I’m nervous about antis getting on the otw board. That could be very very bad
There are no antis anywhere near the OTW board. There is a candidate who has used some anti rhetoric, but I don't think she wants content removed - instead, I think she wants stricter labeling requirements and more public statements on those topics.
I think both of those are bad ideas, but I don't thinks someone is evil or malicious for disagreeing.
In order to run for the board, someone has to:
Be a current member serving as a volunteer on a standing committee of the OTW.
Have served as a volunteer for 9 of the 12 months prior to the month in which the election will occur.
Be a paying member of OTW by eight weeks prior to the election.
(And a few other things - legal adult, willing to have their legal name on record, etc.)
There are volunteers/staff members who think AO3 need a better warning system. There are volunteers who think we need better public outreach, who worry about the wave of accusations that go around at every donation drive. There are volunteers who think we need different policies on what counts as abuse - for example, that we should be less lenient about comment threads, or about what collections can be titled, and so on.
But the requirement of "has been an active volunteer for at least most of a year" means that anyone who thinks AO3 needs to restrict content is very, very unlikely to get that far. Because there's an interview & review process to get in, and there's an internal culture that is very much "We are here to provide SPACE FOR EVERYONE, even the assholes, yes, even THOSE assholes. No, I don't like them either. They're still allowed to be here."
Anyone who doesn't agree with that, doesn't last.
That said, I think Tiffany's statements mean
1) Her approaches to problems draw too heavily on anti terminology -whether or not she agrees with any of it, she's unconsciously feeding their agenda by using their terms.
2) She's not clear on what she wants to accomplish or change, rather than what she perceives as the problems.
3) She does not have online job experience - while none of us did when the OTW started, right now, that's a red flag. It means she doesn't know what the communication & logistics problems are, doesn't understand the process of getting things done in a setting like this.
4) She's concerned about public opinion about the OTW and AO3, rather than the opinions of the active and would-be users. I can understand that - if you hear a lot of yelling about "how can you be involved with those HORRIBLE PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT CRIMES," you might want to point out that no, we don't support crimes, so maybe we could make some statements about that. But I think it means she's too new to fandom drama to understand that that has always been the background of AO3, and that there is absolutely no way to convince "the public" that we are not supporting crimes, so we need to not waste energy trying.
5) Her ideas on fixing security are based on a recent hack/intrusion problem rather than an understanding of the total infrastructure and the requirements/limitations of the people using the features.
The Reddit thread believes a 10-year-old account and a claim "I am a newbie" is a red flag - I don't. I think that's "I've had an account forever but I have just recently gotten involved."
Reddit thinks it's a red flag that she's worried about being called a "pedophile" if she admits she writes fanfic - I don't. I worry that she runs in the kind of social groups that might do that, but I don't think it's a red flag to not want to risk being publicly reviled over a misunderstanding.
(I'm Pagan. I'm queer. There are people who think that means I'm evil. I get to be as public as I want - I won't lose my job over stupid inaccurate accusations. I don't know if she has that same assurance.)
I don't think Tiffany is a good candidate for the Board. I think she doesn't have the right experience or the right approach. I think she's clueless in some areas, not malicious. I don't think she wants to destroy AO3; I think she doesn't realize how some of her ideas sound like it.
WORST CASE - if she somehow has a swarm of supporters we can't see (...which I doubt) (I would expect them to be speaking up on Twitter & Reddit), and she gets on the Board, she would be one vote among several. (Seven? Nine? I see 7 listed on the OTW website but I thought we're supposed to have 9? But I haven't kept up with the details.)
She's not running for Supreme Leader of the OTW. She's running to be one person on a committee.
I can entirely understand her approach of "hey, they are calling us pedophiles; that is HORRIBLE and we need to do something about that!"
I don't think she understands that "say nothing and don't change our policies" is, in fact, doing something about that. That it is the most effective action we could take. And because I don't think she understands that, I don't want her on the board.
But I don't think it's a disaster that she's running and I'm not worried about the future of the OTW.
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