briar_pipe
Hi everyone, and welcome to our Candidate Chat for 2019!
Today you’ll have the opportunity to observe all 3 Candidates: Kirsten Wright, Morgan Schroeder, and Rebecca Sentance.
My name is briar_pipe, and I’ll be hosting the candidate side today. On the audience/open_chat side, your host will be my fellow Elections Committee member disjointed.
disjointed, can you wave so everyone can see you?
If you as a Board member could change one committee policy/procedure, what would it be?
I definitely don’t think that it’s within the purview of the OTW Board of Directors to make changes to individual committee policies or procedures, and neither should it be. Individual committee policies and procedures are the purview of that committee and that committee alone; if they impact on other committees, they might be devised in collaboration with the committee(s) in question, but this would still not make them the Board’s purview to change or determine. Committees and their chairs are the ones who know best what policies and procedures to enact, and how to go about doing so.
As with making changes to AO3’s Terms of Service, Board interference with committee-level procedures and policies would be a serious breach of trust – and moreover, would go against what the Board exists for, which is to oversee and ensure the smooth functioning of the OTW at a big-picture level, not to micro-manage committees.
At the very most, I imagine that while serving on the Board of Directors, I might be called upon to give advice or discuss issues with committee chairs that impact on procedures or policy, but even then, this would purely be a discussion aimed at helping the committee to find the best solution – not a change made by the Board.
If you as a Board member could change one committee policy/procedure, what would it be?
I think committee policies and procedures should be left up to the committees. Instead, I would be happy to work with each committee, and help them to evaluate what they are currently doing. In my view, the board should act as more of a guiding hand rather than a blunt hammer. I believe that committees know best how to operate while the board ensures efficiency and best practices.
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If you as a Board member could change one committee policy/procedure, what would it be?
The Board does not (and should not) suggest committees changes their policies and procedures unless there’s a very strong reason to do so, such as legal requirements changing or inter-committee issues requiring arbitration. Even in those cases, I wouldn’t push for change without the committee’s agreement.
Even if I as a Board member could just go in and change how a committee operates, I likely wouldn’t know enough about the intricacies of the committee to do so unless I was a staff member. I do look forward to learning more about committees as a Board member, if I am elected, but that still wouldn’t give me the ability to go digging around in their policies.
As for the committees that I am staff on, I would definitely bring up potential changes as a committee member rather than a Board member, so that we could discuss and decide together.
Is there anything about the AO3’s Terms of Service or how they’re currently applied that you think should be modified?
I don’t think anything needs to be modified at the moment, though I would of course be open to reviewing them as legal needs require, should I be elected. As our Vision Statement says, “We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative,” and I think our Terms of Service reflects that. The last time we revised our Terms of Service for AO3 was to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and unless other legislation is passed that would affect us or the site undergoes a major change, I don’t see any need to further modify either the Terms of Service or how we apply them.
Is there anything about the AO3’s Terms of Service or how they’re currently applied that you think should be modified?
The Archive of Our Own has a well-thought-out, comprehensive, and accessible set of Terms of Service that are designed to uphold AO3’s core values: maximum inclusivity, transparency, the defense of fanworks in all their forms, and non-commercialism. I agree wholeheartedly with these values and do not wish to change them or interfere with how they are upheld.
Furthermore, I don’t believe it falls within the purview of the Board of Directors – let alone a single member of the Board – to unilaterally decide that the Terms of Service for AO3, or how they are applied, should be modified. AO3’s Terms of Service are a legally binding document that was carefully crafted by the OTW’s Legal team, and their enforcement on the site is determined and enacted by the Policy & Abuse committee. They should only undergo changes or additions in very rare circumstances, such as the updates that were made last year to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and while the Board would help to implement and oversee the changes, they would only be carried out after extensive and close consultation with Legal, Policy & Abuse, and other key parties such as the Accessibility, Design & Technology team.
If members of the Board were to make changes to AO3’s Terms of Service due to some personal issue with how the site is run, and without consulting the aforementioned committees, it would seriously undermine our users’ trust in the Archive and its values, as well as making it actively difficult for committees like Policy & Abuse to ensure the smooth running of the Archive. In short, I don’t think it would be appropriate, productive or right for me as a prospective Board member to advocate making changes to AO3’s Terms of Service, and neither would I want to see them altered.