2020 OTW Election Results

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2020-08-18 01:29:27 UTC

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Elections News

The Elections Committee would like to thank all of our candidates for their hard work in this year's election. With that, we are pleased to present the results of the 2020 Election.The following candidates (in alphabetical order) have been officially elected to the Board of Directors:

Alex Tischer
Jess White
Kati Eggert

The new members of the Board will formally begin their term overlap on October 1. We wish them well with their terms. With that, the election season comes to a close. Thank you to everyone who got involved by spreading the word, asking the candidates questions, and, of course, voting! We look forward to seeing all of you again next year.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

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Solovei Tue 18 Aug 2020 01:42AM UTC

Congratulations to everyone!!!

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mags (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 01:55AM UTC

Thank you, Elections Committee!

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McBangle Tue 18 Aug 2020 02:11AM UTC

Congratulations and thanks to all!

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maitimiel Tue 18 Aug 2020 03:37AM UTC

Congratulations ❤️

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VSSAKJ Tue 18 Aug 2020 06:19AM UTC

Congratulations to those elected and many thanks to everyone on the ballot. ♥

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kamsangi Tue 18 Aug 2020 07:19AM UTC

Congratulations new Board members! And a big thank you to Elections for making sure everything ran smoothly.

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AkaiMirage Tue 18 Aug 2020 07:57AM UTC

Congrats.

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Rebecca (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 08:42AM UTC

Congratulations to the newly-elected Board members! <3 And thank you to everyone for running!

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Qem Tue 18 Aug 2020 10:28AM UTC

Congratulations and commiserations, thank you to everyone that put in the work to make the selection possible.

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Ugh (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 01:05PM UTC

Gross. Worst 3 got the spots. Good luck getting things fixed now

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1. Agreed (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:36PM UTC
  
  Agreed, I don't believe these results are legitimate. These are the 3 that Black fans on Twitter specifically called out for having the worst answers. Nothing will be fixed and they will continue to put a band-aid on the issue of racism in fandom.
  
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2. 1. Lapse (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:49PM UTC
    
    I'm eager to hear the evidence you have to suggest the results aren't legitimate other than the fact you don't like them.
    
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  2. LOL (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 06:15PM UTC
    
    The OTW does not count any votes by hand. They use a third party processor called Opavote (even used by political parties https://www.opavote.com/political-party-elections). Which you would know in case you are actually a member and voted in this election. So are you accusing Opavote, the election committee and the board of fraud? That would be a *lot* of people who have to keep quiet! LOL
    And maybe, just maybe, the mob on twitter did not actually represent what most of the members think? The discords and twitter groups I'm part of did discuss all candidates extensively and there were no clear favorites in those discussions.
    
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  3. Wah! (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 11:30PM UTC
    
    Poor ickle antis won't be able to harass anyone anymore. Too bad, so sad.
    https://media.giphy.com/media/3otPoPPH87Sz9niF7G/giphy.gif
    
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  4. thewriterinpink Wed 19 Aug 2020 05:09AM UTC
    
    Ah, yes. Because when a vote doesn't work out in your favour, then it’s automatically fake. I happened to have voted for two of the people that got in. This might come as a shock to you and the first commenter, but other opinions and choices were out there. Twitter was not the only place voters were lol.
    
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  5. ChineseFan (Guest) Thu 20 Aug 2020 06:54AM UTC
    
    The vocal minority on twitter means nothing. Just because the US is imploding doesn't mean the rest of the world has the same views. China is a authoritarian country that has banned AO3 and arrests people for writing homoerotic content. You are not allowed to write anything that involves removing clothes or have any intimate "below the neck" scenes.
    Fans in China literally risk going to JAIL when using VPN to access AO3, so I voted for candidates who are pro-international fans, pro-accessibility, and anti-censorship.
    
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Account Deleted Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:13PM UTC

CONGRATS

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White's Only Pie (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:35PM UTC

You people really picked Jess White for a position on the board during this time of racial injustices being addressed? Her answers to the interview questions were the worst of the bunch. This is so disappointing. There NEEDS to be more BIPOC representation on this board. Fandom is more than just white people.

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1. autumnsong Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:53PM UTC
  
  Clearly, a lot of the people who voted liked her answers.
  
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2. WTF (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 05:57PM UTC
  
  Are you really suggesting that volunteers who have the "wrong" legal name should be excluded from standing in OTW elections or elections in general? You do realize that these people have to use their legal names to run for Board and not just a pseudonym?
  Just because *you* did not like their answers does not mean everyone else thinks the same way. And it looks like this was the case for the majority of the voters.
  Also how do you know that there is no BIPOC representation on Board and in this group of candidates? As far as I can remember none of the candidates, apart from the one who dropped out, mentioned anything about skin color (or gender, or sexuality, or disabilities, or....) All of this would be *illegal* to ask for in job applications in the country I'm from.
  
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3. 1. . (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:15AM UTC
    
    Because it was explicitly talked about in internal chats where a lot of volunteers know a lot more info about each other than the average user, and it was a very known thing that all of the candidates are/were white, and that was spread outside the volunteers often too. Part of the bigger issue is that BIPOC within the org are afraid to run because a lot of other people know they are BIPOC and thus they'll end up harassed and discriminated against even if they don't disclose it themselves in their answers publicly. Hell, even getting ANYONE to run is a lot sometimes. There are in-jokes about it every year even about how no one wants to be on the board.
    
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  2. 1. Anonymous (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:20AM UTC
      
      Assuming they have never revealed their wallet name, no one but the few in the elections committee would be able to connect their internal org name to the name used for elections; no one would know anything they had revealed about themselves within the org.
      
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    2. 1. checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:55AM UTC
        
        Apparently not, since people clearly know things about this set of candidates and are connecting them.
        
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      2. Anonymous (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:19AM UTC
        
        Because they were open about it. It doesn't have to be that way. The problem isn't just internal information leaking out, but rather that wallet names are easy to google.
        
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        checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:40AM UTC
        
        But how is that going to be any different for candidates of color?
        
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        Anonymous (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:47AM UTC
        
        I didn't say it would be any different for POC candidates. I'm just saying that if you haven't connected your wallet name to your org name, when you run, internal information about you can stay internal. External information becomes the new problem. If you don't feel comfortable running because you are identifiable online, that's an issue that needs to be addressed though how the elections committee could deal with that, I don't know. Perhaps don't require wallet names until after you've won? Let people run on secondary aliases?
        
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        checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:56AM UTC
        
        I don't know how likely or realistic it is that people aren't going to make the connection between your wallet name and your volunteer name. Everyone within the org is going to know that you're *someone* within the organization, and they're going to want to know who- both because that's going to affect their vote ("I worked with them on X and thought they handled things well/badly") and because human beings are deeply nosy by nature. Someone's going to know who is who, and that someone is going to tell someone else, who will tell someone else, even if each person says "don't spread this around, but..."
        But the larger issue is that no matter how people find out that a candidate is a person of color, it opens them up to a lot of harassment, and I genuinely don't know how you address that.
        
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        Anonymous (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 03:37AM UTC
        
        I do wonder if you let candidates run as Candidate 1, 2, 3 etc and let them keep who they are to themselves, you could avoid people figuring it out as well. Others know they are one of the hundreds who can run, but they only know so much as is told in official elections posts (if you are from a smaller committee, you wouldn't name your committee in your bio or answers?). Once you've won, your wallet name is revealed on the OTW website.
        
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        Different Anon (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:06PM UTC
        
        Not sure I'm fond of that? I am a volunteer and I know for a fact my voting was influenced by "how is this person to work with" as much as their positions. We can meme about the 2015 election all we want, but having a Board that can demonstrably play nice with the volunteers, not just give it lip service, is wicked important.
        
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        checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 03:17PM UTC
        
        Yeah, regardless of whether it would be possible, I don't know that it would be a good idea. And I don't think it addresses the underlying larger problem of how to make the board more diverse, because the real problem (or at least, one major problem) is that any candidates of color would be exposed to a lot of racist harassment.
        
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        AYRT (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 04:10PM UTC
        
        Frankly, I'm eligible to run for Board, but there is absolutely no way I would, and I'm about as white as you can get. I know a number of similar volunteers - both white and BIPOC - who want nothing to do with running, because they've seen Fandom's Cancel Culture rip people to shreds because a candidate is trying to nuance between "should happen" and "can happen", which is apparently unacceptable in the current climate. I saw it this year, last year, the year before, the year before that. Every year, Elections has to repeatedly ask people if they want to run: 800ish people in the OTW, probably at least a quarter of that eligible, and we only had six candidates? That's not just racist harassment acting as a brake, though racism is absolutely a big one.
        
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        checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 07:51PM UTC
        
        Oh, yeah, for sure- *any* candidate opens themselves up to a lot of harassment, no argument there. And it's hard to know what to do about it, you know? The OTW can work on their own internal policies, but they can't control how the outside world responds. I don't know how you protect people from that- the idea of anonymizing candidates is one suggestion, but aside from the problems you've already pointed out, I genuinely do not believe it would ever work. I don't know what *would* work, though. The situation really sucks. I'm glad enough people are willing to face that scrutiny that we continue to *have* a board, but I imagine it filters out a lot of people who would be good at the job but not at handling the harassment. (And I imagine it makes it harder to do the job, too.)
        
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    3. checkerspot Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:42AM UTC
      
      Part of the bigger issue is that BIPOC within the org are afraid to run because a lot of other people know they are BIPOC and thus they'll end up harassed and discriminated against even if they don't disclose it themselves in their answers publicly.
      Can I ask for clarification- are you saying they're concerned about harassment from within the organization, or from people outside it? (Or both?)
      
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    4. 1. . (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 10:53PM UTC
        
        From my understanding, both. More from outside but not excluding inside.
        
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4. ... (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:01AM UTC
  
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the race of any members of the board is public information? (Which is a good thing. There's a reason to protect personal information. Just imagine the harassment a POC member of the board might get if that information is public.) But why is everyone assuming that the Board is entirely white?
  
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5. 1. . (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:16AM UTC
    
    Because a lot of people within the volunteers know more about these people than the general public, and have shared that info with people multiple times. Everyone who ran this year was white.
    
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  2. 1. Reading the current board list (Guest) Mon 24 Aug 2020 03:26AM UTC
      
      That doesn’t mean everyone on the board is white. Only a third are up for election at any time
      
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Bellweather Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:35PM UTC

Congratulations, everyone <3

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checkerspot Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:51PM UTC

Congrats to the winners, and good luck!

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Lapse (Guest) Tue 18 Aug 2020 04:55PM UTC

Yes, how dare people vote for someone you disapprove of. It's a bloody outrage.

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Nightcandle Tue 18 Aug 2020 05:14PM UTC

Congratulations to the newly-elected Board members!
And thank you also to all of the candidates as well as the elections commitee for all your hard work you put into this year's election season!

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Ellirion Tue 18 Aug 2020 06:22PM UTC

Congratulations to the new Board members! And also a big THANK YOU to everyone that ran in this cursed year as well as all the volunteers behind the scenes!

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JKFic Wed 19 Aug 2020 12:50AM UTC

Congratulations to the winners.

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ReleasingmyInsanity Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:05AM UTC

Congratulations to the winners! And thanks to all the candidates for running.

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gootarts Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:35AM UTC

So I live under a rock, what's going on with some of the elects? I felt their answers to the Q&A were all pretty much the same and didn't really see any significant difference from one candidate to the next.

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1. Deleted Account (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:06AM UTC
  
  I feel the same way about the candidates' answers.
  By the way, if you don't mind, could you clarify what you mean by "what's going on with some of the elects"? Do you mean, why were these three candidates voted in over the other two, or did you mean something else?
  
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2. 1. gootarts Wed 19 Aug 2020 02:20AM UTC
    
    As to why there's a lot of arguments in the thread. I'm guessing it had to do with the exact wording/implications of answers, which I'll admit I kinda skimmed over? All the candidates seemed to have the same goals and opinions but worded it all slightly differently, though I'm also not part of the AO3 internal workings that a lot of the questions/answers were about.
    
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  2. 1. mags (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 05:12AM UTC
      
      People cared more about this election than in the past couple of years because a lot of POC fans/allies have been especially vocal in their criticisms of AO3/OTW since the police brutality protests starting in the U.S. in May/June brought race issues to the forefront. A bunch of people signed a letter asking OTW to address racism (you can google "Open Letter to the OTW on Racism in Fandom"). OTW responded with this post: https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/16207
      Candidates for this year were already set by the time all of this went down, but the election became sort of a flashpoint? You're right; in my experience, the candidate answers do tend to be mostly the same year after year. So there was a lot of picking apart specific wording and trying to decipher tone to figure out which candidate would be most easily swayed to your side. People have been getting increasingly polarized on the sides of "AO3 should do more to protect Black/POC fans" (by deleting offensive works, having a broader anti-harassment policy, adding to the Archive Warnings, etc) versus the people who think AO3 doesn't need to change (either at all or in those specific ways mentioned—in particular the "deleting offensive works" suggestion is Not Popular).
      So, uh, tl;dr: the candidates this year were basically the same crop of people that we always get, but things outside of the election brought things to a boiling point for many fans, so there's been a lot more fighting (in these comment threads, but also out on the wider internet). (also of note: presumably some of the arguments in these posts are actually sockpuppeting trolls just looking for an opportunity to stir the pot on controversial issues. the blog post "2020 OTW Board Voting Now Open!" has a note from a mod in the comments to that effect.)
      
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    2. 1. Nat (Guest) Wed 19 Aug 2020 01:39PM UTC
        
        This is a good explanation, but I want to challenge your claim that the ones who want to stop harassment were on the side of people who want more warnings and removal of offensive works.
        It actually split the other way: generally the ones who wanted more warnings and censorship also wanted to keep the ability to harass creators by not letting us turn comments off and making it possible to harrass us further though user added tags. The side of protecting authors, including minority authors and our allies, tended to support comment removal and other ways to prevent racist harassment such as the ability to block users.
        
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Solovei Tue 18 Aug 2020 01:42AM UTC

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