The 2011 Board candidate chat ended with questions pending — both a follow-up to earlier responses, and a queue of emailed questions submitted by OTW members, volunteers, and staff that had grown throughout the live chat period. Those questions were delivered to the candidates following the close of the chat, and they were asked to submit answers within twenty-four hours (before 01:00am UTC 19 October 2011) so that those responses could be publicly posted. Responses are posted in the order that they were received by the OTW Elections officer.
In a follow-up to the question What specific, concrete things does each candidate intend to work on while on the Board, and which of those will be their main focus?, Naomi and Betsy were asked, in relation to their answers, Any concrete steps within that, or how do you plan to achieve it? (This question was re-opened optionally to all candidates.)
Betsy Rosenblatt
Response received 19 October 2011 04:44 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:10 UTC.
I was asked to follow up on my response to the question about specific things I intended to work on while on the board. My initial answer (abridged) was that, in addition to being a “utility player” where needed, I intend to work on maintaining and growing the organization’s position as a public voice for transformative works, to keep the Board’s eye on legal advocacy risks and opportunities, and growing the organization’s profile outside fandom (such as maintaining our alliances with other advocacy organizations, scholars, and the like). To answer the follow-up question: I am active in intellectual property scholarship and academic circles, I keep aware of legal developments relevant to the organization’s mission, and I am active in the work for, or friendly with colleagues who are active in the work for, organizations with missions consistent with ours (such as the EFF and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund). As a Board member, I would bring that awareness and (dare I use the word) synergy to the group.
In addition to my initial answer, I also agreed with Naomi that (to paraphrase), among the specific things I wanted to work for on the board was making the board work smoothly and collaboratively to facilitate the work of the organization without getting in the way of the organization’s overall ability to be flexible and get things done. I suspect this was the real point to which the follow-up question was really directed. I have to break my answer down into two parts – first, about making the board work smoothly and collaboratively, and second about allowing the board to facilitate the work of the organization without getting in the way of the organization’s overall ability to be flexible and get things done.
As for the first, I have every reason to think that the board is a smooth and collaborative body already, and I want to slide right in to that spirit. I’ve been on a lot of boards and committees over the course of my career, including for nonprofits, for my former firm, and for my school. I feel comfortable with the flexibility and balance required to make a board run smoothly. That includes offering the benefit of my experience in my areas of expertise, offering creative suggestions in areas outside my expertise…and knowing when someone else knows more than me on a given topic!
As for the second, I think it’s mostly a matter of management philosophy: as the OTW grows, the board can’t be involved in every operational detail, but has to set larger-scale policies and be available to provide guidance at all times. That means listening to the membership, being in close contact with committees, coming up with initiatives, setting priorities, resolving larger-scale issues…and delegating a lot of material – especially implementation and operational decision-making—to the organization’s amazing committees.
Lucy Pearson
Response received 19 October 2011 14:07 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:18 UTC.
In terms of preventing burnout and mentoring staffers, I see my role as Board liaison as crucial. I am bringing a lot of experience of working within the org to the table, which will help me support committee chairs and other staffers. As someone who has received really brilliant mentoring from several Board members (Allison Morris, Naomi Novik, Francesca Coppa, Hele Braunstein…) I really passionately believe that a close and supportive relationship between Board members and chairs is one of the most important things for the health of the org. If a chair feels secure and supported, and they have someone to turn to for advice, they’re able to support their staffers in turn, so there’s an effective trickle-down. Good policies help a lot, but there’s no replacement for that personal element.
In terms of raising the profile of the org: communications! I will talk about this more in my answer about transparency, because I think that covers a lot of the important points for me.
Naomi Novik
Response received 19 October 2011 14:50 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 15:10 UTC.
In the chat I said:
From a pragmatic perspective, my number one aim is to have a productive and effective Board, where we facilitate the work of the org without getting in the way — there are a lot of different projects and priorities and for the health of the org we need Board to be a place where those priorities can get worked out in a collaborative way, where we can be a team that comes together and works through the conflicts created by the limits on our resources, both human and otherwise.
And a couple of the other candidates asked how we do that, specifically, so here’s my wildly long list of my bullet points for an effective virtual team. There are some basic practical ones and some that are more about ideal team composition:
Don’t argue in email. If an email exchange starts to turn into an argument, stop and take it to a live chat, or even skyping. Whenever a discussion begins to get tense, you want more immediacy, more back-and-forth, and more information in your communication medium.
Don’t leave a discussion angry. Even if the way you wrap up is to say, OK, it’s late, let’s put this aside to mull on until next meeting and let’s talk about something else or our latest fanfic/cats/babies for five minutes before we leave, try and don’t end on a sour note.
Having people who are good at recognizing when a discussion is getting tense, and stopping and stepping back from it in the heat of the moment, and getting the team as a whole to reconsider it in a bigger context. This may seem obvious, but anyone who has been in a heated discussion online can probably recognize that it is not as easy as it sounds. (Lucy P was great at doing this on ADT.)
Having people with varying points of passion, so that there are always a couple of people on any particular issue who don’t really care that much.
If there aren’t people who are naturally inclined to step back, then whoever chairs the discussion should explicitly take on the responsibility of forcing themselves to do the stepping back.
Having imaginative people. It is really rare in my experience for an argument to truly be a zero-sum situation. Almost always there is a different solution that will give people on both sides of the argument much of what they want. The hard part is imagining up that different solution. It does to some extent depend on knowing the options so experience/education (technical, legal, etc) is also helpful.
Don’t get bogged down in principle. The end goal is that some concrete thing is going to happen or not-happen — a tool gets built, a server gets bought, a fundraising drive runs, a post gets made. Principles guide those decisions, but when an argument starts to be *about* principles, stop and bring it back to the concrete.
Associated with that, recognize fundamental differences and don’t have the same fight over and over. Instead, try and have people with different principles work out their respective concrete goals or spheres of influence, what their priorities are, and do some horse trading.
Don’t let discussion go too long. If you get stuck in a hole, can’t come up with a better solution, can’t seem to step back, and everyone keeps getting angry, then just end the misery. Set an end point for the discussion, frame the core options, and just vote. Even if you don’t “win”, you all get out alive. (As a bonus, I have often found that venting the pressure by doing this often unlocks the creativity to suddenly come up with a new better solution.)
Remember things are rarely set in stone. If something really doesn’t work well and continues to make people unhappy, it can be changed. If people are really unhappy, pick two options, set a timeframe to try the first one and come back and review, at which point possibly switch to try the other.
How do you see Fanlore growing, and what do you see as your role in furthering that growth both in terms of scope but also in terms of increased fannish participation?
Jenny Scott-Thompson
I see it growing to be a main reference point for and about fandom. I’ve seen it being used by journalists and academics outside fandom as a reference, and by fans either as a reference or as a safe place to document our history. I see it growing to a wider audience, both within and outside fandom, and I see my role as advocating that by making sure it gets the profile and focus it needs, not getting swallowed up by larger or louder projects within the OTW.
Julia Beck
Fanlore! \o/ Ahem. I’d like to say that at most I can suggest things to wikimmettee and support them in what they plan to do. But it’s their purview, they’re the ones putting in the work, and I need to respect that.
That said, two sides to Fanlore growth: first, increase Fanlore participation in the communities we are already reaching. Second, introduce Fanlore to groups we’re not reaching yet (i.e. outreach.). I’ll focus on the first, b/c that’s where we can start off right away.
To the first, the existing editors are key. I would like to thank Doro from the wikimmettee for opening my eyes to that. We have amazingly invested people who have a very good understanding of and passion for Fanlore who don’t fit into OTW’s usual volunteer/staffer scheme. And we need to give them places to build a community, to draw others in and keep them there. It’s why I’m so adamant about forums. They’re not a cure-all, but editors need to be able to connect and plan in a stable, asynchronous place, and the Fanlore DW community is not that place. (If you want my tl;dr thoughts on that: http://fanlore.dreamwidth.org/42832.html?thread=410960#cmt410960 (I’m the one with the 12:30 timestamp.)
What also helps grow communities is giving them support, so more Fanlore Open houses (hosted chats) would be ace.
In terms of scope: I think we need to find a way to reconcile the encyclopaedic nature of Fanlore (with citations and all) and its oral history part. Both are equally important, but wikis are not a format conducive to recording oral history, so I’d like to help make that clearer.
Nikisha Sanders
I admit I’m still learning about the scope and possibilities of Fanlore. I’ve fallen into the trap of interacting primarily with AO3 and not as many of our other visible projects. That said, I see Fanlore as a project that needs serious boosting in terms of visibility. We need to remind our members and fandom at large that it’s there, first, and I think we can accomplish that by first making sure all of our board, staff and volunteers are encouraged to contribute. Whether it’s through editing an entry, adding a new bit of information, or posting to one’s blog or journal about Fanlore, we all should be doing something toward building the visibility of the project. A targeted month of promotion would be my second suggestion, possibly in conjunction with the next membership drive, where we invite people to donate to support Fanlore and to explore the pages already there as well as adding to them as a proactive act of membership.
Naomi Novik
Response received 19 October 2011 02:58 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 15:00 UTC.
My main contribution to Fanlore over the next few years would mostly be to serve as a resource on the practical technical front: when do we need more server power, how is MediaWiki serving the team and the users, what could we do to improve the user interface and automate routine tasks, etc.
Betsy Rosenblatt
Response received 19 October 2011 04:44 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:10 UTC.
Fanlore is a source of endless information and an educational resource for me! I can get lost in there. But I know my enthusiasm doesn’t exactly answer the question –nor does the fact that “add material to Fanlore” is currently on my to-do list. But the fact that it’s on my to-do list does say something about how I see Fanlore continuing to grow. Fanlore grows organically as people learn about it, use it, and are reminded of just how much is in there (and how much isn’t, yet!). I think the wiki committee has done an excellent job recently of reminding and encouraging fans to contribute on topics they might not even have known were included; I love the Wish List, as well. Of course, more is always possible. I’d like to see outreach to specific fandom communities, to the extent possible.
Lucy Pearson
Response received 19 October 2011 14:07 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:18 UTC.
I haven’t been closely involved with Fanlore, so I’d be very much governed by the needs and direction of the wiki committee. I think that one of the core aspects of being a Board member is being able to be responsive to specialists within the org and to let them take the lead, because they have a better sense of what will work for their particular project. (A good example of this is the establishment of the Fanlore Dreamwidth – usually we try to have communications originate from within org tools, but the Fanlore team made the call that they could better serve the needs of the wiki by making DW a primary focus for their community.)
Beyond that, I would like to see Fanlore continue to grow and to reflect more voices from across different areas of fandom. I definitely see this as a marathon, not a sprint, but I think the great work the wiki team have put into ensuring that a range of fannish topics are represented at least in a skeleton fashion is really important: if someone stumbles on the wiki, they’re less likely to find that their fandom is not mentioned at all and therefore to think that they’re not wanted. I think that now some of this groundwork has been laid, Fanlore is well-placed for some more promotion, so as a Board member I’d be looking to support more communication and signal-boosting about the project, both on the blog and in-person (for example, producing con materials to help people talk about Fanlore and get excited about it at cons). I’d also like to create connections within the org to see whether different committees can help one another: I’ve seen the Fanlore community come up with some neat technical innovation to make the experience of posting to the wiki easier, and I’d like to facilitate chats between Wiki and other technical committees such as AD&T to see how we can build on that work.
What do you say when asked ‘What does the OTW do?’
Jenny Scott-Thompson
A lot of things! It’s a legal advocacy organisation for transformative works by fans, with a mission to protect and preserve access to fanworks and our history, shown by our flagship open-source projects AO3 and Fanlore and the academic journal Transformative Works & Cultures.
Julia Beck
Heh, depends on who I talk to! To non-fans, I say that it’s an international, unique, female-dominated open source/open culture project-slash-lobbying group that’s both building tools and advocating for a specific subculture centered around storytelling. I also stress the emancipatory politics inherent in that. And that we’re unspeakably awesome, of course. To fans — well, usually it’s “the organization that builds the AO3/Fanlore”, but then I can go into more depth (excitingly panfandom, entirely fan-run, owning the servers! doin’ it for ourselves!).
Nikisha Sanders
I love this question because I just had to answer it for a dear friend. I told her that we, broadly, work with fans to protect the right to creating transformative works—fan fiction, videos, meta essays, anything exploring the movies, TV shows, books, anime, etc that we enjoy. We work on several fronts, from working on legal challenges (I usually give an example of YouTube yanking fanvids here, or Anne Rice prohibiting fanfic), to creating an archive run by fans for fans to collect fiction from a variety of places. The project I always make a point of discussing is the physical archive and working to collect tangible materials from fans, artifacts, really, because most of the people I tell about OTW are from anthropology backgrounds and archives to sift through excite them (and me). Usually, from there, I talk about our structure, that we have *no* paid staff, we’re all volunteers, and cover well over a dozen committee areas with staff from around the world, many of whom work to translate our sites into languages other than English. My answer from there depends on my audience; with Charlotte, the dear friend, we started getting into the specifics of how we function as a nonprofit and why it was important to incorporate that way and what it means to have literal fan buy-in. Other conversations have focused on the academic journal and the kinds of topics we get into when fans produce meta, and others have directly to explaining how someone can join as a member and/or volunteer.
Naomi Novik
Response received 19 October 2011 02:58 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 15:00 UTC.
I’m still keen on the mission statement: providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. I also like the description I’ve heard others say, that the OTW does this by putting together a big toolbox for fans to help them help themselves to do it in a variety of ways, as opposed to trying to force everyone to do it in one particular way.
Betsy Rosenblatt
Response received 19 October 2011 04:44 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:10 UTC.
Great question! The answer depends on who I’m talking to – for those who are looking for places to find great fanfic, I send them to the AO3; for those who are looking for fandom resources I send them to Fanlore; for those with a scholarly bent I send them to Transformative Works and Cultures…and so on…But here’s the “logline” that I tell most people: The Organization for Transformative works is an amazing community, archive, online resource, and legal advocacy organization for creators and appreciators of all kinds of fan-created works.
Lucy Pearson
Response received 19 October 2011 14:07 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:18 UTC.
Big question, and one that I have been answering a lot recently. In a fannish context, I tend to start by saying ‘We’re the people that built AO3 and Fanlore!’ and then broaden out to talk about the other projects and the way they all fit together, for example how Open Doors is a way of preserving earlier fannish culture and the Legal team pursues issues which affect fans and strengthens our ability to make the AO3 a safe place for fans, because it has legal backup.
I’m often answering it in a non-fannish context, in which cade I have to start with a brief primer of fannish history! In that context, I start by introducing it as a non-profit organisation dedicated to representing fans and protecting fannish creativity. I also tend to emphasise the connection between this mission and the way that historically, female creativity has often been overlooked or appropriated by men; for example, how the way the novel was shaped by a female discourse was until recently often ignored.
In both contexts, I also talk about the way that the OTW is an awesomely empowering forum for fannish skillsharing, and how that has enabled fans to achieve things they might not have been able to do alone. I highlight the fact that the AO3 is one of the largest female-majority open-source projects in existence, and the work of committees across the org as a way of giving people new skills and experiences. At this point I usually pause for breath and realise that people are backing away from the crazy gushing lady. 😉
What would you do to increase the OTW’s transparency to fandom at large, particularly people who aren’t currently staff? Concrete policies, please. What, if anything, have you done while serving as a staffer to promote transparency?
Jenny Scott-Thompson
I could talk for hours about transparency! It’s been a concern of mine since I first joined as a volunteer, and couldn’t see what was going on behind closed doors with the committees. I was the first candidate to start a legal-name journal for posting about my OTW work, and have previously posted about my work under my fannish name, both on my personal journal and on the official OTW blog. I’ve been doing the AD&T minutes (which are visible to all volunteers) for most of the year, enabling Lucy to post the Archive of Our Own meeting roundups publicly. I’ve also made several internal proposals about transparency, which I can’t really talk about until they’re agreed, ironically. I made the recent suggestion for staffers joining and leaving to be acknowledged in the monthly newsletter. I’d also like to make the OTW less “faceless” – let people see who is behind the anonymous committee names. Volunteers & Recruiting committee have some great plans for this currently being discussed, which I would support. I would also continue both posting to my journal, and working with Communications to get more public “Spotlight” posts and things like that. I’d facilitate the discussion currently ongoing around org-wide meetings and monthly newsletters, and how we can use those to improve communication, both top-down announcements and two-way feedback. One concrete step would be to make sure each committee does have something in the newsletter, even if it’s only “Still not sued!” The habit of having something there pays off as people writing it remember that actually there is more to talk about. I’ve also run public training sessions/open houses, and I’d like to continue and expand those – it’s a great way to let people see what goes on behind the scenes. There is a concern, of course, that communicating what you are doing takes time away from doing the work, but in most cases I think it more than pays off, partly because accountability makes for a healthier org, and partly for recruitment – people will only volunteer if they know what they’re getting into. I’m also looking forward to the website changes when we upgrade the software that transformativeworks.org runs on next year – that will be a good opportunity to make sure that all the currently public information is easily findable – there’s more there than most people realise.
Julia Beck
What I did/am doing as a staffer for transparency, concrete steps:
To fandom at large: support the return of the Spotlight series and the Open Houses initiative (Helka, my former IO colleague, headed both), lobby for Fanlore forums, make sure to invite non-OTW people as advisors wherever appropriate (make the decision process more permeable, in a way), comm-wise: advocate for criticism to be met respectfully, not shut down, & with my committee, review projects & blog posts to make sure they include an international perspective.
Internal & external to the OTW: initiated & headed the OTW community survey (coming soon!). This is something that’s meant both as a basis for outreach and as an evaluation. Results will be shared with fandom at large. (it’s going to be so interesting omg.)
Internal to the OTW: lobbied for internal forums, initiated Translators’ Newsletter within Translation cmt, and connect people across committees where I could (like a head’s up “look, xy is working on/interested in that too, you should team up.”). Trying to foster an open and respectful culture.
Nikisha Sanders
My first project as a prospective board member, and as the incoming Finance Committee chair is clarifying for our board how we can more effectively create budgets for our committees and projects. From there, I’ll be working with Fincom to provide monthly reports to the board with more explicitly detailed breakdowns of monthly expenses and income, and I intend to work with the board to ensure every board member has the basic accounting and financial management skills to step in to work closely with Fincom and/or fill the role of Treasurer for a short time in case of emergency. Along with the highly detailed monthly reports, I’ll be working to make sure a simplified version of those reports are available on our website for member review, and with the agreement of the board, provide the detailed statements by request. I would also create a detailed statement quarterly for the membership/general public.
Away from the finance issues that are near and dear to me, I would like to see committee meeting notes made available beyond staff and volunteer access. I understand that some issues need to be discussed internally and kept confidential, but I also think we could be doing a much, much better job communicating with our membership base. Keeping everyone informed not only of what committees have done (via the newsletter) but what is on the horizon is key to that, and in order to accomplish that, we need to strengthen our Communications Committee. We also need to make clearer the avenues for passing on information internally and externally, starting, perhaps, with a clean up of the contact information on the website, making sure all of the contacts are current and that staff are responsive in a timely manner.
Additionally, a work group is currently being formed to encourage Open Houses for each committee, an informal chat in the public room on basecamp where each committee would be available for questions. I think that is a huge step forward in getting information out, but we can go farther still as individuals. I would encourage staff to talk more openly about the work they’re doing in their own spaces, journals, blogs, etc, and invite discussion in those spaces.
As a staffer, I haven’t done a great job of promoting transparency. I admit it, and I believe part of it comes from the area of the organization in which I’ve worked. Fincom is more insulated than other committees from both public interaction and interaction with other committees. We aren’t interdependent in the way International Outreach, Translation and Communications are, for example, and while it doesn’t excuse my own lack of outreach, it is part of the foundation for it. I’m working to turn that around now with simple networking, having a lot of one-on-one conversations with other volunteers, staff, board members and committee chairs to get a fuller view of the state of the organization internally and externally, and I plan to continue doing so through next term and as a board member. I think the single biggest step towards transparency we can take is through building up trust between our leadership to create safe spaces to challenge each other over organizational issues and to be able to reveal those challenges to our membership in a way that doesn’t harm the organization.
Naomi Novik
Response received 19 October 2011 02:58 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 15:00 UTC.
I would really like to do a push to make a review and get our internal wiki publicly visible!
On the whole though, I think the org does a pretty good job putting out information about what we’re doing, and mostly the reality is people who aren’t volunteers are more interested in reading the latest fanfic and don’t really care until something happens that makes them sit up and go hey! And the really important thing is at that point to listen and respond productively.
Betsy Rosenblatt
Response received 19 October 2011 04:44 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:10 UTC.
First, I would encourage people to volunteer – but that doesn’t address the question, exactly. As a member of the Legal Committee, I’ve generally worked in favor of transparency by consulting on member inquiries about the organization’s policies and helping to resolve disputes when those policies haven’t been clear; but most of the transparency concerning the Legal Committee involves communicating with the membership (through the blog, newsletter, and such) about what we’re up to, so we can get member input. Overall, the Legal Committee’s interactions with the membership are largely inquiry-based, and it’s true that leads to a pretty low level of transparency. As for creating additional transparency, I think the key is providing windows into what the org is doing and opportunities for member dialog whenever possible – that can be achieved partly through the newsletter, blog, twitter, and the like. I am also a big fan of the Candidate chats and the committee open house chats that have been happening over the last few months, and would encourage regular open house chats featuring Board members as well.
Lucy Pearson
Response received 19 October 2011 14:07 UTC. Added to document 19 October 2011 14:18 UTC.
I have worked really hard at making the OTW more transparent via our Communications team, and I feel really proud of the degree to which I have been able to give insight into the work that has gone into the AO3 in particular (which is the main project I have worked on). I started posting about the Archive in the run-up to Open Beta, letting people know what we were doing and what they could expect from us. Since then, I’ve maintained a regular posting schedule on all aspects of the Archive, talking about the problems as well as the good stuff (for example, I recently did a post on the glut of 502 errors that was plaguing us). I’m especially proud of the work I did tweeting the progress of the new server installation, which let people outside the org get a sense of what was actually going on when the site had this long downtime. For the last two years, I’ve been writing the round-ups of AD&T meetings, building on the great work established by Maia, the AD&T chair before me – I think these are really important for giving a sense of what is going on behind the scenes. I’ve made a strong effort to include information about other teams involved on the Archive in those posts, both because I want the same transparency to apply to them, and because I think that some of the more ‘invisible’ teams, such as tag wranglers, deserve to be highlighted for the amazing efforts they put in. Including those ‘bitesized’ posts from committees who don’t necessarily have a lot of things they want to say is a really low-cost way of making sure their voices are still heard, so it’s something that I would like to explore across the org more generally.
I feel like I have also learnt a lot over the last two years about managing the time invested in communications, balancing the need to keep people informed with the need to keep some stuff private as we figure things out in house, and being responsive to questions and concerns coming from outside the org. I have found Twitter and support requests to the Archive invaluable for the last one; tellingly, support requests often stray beyond the specifics of the AO3, so I would like to establish a regular forum for inviting questions more generally. As a Board member, I would like to post regular updates about Board meetings in the same style as the AD&T updates; I feel that the experience I have gained doing that will be useful in figuring out how to convey the useful stuff while protecting the necessarily private aspects of Board.
Internally, I have also put a lot of work into talking with other committees, forming good relationships and keeping the channels of communication open; as chair I also emailed an internal summary of AD&T meetings to other committees who were affected. Good relationships are one of the key points for in-org transparency, and I think that I have established a good model for that.
I could go on and on about this, because letting people know about what is happening in the OTW is a real passion of mine. But I’ll stop here, and point you to the news posts on the Archive as a concrete example of what I have done so far and what I’d like to achieve for the org as a whole.