Ok, so because I was curious I went looking for the ao3 board candidate that everyone was getting so pissy about and I have so much less respect for these people now. (Not that I had any to begin with, but still.)
Iāve got here excerpts from some sort of chat with two candidates and an interviewer. Michelle I donāt know anything about, Tiffany is the one people are mad with. Link here, this is official as far as I can tell.
Thank you both for sharing about your struggles within the org. Next we have questions for candidates specifically again!
For Michelle S.: in your Q&A on Board Work, you mentioned finalizng and filling the Paid Staff Transition Officer role. I see this role and the Diversity Consultant Research Officer as vital to the strategic vision of OTW but also difficult to recruit for. What do you think you can do to help push forward the search and recruit processes for these positions?
For Tiffany G: Youāve mentioned in the Q&As and in these chats that youād be interested in changes to the TOS and our policies ā can you expand more on what changes you think might be interesting?
I think making the documentation more visible would help, and potentially reaching out to qualified volunteers directly. Thereās a pretty thorough position description for the Diversity Consultant Research Officer on our internal tools, but if you donāt know where to find it, itās not going to help you decide if thatās a position you can fill. So I think just talking about it more would also help people realize that hey, maybe thatās something they could do.
Well, I think a lot of external people are very concerned about the fact that some works contain child pornography, pedophilic content, and other illegal content. If possible (this is not entirely possible after I chatted with people from PAC though), I am interested in providing extra help to the PAC team and Legal team to update the ToS and policies on those.
Thank you both! We have questions specific to our candidates again here:
for Michelle S.: What skills do you think youāve learned from serving as a committee chair that will carry over to your Board work? Do you have any specific examples of times you demonstrated those skills
And a follow up for Tiffany G.: If you were to work with Legal and PAC to update the Archiveās ToS on content like pedophilia, would you want to disallow those types of works, or are you referring to another type of change or clarification?
OK this is a follow-up to the last question ā people think we host child porn content and such things. This issue is actually closely related to the incident when our service is banned in my home country. It might also be helpful to clarify that to the public. I am not an expert but look forward to discussing it more with respective committees.
Thank you both! Just to clarify Tiffany, the Archive of Our Own does not host any works that contain materials that are illegal in the United States, such as child pornography. Which leads us to the next two follow-up questions for Tiffany G. : a) You mention wanting to update the TOS to address concerns about content posted to the site. How does that fit into AO3 general principle of āmaximum inclusiveness of contentā? Which content and why?
b) you proposing that the Terms of Service be updated to restrict additional content that is currently allowed on the Archive?
We also have a question for Michelle S. specifically too in the meantime: The internal wiki posting for Diversity Consultant Research Officer is thorough indeed, but this thoroughness may also make the job seem very daunting. How do you plan on promoting the vacancy for this role and drumming up excitement, without losing emphasis on its serious nature?
I think thatās why itās also important to talk about it, both generally and to potentially interested volunteers. Itās possible to both explain it more casually while also not downplaying the seriousness of the role, which I think would help get it out to more people.
a) I support 100% āmaximum inclusiveness of contentā, yet there is always a boundary to everything. Since OTW is already an influential org, we need to protect our image and hold a better image to the public. I want the public to think of us as an inclusive and socially responsible community. So in general, we have to do something to change. Things like making the rating system more specific and obvious to users will be what I want to do.
b) Not really restricting the content being posted. I hope it is like more warnings and ratings for posting work so people know what to expect. And all of these are not surprising to people who do not wish to see this.
Thank you for your answers! We do have two more related follow ups for Tiffany G. on the topic of content on AO3:
a) please does your definition of content that should be disallowed include all written content depicting sexual content of minors?
b) please clarify how you propose we treat the content we currently have in the archive that should be banned with those proposed TOS changes
a) That is not what I proposed actually. I would want to be more specific in the rating system and clarifications so people know what to expect.
b) If there are changes, it is going to be some slower work I suspect. Will work with PAC to figure out if changes are necessary.
Iām very curious what Tiffany considers a ābetter imageā that the OTW should present to the public. As in, what part of our image is unsuitable.
As I have mentioned before, AO3 is no longer accessible in my home country due to some incident related to a piece of pedophilic work that is posted at AO3. This makes users very difficult to read and write with AO3. When I was reading the comments about the incident, a lot of people seemed to have a negative opinion about us. So, I think there is at least something we can do to help build a better image for us in my home country.
The way people are reacting to this is... Telling.
