Category: Goals And Vision 2015 Q&A

Q&A Responses – Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

We’re entering the home stretch of the Q&A process. Next up is our fifth complete group. You can read the candidates’ answers on the subject of their goals and vision for the OTW by clicking on the links below.

All 2015 Q&A responses so far.

More information on our Q&A process.

Alex Tischer 2015 Q&A: Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

The Manifestos tell us some of each candidates’ ambitions of what they want to achieve if elected. I’d like to see that made more specific and SMART. In other words: what’s going to be the first action you’ll undertake/the first project you’ll tackle/first thing you’ll do if elected?

The problem with trying to make SMART goals here is that we have no knowledge of what Board is actually currently doing. I’m all for making a detailed and actionable plan but there is no point in me just saying that the first thing I would like to tackle is seeing a functional budget implemented. Even listing detailed steps and timescales for this won’t do much good. The actual steps to get there depend a lot on the rest of the Board,committees answering to emails, things being discussed and people actually chiming in on these discussions. I can draw up a very nice SMART step by step approach that will be derailed by the very first contact with the real world, but where’s the point in that?

What is your five year vision for OTW? AO3?

I would like the OTW to still exist in five years’ time and the AO3 to be a stable, steadily growing and improving archive. That’s all I’m hoping for at the moment.

I’m sorry, if you want visionary I’m not your person. Call me when a pragmatist is needed.

If you could change something in the OTW’s bylaws, what would it be?

I could argue a lot about the wording of certain articles, and a good number of them could do with being changed, but the first thing I would change if I could – and this might sound like a minor thing, but it bothers me – is to make it possible for our volunteers to become members without paying the membership fee. A lot of volunteers are giving so much of their time and effort, that not having them able to vote in the elections without also paying $10 just sits wrong with me.

Aline Carrão 2015 Q&A: Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

The Manifestos tell us some of each candidates’ ambitions of what they want to achieve if elected. I’d like to see that made more specific and SMART. In other words: what’s going to be the first action you’ll undertake/the first project you’ll tackle/first thing you’ll do if elected?

Any and all projects I intend to prioritize and achieve will depend of the collaboration and willingness of other board members and OTW volunteers. So trying to quantify or set a timeline by myself, without taking this into consideration, would be unwise, and I probably wouldn’t be able to achieve anything on my own.

My first action as Director has to be, due to the nature of the role, to learn about the board’s current procedure and projects. After that, I believe the first things that need to be changed are moving more discussions back into open spaces, making the board and their work more accessible to org volunteers, and restructuring our finances management structure, but both these changes depend on the willingness of the full board to commit to them as well, so it’s difficult to make promises all by myself. All I can say is that I will do my best to make them happen.

What is your five year vision for OTW? AO3?

OTW: For our volunteers, I wish to see a higher level of satisfaction with their work and a healthy work atmosphere, with better tools and training on all levels, and, through that, hopefully better retention. For the OTW itself, I wish to see it financially better organized, with better budgeting and auditing practices. I’d also like to see the Org’s internal structure revised to better address the way the OTW operates now.

AO3: I hope to see AO3 growing and improving, following their current roadmap, and the Org giving Archive teams all the resources and support they might need. I would hope that the current contract with a paid coder to execute projects is the first of several others in that direction, and that the paid work can complement our volunteers’ tireless efforts to keep the Archive up and running, and help sustain the Archive’s continued growth over time.

If you could change something in the OTW’s bylaws, what would it be?

Keeping in mind that this would, of course, need to be run past our Legal team, and that I don’t believe Board should change the OTW’s bylaws without their input and without the input of the organization’s volunteers, there are several small things in our bylaws I believe could be reviewed to reflect the growth of the OTW. For example, I think it would be beneficial to set minimum performance criteria for board members in the bylaws, to make sure that people stepping up for the position are aware of the actual amount of time and commitment that the position requires. It might also be a good idea to review the OTW’s governance structure, so that the board is not the body responsible for advisory, outreach and executive work simultaneously.

Andrea Horbinski 2015 Q&A: Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

The Manifestos tell us some of each candidates’ ambitions of what they want to achieve if elected. I’d like to see that made more specific and SMART. In other words: what’s going to be the first action you’ll undertake/the first project you’ll tackle/first thing you’ll do if elected?

As I mentioned in my initial statement, the idea that a particular director takes on specific projects of their own devising is not really how the OTW Board of Directors (or any board) works in my experience. New directors join the work of the board as it is ongoing, and they’ll contribute their insights, opinions, and efforts to what the board is currently dealing with–we work as a group. That said, it’s pretty clear that the finances require a total restructure in order to create a modern system that suits the OTW’s current size and needs and has built-in documentation, redundancies, and record-keeping, and that the Board’s work on getting those systems in place is going to last through the first few months of 2016. Beyond that immediate and very important issue, there are several issues from late 2014 that we just haven’t had the bandwidth to address so far in 2015: first among those is the Ombuds Committee, which we approved a proposal for at the 2014 retreat but which has languished since then. The Board is committed to making that happen one way or another, and I do personally think that it is very important for the organization’s overall health to have an ombuds committee available to OTW personnel. The other outstanding issue I would mention is getting position descriptions in place for the other officers and board positions, which is a requirement of the strategic plan for the Board that should have positive benefits beyond the Board itself. These examples may not sound very exciting, but they’re the kind of crucial and process-oriented issues that the Board deals with in its work of carrying out the OTW’s governance and management.

What is your five year vision for OTW? AO3?

I talked about this under the keywords of “sustainability” and “visibility” in my initial statements, but let me try to be more specific. There’s a lot of space for the OTW to have a higher public profile advocating for open culture, fandom, and fanworks in current conversations about internet freedoms and copyright reforms. We’ve certainly done great work in these areas already through the outstanding efforts of the Legal committee, and in five years I want us to be better known for our work in these areas in order to better serve our mission. In five years the OTW can and should be raising $300K or more in every membership drive–we’ll need that much to keep up with increasing server costs, I’d predict, and that’s a good thing–and as stated in the strategic plan, the Board should have completed a restructure to bring its workload and scope more in line with reasonable volunteer commitments while ensuring that the OTW’s daily operations are managed effectively. As for the Archive, AO3 is great now, and five years from now I want it to be even better. I want the current roadmap to have been accomplished: let’s be out of open beta, let’s have an API, let’s have more of the advanced features that I and other users would like. Let’s have support for multiple works types and multimedia. Let’s be able to host fan vids on the Archive! Equally importantly, let’s have a thriving community of many developers who can and do work on the archive because it’s a truly open open source project that’s easy to contribute to. In five years I want more AO3 users to know that it’s a project of the OTW, and that it’s not our only great project!

If you could change something in the OTW’s bylaws, what would it be?

At present, the provisions concerning the elections process (how many seats are elected when, etc) are somewhat ambiguous. Legal and Elections have both raised this concern with Board this year, and we’re waiting for them to come back after this election with a proposed set of revisions to lay things out clearly. I’m definitely looking forward to getting that passed so that the procedure is clearly laid out for everyone.

Atiya Hakeem 2015 Q&A: Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

The Manifestos tell us some of each candidates’ ambitions of what they want to achieve if elected. I’d like to see that made more specific and SMART. In other words: what’s going to be the first action you’ll undertake/the first project you’ll tackle/first thing you’ll do if elected?

What I’d do first is to assess the situation. The lack of transparency from the current Board and its immediate predecessors means that it’s very hard to know exactly what’s going on. What committee proposals are before the Board? What is the status of the various documentation projects? What shape are our financial books in? All of these questions need to be answered before knowing how to proceed.

My guess is that after investigating our status, the most urgent things I’ll want to do are to re-make a Finance committee and to get more Board deliberations into the open.

What is your five year vision for OTW? AO3?

At the moment I think we need to focus on the OTW’s immediate issues before worrying about five year visions. Our being still here, with productive projects and happy members, would be lovely.

My vision for AO3 is that we will have continued to progress along the Roadmap while maintaining stability and accomodating user growth.

If you could change something in the OTW’s bylaws, what would it be?

I would change part 2 of Article IX to remove the ability of Board to unilaterally change the bylaws by a ⅔ vote. Currently, there is no way to have any binding oversight of the Board, since any bylaw change introducing oversight could be easily repealed by a later Board. Additionally, the ability of Board to manipulate the elections process makes it less likely that power can be removed from a dysfunctional Board.

Requiring that bylaw changes have an additional ratification by a quorum of chairs would retain flexibility, while providing oversight and cut down on the possibility of abuse.

Katarina Harju 2015 Q&A: Goals and Vision

Elections Chair

The Manifestos tell us some of each candidates’ ambitions of what they want to achieve if elected. I’d like to see that made more specific and SMART. In other words: what’s going to be the first action you’ll undertake/the first project you’ll tackle/first thing you’ll do if elected?

Not having worked in the English-speaking world, I haven’t come across the SMART acronym before. While the SMART goals seem mostly like a very sensible way of setting objectives, they do have some limitations. When I speak of wanting a more transparent organization, there is no way to measure the quantity of transparency we need or to set a time frame for it. There is no point where we can declare that we have now reached enough transparency and can move on to other objectives; it is a continuing goal that we always need to strive for.

The first thing I will do as a Director is by necessity trying to acquaint myself with the current situation as fast as possible, and I sincerely hope that I am given access to the Board’s tools before our yearly purge of the records. The second thing I will do is to insist on Board meetings being open sessions by default. I am worried about the state of our finances, and the lack of policies and clearly described duties for Board members, but those are discussions that need to happen out in the open.

What is your five year vision for OTW? AO3?

In five years’ time, I see the OTW as a more transparent organization with healthy finances. An organization that can clearly demonstrate its accountability to donors and prospective donors, fundraising responsibly based on clearly stated needs and planning ahead for expenses at all levels. I see the Archive development team having the support and resources to move forward rather than scrambling behind the scenes to fix issues and keep things going.

If you could change something in the OTW’s bylaws, what would it be?

I would not personally change anything about the bylaws. I would, however, ideally like a workgroup to be formed for the purpose of reviewing the bylaws, to ensure that they follow the applicable laws and have not grown outdated, and to ensure that they reflect the organization’s ideals, culture, and its current structural needs.