Agenda
- Decisions made since the last public board meeting
- 2024 OTW Board Election wrap-up
- OTW Culture Roadmap update
- Board Roadmap update
- Any other business (Questions & Answers)
Transcript
The meeting can be read in full on the official OTW Board Discord server. In order to access it, you’ll need to join our Discord server.
Present
- Kathryn Soderholm
- Michelle Schroeder
- Anh Pham
- Kari Dayton
- Qiao Chu
Guests
- ailinen
- alessandriana
- Allekha
- Ari
- biblically accurate lotusboob
- Bilka
- bluedreaming
- Brian
- C. Ryan Smith
- calamario
- carolina
- chime
- Claire P. Baker
- CMDonovann
- coaldustcanary
- cocolai
- connect_the_stars
- Cookies
- copacet
- Ea-nasir
- EchoEkhi
- Egg
- Elf
- Erica F.
- Gammarad
- herothief
- Heyfren
- jeiroh
- Kass Fireborn
- keladry
- Keltena
- kiwiana
- ladydragona
- Lulu
- Lydia
- Medilia
- Morbane
- Moro
- MT
- panffin
- PAULA ꓯꓶꓵꓯꓒ
- pitytheviolins
- quothhh
- Rachel L.
- runawaymarbles
- runt
- ShirouHokuto
- slumber
- spacegandalf
- therealmorticia
- trillingstar
- trobadora
- yore m. ipsum
- zeldahime
- ZG
Open Session
Decisions made since last meeting
- Approved minutes of last meeting
- Approved new Chair for Webs Committee
- Approved a proposal for new committee formation in order to address the translation needs of the Policy & Abuse and Support committees.
- Approved AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project Memorandum of Understanding Template
- Finalized and Approved OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy
- Approved OTW Legal’s request to sign onto the NO FAKES letter opposing a digital replica law that would put fan artists at risk for making manips and similar fanworks
- Approved new leads for the Paid Staff Transition Project
2024 OTW Board Election wrap-up
We want to start off by thanking all the candidates that ran for Board this year. Running for Board is a significant commitment and we have tremendous respect and gratitude for everyone who does. It is our goal every year to have a contested election and we were very excited to have one this year.
We would also like to thank the Elections Committee for all of their hard work in running this election, as well as everyone who voted, attended Candidate Chats, submitted questions, or otherwise participated. We deeply appreciate how much you care about the OTW and our mission.
And now, we’d like to welcome our new Board members! This election filled two seats for full 3 year terms as Board Directors. We are proud to present our new Board Members, Erica Frank and Rachel Linton. We are very excited to have them join us!
We also want to offer our sincere gratitude to outgoing Board Members, Kari Dayton and Michelle Schroeder. Their mentorship, leadership, knowledge, and experience have been invaluable.
As part of Election wrap-up, we are voting on Board Officers for the next term in this public meeting. Board Officers are voted on yearly basis, so we always try to conduct votes on them before turnover on October 1.
Our current Treasurer, Yuechiang Luo, has confirmed that she is willing to continue to serve. Anh Pham will stay as Board President for the next term, while Qiao Chu will be Board Secretary and Kathryn Soderholm will be Board Vice President.
OTW Culture Roadmap update
In our previous meetings (see minutes: here and here), we talked about the themes and goals of the Culture Roadmap. Since then, we have worked with the Roadmap Team (open to participation from all OTW volunteers) to both setup the project’s long term execution and stability as well as begin work on the goals contained within it.
The Roadmap Supervisors we approved before the last Board meeting are in the process of turning their roles over to successors to ensure that work on the Roadmap’s goals continues and receives input and leadership from many different people.
The current goals in progress address the OTW cybersecurity, emergency procedures, and behavioral standards for use of our internal chat tool. Our cybersecurity and emergency procedures goals are being worked on by volunteers in collaboration with our Cybersecurity Delegate to help protect gaps in the OTW’s protections. This has included surveying areas that lack adequate protection and bringing the OTW into line with best practices. Discussions and research are currently ongoing.
The goal regarding behavioral standards on the OTW chat tool began with a survey open to all OTW volunteers about their use, experience, and opinions using the chat tool and its current climate. From there the project team also conducted interviews with OTW volunteers who wanted to speak further about these topics. In total, 205 OTW volunteers completed the survey and 55 completed interviews. Survey and interview analysis are now in progress. From there, discussions about policy changes will begin, and we are very excited to see them come to fruition.
Board Roadmap update
We first shared the Board Year Roadmap in our first quarter of 2024 meeting (meeting minutes available here). We’ve only included items here that have an update, so items that were completed before the last meeting or haven’t been worked on have been removed.
Trust, Safety, and Accountability:
- Improve Board transparency – ONGOING
- Improve Board responsiveness and turnaround time for communications – ONGOING
- OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy – DONE
- Review and revise OTW policies for volunteer discipline – STARTED
One responsiveness update we are very happy and proud to share is that the Board contact form/email has been transitioned to a Client Relationship Management Software. This allows us to much better track which messages have received a reply and which haven’t. It will also prevent emails from being lost. This is a big step in the right direction toward improving Board response time and making us easier to communicate with.
Soliciting Expertise:
- Procurement Policy – ONGOING
The Policy has been drafted and reviewed. We’re working on collateral documentation and finalizing pieces with important stakeholders.
Following Existing Plans:
- Stay up to date with Board’s goals in the OTW Strategic Plan – ONGOING
- Assist other committees to reach their goals in the OTW Strategic Plan
- Support Strategic Planning Committee through the implementation of the Strategic Plan – ONGOING
- Lead the review, approval, and implementation of recommendations from organizational culture survey – ONGOING
These items are always going to be listed ongoing as we continually do them over the course of the year and they aren’t individual tasks that can be “completed.”
Board Assistants Team (BAT) Committee:
- Work with BATs to create systems to better manage Board tasks – ONGOING
AOB
No items
Open Question time
9 question in total was answered during the meeting.
Q1: How will the Board increase communication with AO3 users on important issues, like the recent revision of all-media tags? What strategies can be implemented to ensure user input is effectively considered in the future to prevent similar misunderstandings? [This question has been combined with similar questions]
Kathryn Soderholm: As a bit of background for those unaware: Tag Wranglers sort, organize, and connect tags used on AO3 according to the Tag Wrangling guidelines. One way they do this is using Metatags which function as an umbrella over other tags, helping to group similar tags together and allow users to filter on all their subtags at once. A common format of fandom metatag is “X & Related Fandoms”. This type of metatag is less common nowadays but is still in use with some fandoms.
The Board is aware of the recent situation and user feedback about fandom metatags, like the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandom metatag being taken down. (This metatag functioned to group together Sherlock Holmes fandoms, which impacts filters and search options.) As some of you are aware, the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms fandom metatag has been reinstated and all other changes to fandom metatags have been placed on hold, pending further discussion. For those interested in this topic, the Tag Wrangling committee published an update on Tumblr and on Twitter that we recommend you read.
Since this time, Board has talked with Tag Wrangling and AO3 Support leadership about this situation and discussed how we should move forward from here. The hold on these types of structural changes is to allow for committee-wide discussions of the guidelines governing fandom metatags, as well as how these guidelines need to be adjusted and/or clarified to better reflect the way AO3 is being used today and improve the experience for users going forward.
They have told us that while it will take time for these discussions to be completed, preparation has already begun, and the Tag Wrangling committee is planning to do more outreach to better inform the community about upcoming changes and how tagging and tag wrangling works to hopefully help avoid misunderstandings like this in the future. Board and others have been discussing this issue and have some suggestions in mind but definite plans are not yet ready to announce. Further updates will be available via news posts and at the next Board meeting.
As a general note for all tags, you are always welcome to submit feedback to Support about tags you’d like to see changed (such as tags you think should be made filterable in the dropdown) and about things that have been wrangled which you believe were wrangled incorrectly (such as tags that were connected which you don’t believe should be). Support will make sure that the Tag Wrangling committee gets these requests and feedback, as they work closely with each other.
Q2: What are you doing about racism in the OTW? We haven’t had any updates on that in a while.
Anh Pham: Since we last provided a direct update about this topic, we have been hard at work adding processes and rules that help protect against racism generally and also specifically provide more protection for fans of color.
Internally within the OTW, we’ve been supporting the setup of the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Subcommittee (ICCR) which has the authority to investigate and resolve complaints from OTW volunteers about OTW volunteers (including Board members and Chairs), and related conflicts within the OTW. ICCR means that volunteer complaints are investigated by unbiased volunteer professionals who are required to treat all volunteers fairly regardless of who the complainant or reported volunteer is.
In addition to this, we are happy to have written and approved a Whistleblower Protection Policy which better outlines the protections for people who make reports as well as the repercussions for those who retaliate against people who ‘blow the whistle.’
We also have multiple OTW Culture Roadmap goals intended to help with this. We plan to review and update our Code of Conduct and the associated Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (the policy by which Code of Conduct violations are handled) to better align them with industry best practices, making them more enforceable and usable. These improvements, along with the addition of independent oversight of disciplinary decisions via ICCR, aim to make misconduct reporting, investigations, and punishments more equitable for all volunteers, regardless of race or OTW position.
Racism and lack of responsiveness from previous Boards are in part what motivated the Board candidates both last and this year to run for their positions. This has led to:
- More diverse representation on Board and in other positions of authority;
- Making Board more available and responsive, and encouraging committee chairs to be more available and responsive; and
- Understanding and learning more about how racism presents itself within the Org and our part of fandom so that we can better combat it as it shows up.
Outside of the OTW, we’ve also been working on improvements to help better protect our users on AO3 including fans of color by supporting the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS) update being undertaken by the Policy & Abuse (PAC) and Legal committees. Updates to the TOS are being finalized and prepared for the public review, which will be announced in a dedicated news post, a site banner on AO3, and via emails to all registered AO3 users when it’s ready.
Q3: Has the OTW developed a written policy for handling of CSAM and CSEM (child sexual abuse/exploitation material), one that incorporates industry-standard Trust & Safety best practices, including rotating responsibility for handling this material among several workers to prevent a single PAC volunteer becoming the go-to person for CSAM again?
Kathryn Soderholm: Ultimately this falls more in PAC’s purview than ours so we can’t provide you a detailed list of the preventative measures they take; however, we can speak to this a little from our conversations with them both generally and that we’ve had as part of drafting the OTW-wide Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) policy to address reports of CSAM on our sites or maliciously sent to us.
PAC’s procedures for handling CSAM and CSEM (as well as the procedures to address the potential for such content on Fanlore or the OTW website) are based around industry best practices. Multiple people and organizations alongside academic research have been consulted in the development of these policies. PAC has a small team of people working together to both handle reports and document procedures.
If you’d like a more detailed answer, we recommend you reach out to PAC directly as they will be better able to speak to their internal procedures.
Q4: What are the criteria for making one of those temporary roles an “officer role” or not? (E.g. the DCRO vs the Paid Staff Transition Researcher)
Michelle Schroeder: There aren’t any hard and fast criteria – we had the DCRO as an officer because we expected them to reach out to potential contractors directly, and therefore they needed to be an officer serving under their legal name. We plan on liaising more directly with the Paid Staff Transition leads, so they do not have to serve as officers because the Board will help them reach out if needed.
Also, an Officer must serve under their wallet name, while a non-Officer may serve under a fannish name. Given the issues that many people have with serving under or publicly sharing their wallet names (as Officers are required to do), it makes sense to limit formal Officer roles to times when they are absolutely necessary, so as to enable more people to apply for or hold the position.
Q5: I see the OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy has been finalized and approved. What steps is AO3 taking to protect and support volunteers? (If this has already been publicized, where can interested parties read more?)
Qiao Chu: We have several projects in progress to protect and support volunteers. We cannot discuss all of them publicly, at least not at this time, but here are some that we can:
- The Whistleblower Protection Policy concretely establishes expectations for reporting and protections for people who report potential violations of policy, legal requirements, or law and regulation. This means that people are more likely to report bad behavior or other violations, and that they are protected when they do so.
- We have established a new sub-committee, the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee, which has the power and responsibility to investigate complaints from volunteers – including against Chairs and Board Members.
- As part of the Organizational Culture Roadmap work, there is an active project to create new behavioral standards for the OTW internal chat tool.
We expect to be able to give more updates on this topic in future public board meetings, regarding both the above steps and others.
Q6: Can the Board explain the rationale behind launching an entire additional translation committee to handle tickets when it is under their purview to define the scope of committees, including directing the current translation committee to handle support tickets?
Kathryn Soderholm: The purpose of the new committee is to help the Support and PAC committees with their language needs without adding extra work to the Translation committee, which already has a full workload.
We communicated with multiple stakeholders about issues with the current set-up, and there was no perfect solution, much less one that could be implemented quickly.
We felt that establishing a new committee was the best solution at hand, given the constraints of time, volunteer availability, and other resources.
Q7: I submitted a question to the board through the Contact Us form over a year ago and have yet to receive a response – does the board regularly check and respond to messages in this inbox?
Anh Pham: We do! It’s possible it got lost somewhere – we have recently moved to a Client Relationship Management software to help us stay more on top of our emails and make it easier to see what still needs a reply. Please feel free to resubmit it and we will get you an answer.
Q8: Congrats to the outgoing board members! 🎉 Do you have any advice that you’d like to leave for the incumbent and/or future board(s)?
Michelle Schroeder: Don’t be afraid to ask for help! And remember to take breaks as needed; there are seven of you for a reason!
Kari Dayton: You’ve got a team of people, make sure you lean on them and work together.
Q9: With the moratorium on changes to the tag structure to allow for feedback from the whole committee, how is the Board going to ensure that this doesn’t become a permanent hold while waiting on a “perfect solution that pleases everyone”?
Kathryn Soderholm: This is primarily under the purview of the Tag Wrangling Committee, so the Board is limited in how much we can and will intervene directly. However:
- The current Board has been leading by example and promoting use of the Pareto Principle – 80% of perfect takes 20% of the time, and it is better to have a timeline and expectations for review and revision than to attempt to be perfect out of the gate.
- We are also promoting project management principles, such as establishing timelines and expectations for feedback and communication in advance.
However, the Tag Wrangling Chairs and volunteers are highly invested in this project, and we are confident in their ability to come to a workable solution.
Asynchronous Questions
All questions asked were answered live, so there are no asynchronous question responses.
The meeting was adjourned at 00:59.
Minutes approved by the Board on 2024 10 20.