[Note: There will be 3 Q&A posts total, covering all the topics brought up during the user-submitted Q&A period. Candidates were limited to 300 words per answer.]
What are a couple of major issues that you know the OTW Board struggles or has struggled with, and how would you personally act to avoid them if elected?
[Note: There will be 3 Q&A posts total, covering all the topics brought up during the user-submitted Q&A period. Candidates were limited to 300 words per answer.]
How would you plan to help make the OTW a welcoming space for Black fans and all fans of color and continue the process of addressing the previously acknowledged “long-standing issues with racism in fandom”?
[Note: There will be 3 Q&A posts total, covering all the topics brought up during the user-submitted Q&A period. Candidates were limited to 300 words per answer.]
Can you name a skill that you consider relevant for a board member, but that you consider a personal weakness?
Michelle S stumbled upon fandom in high school and refused to let go of it. Mostly they stick to video game and tiny book fandoms and write a lot of fluff fics about their favorite characters. They’re a co-chair for the AO3 Documentation team, and have been part of the Tag Wrangling committee and the Support committee in the past. Outside of the OTW, they work as an assistant manager in a retail store.
[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
9. What is something nice that you can say about your colleagues that you’re running with/against?
I am super excited about all of the candidates I’m running with!
I really appreciate Lex’s passion for the OTW and its mission, and his willingness to take on any task that needs doing.
I also really like Natalia’s platform, especially her goals of making the OTW’s projects more accessible to non-English speakers and protecting all transformative fanworks.
Additionally, I’m a big fan of Ryan’s experience with different committees, which gives him a better big-picture view of the OTW than I have, and gives him a lot of valuable information about the administrative side of things.
[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
5. What are a couple of major issues that you know the OTW board struggles or has struggled with, and how would you personally act to avoid them if elected?
One issue that I know the Board has struggled with in the past is disconnect from the Org itself, but since that’s the next question, I’ll save the full answer for that. Another issue is that people aren’t entirely sure what being on Board entails. This can make it difficult for people to know if they would make good candidates, and can also affect Board handoff when things are less than ideal, like it did a few years ago.