tag:dreamwidth.org,2011-01-24:689718ira_gladkovaira_gladkovaira_gladkova2012-08-04T11:00:04Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2011-01-24:689718:4893Criticism, Negativity, and all those Blues (includes That Tag Wrangler Letter)2012-08-04T01:20:28Z2012-08-04T11:00:04Zpublic45(Apologies about the lack of Minutes Monday this week -- there were no new minutes to discuss, but lots of interesting stuff next week!)<br /><br />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, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/'><b>seventhe</b></a></span> posted about <a href="http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/320808.html">her ambivalence towards the OTW</a>.<br /><br />So! Let's talk about that.<br /><br /><h3>Criticizing the OTW, Inside and Out</h3><br /><br />First up, I hope it's clear from <a href="http://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/540.html">clear</a> from my <a href="http://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/1318.html">history</a> that I have no problem with <a href="http://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/4495.html">criticizing</a> the OTW.<br /><br />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. <strong>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.</strong><br /><br />But many of us have seen that there are a <em>lot</em> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The OTW lands in the morass in between.<br /><br />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:<br /><br /><strong>If you expect us to <u>act</u> like a nonprofit org, you have to <u>treat</u> us as a nonprofit org.</strong><br /><br />So here are some things I think are useful to keep in mind vis-à-vis criticizing the OTW to make criticism maximally effective:<br /><ul><li><strong>Be aware of the space and audience when you criticize.</strong><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/4893.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /></li><br /><li><strong>Keep in mind our limited resources.</strong><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___2" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/4893.html#cutid2">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___2" aria-live="assertive"></div></li></ul><br />So I think criticism is great, but I want it to <em>work</em>. 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.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br />Now then, about a particular recent incident centered around criticism.<br /><br /><br /><h3>The Letter to Tag Wranglers</h3><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___3" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/4893.html#cutid3">The full text of the letter, plus commentary</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___3" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br />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?<br /><br />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 <em>from both sides</em> is absolutely essential to the enterprise.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <em>reciprocally</em>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <em>only</em> fellow fans on a fannish project, rather than part of a nonprofit organization. We're <em>both</em>, and negotiating that line continues to be tricky.<br /><br />As always, thank you all for your thoughts! I hope this helps.<br /><br />(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.)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ira_gladkova&ditemid=4893" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments