2011 OTW Board Election

The 2011 Organization for Transformative Works Board election was a contentious one, with six candidates - later five - standing for four positions. Many people who are passionate about the OTW and its projects have strong feelings about the direction the OTW should take, and who should be in leadership positions.
On 22nd September 2011, the candidates for the 2011 OTW Board Election were publicly announced. In alphabetical order by family name, the candidates were
*Julia Beck
*Naomi Novik
*Lucy Pearson (withdrew from the ballot November 12, 2011)OTW 2011 Board Candidate Withdrawal: A Message from Lucy Pearson, November 12, 2011. Archived February 3, 2012. 
*Betsy Rosenblatt
*Nikisha Sanders
*Jenny Scott-Thompson.
The election took place between 16 November to 18 November. All current paid OTW members, who had made the minimum $10 USD donation between 1 October 2010 and 17 October 2011, were eligible to vote by electronic ballot.OTW 2011 Board Candidates and Election News, posted on September 22, 2011. Accessed November 11, 2024 
The 2015 election was the first year in which the OTW employed a modified version of instant runoff voting and general_jinjur posted an explanation of the process that would be used to select board members based on ranked ballots.
During the two days of the election, 555 out of 845 eligible voters voted, representing 66% of potential voters.2011 OTW Board Election Ballot Now Closed, posted on November 18, 2011. Accessed November 18, 2011 In alphabetical order by family name, Julia Beck, Naomi Novik, Nikisha Sanders, and Jenny Scott-Thompson were elected to the board.OTW Board Elections - Results, posted on November 19, 2011.
==Candidates' Platforms==
See OTW Election Candidates – 2011 for information on the candidates and their platforms.
== Sustainability & Volunteer Burnout ==
*OTW, or, I am exhausted by renay, 4 November 2011. A response to Naomi Novik's comments on volunteer burnout in her candidate profile.2011 Candidate Profile: Naomi Novik
*oh OTW no by renay, 12 November 2011. A follow-up on renay's original statement. 
*Dreamwidth post by awils1, date unknown.
*look it's not a gchat transcript by general_jinjur, 12 November 2011. A statement explaining her decision to resign from the OTW Board of Directors.
*Dreamwidth post by lim, date unknown.
*(no subject) a Dreamwidth post by Julia Beck, 21 October 2011. On recent criticism of the OTW and the inability of staffers to effect change within the OTW.
*Dreamwidth post by starlady, date unknown.
== Transparency ==
*Dreamwidth post by starlady, date unknown
*Dreamwidth post by via-ostiense, date unknown
*AO3 And Volunteering by jenn-calaelen, 22 October 2011. A view of internal communications from a (non-staffer) Tag Wrangler perspective.
*Thoughts on OTW by scribblesinink, 22 October 2011. On Transparency, Sustainability and the OTW's lack of a proper communications strategy.
== International & Fandom Outreach ==
In her essay OTW election 2011, wintercreek wrote:
See also: 
* OTW Internationalization & Outreach Committee established in 2010
* In early 2011, the OTW Server Naming Contest controversy, also known as Server Naming Fail raised questions about diversity and inclusion, when a public poll resulted in all the servers receiving names originating from Western fandoms. This event was discussed during the election. Candidates were asked about their opinions on the Contest and how they would prevent similar controversies if elected to Board. See, OTW Server Naming Contest#OTW 2011 Board Election
* Dreamwidth post by facetofcathy, date unknown.
== Other issues ==
Discourse around this election has been passionate and intense. In one instance, fan shayheyred wrote a post called OTW Elections - making sense of the candidates in which she wrote:
This post was both widely-circulated, and widely-critiqued. Its critics slammed the post and its author for the post's use of the term "sane wavelength." In a second post, Shay revised:
To some, Shay's post signified that anger with the current situation and/or with the OTW's current flaws was being framed as something which would make one a bad potential board member. Others argued that it's not a matter of anger making one a poor board member, but rather a question of whether or not the anger is productive / constructive. In turn, still others argued that that is a case of the "tone argument" and that it is therefore problematic in itself.Dreamwidth post by sanders, 2 November 2011. Archived 25 January 2021.
Some fans perceived, in candidate statements and/or in general election discourse, a sense that the AO3 is more important than other OTW projects. (Other fans countered that the AO3 is the project around which the org was initially built, and that if the AO3 were to fail, no one would trust the OTW to do anything ever again.)
== AO3 Deploy ==
On November 11, 2011 (5 days before the start of voting) there was a major code push to change the site skins and add a challenge tags feature at the Archive of Our Own. The majority of the front-end coding was done by lim and the back-end coding by Naomi Novik. Although the skins were presented as an accessibility improvement, many users disliked the new skins and found them harder to read, inaccessible, and in some cases painful to look at. Other problems with the code push included a bug that initially made the mobile skin unusable. Also, all public work skins were gone, which created a problem for Homestuck fans AO3 took off the homestuck skin for their fanfictions???, accessed November 22, 2011. Archived December 31, 2018 untitled, accessed November 22, 2011., who relied on a public work skin designed to correctly format their pesterlogs. The Homestuck AO3 skin was gone until at least November 19, 2011 A thought:, comment by boundbookson otw_news post entitled, "Brainstorming for a more inclusive OTW", November 18, 2011. Archived November 12, 2024., and re-appeared sometime between November 19, 2011 and November 22, 2011Homestuck Skin skin by X15lm204, accessed on November 22, 2011. Archived December 8, 2012.
Following the backlash, lim resigned from her role on November 13 2011.lim resigns a FFA thread discussing lim's apology and resignation, November 13, 2011. Archived November 13, 2024 
That the code was pushed with so many problems indicated to some that it was rushed in order to allow Yuletide nominations to go forward on the AO3. This led to discussion of whether Yuletide, a challenge run by one of the founders, should have priority over other official OTW projects.
Other fans were impressed with the quick development of the AO3 features and the responsiveness of the support and coding teams in dealing with user issues. They urged calm those who were upset about the changes to be more forgiving of an archive built by volunteers and still in beta.
== Naomi Novik ==
As one of the founders of the OTW, and a BNF under her fannish pseud, Naomi Novik is considered by many the candidate to beat. Novik's supporters note her vital role in the founding of the org, her skill with coding for the AO3, and her overall contributions to fandom. 
One of Novik's supporters said:
mollyamory wrote:
Fail. Fandom. Anon. thread: 
As the election progressed, many OTW volunteers began to speak of their time with the org. People began to criticize the OTW's management, and spoke of a toxic environment where people feared to speak their minds. While not directly attributed to Novik, many people noted that the OTW's culture had been established under Novik and co-founder Coppa's leadership. 
As Aja put it: 
oliviacirce continues in the same theme: 
On the day before the election, Novik posted her response to the concerns with her running for re-election:
==Damaging or necessary?==
While many fans felt that the heated conversations unfolding around the election were productive and likely to lead to positive change within the org, others worried that the conversations were damaging to the org and to fandom at large.
Election conversations became sufficiently argumentative that some fans chose to gafiate. After returning from a temporary fannish hiatus, Kass wrote:
==Further Discussion & Reading==
More links can also be found at Fanlore's List of OTW 2011 Board Election links.
* More on the OTW 2011 Board Election by starlady, November 3, 2011
* Discussions about the OTW elections by troisroyaumes, October 24, 2011
* Second OTW candidate chat analysis by troisroyaumes, October 27, 2011
* Dreamwidth post by ainsley, date unknown
* OTW Candidates and Fannish Conclusion, Or: Why That Server Poll Was Not a Minor Issue by gamera, date unknown
* https://pinboard.in/u:blueMeridian/t:class:FandomRef/
* In which I make a few observations about nonprofits by sara, November 3, 2011
*Friday Link Salad: The OTW Edition by inkstone, November 4, 2011
*Anime fans and OTW, a FFA thread, November 3-4, 2011
* [OTW Election] On anger and change by fairestcat, November 2, 2011
*OTW: Dysfunctional Nightmare Dis-Organization?, a FFA thread discussing fairestcat's post, November 4, 2011
== References ==
Category:OTW Board Elections 
Category:2011