end-otw-racism

[end-otw-racism]

This meeting starts in 20 minutes!

OTW Board Meeting on April 21!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on April 21 from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be April 20, though, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

DEI and organizational culture update

Organizational Culture Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then answered in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The full Community Guidelines can be found in the OTW Discord's #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with how the meeting will be run.

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting

[end-otw-racism]

This meeting will start in the OTW Discord in 9 hours!

OTW Board Meeting on April 21!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on April 21 from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be April 20, though, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

DEI and organizational culture update

Organizational Culture Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then answered in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The full Community Guidelines can be found in the OTW Discord's #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with how the meeting will be run.

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting

[end-otw-racism]

This may be a question with a very obvious answer I guess, but does reading on ao3 support otw?

If you define support as “support monetarily,” then no, reading fics on AO3 does not support AO3. AO3 is a non-profit, which means that it does not generate revenue from use. Rather, use costs AO3 money. 

We’d also like to re-emphasize here that we utilize AO3 as both authors and readers. This is why we’re advocating for the OTW to do a better job protecting its users and volunteers!

#asks

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting on April 21!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on April 21 from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be April 20, though, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

DEI and organizational culture update

Organizational Culture Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then answered in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The full Community Guidelines can be found in the OTW Discord's #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with how the meeting will be run.

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting #organization for transformative works #otw

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting on April 21!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on April 21 from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be April 20, though, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

DEI and organizational culture update

Organizational Culture Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then answered in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The full Community Guidelines can be found in the OTW Discord's #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with how the meeting will be run.

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting #organization for transformative works #otw #archive of our own #ao3

[end-otw-racism]

The OTW public Board meeting will be starting in 30 minutes!

Learn more about the meeting or just head straight for the OTW Discord.

#otw board meeting

[end-otw-racism]

This meeting will be today, January 27th, for some of us. Be sure to check what time it is for you!

OTW Board Meeting on Jan 28!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on January 28 at 2:00 AM UTC. For some of us that'll be January 27, though, so be sure to check what time that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Diversity update

2024 Board Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then asked in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The OTW Discord's Community Guidelines can be found in the #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with the details of how the meeting will be run.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the meeting!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting on Jan 28!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on January 28 at 2:00 AM UTC. For some of us that'll be January 27, though, so be sure to check what time that is for you.

The currently planned agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Diversity update

2024 Board Roadmap

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions.

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then asked in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

The OTW Discord's Community Guidelines can be found in the #rules channel, and we recommend reading them to familiarize yourself with the details of how the meeting will be run.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the meeting!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting #otw board #organization for transformative works #otw #archive of our own #ao3 #fandom #end otw racism

[end-otw-racism]

If you didn't hear, Substack is now officially a Nazi site. Officially as in "the CEO has said they wouldn't ban Nazis, and that they are welcome to monetize their content on Substack". I think this is the first time a major web platform has openly say they are ok with making money out of open Nazis and white nationalists.

Substack CEO reasoning is "we don't like nazis, but we defend their right to be nazis". But, of course, at the same time, substack bans sex workers from using their platform.

So yeah, if you have a Substack account, maybe it's time to move somewhere else. As they say, if there's a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis.

#substack

[end-otw-racism]

This meeting will start in 45 minutes!

OTW Board Meeting Nov 12(ish)!

The next public OTW Board meeting will be held on November 12 at 1:00-2:00 AM UTC. For some of us that's actually November 11, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda, from the Board Calendar:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Welcome new Board members

Announce officer roles

Diversity update

Any other business

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last an hour. If you've attended OTW Board meetings in the past, this one will be a little different. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions. 

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then asked in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

Also new is a set of Community Guidelines, which can be found in the #rules channel. We encourage you read them to familiarize yourself with the details. As this process is new for the Board, too, these rules may continue to be refined in the lead-up to the meeting and so the information shared in this post may not be in its final form.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the meeting!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting #reminder

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting Nov 12(ish)!

The next public OTW Board meeting will be held on November 12 at 1:00-2:00 AM UTC. For some of us that's actually November 11, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda, from the Board Calendar:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Welcome new Board members

Announce officer roles

Diversity update

Any other business

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last an hour. If you've attended OTW Board meetings in the past, this one will be a little different. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions. 

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then asked in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

Also new is a set of Community Guidelines, which can be found in the #rules channel. We encourage you read them to familiarize yourself with the details. As this process is new for the Board, too, these rules may continue to be refined in the lead-up to the meeting and so the information shared in this post may not be in its final form.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the meeting!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw board meeting #reminder

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting Nov 12(ish)!

The next public OTW Board meeting will be held on November 12 at 1:00-2:00 AM UTC. For some of us that's actually November 11, so be sure to check when that is for you.

The currently planned agenda, from the Board Calendar:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Welcome new Board members

Announce officer roles

Diversity update

Any other business

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last an hour. If you've attended OTW Board meetings in the past, this one will be a little different. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions. 

Questions should be asked in the #open-chat channel where they will be collected by moderators and added to the ⁠#questions-voting channel. There, they will be upvoted by meeting attendees and then asked in order of descending emoji count. The Board requests that questions be reasonable and polite, under 50 words, and that each person only submits one. Questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts will not be accepted.

Unanswered questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting. This means if your question isn't covered in the meeting, there's still a chance it'll be answered later.

Also new is a set of Community Guidelines, which can be found in the #rules channel. We encourage you read them to familiarize yourself with the details. As this process is new for the Board, too, these rules may continue to be refined in the lead-up to the meeting and so the information shared in this post may not be in its final form.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the meeting!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

#otw #organization for transformative works #ao3 #archive of our own #endotwracism #end otw racism

[end-otw-racism]

OTW's Board will be holding its next public meeting from 1:00-2:00 AM UTC on November 12. For more information visit https://otw.news/2fc02c

#otw board meetings #otw board

[end-otw-racism]

We would like to highlight this update from the latest OTW newsletter:

Board has continued to be busy training incoming Board members! They have approved a few Finance requests this month, and are gearing up for an upcoming Board meeting. Board has also begun talking with a potential DEI consulting firm, and are excited to continue moving forward with this project.

We are excited to see progress moving forward on this issue and will continue to update when we see new information coming out.

-FAR team

September 2023 Newsletter, Volume 182

Our 16th birthday got an extra boost with new fandoms at AO3 and OTW16thSurvey participation, plus Legal warned fans about bad Internet proposals, TWC put out a new issue, and Fanlore is running Podtober! Read more at https://otw.news/2d4

#otw #end otw racism #endotwracism #fandom #ao3 #otw board

[end-otw-racism]

The OTW Board Elections are over, and with that wraps up our second End OTW Racism action! Thank you to everyone who has participated over the last few months, whether by voting, attending the July 2 OTW Board Meeting, submitting questions for the candidates, sharing our posts, writing to the OTW Board, providing us critique and feedback, and more. 

Now that we’ve completed two End OTW Racism actions, we wanted to take a breath and tell you a little about how we started. We began as a team of five people in May who felt spurred by renewed conversations we’d seen on twitter about racism within the OTW and wanted to do something about it. As we’ve shared in our FAQ, the core organizers are all fans and users of AO3, including both people of color and white folks, who have been in fandom for decades. We’ve added new core organizers since May, but also some organizers have rolled off, so we remain a small and diverse team.

Since the beginning, we’ve had four specific demands for the OTW:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Committee to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

This may be surprising, but we only began planning our first action in May five days before we announced it! And we’ve been working really hard since then on top of our other individual life obligations. We also rolled straight from our first action into our second because of the timing of the OTW Board Elections, which made things even busier.

We’re very proud of all we’ve accomplished and everything that has happened since then - not only the work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made on our specific goals, but also the way that a larger conversation has opened up publicly about many other forms of racism and dysfunction within the organization. These conversations have, of course, been going on for years, both inside and outside the OTW, and more recent efforts have built on the work of fans of color calling out racism in fandom for decades, particularly Black fans. The discussions that have happened since May included thousands of people in fandom and have become wide-ranging, and we’re thankful to everyone who has been part of them. Organizing and running this campaign has also been a learning process, and we've grown so much from the feedback we've received. We look forward to being even better as we continue on with our specific anti-racist lens.

We couldn’t have done any of this without all of you, the community that has fostered and spurred these conversations and put them into action. We’re also really excited to see that other campaigns are coming up to address aspects of racism in fandom that are outside our narrow scope. We hope our example of what you can do as a small team can be an inspiration to anyone else who wants to start their own parallel antiracist efforts too.

Since it’s been an exhausting (but thrilling!) few months, our core team is going to be taking a pause for a few months to reflect and regroup before planning another action focused on our specific goals. We also want to figure out how to engage more of the community in our planning for future actions, since we know there are lots of people who are excited about this work, and we weren’t able to do that in the quick turnaround between the first and second actions.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that two partner projects will be launching next month! These will not be led by our core organizers, but by other fans who have volunteered to take them on. 

Anti-Racist Fanlore Project: An effort to update Fanlore, the fandom history wiki run by the OTW, with articles that flesh out the history of racism and anti-racism in fandom. This will be a collaborative project run through a new Discord server, and we welcome people of all levels of experience with Fanlore editing, including people who have never done it before! We’ll need people for a wide range of tasks: project management, research, drafting, reviewing, and posting to Fanlore.

Anti-Harassment Street Team: A group aimed at supporting people who are harassed for talking about racism in fandom, including developing de-escalation practices, creating resources on curating your own space, correcting misinformation, and more. This project will also be collaborative and run through a new Discord server.

You can sign up for these projects on our Volunteer Sign-Up Form. If you already signed up for either of these projects at any time in the last few months, you will receive an email with more information when each project kicks off. 

Apart from those projects, we’ll see you again for our next action in a few months. If you need to get hold of us in the meantime, you can email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com, though we may take a little while to get back to you. Thank you again for your passion and support in fighting racism in the OTW!

- The Fandom Against Racism Team

#end otw racism #vote to end otw racim #eotwr #ao3 #archive of our own #organization for transformative works #about us

[end-otw-racism]

2023 OTW Board Election Review

The election is over, and we'd like to congratulate (in alphabetical order) Anh Pham, Kathryn Soderholm, and Qiao Chu, who have been elected to serve full terms on the OTW Board of Directors, and Jennifer Haynes and Zixin Zhang, who have been elected to partial terms. We recognize that this is a turbulent time for the OTW, and that running for Board at any time takes guts and a lot of hard work, but especially so now, and we appreciate the time and labor you all have put into answering questions about how you envision your time serving on the Board and guiding OTW policy.

It really was a rollercoaster of an election season. With an original ballot of seven candidates for three seats, the field eventually narrowed to five candidates, and then unexpected resignations led to the opening of five total seats, creating an uncontested election. Still, voting mattered, as the number of votes each candidate got determined if they won a full term (three years) or a partial (two years), and we want to thank everyone who showed up to #VoteToEndOTWRacism.

Through their prepared bios and platforms, the Q&As posted to the Elections site, and the four Candidate Chats, OTW members and stakeholders had ample opportunity to get to know the candidates and learn about their ideas for improving the OTW, and we're excited to see how they might implement their plans once they take their seats.

Today we're going to take a look at how their stated priorities might guide the new Board, specifically in addressing our three main demands: 

Terms of Service (TOS) updates that address racist and bigoted harassment.

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3 months.

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic.

As candidates, all five stressed the importance of updating the TOS (or the way the current TOS is enforced) to better protect fans from harassment on AO3, with Anh, Kathryn, and Qiao all listing it as a priority. 

All five also spoke of hiring and working with a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultant, with Anh, Kathryn, and Qiao all speaking of filling the position soon, and Kathryn expressly calling it a priority.

And, continuing the positive trend, all five offered multiple ways the OTW could improve transparency within the organization and with stakeholders outside the organization! We are particularly interested in Zixin’s suggestion to increase the section on Board work in the monthly newsletters (something Qiao also mentioned!) as well as improve the Board Meeting process to have it better moderated and more efficient, as this would be a great step towards that transparency and engagement with the user base, and her idea to set up clearer internal guidelines on crisis resolution and make them accessible to all volunteers would be a tangible way of increasing transparency within the org.

Kathryn is also concerned about documentation and believes the OTW needs to establish: clear org-wide standards for when to use Constructive Corrective Action Procedures (CCAP), an org-wide crisis communication plan, and org-wide standards for moderating comments on news posts, and that these standards can, and should, be created within the first year.

And, finally, Anh discusses having the group tasked with implementation of the OTW's strategic plan develop infographics to better communicate that plan as a means of fostering outreach to OTW members and users to bring them in to contribute to the OTW’s processes. Unfortunately the strategic plan does not currently reference any of our goals, but if updated, this could be a great path of dialogue between users and the organization.  

The new Board will be seated October 1, 2023, and we look forward to seeing what they can accomplish by working together to make the OTW and its platforms a safe and welcoming place for fans of color.

#otw board election #otw elections #otw board #vote to end otw racism

[end-otw-racism]

Result of the 2023 Board Election

The results are in and our Elections Committee is pleased to announce the new members of the OTW Board: Anh Pham, Jennifer Haynes, Kathryn Soderholm, Qiao Chu, Zixin Zhang. Read more at https://otw.news/5ffa6f

Afrikaans • dansk • Ελληνικά • English • italiano • Nederlands • 日本語 • Српски • 中文

#otw board #otw elections