Entry tags:
OTW Elections candidate endorsement
For the record, here is who I'm voting for in the OTW elections starting today/tomorrow:
Julia Beck
Nikisha Sanders
Jenny Scott-Thompson
Betsy Rosenblatt
As well as being involved in the OTW since its beginning (I served as a committee chair in the organisation's first term, and have since been a user, member and casual volunteer) and forming my own opinions on the candidates and who I believe to be best for the future of the organisation, I have been reading a lot of writing by others who are invested. Because I don't have the time/energy to write up a great manifesto myself, if you want to hear about more of my reasoning, go and read![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookshop's recent post on hir endorsements and the latest issues.
But I will summarise why I am not voting for Naomi Novik:
Happy voting!
Julia Beck
Nikisha Sanders
Jenny Scott-Thompson
Betsy Rosenblatt
As well as being involved in the OTW since its beginning (I served as a committee chair in the organisation's first term, and have since been a user, member and casual volunteer) and forming my own opinions on the candidates and who I believe to be best for the future of the organisation, I have been reading a lot of writing by others who are invested. Because I don't have the time/energy to write up a great manifesto myself, if you want to hear about more of my reasoning, go and read
bookshop's recent post on hir endorsements and the latest issues. But I will summarise why I am not voting for Naomi Novik:
- Having worked under her (when she was board president), I had a terrible experience as a staffer which I believe stemmed from very poor board management of the huge range of skilled volunteers (there are many, many elections posts out there that prove I'm not alone in feeling under-valued, ignored, thwarted and burnt out).
- NN is an amazing, creative, dynamic coder, yes. The Archive can still benefit from her brilliant coding skills and work ethic when she's not on the board. In fact, it would probably utilise her skills better to have her on the ADT committee coding all the time, instead of spreading out her time/energy on board things as well.
- In addition to the point above, yes, she is a great coder. Yes, she has done fantastic work on the Archive. I do not believe that these are reasons she should be elected to the board. I am voting for who I believe will provide the organisation with excellent governance, not who should be rewarded for being good at something else entirely. I can't reiterate this enough: the board elections are not a reward, fandom awards, popularity contest or personality test. They are an opportunity to elect suitable representatives of the membership to govern the organisation and guide it into a better future.
- Both in terms of managing human resources and managing the code itself, the OTW is deeply flawed. I don't believe this is intentional, or that the staffers working in the OTW haven't poured their hearts and souls into its projects. But I am deeply invested in this organisation, and believe that these two things especially are in desperate need of review and change, if the organisation is to grow in a positive direction and not leave the very people it's supposed to be caring for (fans!) miserable and exhausted. From reading what NN has said during the campaign, and from my own personal experience of her governance, I do not believe she is committed to acknowledging and rectifying these issues.
Happy voting!
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Things have certainly become more o_O. I really hope this election signals a turnaround.
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(I still remember how I was this hyper-excitable volunteer with stars in her eyes who would pester you all the time in Fanlore chat. :#) ahaha.)
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I want to believe that this has been a wake up call for NN. Can you point me to her posts that say that it hasn't, please?
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I found her responses to the candidate questions often dismissive and/or missing the point entirely ("there isn't an unusual amount of volunteer burnout!" & all subsequent answers to questions about burnout and volunteer retention), and extremely limited in terms of the true scope and potential of the organisation (eg dismissing the devmem committee as only being around to get money to support AO3 servers. seriously.
(The language she used in her responses I also found very flippant, and was disappointed with her last minute no-shows to candidate chats, and late responses to questions with deadlines asked outside of chats.)
Compared to the other candidates who actually clearly engage with the level of dismay and disillusionment so many members, volunteers and staffers feel (I feel like it's pretty clear that that's the place a lot of questions come from, even if so much of fandom wasn't abuzz with it at the moment), and address them by identifying current problems with the organisation and clearly stated that they're dedicated to working on fixing them.
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