockFic, where hector rashbaum was an archivist
• mentions of Strikethrough and Six Apart

Fan Comments

[slashpine]: Looking at OTW's post, I was impressed with Femme's skill in responding politely and in good faith to several comments that, frankly, seemed quite hostile in intention.

I wonder if a few people jumping down OTW's throats isn't spillover of the hostility and frustration from the LJ/6A kerfuffles. How long do the ripple effects from that type of wank or tension last? I've fortunately never been actively inside a fandom enduring a major wank war. What's the average amount of time for the tension to settle, 6 months or so? I noticed as recently as early September, I think, that there were still some sporadic "blaming" posts here and there on LJ, singling out specific fans or comms or activities as the "cause" of LJ's freakout. (As if)

I'm on a committee at my university looking into developing some guidelines for more civility in our own online media (we are a very wired school). OTW's post is a good demonstration of a high level of commitment to openness, and its costs. By allowing anonymous posts, OTW has attracted at least one wanker. At the same time, their willingness to put up with that, and respond courteously to each post regardless of its tone, or the poster's agenda, shows that this can be done. Maintaining a good tone no matter what is a great skill!

As to the demands that OTW provide more frequent, or immediate, or broad, or narrow, services ... um, well, I admire this group of volunteers for undertaking this project to begin with! I'm impressed that they've worked on their internal and legal structures first. I've always wanted to be one of those people who plans out the details *before* starting up. (My entrepreneurial style is more the fast-track type: design while building and hope it all comes together! Scary even when it works, LOL)

Are there any closely similar examples of such non-profit large archive projects that provide a comparison for what OTW "should" be doing? Is the external imposition of expectations for their performance even reasonable?

[emily shore]: I wonder if a few people jumping down OTW's throats isn't spillover of the hostility and frustration from the LJ/6A kerfuffles.

That's a very good observation. To me at least, the anger displayed in the discussions seemed disproportionate, although I haven't been following the subject closely so I may be missing a lot.

[hector rashbaum]: Looking at OTW's post, I was impressed with Femme's skill in responding politely and in good faith to several comments that, frankly, seemed quite hostile in intention.

Definitely. I worry about looking like I'm blasting her, which I'm not at all - as their main spokesperson in that post, she simply happens to be the route I'm getting information through. Me finding flaws in what I'm getting only has to do with her as a representative.

But she's an excellent Community Relations person - if that were me I'd either be losing my temper or ignoring people. She's being nice and doing her best to get out the information wanted - even when it's demanded rather rudely.

OTW's post is a good demonstration of a high level of commitment to openness, and its costs. By allowing anonymous posts, OTW has attracted at least one wanker.

I think that's a bit of a double-edged sword: if they turned off anonymous commenting, then it would no longer be overlooking other segments of fandom but actively excluding them. But even if there only reason for continued allowance of anonymous commenting is to maintain a good face, to keep it up with all the nasty anonymous comments is definitely admirable.

Are there any closely similar examples of such non-profit large archive projects that provide a comparison for what OTW "should" be doing? Is the external imposition of expectations for their performance even reasonable?

I'm glad you mentioned this, because I think it's something to keep in mind that I often forget. While I think they have some gaffes that it is reasonable to call them on, like the lack of outreach so far, things like questions being met with "Wait! I need to talk to the board" (which could very well be an issue of 'it's too early to be expecting those questions so no need was seen to prepare for them') and not having a clear idea of even preliminary content restrictions are issues that really can't have expectations imposed on them without knowing what, exactly, goes into building a project of this magnitude from the ground up.

I do, however, think it's fair to bring up these issues as things to be considered now, while they're still "wait and see" speed bumps rather than brick walls.

[shiv5468]: I couldn't make head nor tail of what you were complaining about [in your linked post, Organization for Transformative Wank ], as you were using acronyms that obviously mean a great deal to you in your neck of the fandom, but I've never come across.

I think the whole project is insane but as far as I can judge the people involved are doing their best to be fair, open and reasonable.

[hector rashbaum]: Fair enough. Any chance of letting me know which acronyms? Rereading after this comment I realized I never specified RF = RockFic and FwF = FanworksFinder, were those the issues or was it something I missed?

[shiv5468]: Mmm, well I poked around some more, and worked out that rockfic was a website.

I don't understand what you're unhappy about. Rockfic does x,y, and z that OTW may (or may not) want to do in due course. But it will want to do it across a broader spectrum of interests, and multiple fandoms.

My worry is that OTW gives the lawyers one place to hunt down fanficcers, and puts their head above the parapet. I'm not seeing what your worry . concern is.

[hector rashbaum]: Rockfic does x,y, and z that OTW may (or may not) want to do in due course.

The issue in this case is RockFic was brought up several times (at least 5, by one person alone) as something [t]o be looked into. If looking into it didn't do any good, or if they haven't looked into anything yet? Fair enough. But to claim to have never heard of it, after so many mentions acros[s] multiple discussions (usually as an example of an archive that implemented something that was being sug[g]ested by a supporter) makes me wonder just how closely their leadership is actually listening to what people are saying.

I'm not seeing what your worry . concern is

- The claim to represent all of fandom while either ignoring chunks of it (lack of outreach), excluding chunks of it (a name which doesn't apply to RPF), and disregarding chunks (the intention to create a fan history wiki, which already exists)

- An apparent disregard for member input (the RockFic thing, which is only about RockFic because it happened to be what made me notice, but as I said: most mentions of RockFic by sidewinder were in response to a suggested feature, and claiming to have never even heard of it when it's been held up as an example several times isn't a good sign)

- Questions being met with "I need to ask that committee" rather than answers (which, I'm aware, is probably more an issue of the questions being asked not being expected at this point, and so that may get better over time...for me, that's more of a "let's wait and see" issue than an "omg they're so horrible for this" thing)

[shiv5468]: I just look on it as being something that is in the early stages. It's inexorable that those bits of the fandom that volunteered will end up being represented most / more. People are wanting too much form the cttee's too soon, and they are just feeling their way to a solution. There are probably hundreds of people jumping up and sown and waving their flags about something, and who is to say whose falg is more important.

As to there being an exisitng wiki, I think their concerns about that would be that it is owned by someone, whereas the model of ownership they are going for is communal, so as not to have things falling off the face of the earth when someone gets bored and takes their toys home.

[hector rashbaum]: It's inexorable that those bits of the fandom that volunteered will end up being represented most / more.

Absolutely. What bothers me is there was no attempt to get volunteers outside of LJ, that it wasn't until leadership was formed that anyone's gone "oh! Wait! Maybe looking elsewhere is a good idea."

[shiv5468]: It's LJ based, and part of the panicked flight from LJ. How, if you live on LJ, are you supposed to find people off it?

[hector rashbaum]: You ask people. You post to the community stating you want to include as much of fandom as possible, asking for contacts and ideas. You get in touch with archive owners who have already shown some support and ask them to spread the word in their communities. You go to those archives you know of and spread the word there, you look into those archives posted to the comm and spread the word through them - it's easy enough at many smaller archives to get in touch with the owners, even, so you can make sure your efforts won't be looked at as spam.

This isn't a case of them not knowing how to do it. Or, if it is, their spokesperson is making them look rather bad, claiming it was an oversight rather than a case of not knowing what to do. Hell, I know of at least one archivist who contacted them and was ignored! That isn't "I don't know how to reach outside LJ", that's "Yeah, we don't care, bye."

[shiv5468]: No, that's being busy, or something being lost in the rush, or people having real lives, and the cat dying that week, or a thousand and one reasons to do with things slipping.

Stuff. Happens.

And what you do to deal with it, is send a chasing email. I've lost count of the number of times we've had things go missing on the stuff I mod, and it turns out to be the spamfilter, or someone being on holiday and deleting their inbox when they get back.

[hector rashbaum]: Yeah, okay, stuff happens.

You're just not going to be satisfied, are you?

"How do you reach people off LJ?"

I told you. Well, I told you some...I forgot mailing lists (at least one person involved with OTW is a member of a mailing list for archivists [1], which would be an excellent resource) and didn't even touch on MySpace/Facebook/Quizilla fen.

"Stuff happens."

Yep, it does. And that explains how the person I know of who got in touch waaaaay back in the beginning got ignored]], it does.

And the rest of it?

I've already been told outreach got overlooked. Fine, okay, at least it's been admitted and apologized for. I appreciate that no one's making excuses, just "mistake, sorry, we'll try harder".

It still isn't a good start for a project that wants to be so fandom-inclusive, to "overlook" everything but LJ.

Oh, and it wasn't started in response to LJ issues, the initial project was a response to FanLib.

[sidewinder]: Plenty of people on their board/committee/etc list have been involved in fandom for years outside of lj. To say that they wouldn't know how to find fandom people to contact outside of lj just...doesn't make sense. They have posted/been involved in other archives/mailing lists/conventions/etc for years and know there are other central points for fannish activity out there.

If the point of the whole endeavor is *simply* to meet the needs/desires of those in fandom active on lj fleeing in the wake of the 6A kerfuffles--and in their particular areas of lj fandom--then that's fine, too, but not really what they're claiming to represent.

[slashpine]: I agree with your comments.

Yes, I can imagine that the group who has volunteered their time to do this has (a) a list of dozens of places they could "outreach" to additional volunteers, and (b) a list of 10 X that many places where people online say they should also go do outreach to garner even more volunteers. And (c) should keep compiling and expanding that list!

But that also brings me to wonder:

1. How much time should be spent on this? OTW's got to build a site, not just talk about it, no matter how often onlookers call for information.

2. Who's going to coordinate volunteers who you don't know from Adam, or from mutual comms, or from anywhere? Just because people respond to a notice doesn't mean they're *cough* able to do anything. Think gift fests and the drop-out problem. And the time spent by mods or committee heads nurturing, emailing instructions, cajoling, only to see some people vanish off the edge of the planet; I assume anyone experienced in online fandom wants to minimize that risk. A judicious balance must be struck between outreaching to everyone and getting things done.

That said, I think it would be nice to see some bi-weekly updates along a regular format from OTW -- which I imagine they'll be doing when they become able -- and a brief timetable of scheduled tasks, which could be pointed to ("see link for more") when folks drop by with the 42nd repeat of helpful suggestion No. 6,532. In time, an FAQ with that list...

And of course, the repeated invitations (as already) to bystanders offering up suggestions to come into the structure and help implement them.

[shiv5468]: ~nods~ That's what organising things is like. And I think that they are in many ways in the process of evolving ways to deal with how to run something because there is no template for something on this scale, and with this ambition, and with so many conflicting interests.