Sigh...

[quinara]

So, the OTW has found itself in its semi-annual clusterfuck. Or, not really, but it's currently having its autumnal donation drive which seems to be interacting in an odd way with its election process (namely, no one who becomes a member during the current drive will be able to vote). The more interesting point is that despite now asking fandom for $175,000, the organisation does not seem to have realised that at some point it might need to produce an annual budget. It has raised $90,000 in less than a week (ETA: and $10,000 TODAY), but has no agreed aims about how it intends to spend the money. Servers, one assumes from communications, but as the donation page says that the money is going to the OTW as a whole, it could be spent on anything: it could be decided that it has to be spent on something in the next six months, even if there is no current need. People point this out, but there is not really any decent response provided.

Certain commentators (though not part of the organisation's running staff) seem to be of the impression that this is not important, and if people don't trust the OTW they should just not get involved. Actual staff seem to be under the impression that a full budget would require the disclosure of bank account details or some nonsense I can't quite make sense of. I made a comment on AO3 and a different comment on tumblr - but what I thought it was worth journalling about is how this affects all of us who produce fannish stuff, including fic and comments on fic. Because as far as the OTW is marketing this donation drive as being about the AO3, we are all assets of the OTW. In financial terms, we are what allow the organisation to make a case to bring in more money, whether we are full members or not. The organisation by constitution is non-profit and makes no money, but as its members, staff and board derive satisfaction from its existence, all of us that contribute to the AO3's success contribute to that satisfaction. And I think it should be embarrassing for the organisation to have its finances in such disorder that it cannot satisfy its assets/asset-providers, let alone its donors.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, but I wanted to document this clusterfuckery in something that is more substantial than a tumblr post. Also make a note that assets of an organisation should not be treated as its cash cows without any respect for the labour which makes fandom a viably organisable thing in the first place. OK, the sysadmins are volunteers, but so are the writers and reviewers. Even if fic were banned from everywhere on the interwebs besides the AO3 we would go on, and any charitable institution disrespects its constituents at its peril.

Comments

[snickfic]

I've only been sort of paying attention to the OTW thing, so maybe you can answer this question for me: why is it now that we're suddenly worrying about the budget or lack thereof now? Not that they shouldn't have one, but they've been both fundraising and failing to produce a budget for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really pleased that people are finally discussing some of the OTW's failures in public (and in namespace, in particular - I've seen discussion in anon spaces for several years), because maybe they will finally get fixed with some public attention on them. I'm just confused as to what set it all off.

[quinara]

I think it's a combination of things - people were annoyed first off by the inability of new members to vote, which I think made them bolshier about asking questions about the drive. That the amount was so high this time around I think also made people question what it was about - to which the response was something along the lines of a particularly ill-timed 'well, fandom may be fun, but the money required for servers is not!', which was like a rag to a bull. It's fairly standard for the OTW to take a maternalistic attitude towards things, but, as others have pointed out and I agree with, that works less and less well as their core userbase from the early 2010s leaves their early twenties, gets jobs and realises how ridiculously unprofessional the whole enterprise is. Matched against a marketing campaign which seems aimed at people who can't remember the AO3 starting (so... Tumblr young-uns?) and manipulating them into worrying the site might go down, it starts to seem sketchy.

Then, as people were directed to last year's annual report - as though that constituted a budget for this year - people came to realise that there was $300,000 dollars sitting in the OTW coffers last January, which I don't think anyone expected, especially given the pleading drives. Not only was it sitting there, but it was sitting in a checking account (??? I'm still assuming this just means a current account) and two PayPals. Which seems like something of an insult.

Half of this stuff was known before, of course, in bits, and there are complaints in various news and report posts from the org. But as I recall there was this level of scrutiny during the last board election too - I didn't have an OTW tag then, but I made a post at the time that I managed to find. I certainly remember a lot of other namespace posts too. So the ultimate answer is probably election. But combined with terrible PR.

[snickfic]

That does all make sense. Thanks for the run-down! That is a much clearer picture than I had before - like I said, I've kind of been on the periphery all this time, and wasn't sure what the latest was. And yeah, becoming a member but still not being about to vote would be pretty frustrating. I can see the sense in it - you don't want to leave someone the option of sweeping in and gaming the election - but it does lead to other questions.