fail_fandomanon

Ira Gladkova made an interesting post concerning criticism and the organization. Points of interest include addressing the non-profit/fandom dichotomy and the letter to tag wrangler's:

http://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/4893.html

I think she makes some really good points about how to criticize in such a way that it leads to productive change. However, I think one big problem with her first point is that the only way to contact anyone in the OTW is by private email. I think it's great that that's an option, but there also needs to be a places where users of OTW projects can discuss those projects critically and be heard by the people who are able to make changes. Email only limits conversations severely. I think she misses the point that conversations aren't happening on various personal journals and anon memes solely because that's the fannish conventions we're used to but also because the OTW doesn't currently provide a venue where those discussions can take place. It's either have them on personal journals or not have them at all. And honestly, the fact that they don't provide a discussion forum kind of gives the impression (to me personally, ymmv) that they're not interested in hearing discussion. That's a public perception problem and if they want more people to bring their criticisms to them directly, they need to work on correcting that.

An additional problem with email is that it's like sending your criticism into a black box. You write the email, hit send, maybe receive an "I got it and it's going to be discussed" if you're lucky and then ... nada. They could be having lengthy discussions about the merit of your idea or it could have been swept under the rug. If you post publicly, you know whether people respond to it or not.

Plus, emails really aren't the best place for discussions with more than two participants.

Very true! A long while ago I sent some feedback through the AO3 support form and was told it would be added to the list of feature requests and never heard anything else. It wasn't until the put up the link to the Trello board thing that I found out my request had been rejected because there was no "clear case use" whatever that means. If I hadn't been idly clicking links and ended up on that page, I'd still be here thinking they'd get around to my request one day when they had the manpower/resources/time to consider it.

What did you suggest, if I may ask?

(I once had to send feedback three times until it was acknowledged ...)

The option to disable comments/kudos if you're not interested in feedback. Although the trello board has the request listed as the ability to toggle comments/kudos on and off on individual works per author preference so I don't know if that means my request fell into a blackhole or if my request and another were considered similar enough to merge them together.

I also requested the option to list more than 20 works per page when you're browsing. But that's been rejected too. Lol I'm the queen of bad ideas, apparently. ;)

Both sound like reasonable ideas to me. I think the last was probably rejected because it was too hard and the browsing feature is fucked up anyway.

I like those ideas - and I see that trello does allow upvotes on its requests, but is there any way for us (users, who aren't AO3 volunteers/staff) to vote? I think that would be a very good way for AO3 to get clear feedback on where user priorities are.

AYRT

I'm afraid I don't really understand how trello works, so I'm not sure if random people can vote. It would definitely be an easy way for people to register their interest in features though!

I think it would also be useful if, when you sent in a feature request, the support people replied by telling you which trello ticket relates to it, so you know to check back on it if you're interested.

But it seems like they've only relatively recently started using it, so who knows, maybe that's something they're planning on implementing?

Anyone can vote. If you have a Google account, you can use that to log in. If not, you can sign up for a Trello account and use that to vote.

It's "clear use case" (though they might have typed it wrong on your request -- that's a standard piece of software engineering jargon meaning "a way we think people will work with this software".

For example, using Livejournal: the way anon memes work on LJ is a use case. It's not one they designed for originally, but it's one that's come up, and future features/changes should take it into account (or should decide, as LJ has at times, that they do not want to support them).

AYRT

Thank you for explaining! They typed it correctly; I mangled it in my ignorance when commenting here.

I guess in that case, I'm a little sad that they never got back to me and asked why I wanted the feature? It sucks to know that one of the major reasons they rejected it might be that I didn't explain clearly enough how I would use it/why I wanted it.

Oh well, them's the breaks, I guess.

+10

If it's sooo important that critics talk in the right places, OTW needs to provide a venue. And for the wranglers, the issue isn't that the wranglers are talking in the wrong OTW-provided place, it's that either the people who need to be there don't get off their metaphorical asses and look at the forum once in a while, or whoever's supposed to be moderating the area needs to have a system in place to report concerns up the chain.

I agree with everything you've said here, the lack of an open discussion space really limits the org. If people who talk about the OTW here and in their own journals had such a space, it'd make the org feel more accessible.

We know that when we discuss things they aren't going to change things every time a new idea gets floated, but just having a space where we can talk about ideas and criticisms helps because we get to see how other people feel about an issue.

By confining the crit to email, we don't know if we're the only person having a particular issue or idea or if there's a hundred other people with the same problem. Another advantage of a public space is the swapping of tips and ideas between users and the way people feed off each others' thoughts.

AFF is an archive that I know a lot of people don't like, and it has it's problems, but the discussion boards/forums there can be really useful, especially when big changes happen like the last code rollout. Think how many people were opening support requests last december when they changed the skins, and how each ticket had to be answered individually, if there'd been an open forum for users to talk in, I bet a lot of us would have been able to help ourselves without bothering support.

Another advantage of a public space is the swapping of tips and ideas between users and the way people feed off each others' thoughts.

Totally agreed. The first place I go when any of the online services I use go haywire is the forums because there will undoubtedly be someone else who is having the same problem but who has already figured out a work around.

I think the number of people who come here to ask questions about AO3 related matters - I mean, mundane ones like "how do tags work?" and "I'm getting this error message; is it me or is it AO3?" - really shows how many people prefer to ask a forum over a one-to-one email conversation.

I absolutely agree that the tag wranglers were criticising things beyond the scope of the people who had just spoken with them. But where else can this be done? Posting to the tag wrangler list meant that a large number of people see the problem and discuss it. Emailing or putting in a support ticket (for anything other than an individual user problem or glitch) means...nothing. And if such an appropriate forum was provided, maybe there'd be less of a bubble-over effect whenever it looks like there is a chance to talk about things and be heard.

Given that one of the people who wrote (or at least signed) that tag wrangler letter is also the person who considers people who say "tag wrangling is not sustainable" to be depreciating the efforts of tag wranglers instead of, you know, offering valid constructive criticism, I think it's unlikely that any criticism, no matter how politely worded or constructive can ever be safely voiced in that particular environment.

Interesting replies from facetofcathy ( especially the incidents of unprofessional communication) and extempore. The OTW comes off as having a phobia of publicly visible criticism, for whatever reason. But, that is the criticism that gets the results. Also, it is true that the ao3 is, like it or not, now a service provider. Btw, what sites is extempore referring to?

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

Really? What about those from the 28th? The meeting only Julia Beck, Jenny Scott-Thompson and Nikisha Sanders attended.

And I'm worried by this talk about the Emerita Board and the Advisory Board. For the Emerita Board I expected to see a definition of what they are there for and what authority on the new Emerita Board page in the wiki and not the whole page filled with ideas how to manage the communication among them and to them from a technical stand point.