Organization for Transformative Wank
I was hesitant about the Archive of Our Own stuff from the beginning. Aside from the fact that I really don't see a need for another archive for myself to use - I have RockFic, and hectorfic, and those are plenty good enough for me - it seemed right from the get-go like a bloated, overambitious, doomed-to-fail vanity project.

My opinion mellowed a bit over time. Yes, it was still bloated, and the ambition wasn't quite in line with the abilities of those interested, and I still doubt it'll get where it's supposed to go. But I was less "oh God this is gonna suck"and more "okay this should be interesting to watch".

For a long time, the otw_news comm was silent. Or, mostly silent: From June 14th to August 4th inclusive, there were 3 updates, one of which was simply to say there was no news.

September 21, activity. A post to inform the name had been changed (more on that in a second), there was a Community Relations committee, and more news was coming.

The name was changed to the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), the community to otw_news. The name didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't sure why - it seemed pompous and overblown, but there was more. I'll get back to it.

As promised, more news came September 28th. Lots of news! Boards had been formed, projects were in the works, domain name had been purchased and a placeholder page put up.

To be honest, up until now I haven't followed OTW all that closely. They're on my friends list, on the "Daily Read" filter, but generally I'd read the update and ten or so "yay so cool!" comments and forget about it.

But partly_bouncy pointed something interesting out in her LJ - one of the proposed eventual projects was a fan history wiki.

Um. Whut.

She posted to point out a fan history wiki already exists. As did I.

The initial answer to my "why?" was "bringing another voice into the preservation of fannish history". To which I responded that as a wiki, it is by nature not just one voice, and any voice that wants to can participate. I recieved, in essende, corporate bullshit as an answer to that.

I won't go through the whole thread; you should read it. The other important point from there is the original poster, femmequixotic stepped in and asked that I e-mail her to discuss outreach beyond LJ.

Before I get into my discussion with femmequixotic and what that brought to light, I want to call attention to a couple other threads:

anextropian asks about the lack of outreach

Anonymous points out there were derogatory statements made about non-LJ fen by OTW supporters

Those were all posted before I contacted femmequixotic. I'll spare you the long-winded e-mail, but in essence I told her:
- I don't know much about fandom outside RockFic (RF) and a bit of LJ so I'm not much help in the outreach department
- partly_bouncy knows her shit, and the FanHistory.com list of archives is an excellent resource
- screwthedaisies TRIED to get in touch with OTW quite a while ago and was ignored
- My main suggestion is to get to outreach NOW and be willing to retool some of the boards to reflect more than just LJ fandom

In her e-mail back to me - in which she once again admitted and apologized for the failure to look off LJ for interest before now - she essentially said my suggestions were good, she'd try to get in touch with screwthedaisies and partly_bouncy, and that she didn't know anything about RockFic or FanworksFinder (FwF), so could I tell her something about them?

That should have been a big red flag right there, and I'll explain why in a moment. But it didn't ping me, so I explained about RockFic (for those who don't know: RockFic.com's a bandfic archive, paid membership [48-hour free trial], 18+, quality controlled, aimed more at classic rock/metal/hard rock than "emo"/FBR bands), pimped FwF (which y'all should be using ;] ), all good. Another e-mail from her, expressing her surprise at having never come across either, being a bandslasher.

Again, should've red-flagged me. But I didn't think anything of it, I'd found a different issue.

Remember me saying the Organization for Transformative Works name bothered me? partly_bouncy touched on why in IM - RPF? Isn't transformative. I suppose a case could be made that it is, in fact, transformative, but it'd take a lot to persuade me. And fact aside, historically "transformative" hasn't applied to RPF.

I brought that up here and got told femmequixotic would get me a more concrete answer from someone involved in the renaming. Fair 'nuff.

(ETA: femmequixotic has answered the name question, with much the same answer as the first time - they consider RPF transformative. Fair enough - although I'm still curious as to how they'll address the historical issue of RPF not being "transformative" when reaching out to RPF communities.

ETA again: Further downthread, she points out the archive is still "An Archive of Our Own", which...does make more sense than referring to the archive as an organization. Heh.)

And, because I never run out of questions, I also asked when the community could expect, if not a rough TOU/TOS, at the very least a list of what content will be acceptable and unacceptable, and what content hasn't been decided on yet. No answer yet.

Alright. So. Why should the fact that femmequixotic hadn't ever heard of RockFic bother me?

In partlybouncy's LJ, we've been discussing OTW. And we brought up femmequixotic as a bandslasher, and sidewinder pointed out (in an flocked post in partly_bouncy's LJ) she sounded more like a media fan that had come into bandfic through the MCR/Panic!/FOB fandom. Nothing wrong with that, and it may explain the lack of RF knowledge - RF doesn't really cater to that fandom so much.

But. As I was typing up that in response to sidewinder, something occurred to me (that was also pointed out in that flocked post) - anyone who works for OTW should have at least some knowledge of RockFic.

It's on the list of archives to be looked into. In fact, sidewinder even commented about RF's 48-hour free trial for anyone who wanted to take a look.

(sidewinder, if you've got links to any other times you mentioned RF on/to OTW, I'll add 'em in)

(ETA: sidewinder has commented to this entry with a summary of her own mentions of RockFic throughout the OTW discussions)

So, folks, the members of OTW's board are, apparently, ignoring user input. By her own admittance femmequixotic should have an interest in RockFic even outside of the OTW work, and she apparently had no idea it existed! Even though it'd been mentioned by users and included in an offical OTW post.

I'd like the issue with the name addressed satisfactorily. I'd like that list of allowable content. I'd like to see concrete outreach happening. And I'd kind of like to know what all the research and discussion from months ago were for, if not to be actually used and applied.

I don't, at present, actively support OTW; nor would I consider myself a detractor. I see lots of questions that need raising - and I think I'll continue to raise them until I decide one way or the other. So we'll see.

ETA: One more issue I'd like to bring up:

Questions have been raised, here and here, about finances - specifically concerning the rename token, but with the underlying questions of "why don't we know anything about this project's finances?"

A satisfactory response hasn't really come yet. And that's one of my big concerns with this multitude of committees - a simple question (who paid?) with an important undertone (what's going on with this organization's finances?) can't get a straight answer, just "I'll have finance look into it" followed by "financial reports are coming eventually". I would imagine that, considering one of the big issues with LJ is its refusal to clearly communicate its expectations and restrictions, clear communication would be important to OTW staff.

Son of ETA: I'd also like to state this is in no way meant to be an attack on femmequixotic, simply an expression of concern that the chairperson of Community Relations appears to have completely missed some discussion, and a question of how much else is slipping by unnoticed, and why, exactly, are we contributing only to be ignored?