ratcreature | meta on the AO3

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rants

meta on the AO3

There are honestly people who are still surprised/disappointed that the OTW decided on the meta on AO3 issue without broader input/discussion first? (In the comments on the announcement post.) Seriously? Even though the OTW board in the past has said explicitly that the org never builds policy in public because "policies are difficult enough to draft and revise even in private with a small team of participants".

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"policies are difficult enough to draft and revise even in private with a small team of participants".

They're not wrong there, either. If they tried to find consensus on a larger scale they'd never get anything done. Even if I don't follow their reasoning some of the time, it's their archive.

But I sure hope now they'll at least make category tagging *mandatory*, the archive is enough of a mess when it comes to searchability. It's just common sense to have proper labels so your users can actually find stuff. Mandatory tagging for fic/art/meta, mandatory fandom tag, especially crossovers so you have the option to filter the bloody things out. Avengers fusions all over the MI4 fic tag... meh.

Edited 2013-02-18 11:00 (UTC)

I don't actually think that is necessarily true. Many anarchist groups work on a consensus seeking model where each voice is heard and have over the last century developed methods and a theory framework to deal with decision finding in that model that is neither through elected officials nor majority rule nor hierarchical. I've volunteered in large, international groups (like a network of women in community radios in Europe and Latin America) who developed policies in a consensus based fashion. It is not a fundamental impossibility, it is an ideological choice.

See, I just want them to own it.

Edited 2013-02-18 12:13 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd be happier if they were plain on it. I'd still not participate (I tend to volunteer in consensus based groups, working more on anarchist decision finding theory frameworks), but at least they ought to be honest, not on one hand do some kind of customer service speak how the "value all opinions" and "consider all feedback" and "seek diverse voices" (carefully weasel wording so that they never commit to actually giving these impact), and then decide within their org internally anyway.

Me, I'm way more worried about OTW's ability to change their mind or find a third way if the results of their decisions don't work out well. And I think the jury is still out on that which, in my opinion, is okay at this point.

(Also, I dislike trying to solve an actually unrelated 'limited resource' problem by denying something to some currently excluded group. If the ability to search and tagging polices need fixing, do what Astridv did and talk about fixing those rather than denying fun to some other bunch of fans, is my opinion for what it's worth.)

I'm not all that invested in the meta decision outcome either way, but how it was reached is just kind of symptomatic. In my view they seem to manufacture problems for themselves, because a good number of people are continually disappointed by their processes, because they seem to say one thing (at least sometimes), i.e. pretend that they are going to decide XY in a transparent and participatory fashion (this time for realz!), and then act in a different way (oops sorry we meant the OTW subgroup Z decided this together with technical specialist group W and input from legal advisor V, but you sure can comment when we worked out all the kinks and we totally value your diverse rainbow voices <3!).

Whether I agree or disagree, I just find this far more aggravating than dealing with a group that based on whatever internal decisions they make offer some service that I like and might support, and I'll just have to deal with its structure and decision, but at least they are plain about what is and what isn't open to user input and influence.

Ha, I'm a lazy shit, and I'm glad they're doing all the work.

Mostly I'm annoyed that on one hand they make statements that pretend they are going to be more participatory all the time, and then the process is not like that at all. I'd be okay if they were plain spoken about it in a consistent fashion.

I mean, I won't volunteer in structures like that but I'd be fine with them making that choice for their org, but obviously many people are continually disappointed by their processes, because they seem to say one thing (at least sometimes) and then act in a different way.

(I myself prefer consensus based groups for volunteering, which can be initially cumbersome and sometimes not easy to scale up, but there are large groups that work like this, for example anarchists world wide have done plenty of process finding and theory work on how to work towards common goals without being majority ruled or in hierarchical organizations, so it is ideological choice not some kind of natural law to develop policies one way and not the other.)