Criticism, Negativity, and all those Blues (includes That Tag Wrangler Letter)

[ira_gladkova]

(Apologies about the lack of Minutes Monday this week -- there were no new minutes to discuss, but lots of interesting stuff next week!)

Recently some tag wranglers were talking publicly about a letter the staff had sent to them about negativity and criticism. Separately but contemporaneously, one of my closest friends, seventhe posted about her ambivalence towards the OTW.

So! Let's talk about that.

Criticizing the OTW, Inside and Out

First up, I hope it's clear from clear from my history that I have no problem with criticizing the OTW.

Here's the thing. I think criticism is healthy. I think it's necessary. Feeling like you're in a place where you can't even criticize your experience? Where it feels like your experience is being erased? That's terrible. That's about the worst working environment possible. Leaving people in a place where they feel they can't criticize or recount negative experiences is the worst thing the OTW can do to itself and others.

But many of us have seen that there are a lot of issues around criticism of the OTW. I think this comes back to the basic tension inherent in the OTW: fannish project vs. nonprofit organization.

Fandom in general has a complex relationship with criticism: hesitance to criticize labours of love; cultures centered around improvement and constructive criticism; cultures centered around positivity and protection from crit; harshing people's buzz; different attitudes towards critical analysis of canon and fan works; pleas for honest reviews.

On the nonprofit org side is an expectation of professionalism and of a culture of service. This includes being open to and prepared to deal with criticism, up to and including anger and undiluted negativity, all in the name of improving something in service of the mission. However, not even this is without complexity: nonprofit orgs are often run in part or entirely by volunteers, or have limited resources in other ways. This impacts the ability to deal with criticism efficiently.

The OTW lands in the morass in between.

The path to sustainability lies on the nonprofit end of the scale — we cannot forget our fannish cultural roots, but to persist in our mission, we must adopt structures and practices suitable to nonprofit organizations. And here is where criticism comes in:

If you expect us to act like a nonprofit org, you have to treat us as a nonprofit org.

So here are some things I think are useful to keep in mind vis-à-vis criticizing the OTW to make criticism maximally effective:

• Be aware of the space and audience when you criticize.
  
  Venting wherever you feel the need is great; please keep doing that! Posting in your own spaces about org feels is great. Do it! However, while complaining in your own spaces is valid, it is not a path to action.
  
  We're embedded in fannish communities, and news tends to travel; fannish projects often change in response to indirect criticism and commentary. It's not unreasonable to suppose something similar of the the OTW: we're pretty much trained to this by how fandom functions. And it's true that sometimes, this does work.
  
  But we can't expect it to.
  
  It really saddens me to know that a lot of valid and valuable critique of the org is expressed where the very people who can do something about it are less likely to see it. This includes people who aren't volunteers posting in various private spaces as well as volunteers voicing complaints in org spaces that aren't optimized to get those complaints to where they need to be heard.
  
  Let me be clear: no one is obligated to give their opinion to the OTW or anyone in it. But if you want us to take action on something that's bothering you, it's most effective to come tell us about it.
  
  Crit is most effective when given to the right audience. While the OTW still suffers from transparency issues, there is quite a bit of information out there about what our various parts do and how to contact us. If you're not sure where to address a particular complaint, ask! This will help you be heard where it matters most.
  


• Keep in mind our limited resources.
  
  This is related to the "but it's volunteer work" idea that often gets deployed in conversations about org crit. The fact that we're all volunteers doesn't make us or our work immune to criticism; let's just dispense with that right away. However, it does mean that we have limited resources for dealing with criticism, both material and psychological.
  
  This is not at all particular to the OTW. All nonprofits run on limited resources. In our case, this is not only time taken out of the rest of our lives, but time taken out of our fannish lives as well: limited time taken out of limited time.
  
  In terms of material limits, this means that we often run slower than anyone — including us! — wants us to in addressing criticism. We're not paid professionals, and our turnaround time is the intersection of many people's limited availability. So when a complaint comes to us and nothing seems to happen, this doesn't mean that we aren't listening or that it doesn't matter to us: much more likely it's a combination of limited resources and poor transparency. We definitely need to work on letting people know that we're working on something and giving updates.
  
  We also have psychological and emotional limits, and that's where the tricky thing about "tone" or "attitude" comes in. I can't say "don't be angry at us" — that's a load of crock. I can't even tell people they "shouldn't" be "mean" to us. What I can say, though, is that it's counterproductive.
  
  I'm deeply allergic to forced positivity, but at the same time, it's vital to recognize that an encouraging working environment is essential to volunteer work. And feeling able to voice criticism is an essential part of an encouraging working environment. The opposite is toxic. But there's a definite balance between freedom to criticize and respect for others and the work they do. Negative feelings happen, and if you need to express them, you should do it! But see above about spaces/audience. Our work is not sacred. But I do think it's valuable and should be treated as if it has value. Aggressiveness and antagonism damage the work environment and make it less likely that your problem will be addressed. We all want to make things better, but it's harder to do that from under a pile of bad feelings, and eventually we run out of the psychological resources to do so.
  
  The bottom line: If you value the OW and its projects as a part of your community — and if you're criticizing the org in an effort to make it better, I assume that you do — then value us as part of the same.

So I think criticism is great, but I want it to work. I want criticism to be effective and to lead to change. How you criticize and why is your business, but if your goal is the same as mine, then I think these points are essential to keep in mind.

---

Now then, about a particular recent incident centered around criticism.

The Letter to Tag Wranglers

In this context, I need a disclaimer: I am also staff on the Tag Wrangling Committee. All the usual caveats apply: one out of many, working as a team, no magic wand. But I want to be clear that this is how I have access to this information. I try not to conflate my Board and TW staffer roles, but in this case, I'm speaking about general org matters using information obtained through the lens of a TW staffer.

That said: recently, the TW chairs sent a letter to the TW volunteer mailing list about expressing negativity and criticism on the list. This letter was written in part because of some wranglers' reactions to the on-list announcement of the Category Change Workgroup (post on that later). There have been a lot of misconceptions about this letter floating around so, with the permission of the TW chairs, here is the full text of the letter, so that we are all operating on full and accurate information (emphasis mine; links redacted but noted):

In the recent discussion concerning the Category Change workgroup, some questions were raised concerning criticizing the Org and the Archive, and antagonism and potential hostility on the wrangling mailing list.

To begin with: it is entirely fine to be angry or frustrated. Every one of us in the OTW has some criticisms we can make about the Org; there's probably not a single person up and down the volunteer line who is 100% satisfied with it (it's a major motivation for why many of us volunteer, to help improve things!) And raising and openly discussing these issues is the only way to fix many of them.

However, when you are criticizing aspects of the org on the internal wrangling mailing list, we ask that you keep in mind two things:


First off, the wrangler mailing list is a closed list, only visible to wranglers. If you are criticizing aspects of the Archive/Org beyond the immediate scope of tags and wrangling, the people who most need to hear your criticisms are not here to hear them. Even if some of them are present (we have wranglers from nearly all the committees and workgroups) they may not feel comfortable responding to such criticisms on a closed list, without discussing them with the rest of their committee/workgroup (and therefore having to share internal wrangler discussion).

This does not mean you cannot discuss the work of other parts of the Org on the wrangling mlist, as much of it directly or indirectly impacts what wranglers do (though we ask, for the sake of reducing off-topic list traffic, that you keep such discussions focused on how they pertain to tags/wrangling. If you'd like to participate in more wide-ranging discussions, the OTW forums [link] are a better place.) However, when you do bring up criticisms, avoid being openly antagonistic or challenging, and try to keep to constructive and productive discussions centered on specific issues, rather than general subjective opinions. (e.g. "My friend's Support ticket about xxx was never answered" is okay; "Support is totally falling down on the job" is not. Likewise, "the Archive's search sucks" isn't helpful, while as "search would be more useful if it included wrangling relationships" is constructive.)

If there is an issue you feel the tag wrangling committee should be dealing with, you are encouraged to email the staff [link] or chairs [link] about it, as well as bringing it up on the wrangler mailing list. You can see current issues under discussion in our meeting minutes [link] (pages for future meetings list the upcoming agenda); past minutes are also linked from the newsletter [link] (which is required reading for all wranglers.) Meetings are held in the wrangling chatroom, so all wranglers can read the full transcripts [link] if you want more detail than what's in the minutes; you are also welcome to lurk in the meetings themselves (and bring up any questions in chat after the meetings; usually some staff stick around.) If there is an important issue that hasn't been raised in these venues, please feel free to go ahead and email the staff about it; we will add items to the agenda on wrangler request.

If you have an issue with the tag wrangling committee itself (either a specific conflict or in a broader sense) and you do not feel comfortable bringing your concerns to the general staff, you can email the wrangling chairs directly at [link]. Or, if you'd like to keep your concern confidential from the wrangling committee, you can contact the Volunteers Committee at [link]. You can also contact the wrangler OTW Board liaison directly; our liaison this year is Sanders [link].

If there is an issue in another part of the Org that you feel needs to be addressed, you have several options for getting in touch with the actual committee/workgroup in question. You can always email the wrangling staff list or the wrangling chairs; we coordinate with other committees, and can pass concerns on (at least if they're tag/wrangling related; otherwise we can put you in touch with people in a better position to handle them.) If your issue is outside the scope of tags and wrangling there are other options. Non-tag-related AO3 feature requests and bug reports should be submitted to Support (tag and wrangling related features and bug reports as always should be submitted directly to the wrangling staff.) Some of the org-wide chat meetings have open floors where cross-committee issues can be raised. The forums are open to all volunteers in the org, so any posts there can be seen by all committee staff and volunteers. Many of the committees/workgroups have mailing lists listed on the OTW internal wiki through which you can contact them directly (especially if a matter seems particularly urgent); many of them also make public posts allowing comments.

And of course, if you have the time, you always have the option to volunteer for other volunteer pools, committees and workgroups. Sometimes the best way to effect change is to work from a position which is responsible for that change.


The second thing to keep in mind when raising criticism on the mailing list (or anywhere else in the Org) is that every single person, on every committee and workgroup and any other part of the OTW, is a volunteer, just as you are; they are freely donating their time and effort to the Archive and the Org to try to make them the best they can be. Even if you do not approve of or agree with the work they are doing, please respect them, and the effort they are putting into that work. 'Respect' obviously does not mean 'do not criticize'; but when you do, keep it constructive, and try not to take out your frustrations on them. Assume they are acting in good faith, and be understanding that their own perspective on the issue may not agree with yours (or even if they do agree, your suggestions may not all be feasible or immediately possible; we simply do not have the time or resources to do everything all at once, frustrating as that is.) This includes every member of the tag wrangling committee staff, all of whom started out as regular wrangling volunteers, and are still active wranglers, in addition to our other committee duties; we strive to do as best by wranglers as we can, because we are all wranglers as well.

So, while it can be tempting to let off steam, remember there are over 150 people on the wrangler mailing list, and the odds are some of them are personally involved in whatever aspect of the Org you are criticizing. Openly antagonistic complaints can make the whole list feel hostile, and discourage some people from offering their own perspectives and criticism, if they feel that they might be attacked for it. Whenever you post on the mailing list, keep in mind that while we all have our own personal vision for what we want the OTW to be, ultimately we are all in this together, and the only way we'll get anywhere is if we cooperate, support, and respect one another in our work with the Org.

Thank you,
Emilie & Alison
Tag Wrangling chairs

I hope it's clear where my bolding relates to the points I made earlier in this post.

Before I get into discussing the letter, a little background on the tag wrangling list. The Tag Wrangling Committee consists of the staff and a volunteer pool. The staff is responsible for managing the volunteer pool, managing tag wrangling policies, and representing the interests of tag wranglers and tagging interests to the wider org. Tag wranglers are a very diverse group, including in terms of org involvement: many have positions elsewhere in the org, while for many others tag wrangling is their sole volunteer involvement in the org. This leads to a very wide array of depth and type of connection to the org. In addition, the TW committee had a rocky start with confusion over purview and communication leading to several incidents where wranglers at large felt unheard by the rest on the org. On average then, a lot of tag wranglers feel a bit left out of org doings, disconnected from structures of authority and yet expected to "play the game" in terms of following wrangling rules, filing complaints in proper places, etc. This puts a lot of wranglers in a frustrating bind: actively invested in org work yet feeling unable to affect it much. There are wranglers who do not feel like this, but I think that overarching average is important to keep in mind about the list.

What's been very frustrating for a lot of TW staff is that a lot of wranglers have been representing this letter publicly as forbidding wranglers to criticize. While there are many factors in play — wording of the letter, history of the wrangling committee and volunteer pool, larger org issues — that can ease a jump to that conclusion, I hope that looking at the full text of the letter makes clear the intent: to show wranglers the best ways to get their criticism heard. A sort of "how-to" on criticism, the same intent as my post here. This is furthermore aimed at people the OTW considers "internal" — we're expecting people to not only treat us as professionals, but also to behave like professionals.

Now, that's less simple than it sounds, because of the trickiness I mentioned above. In theory, wranglers are part of the org, and one of the functions of the TW committee is to make sure wranglers are heard. However, the OTW in general is struggling with professionalism, communication, and structure, and TW committee is no exception. I think the TW committee has made huge progress in this vein, but wranglers still have to operate on a lot of good faith before they can treat the rest of the org like professionals in turn.

From the staffer perspective, I think this, from a comment by cypher on seventhe's entry, puts it very well:

I've been staff on the Wrangling Committee for a long time now, until I had to take a hiatus this year because the stress of it was so unpleasant -- it's a very rock-and-hard-place position, where we have very little ability to effect change without going through other committees for help, and there have been a lot of instances in the past few years where we didn't get a chance to offer input on changes that would affect us, or where things our volunteers really wanted just didn't make it to the top of the too-long list of things for the coders to do. So there's a huge feeling of frustration and powerlessness sitting there like a big unfriendly rock on one side.

And then on the other side is the hard place of the volunteers who see us as the authorities/insiders and hold us accountable for everything that doesn't get done (or done fast enough) and every communication failure -- it's certainly not all the volunteers, but it happens often enough that a big unofficial part of being on the committee is honestly "be someone to blame."

Wranglers can themselves often feel stuck in a similar situation: accountable to users for a huge part of their archive experience (as well as being users themselves) yet caught against the large, slow machinery of the org as it grinds away beyond their direct control.

So I can understand where the frustration and negative interpretation comes from. But I continue to think that the key lies in treating the OTW as, well, an organization.

---

At this point, I must address a likely concern: how can I expect people to treat the OTW professionally when the OTW doesn't behave professionally?

To that I say: It's symbiotic. We need both sides of that equation to make it work. We are working hard on being more professional, and it will help us immensely to achieve that goal if people treat us as such. It's a good faith thing, I know — but for all that I love and approve of criticism, I think good faith from both sides is absolutely essential to the enterprise.

Given this, there's understandable difficulty in treating the org like a nonprofit with a hierarchy and proper channels of communication. For one, our hierarchy is poorly-understood both within the org and inside it: this is something we're actively working on. On the flip side, however, points of contact are not hard to find for anyone who goes looking for them. It's all about reciprocity: our nascent hierarchy can only be fully effective if people respect it and behave as if it is real.

This includes waiting while the machinery grinds along (or pitching in to push further up the chain) — and in the reciprocal direction, it involves communication and updates on the status of the grind. Hierarchy must be respected reciprocally. This is where the org is struggling, and I am going to be honest here. I keep saying it has to be symbiotic, and I mean it. We need all the help we can get: please help us.

So. People have criticism and negative feelings, not necessarily at the same time but not mutually exclusive either. It's up to each individual what they do with those, but if the goal is to help the OTW change for the better, I hope this gives a little insight into how we work and what the most effective ways to talk to us are.

I do feel that the OTW has at least one good thing going for it in this context: there are a ton of ways and venues to reach us, and overall there's much more availability of direct and personal connection with our personnel. That's pretty awesome — but it's also something that has to be treated carefully. That sense of personal connection can make it a lot easier to interact with us — the org as a whole or individual personnel — as if we're only fellow fans on a fannish project, rather than part of a nonprofit organization. We're both, and negotiating that line continues to be tricky.

As always, thank you all for your thoughts! I hope this helps.

(I also wanted to talk a bit about ambivalence towards the OTW, but this post is long enough already. So chucking that in the pile of to-do tl;dr.)

Comments

[skaredykat]

Dear Ira,

This is a thoughtful and well-intentioned post. And I continue to love the OTW, of which I'm now a proud member. (Something for the board to consider implementing asap would be to have DevMem or Finance send a very short e-mail confirming their donation/voting membership to everyone who's joined as soon as their payment has been received.) There have been several things I've really liked recently.

But.

I'm only going to address the parts of your post that deal with communicating with the OTW/AO3, as I am not a tag wrangler nor a volunteer.

- When I use the support form to send e-mail to the AO3 or OTW, I usually hear nothing back except a "We received your message." Black-box syndrome, which is not encouraging to open discourse or positive feelings.

- When I post a comment on an AO3 or OTW post at the site or one of the org's official LJs or DWs, I occasionally get a response from a staffer. Usually not very timely, and it is impossible to easily see on which other versions of that post others might be trying to engage the OTW or AO3 in constructive discussion. The latter is counterproductive.

- When I post concrit of the OTW or AO3 at my journal, I have several times gotten in-depth responses including from staffers and board members fairly fast.

- When I post a comment at someone else's LJ or DW post about AO3 or the OTW, it often leads to interesting conversation.

- When I comment in someone else's thread or more rarely one I start about concerns about the OTW or AO3 on ffa, the response is usually broad, fast, and engaged, and it almost always feels like there are not just volunteers but staffers in the thread.

- When I tried to volunteer late last year and earlier this year, I was brushed off. (Talk about counterproductive. One main tenet of communications strategy is to try to co-opt your critics, and I was actually trying to join your communications team. Putting me to work for 1-3 hours a week on even low-level communications implementation rather than strategy would have meant 1-3 hours a week of my time/energy focused on internal work at the org, instead of having that time to look at it from a loving but critical outsider's perspective. But I digress.)

Oh, I lied -- I do have something to say about the Tag Wrangling letter and the results from it: Thinking of Communications, how come that letter was not run by Communications for tone- and length adjustment before it went out? I think the increasing number of blog posts from staffers and board members about serving with the OTW have been great and, in aggregate, quite valuable from a PR perspective, and those posts are clearly not seen by Comms before posting (and mostly shouldn't be). But an official communication from chairs of a committee to their mailing list with that much obviously-potentially-controversial-content really should be run by the Communications team before it goes out, also so your Comms team (your internal+external PR agency, which technically could also be broadly advising org-wide on topics like "there will be criticism, and here are ways to deal with it more and less constructively") can help prepare for and deal with the fallout.

Sincerely,
One of your (the org and its projects) fondest critics

[skaredykat]

P.S. - I am delighted that I just got a more substantial response (than "we received your comment") to a question I submitted via the AO3 website on July 11, although the (cynical? PR-savvy?) part of me does wonder if there might be a correlation between a few hours earlier having posted a comment in a post of an OTW board member talking about limited communication back from the OTW and the subsequent response via e-mail.

However, net results of getting an e-mail back, whether or not there's a correlation: pleasing.

[sanders]

Unless the board member was the respondent, I really kind of doubt it was cause-effect. Support is pretty prompt in responding from my experience (pre-board, so none of that "privilege" attached), and Tag Wranglers tries to get answers back to our Support liaisons within a few hours to pass on to users.

[skaredykat]

Rationally I'm sure it was coincidental, not correlated -- it was just rather striking/entertaining that within a few hours of commenting here I got an answer to a something I'd asked about via the web form almost 4 weeks ago.

[ira_gladkova]

Thank you for reading and for the in-depth response!

I want to say before I start here that I'm actually already planning a follow-up post based on some responses I saw before yours that would have also addressed some of the points and questions you raise. I'll still respond to those here, but just know that on some items I'll be posting in more detail later -- I'll drop a comment here when that post is up to let you know.

Secondly, a lot of what I say below comes down to "yes, these are problems; we're working on it but it's slow," followed by long explanations of what the holdup is. I do not mean these explanations to excuse or deny the problems but as insight into what's happening and why. Overall, I definitely agree that these are real issues and problems.

Also, it's long -- my apologies if I go over the obvious, but I wanted to err on the side of more information, both for you and for anyone else reading along.

With that said:


- When I use the support form to send e-mail to the AO3 or OTW, I usually hear nothing back except a "We received your message." Black-box syndrome, which is not encouraging to open discourse or positive feelings.

I want to first acknowledge that you're right about black-box syndrome in terms of the org overall -- like I said in my post, the org definitely needs to work on giving more and better updates along the lines of "yes we're working on this" and progress reports. This is an org-wide problem.

In terms of your Support requests specifically, I'm not certain from your comment if you're saying you only received the automatically-generated message that just confirms your ticket, or that you got a response from a human being that basically said "we're working on it" or "we'll consider it". If it's the former, I'm very sorry for that omission; the best thing to do in this case is to submit another ticket and mention the previous one -- things fall through the cracks sometimes, as hard as we try.

If it was the latter, I asked for a quick check, and the last known Support ticket under the name you used here was in January of 2011 (eta: except for your most recent one, looks like!) and did get a human response, so I'm not sure if there's anything since then (under a different name)? If you were not satisfied with the response you got, please feel free to respond (or submit a new ticket) and tell us why -- we do get these and try to address the issues. Otherwise, this runs into another facet of the black-box problem, which is Support's position in the OTW machinery. This is something I specifically want to cover in my aforementioned followup post, but the short version is that it's a similar position to tag wrangling volunteers and staff: caught in the middle between audience/users and the people who can actually effect change -- in this case, the Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee that does the coding and testing work. AD&T, in turn, is incredibly busy with both doing the coding work and trying to communicate adequately about all of it. That's why in many cases the only timely response Support can give is that they've passed it on to the appropriate places. There are concrete things we're working on to improve this, though, including a public Support Board and making the Feature Requests list and process public, both of which I'll cover in my followup post.

Again, the black box issue is definitely a problem. This isn't intended to excuse it, but to explain what's going on behind the scenes and what kinds of issues we're facing as we fight it, as well as what steps we're taking.



Frustrations/issues with posting in official spaces vs. Fast, engaged, and interesting discussion in unofficial spaces

The issue with substantive official responses is basically the same as what I talked about with respect to Support: they're embedded in a complex structure of resources, authority, and purview, and substantive responses generally require checking with multiple people/committees. Now, of course, this is not necessarily efficient -- though also far from unique; orgs with more resources can ameliorate this by having people on-call to speed things up. One issue more unique to us is that we're also culturally touchy about stepping on each others' toes for historical reasons, which is an area of trust and communication that is slowly improving.

There are several other things we can do to reduce the overall problem with official responses. One is defining lines of communication and purview more clearly, which we're working on. Another is integrating response preparation -- anticipating possible responses and having basic answers agreed upon in advance -- into post/announcement preparation, which is gaining ground but should definitely be encouraged more. Finally, it would be great if we could make sure that every committee or project had a person who specialized in outward-facing communication for that committee/project, and so could respond quickly and in an informed manner without having to go through a bunch of gates and channels. This is something we really should have, but the usual problem is the lack of personnel and/or training.

All this brings me to conversations in unofficial spaces.

One of the big reasons that these conversations tend to be faster and freer, and seem more productive, is because, acting unofficially or even anonymously, people are working outside the above system and feel much freer to act and respond as individuals. It cuts a lot of the red tape, and a lot of the strings: forecasts or assurances made in these spaces can be good, but they are are not binding*. It's a lot easier and less damaging for an individual to say "whoops, I had the wrong information/promised something I couldn't" than it is for an organization to say the same (though we definitely should when applicable!).

This, of course, has a flip side: while unofficial spaces offer freedom and speed, by the same token this robs org actors of their power. Just as the org machinery does not press down on our expression, so too can we not promise anything with the weight of the org machinery behind us. When commentary/discussions occur in official channels, they land in the middle of the machine, where everyone can act with the full weight of their roles and powers behind them. Even if an org actor brings something back from unofficialspace, these items often get less priority than items that were submitted to us directly, on the general assumption that officially-submitted items are directly waiting on official responses/action of some sort.

So! Having these unofficial spaces and conversations is, on the whole, healthy, and as I said in the post I think people should keep using them. They have unique strengths (and weaknesses) and are another facet of healthy culture surrounding an org. But!

Also as said in the post, the issue is about expecting -- or, perhaps more accurately, relying -- on these as paths to action.

I realize unofficial communication can feel more productive, but the whole reason I brought it up in my post was to point out that even if it feels more efficient in terms of effecting real change, it's more helpful to us -- and more efficient in the long run -- for people to communicate with with us directly. For real change to occur -- not only on whatever specific issues people want to bring to us, but also in the org's overall culture and approach to communication in the first place -- things have to consistently go through official channels.

Official channels are more efficient in the long term because everything there is tracked for the future and can be aggregated. We simply do not have the resources to go and collect all the best unofficial commentary, either as an org or as individuals (much as many of us try), and that is why we need people to bring it to us so that we can document it and incorporate it into our institutional history.

At the same time, I do think we should try to import some of the characteristics of those unofficial conversations to our official spaces -- most notably, the freedom to speak individually. That right there -- being hesitant to speak as individuals when we have our most official org hats on -- rests on a fundamental fear of making mistakes, and that is a toxic fear. This refers to both being afraid to make mistakes as individuals in official capacities and being punished for them somehow, and to being afraid overall as an org to be seen making mistakes. That's no way to grow, and no kind of culture to encourage. I think having a Code of Conduct and policies for what calls for corrective action and what that corrective action will be (both making huge progress!) will really help here, as it will clearly bind both individuals and the org as a whole to treating each other in clearly set-out ways.

I also think -- I hope -- that one of very reasons these unofficial conversations are coming faster, thicker, and better is improvement in OTW culture, communication, and transparency. People feel safer in talking about their work, both positively and negatively. More information is publicly available in the first place to feed and inform these conversations.

Finally, centralizing discussion/commentary a bit more is definitely an issue, and this is something I plan to talk about in my followup -- thanks for bringing it up!

All that said, again, black box syndrome continues to be a problem, and expecting people to work with the org machinery is only fair insofar as the org machinery is transparen and responsive. We're working on this, and -- I hope -- our audience can work with us on their end, too. This is what I mean by symbiosis. The more people use our official channels, the easier it is for us to prioritize improving them.

* (This is why I feel okay speaking so much about my work and even speculating about future directions here: even at the Board level, this is in the end a non-binding space for the org and the Board as a whole. Though I do consider it a binding space for myself as an individual, an individual Board member, and an individual part of OTW personnel -- if I say something here, I do want to be held accountable for it. If the only answer I can give to something is "I tried my best, but was we don't have the resources/I was outvoted/etc." or "I was wrong", then that is how it is, but I had damn better be ready to give an answer.)



- When I tried to volunteer late last year and earlier this year, I was brushed off.

I am so sorry that you tried to volunteer and felt brushed off. If you are willing to share feedback on the specific response you got and/or the process you went through, please let me know, and I can pass it on.

I want to address the issue of volunteer hiring in general separately from co-opting critics.

Judging by the time you applied, it's not unlikely that you were caught in the hiring freeze. Why is there a hiring freeze while I keep going on about not having enough people? It's because we don't have the resources and mentorship structures to take on new volunteers, either. Incoming volunteers need training and mentoring, and deserve to know what conduct is expected of them, what corrective and conflict resolution policies are, what recourse they have in the system. After the conversations about burnout we had late last term and early this term, and the flood of volunteers we got from one of the drives, we decided that we would rather turn volunteers away now and offer them a better, safer place later rather than risk burning through more new people in a system that is currently pretty broken. In the meantime, we're trying to slow down and build better structures. Our Volunteers & Recruiting committee is hard at work getting as much of the necessary structure in place as they can.

We do have some very limited at-need hiring going on right now because of things on fire (notably, we have a technical position interest form currently open). And I know that keeping the too-low number of people we have now also leads to burnout, but this was essentially a choice of lesser evils: existing personnel are at least already familiar with how we work. So in the end, a lot of the problems I've talked about here can only be fixed after we can bring in more people, and we are working on that just as fast as we can.

We could definitely have communicated better about the hiring freeze and the reasons behind it. And if you did not get caught in the freeze, I'm still definitely interested in hearing any feedback you have.



Co-opting Critics

I agree that co-opting constructive critics where possible is generally a good strategy! And this is actually how a lot of people advance in the org internally.

This is subject to the same issues as I mentioned above with collecting all the good unofficial commentary and with hiring new people right now. It also helps if people offer constructive and productive critique -- it's a lot easier to want to hire or promote someone when you can see that they'll offer solutions as well as criticism. So definitely not everyone has to play by these rules -- if someone just wants to criticize the org without offering alternative ideas, that's fine; you're under no obligation to think up and work on solutions. But org personnel are under that obligation.

So, definitely want to co-opt critics as we can and within reason!



Communications and the TW Letter

The primary reason the letter was not run by Comms is because the focus of the Comms committee is on external communication primarily, and inter-committee communication within the org secondarily. The letter to the wrangler list was regarded as a communication inside one committee, from chairs directly to the volunteers they manage, and we generally trust chairs and staff to manage their volunteer pools as they see fit (this being one of the primary points of the job). It's also a matter of resource allocation -- we can't expect a Comms committee with more than enough work to do (see all of the above!) to also supervise things we've already specifically tasked other chairs, leads, and staff with. Wranglers are in general regarded as org personnel, and in a major sense this was a reminder to wranglers of how personnel are asked to behave.

That said, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to ask someone from Comms to vet the letter as well if they had time, given the nature of both the letter and of the wrangler list (since wranglers do tend to talk publicly about stuff from the list, making it partially, if not officially, outward-facing communication) -- I just want to note that it's not part of official procedure, and why. The TW chairs did ask the staff for feedback on the letter, and the staff includes people currently working with Support as well as former Support staffers, so we did at least have people with some communication experience in addition to their TW staffing experience.


Thanks for reading and listening!

Sincerely,
Consistent pusher of comment and post character limits

[skaredykat]

Hi!

Sorry for the belated response to your in-depth response to my in-depth response! (Here's another disadvantage to being an outsider vs. an insider -- if an insider, there's a self-expectation of "Hey, this is communication about an org I'm part of, it needs to not drop far down the RL priority list" vs. as an outsider the potential of "I'll get around to it after these other things I want to do.")

Thank you very much for your response and points.

Long, somewhat rambling, possibly annoyingly prescriptive, but well intentioned thoughts ahead:

Black box syndrome & official vs. unofficial space communications
I've used various e-mails etc. to send in about 10 or so support requests or suggestions/feedback re AO3 or OTW using the form over the last few years. No more than 3 of those have gotten a substantive -- that is, more than the automated "Hi, we'll get to this real soon now!" -- response.

I've also commented a handful of times at OTW or Archive blog posts on the website, or on the DW and LJ journals. I do sometimes get responses there, rarely fast.

The shining exception is Fanlore. When I've e-mailed (usually using the support form I think) I've gotten substantive responses from one or more people on the Wiki- and/or Gardeners Committee within a week, often much faster, almost every time. The response rate on Fanlore Talk pages is often less fast, but Fanlore editors know that many Talk pages fall between the attention cracks; I believe that's one reason why Fanlore recognized the need for getting a forum set up.

The (relatively) high level of response and interaction at fanlore is so out of the norm for OTW-related blogs that I don't mentally consider it part of OTW official communication channels at all because there is actual, frequent, publicly visible interaction there between committee and users.

This is a nice thing about Fanlore, but reflects pretty sadly on at least one PR-savvy person's subconscious perceptions of the rest of OTW's communications channels.

"That's why in many cases the only timely response Support can give is that they've passed it on to the appropriate places. There are concrete things we're working on to improve this, though, including a public Support Board and making the Feature Requests list and process public, both of which I'll cover in my followup post."

A public forum/support board where anyone can see (and chime in with their +1s or -1s on) all current support & feature requests/feedback comments is crucial. I think it should be one of the very top (like the other 10 things) priorities to get set up by the end of this calendar year at the latest. As in, priority over upgrading Yuletide coding.

Because the lack of transparency in what happens to your e-mail and how it's being followed up on/who's discussing it and the inability of other users to see and chime in with "that's a great idea!" or "no, you don't realize how archives work, let's not do that" is one of the reasons that unofficial spaces are de facto trying to function as forums or support or brainstorming boards for OTW projects.

Your users will not start using the official channels when all they seem to lead to most of the time is dead air, while talking in the unofficial channels gets them responses, answers, insights, and more.

The latter may not be 100% accurate, but they are something. You (the OTW) cannot expect people to start using official channels instead of or in addition to the unofficial ones unless you immediately, urgently prioritize making those official channels welcoming, responsive, and much more transparent.

This means that until your official channels (including Boards & Forums) exist/improve, the org really, really should be reading and taking into account what's being said in the unofficial channels -- not expect people to document things for the org in the org's spaces instead.

This is an element of Crisis Communications mode, which you are in, and have been, even if it may not have been recognized internally as such, since at least the last election season.

(It's actually also an element of regular Communications/PR programs and the social media aspects thereof, when it's called "paying for a clipping service" or "having a Jr. Account Coordinator collect clips and social media mentions and summarize what's in them for the rest of the PR team and the company execs.")

That means that reading OTW-related threads relevant to their department from unofficial channels every week ought to be mandatory for all committee staffers. Or Communications should task itself to write up digests every week and send them out; reading those would be mandatory. (And/or an official OTW volunteer or two could officially offer to help gather links for unofficialotwnews so that it stays a reliable, timely and complete source for the next year or so, and reading that feed & its links is mandatory.)

Once welcoming, responsive, transparent alternate channels of publicly viewable and respondable-to communications are up and running, widely promoted, and gaining significant traction and adoption, then reading and taking into account what's being said, proposed, and criticized in unofficial spaces could become voluntary instead of mandatory.

My attempts to volunteer
I was brushed off very nicely, I will say that. I tried to volunteer in November of last year and again earlier this year, before the hiring freeze. Response in November was "We'll get back to you next year" and when I pinged again several months into 2012, I was told (nicely) that my interest in helping with Communication or VolCom (and I think maybe also Outreach or DevMem) for an hour or two a week wasn't useful/enough time and that 10-15 hours a week for at least the first several weeks was required.

(Which, frankly, is crazy. At other non-profits I've volunteered or recruited volunteers for, you start 'em off slow, with a 2-3 hour max training class at the very start if needed, and then you ramp them up to 10-15 hours a week, often over quite a bit of time. Helps with retention and committee/chair/board recruitment too.)

Apparently the only place in the org that had/has a place for volunteers with few hours a week is Tag Wrangling (or Coding, Testing, or Translating -- not my skill-sets), and this post, the letter, and the causes thereof again show me that not trying to join Tag Wrangling was correct -- in that I suspect that trying to work within the current Tag Wrangling environment would have made me unproductively frustrated rather than productively so.

In general, I've seen comments from board members/staffers that the idea of having microvolunteering projects has been considered, but doesn't work well because of how the org is.

What that screams to me is: the org needs to change immediately to start accepting as many microvolunteers as possible. (And the org needs to recognize and enforce that everyone, especially at the staff, committee, and board level, needs to spend 10-20% of their OTW work-time documenting the stuff they do in the other 80-90% of their OTW work-time so it becomes much easier and faster to onboard new -- micro- and not -- volunteers using existing documentation, and/or to transition someone new into a staff or board position if someone unexpectedly has to leave.)

Possibly up to and including pinging back everyone who's tried to volunteer in the last year and telling them something like: "We're working on making our Volunteering Procedures more efficient. We know this is overdue and we're sorry about it, but now we really want to make it better as best and fast as we can. You said you were interested in [not on fire thing], is there any way we can get you to help with this project, for as little as an hour a week to as many hours as you have? For example by helping with Volunteer Documentation, checking/adding links on the internal wiki, translating Volunteering information, helping track how many e-mails VolCom has sent out each week and inputting that data, helping collect information on what's needed for Volunteer Documentation from other committees, and a host of other tasks! If yes, please e-mail back and we'll let you know the next 3 available times for our one-hour 'intro to helping VolCom project' overview chat sessions that will get you set up with everything you need to know to start helping. Thanks!"

(Bonus benefit besides getting more peon-type hands to work on the VolCom project: anyone who signs up, does some of the work, and doesn't fuck it up too badly becomes a prime candidate for being moved to another volunteering position, possibly with more responsibility, either in VolCom or another area, in part because they'll have started getting more insight into how to volunteer.)

I've also seen some comments of frustration that some (micro)volunteers who offered to help the org with particular projects didn't follow through on things they said they wanted to work on.

Another thing of which I'm not sure everyone in the org who should know it is aware of: A good (albeit not fun) general rule of thumb is that around 40% of volunteers will drop out every year. If more than 60% of volunteers return year-over-year that is fantastic and gravy and wonderful, but do not count on it.

So plan for 40% loss and prepare for it by actively seeking out two to three times as many volunteers as you think you'll need for any project. If you end up with excess, either find a way to make more hands make light work on that project, or convince some of them to work on this other project you wanted to do but didn't think you'd have the volunteer resources for.

Related: In all but very well managed organizations, more than half of all proposed and approved projects will not be completed (or not for years after they were supposed to be). So try to plan for that too by building in redundancy, and by training up as many really good volunteer managers as possible.

Communications & the TW letter
As an organization in Crisis Communications mode and not likely to get out of it soon, (another) one of your top five priorities as a board should be to increase the size of and resources allocated to your Communications Team pronto, so they can better deal with or have insight into more of the internal and external communications items they should be aware of/have oversight of/be pro-actively and reactively communicating with other parts of the org about.

You'll still get criticism and there will still be things that get backlash and cause unhappiness, but a smaller percentage of them will come as surprises. And with more resources (people, etc.) the Communications Committee could also work to prepare more of the org for how to more effectively (from a PR standpoint) deal with and respond to (and prepare for) criticism and backlash and occasional stumbles on the path of trying to get out of crisis mode, instead of mainly tactically focusing on the (also very valuable) interview requests and requests to write and distribute official communications, etc., which is what I imagine occupies much of their time now.

Sincerely,
A loving critic

as an aside

[emilly]

DevMem do send an automatic email regarding voting membership as soon as payment is confirmed - i got one just this morning, couple minutes after the paypal receipt.

Re: as an aside

[skaredykat]

Hmmm, it's been several months and they definitely got my money, but I still have not received any such e-mail. And would still very much like one.

Re: as an aside

[emilly]

Well, that's awkward. Check your spam? Send them an email to make sure your email address got properly linked to your donation?

Re: as an aside

[skaredykat]

I've been checking my spam folder regularly and it hasn't come in there either.

Unfortunately I'm really reluctant for RL reasons for any linkage between my fannish identity and my RL one, which is associated with my payment information, even to send an e-mail from either identity asking "what's up?" because of this conversation. This is a dilemma.

Re: as an aside

[emilly]

i'm guessing the email saying "what's up?" would have to come from your RL id, if that's associated with the payment. your RL id could be a bystander! just watching this convo! totally unrelated!

or, maybe, wait till the election season starts; surely they will then be inundated with lots of people saying "i thought i was eligible to vote, but..." and any chance of tracing one version of you to the other would be lost.

good luck!

Re: as an aside

[skaredykat]

"maybe, wait till the election season starts"

It's as if you read my mind. ;)