Me, Myself and the OTW

[rodo]

Now I hope that the OTW archive will be a lot like Animexx (which is for fanart and dōjinshi as well, and which is the website of an association), but with less focus on anime fandoms and better rules. I have also been told by someone in the OTW that they want to make it more international than ff.net, which is what I volunteered for. My Thoughts on Yaoi/the OTW by rodo, 13th January 2008

First off, this is not an election post. It is an evaluation of sorts, and an explanation as to why I do not think I can justify working for the OTW for longer if there aren’t some drastic changes. This is not me being dramatic, in fact, I feel rather sober about it all. I did cry over my keyboard, but that’s not why I write it. I did have volunteer burnout, but that was years ago. I just came to realise that within the organisation, I am powerless to express my dissatisfaction on a wider scale, and that my hopes for the OTW will likely never be realised. I can not change that, which is partly due to the communication culture within the organisation, a culture that I am not equipped to deal with.

1. Forced Positivity – the OTW’s equivalent of Newspeak

When I read the latest post on the OTW blog, I felt sick. I felt disgusted. I felt as if I was trapped in some parallel version of reality where everyone was always saying good things. And I wasn’t even surprised by this response, because I’ve been attending the monthly, organisation-wide chats more or less regularily. During these chats, I started to black out. All the “\o/”s and “YAY”s are foreign to me, they’re white noise filling the space between the important bits. I have no idea if this is cultural or personal, but I am not a cheery person. I don’t feel enthusiastic, I don’t feel like cheering for every tiny success and I think that there is a limit to how much positive reinforcement a person can take before it becomes hollow, meaningless and a lie. I am sarcastic, cynical, pessimistic and focused on facts. I can’t parse texts full of meaningless white noise, and I tend to write shortish posts and texts myself. Why waste a thousand words on something that can be said in a hundred?

In the OTW, I often feel like an outsider because of that, and it doesn’t help that communication that is not full of Bauchpinselei, assurance that this isn’t personal and so on, is censored, at least when it comes to lobby work. I actually like to be passive-aggressive now and again, and when someone else is passive-aggressive towards me, I can parse that information. Hell, I can even deal with aggressiveness to some degree. But the forced positivity inside the OTW robs me of my words. Within these restrictions, I can not express myself properly. It’s as if the emphasis on politeness keeps certain opinions from being expressed, especially by people who are not super-savvy when it comes to communicating in this manner. Like, maybe non-native speakers, people from other cultural backgrounds and people from other educational backgrounds.

I know some people disagree with me on how to approach internal communication, among the my (likely soon to be former) committee, but this is how I feel, and maybe I am not alone in being silenced by an atmosphere.

2. What I Came To Achieve and What I Didn’t

As you can see above, I had a vision. I had a vision for the archive and for the OTW, and that’s why I volunteered and why I was a paying member for three years. I wrote that four years ago, and to make my goal when joining the OTW clearer, I will summarize it:

I wanted the OTW do be truly international. Not to pay lip service, but to produce its products with an international audience in mind. I wanted internationality to be the norm, and not an afterthought. I wanted the AO3 to be multilingual, as well as the other projects. And because other people had the same vision, even back then, I joined.

A multilingual archive was promised to us very early on, in 2008, I think. I know that I wrote Why The AO3 Needs To Be Translated in October 2009 because I was frustrated with the work being delayed again and again, because it was too difficult, because the software infrastructure was more important, because Yuletide needed to be done, because there were no coders, and nobody seemed to remember that internationality was supposed to be more than an afterthought. It was why in 2010, International Outreach was established, and I joined that committee as a staffer.

We figured out quite early on that actual outreach was out of the question until we had something to offer the groups we wanted to reach out to. It’s the reason why I never pimped the AO3 to German users, and why I wouldn’t pimp it to K-Drama fans either. It’s just not useful to people who don’t speak English very well and without an option to filter for language and canons that are K-Dramas. Currently, looking at the TV Series page, I have to scroll and jump between tabs and wikis to even find out that there are no fanfics for a series.

Initially, I was happy when the Archive Roadmap came out. It contained a timeline for when to expect a translation interface, I know that because I worked on the translation. Now the planning for including art and vids has already begun, something that was meant to be worked on after version 1.0 was finished, while the translation interface remains unfinished. I agree that including art and vids is important, but I don’t think it’s more important that working on those parts of the architecture that affect the entire archive (like the mess that are tags and translation), before trying to add new storeys and rooms. It also means that effectively, internationality is and afterthought, it will never be a priority or standard if there aren’t any drastic changes in the next half a year.

Another project that meant a lot to me was the restructuring of the categories. IO worked hard towards it for over a year, although it was a proposal that we stole from the tag wrangling mailing list. I think the current categories, fashioned after fanfiction.net, are too broad and make it hard to find some canons and harder to categorise others. Dinner for One can be found under movies, for example, under its original title. I looked for fanfic for Powerful Opponents and it took me a while to figure out that even if there were any, they would be under “G”, not “P” or “K”. Manhwas aren’t mangas, and frankly, putting superhero comics and Franco-Belgian comics in Comics is weird if you seperate Japanese comic canons from them. How to manage international co-productions? Why are there two categories for real persons? I think there is a lot to be improved there, but the proposal was really controversial and seems lost in communication right now.

This is sad, and it’s a failure not only of other people, but also a failure of mine. I should have been able to put people under pressure or stop believing in half-arsed excuses sooner. I should have made my problems with all of this clearer, but I didn’t. I am doing it now.

After about four years, here I am, trying to figure out the chances of the OTW becoming what I dreamed of. And I think they are slim. I fought windmills for years and failed. So unless somebody can convince me that there absolutely will be radical changes soon, I don’t think I can justify my continued involvement. Because after four years of development, how can my priority not be an afterthought?

Comments

[renay]

Another project that meant a lot to me was the restructuring of the categories. IO worked hard towards it for over a year, although it was a proposal that we stole from the tag wrangling mailing list.

Oh. :(

I am so sorry about the category restructuring. I will say now that some of the hold up on this issue was my own fault because I was clueless and uneducated (being an American fan) and really misunderstood how important it was. I was so frustrated from a different perspective when it was first discussed on the tag wrangling mailing list in 2009, that our little subcommittee had no authority to get anything done on it. We could talk and talk and talk but in the end we had no power to do anything but send it higher, out of our hands and our control and without our unique, diverse perspectives. This debate was one reason Tag Wrangling became a committee, with this as a goal, and well, we didn't manage it. That's an explanation, not an excuse (because it's horrible that it's still in limbo even now). This was one of the things I didn't make any headway on this term that still disappoints me and I am really sorry that it's gotten so lost. I do believe it will be revived because there are still many of us who care about the issue deeply. I hope we can tackle the issue for you and fans like you, even if you choose to step away.

Thanks for your perspective.

[rodo]

I think there's something really wrong if issues like that are just allowed to get lost. Explaining what it's about doesn't make it sound like such a huge deal, but I heard when the topic was discussed on the tag wrangling list, things got horribly out of hand there too. I still don't get why this has been taking so long, while other things get implemented in no time. I do believe some version of it will go live one day, but probably not soon enough to make a real difference. In a way, it's a symptom and not the disease. Same as the server issue was a symptom, and then, I could explain it away as a symptom too, since I still thought I was treating the disease.

[jennyst]

I hope that the election will result in changes, but I understand if it's too little, too late for you personally. Thank you for all you've done for the org.

For translations, if you or anyone else in I&O is up for it, I would love to get a nagging email asking how things are going, roughly weekly. I find things like that help me personally to remember to go back and look at a project I'd been distracted from, and it will also mean I can give you useful feedback. Rebecca has been doing amazing work, and I'd like to communicate that out to more people who don't necessarily know how to interpret Github, and it will also remind me to help her out with the code rather than leaving it on the back burner too long.

[rodo]

I don't get the lack of clear deadlines on the bigger stuff within the OTW, personally. I love deadlines! (Julia has had to listen to more than one of my improvised love letters, actually.) They help me focus my energies too, which is why it always takes me longer to work on non-deadline stuff, while I usually finish early when I have one.

I know what awesome work Rebecca is doing, but this is a really big thing, and one that needs more than one person working on it, I'd imagine.

(And now I have to wrangle dust bunnies away from my kitten.)

[tanaqui]

Dropping by to thank you for making this post. You've articulated very clearly some of the frustrations I felt myself. (So much so that I've linked/quoted you in a post I just made.)

I really hope that the changes you're looking for happen, and soon - because the OTW needs them and needs people like you to stay involved.

[rodo]

Heh, I knew I couldn't be alone. I still have a faint hope things turn for the better too, but after my previous experiences, I am not feeling all that optimistic.

[scribblesinink]

Oh, you're definitely not alone in this! I think I agreed with every single word in your post.

[franzeska]

I can be a cynical grouch myself, comparatively speaking, but working with Germans still takes some getting used to. So terse! So uninterested in smalltalk despite frequently impressive English proficiency! :)

There's a lot more to OTW issues than that, and of course we're all different, but there is a big cultural gap in communication styles between Americans and Germans on average on top of everything else. I've noticed it pretty consistently--offline, outside of fandom too.

My experience with the TOS makes me think there's plenty of hope for OTW if one is just really, really, really tenacious. But whether the payoff is worth it for a given person... I think the jury's out on that.

[rodo]

Hey, Germans like talking about inane stuff too. But generally only if there's nothing they want to solve. Solving now, smalltalk later. At least that's what I prefer.

The problem with being tenacious is that people don't like it when other people annoy the hell out of them, and my kind of annoying doesn't work that well within the OTW, I think. Makes more enemies than it gets anything done.

[franzeska]

Yeah, that too. :(

[starlady]

I'm a native U.S.-ian, and the OTW's preferred communication style drives me up the wall--not just in chats (where all the side emoticons waste a very large quantity of time), but in official Org communications, even. I would dearly love us to sound more professional.

[mllesatine]

Ich werde jetzt mal auf Deutsch antworten. Ich hatte auch am Anfang die große Hoffnung, dass das Archiv sehr schnell wächst und möglichst viele Fandoms einschließt. Da ich keine OTP oder sogar ein Lieblingsfandom habe, suche ich bei Fanfic eher nach Inhalten.

Die Tags funktionieren immer noch nicht wie sie sollten. Am meisten stört mich, dass es immer noch nicht möglich ist nach zwei Tags zu suchen (nicht nach "any", I will beide sehen) oder das Anklicken eines Tags rückgängig zu machen, indem man entklickt. Nein, wenn ich merke, dass die Tags keine Ergebnisse haben, die mich interessieren, muss ich die Seite zurückblättern.

Ich weiß wirklich nicht, was ich von diesem offenen Brief halten soll. Wir nennen sowas ja Arschkriecherei und ich wette dafür gibt es auch ein gutes englisches Wort.

Außerdem ist es keine Grund, in Jubelgeschrei auszubrechen, wenn sich auf vier Posten nur fünf Leute bewerben.

[mllesatine]

Ok, ich nehme alles zurück. Anscheinend wurde zumindest das Entklickproblem gelöst.

[rodo]

Ich habe im Moment nur kleine Fandoms, da brauche ich die Tags eigentlich nicht. Hat auch seine Vorteile.

Vor allem ist das mit den fünf Leuten nicht so beeindruckend, wenn jemand vorzeitig ausscheidet und eine andere Person nach einem Jahr nicht an wiederbewerben denkt.

Offener Brief?

[mllesatine]

Offener Brief bezog sich darauf, dass das announcement als open letter betitelt wurde.

Ich habe nicht ganz mitbekommen, warum diese Person ausgeschieden ist. Ich habe zwar ein bisschen was auf meiner flist gelesen, aber diejenigen, die gepostet haben, machen sich ja nicht die Mühe, mal ein wenig Info einfließen zu lassen für diejenigen, die nicht so involviert sind.

Da heißt es dann nur: worst news of the day und man muss sich selber zusammen klauben worum es geht.

[rodo]

Ich habe schon was mitbekommen, aber eben auch nur aus zweiter und dritter Hand, ich könnte also Gerüchte weiterverbreiten, die ich selber nicht so recht verstehe und stille Post spielen. Das ist denke ich auch der Grund, warum viele bei den Details etwas zurückhaltend sind.