OTW Server Naming Contest

In early 2011, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a nonprofit organization run by fans, acquired five new servers and held a Server Naming Contest to name all seven of their servers.Archive of Our Own Server Naming Festival!, 06 February 2011. (Accessed 09 November 2011) This event was also called the Server Naming Festival.
Despite initial encouragement for the outcome to reflect the diversity of fandom, the votes which were cast yielded results which were not as diverse as many had hoped. After a heated and passionate debate among the OTW Board, in conversation with others within the organization who had helped to run the contest, the decision was made to stick with the names which received the most votes, and all the servers were given Western fandom names. The results were announced to a mixed reaction.Kylara in the comments to the otw_news post on LJ: Results of Server Naming Contest!, 18 April 2011. (Accessed 09 November 2011) 
The event has been referred to as Server Naming Fail,OTW Elections - the ranty part since it is the theme of this week by autumnus, 04 November 2011. and has been cited as an example of the OTW's problems with being inclusive, diverse, or outreaching to non-Western fandoms.
==Context==
Events and tensions that built up to the Server Naming Festival. 
===The Servers===
The servers have been an important part of the OTW ideology and identity: when the organization was still very new, the idea was to own the servers so fandom couldn't be kicked out. "I want us to own the goddamned servers" became a rallying cry among supporters of the org.Why I Support The OTW, by Speranza, aged mumble-mumble 2008-01-09The Organization for Transformative Works: I Want Us to Own the Goddamned Servers by Kristina Busse. No date on document. Retrieved 2011-11-08.OTW Annual Report 2007. Retrieved 2011-11-08.This thread in which Cesperanza says: "it was here that I first yelled, four years ago, that we have to own the goddamned servers, and that was pretty much the rallying cry around which the OTW was founded..." posted 2011-10-29. Accessed 2011-11-10.
The quote originated in the post "Why I Support the OTW" by Cesperanza:
Kristina Busse examined it:
This dream came true September 2009; the official announcement post proclaimed "We own the goddamn servers!"Archive News #4 - Colocation and Open Beta 2009-09-17. Retrieved 2011-11-08. In 2011, the OTW purchased five new machines, in addition to the two it already had: a database server, two rails servers, a storage server, and a switch.Archive of Our Own: We can has servers! (@ LJ) 2011-01-23AO3 servers: meet the machines! 2011-01-23 It was then that it held the Server Naming Festival. The festival was intended to help pass the time while the AO3 was down as the new servers were hooked up.Impending Archive downtime: new server installation (@LJ) 2011-02-03
===OTW on Diversity and Inclusion===
The OTW was founded by Western media fans; the org's mission includes both a mandate to "serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms" and to preserve and protect the history and practice of "transformative fanwork historically rooted in a primarily female culture."What we believe, accessed November 12, 2011
Perhaps in part because of these Western media fannish roots, the OTW has not been entirely successful in reaching out to / being inclusive of non-Western fandoms. Some fans argue that the server names issue is "part of a pattern of exclusion that's been going on as long as the OTW has been around."OTW Candidates and Fannish Inclusion, Or: Why That Server Poll Was Not a Minor Issue by Gamera. Posted 2011-11-03. Retrieved 2011-11-08.
The OTW is (so far) predominantly made up of Western media fans. There was little (or no) outreach to other fandoms during early development stages, which created infrastructural problems for inclusion.Comments by branchandroot in Ira Gladkova's entry. Posted 2011-04-30. When the OTW was setting up the AO3 fanfiction archive, beta-testing was done nearly entirely by Western media fans, so interest grew almost exclusively in those fandoms. Once the archive entered the open beta stage, accounts were available through invites (each current member got one invite to share) and a waiting queue that anyone could sign up for 17 September 2009. OTW blog. Archive News #4 - Colocation and Open Beta. Accessed 13 Nov 2011.. Invites were mostly shared along existing networks and were unlikely to make the jump to outside fandoms, enlarging the difference in representation. 
The preceding 2010 Yuletide had been contentious, and many fans outside of Western media fandom felt ostracized. Although Yuletide was not "officially" a part of the AO3 where it was newly being hosted, the OTW became very involved -- so many fans felt that it might as well have been. 
In 2010, the International Outreach committee was founded as an internal lobby group to address issues of inclusiveness, emerging from the less-political focused Translation committee. * Spotlight on International Outreach (@ LJ) 2011-02-21.
* More specifically, the May 2 2011 Behind the Scenes feature directly references the server naming controversy. Accessed 13 Nov 2011.
==Server Naming Festival==
===Aim for Diverse Results===
There was a strong internal push for diverse options in the polls, with the intention of having diverse results. The servers were supposed to represent a diverse fandom. The shortlist was carefully constructed to have diverse options, and diversity was brought up several times officially. 
The names included on the shortlist can be seen on Ira Gladkova's post-contest reflections on the OTW Server Naming Contest. Fandoms represented included Fullmetal Alchemist, Pippi Långstrump, Naruto, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy VII, Das doppelte Lottchen, Metroid, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Street Fighter, One Piece, Little My Mumintroll, and many others. 
Ira Gladkova explains that creating the shortlist "was an intensive process, taking into account not only popularity (how many nominations or top choices a name had) but also explicitly focused on diversity. And I think, overall, everyone involved in the shortlisting process did a great job in terms of putting together a diverse list of names." The OTW Server Poll and Fannish Diversity (Accessed Nov. 9, 2011)
===Timeline===
January 23rd - The Server Naming Festival was announced:
February 6th - Nominations for the server names began.Archive of Our Own Server Naming Festival! 2011-02-06AO3 Server naming festival: nominations post! 2011-02-06 
February 12th - Nominations closed, and entered a shortlisting phase organized by several committees: International Outreach, Accessibility, Design & Technology, Communications & Development & Membership Committees.
March 15th - Voting began, stating "Voting will be open until 22 March 2011, and we'll announce the winners shortly thereafter."Voting now open! Name the AO3 servers! 2011-03-15. As the votes began to come in, it became clear internally that the results would all be from Western media fandoms. Private discussions began internally on what should be done, extending the time until the results were announced.
April 18th - Results announced.Results of Server Naming Contest! (@LJ) 2011-04-18.
===Board discussion and response===
When it became clear that the winning names were predominantly from Western media fandoms, the 2011 Board spent several meetings discussing the results and their implications. Concerns were first raised publicly by the AD&T Co-Chair at the Board Meeting on 6 April 2011.Board Meeting Minutes April 6 2011, accessed December 4 2024. Some Board members argued that if they kept those names many fans would be alienated, and it would effectively prove that the OTW didn't care about other parts of fandom. 
Other Board members argued that it was necessary to respect and celebrate the names which had been chosen by the current membership; that they will always be adding more servers and could choose a different way to name the next servers; that having announced this as a simple election in which the names with the most votes would win, it would be unfair to change the rules after the fact (and would open the organization up to accusations of vote-rigging, which could in turn impact the organization negatively when the next election rolled around); and that some of the coders who worked to build the voting system would feel hurt if their labours were disregarded.
Ultimately the Board decided to stick with the names which had received the most votes. On April 13, 2011, the OTW Board voted 6-1, with Ira dissenting, to abide by the results of the vote.Board Meeting Minutes April 13 2011, accessed December 4 2024. They also unanimously agreed to frame the announcement in a post about the process and related diversity issues. From that post:
These Board conversations ultimately led to the post Brainstorming for a more inclusive OTW.
===Results===
The names which won the most votes were all from Western fandoms, with half from Star Trek:
Server 	Name
DB 	Ada Lovelace (a real person; the "World's First Computer Programmer")
Rails 	Sherlock Holmes & John Watson (from Sherlock Holmes)
Storage	TARDIS (from Doctor Who)
O1 	Spock (from Star Trek)
O2 	James T. Kirk (from Star Trek)
Switch 	Nyota Uhura (from Star Trek)
==Reaction==
The OTW was criticized for marginalizing and not representing fans who were already being marginalized and under-represented by the org. The outcome was seen as additional evidence that the OTW wasn't interested in anime/manga/game fans (or any fans outside of Western media fandom) on a structural level. 
The OTW was also criticized for the lack of transparency surrounding the issue;comments on the LJ announcement post by Kylara discussion was ongoing internally for weeks with no prompt for outside discussion or input, with no mention to users outside the OTW who would be influenced by the result, including the donating members who paid for these servers.
In the comments to the LJ post announcing the new server names, Kylara said:In another post, Cypher said:Gamera:Branchandroot:
* The OTW Server Poll and Fannish Diversity by Ira Gladkova (board member, unofficial post), posted 2011-04-28. 
* What I love about the OTW by elf.
==OTW 2011 Board Election==
The OTW server naming festival is one incident that was brought up to highlight problems within the OTW during the OTW 2011 Board Election. The candidate's "opinions on [the server name contest incident] are being used as a litmus test for the various candidates' level of awareness of the tensions regarding the diversity situation."OTW Elections by Chouma. Posted 2011-11-07. Accessed 2011-11-10.
A question specifically about the server naming contest was submitted to the candidates for the 2011 Second Board Candidate Chat Follow-Up Two, which the candidates answered 28 October 2011. The question was:Posts about the Server Naming outcome and the election:
* OTW Candidates and Fannish Inclusion, Or: Why That Server Poll Was Not a Minor Issue by Gamera, 2011-11-03. Gamera analyzed and responded specifically to each of the candidates' answers.
* OTW Elections - the ranty part since it is the theme of this week by Autumnus, 2011-11-04. "I am both amused and appalled by some of the opinions going around. Everything from how the org apparently doesn't have a volunteer burnout problem, to Ms. Novik's comment that she would like to fix the rift caused by the server fail by a project like making otw t-shirts, to likening of arguments within OTW to israeli-palestinian conflict, and to people deciding declaring they will vote against change in the org because things are working the way they are now."
==See Also==
* List of OTW 2011 Board Election links
==References==
Category:Organization for Transformative Works
Category:2011 Events