Thoughts on OTW as a Non-Profit Business
Dec. 19th, 2015 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pslasherOlderthannetfic posted a tumblr post a few weeks ago that was excellent, and also had some great follow-up comments:
http://pslasher.tumblr.com/post/134475979133/so-even-in-the-make-belive-world-people-cant-get
http://pslasher.tumblr.com/post/134475663243/so-even-in-the-make-belive-world-people-cant-get
I had ~thoughts about it all I think I want to put out there, but I wanted to put it here first for feedback if anyone is interested:
Fandom has very strong cultural taboos against monetizing fandom – for good reasons – and I think to some degree that is being transferred onto the OTW spending money on stuff not directly server related. OTW is a fannish product in the sense that fandom built it for fannish use (and here I include projects like Open Doors, Fanlore, Journal, and legal advocacy too, not just AO3), but it isn’t a fic or a vid. It’s a business. It’s hard to think of the OTW as a business that needs to function as a business, but it is. The reality is that very, very few of us have experience with non-profit Boards. I think that lack of a business background is very strongly affecting our opinions. This is not a Big Bang or gift exchange fest, or a single person (or even a team of a few people) running a single fandom archive. It’s not even the guys running animemusicvideos.org or vidders.net, and those are pretty large archives. It’s bigger than that.
I think there are things that the casual user doesn’t know about or doesn’t really think about when reading on the AO3: The OTW is registered as a non-profit business in the United States and pays yearly taxes. It raised $266,684 in the two membership drives in 2015, and likely at least a bit more from donations at other times of the year. It spent $165,513 in 2015 on AO3 server-type expenses – and that’s only the stuff directly needed to keep the archive up and running, there are other OTW expenses. The AO3 gets almost 50 million page views a week (and this number is from 2014 so it’s likely more by now). There are over 500 volunteers working for the Org, some a few hours a week, some basically as full-time jobs. It’s a business and needs to be treated as such if we want it to last a long time. In fact, it was deliberately set up as a non-profit business (http://astolat.livejournal.com/166326.html#cutid1) because that was the best chance for it to LAST and grow and thrive for decades and decades as it was passed from one hand to the next.
LJ, DW, Tumblr, Twitter, FF.Net, Pinboard, Delicious, and Wattpad (and probably others I’m not even thinking of) are also businesses, and fandom mostly gets along or in the past has gotten along just fine on them. Yes, I realize fandom has its issues with each platform, but no one is throwing a fit when they spend money on business things. Obviously the endgame is different for the OTW (being dedicated to the preservation of fanworks, not the largest possible yearly financial statement), but OTW is still a business. If we’re willing to pay for the above services (and make no mistake, we are paying for them in some way even if the direct services are free – think advertizing, or them using/selling our information) why are we not willing to pay for fandom to create the spaces we live in?
This is not just growing pains for the Org/within the Org as it transfers from a small startup to a midsized non-profit, as others have suggested. These are also growing pains for fandom as we get used to the idea of fandom having a professional, established, somewhat centralized presence in the world. I’m not saying the OTW is THE ONLY WAY to do fandom, or the best way, or anything like that! But it is a growing presence online. This is a different way to look at fandom, and it will be unsettling for some. For some, even the very thought of the OTW “speaking for all of fandom” was unsettling from the beginning. We all resisted the commercialization of fandom through things like FanLib, and I believe that was a correct call on our part. But the OTW isn’t trying to directly monetize fanworks, simply to provide a structure and environment in which to keep fanworks safe. That is an important distinction, one which I think fandom will come to terms with over time.
We are sensitive to being exploited by commercial entities – think FanLib, LiveJournal, iMeem, and so on - but the OTW isn’t trying to exploit anyone, or run off with anyone’s money. It’s ok that the OTW is a business. It’s ok for us to acknowledge it as a business, that doesn’t threaten the gift culture that fandom thrives on. In fact, it supports it: volunteers don’t get paid (with a few exceptions), they give of their time so others may enjoy the AO3, Journal, Fanlore, ect… just like they would if they were running a Big Bang, or single fandom archive. The structure of the OTW is very different than that of a Big Bang, but people giving of their time to run them both is basically the same. The OTW spending money to keep itself working well and efficiently (even by paying people) doesn’t interfere with fan culture – it promotes it by making sure it lasts for longer than it does when we rely on the short lifespan and waxing and waning support of regular commercial ventures.
In the meantime we may have to put up with the court of public opinion which will have its outcry over things it doesn’t understand. And I include myself in the camp of not always understanding everything about this situation – but I am trying. I think we’re all building this new fannish experience and infrastructure together. We’re experiencing growing pains, but fandom is strong and we will get through this – as we always do.
http://pslasher.tumblr.com/post/134475979133/so-even-in-the-make-belive-world-people-cant-get
http://pslasher.tumblr.com/post/134475663243/so-even-in-the-make-belive-world-people-cant-get
I had ~thoughts about it all I think I want to put out there, but I wanted to put it here first for feedback if anyone is interested:
Fandom has very strong cultural taboos against monetizing fandom – for good reasons – and I think to some degree that is being transferred onto the OTW spending money on stuff not directly server related. OTW is a fannish product in the sense that fandom built it for fannish use (and here I include projects like Open Doors, Fanlore, Journal, and legal advocacy too, not just AO3), but it isn’t a fic or a vid. It’s a business. It’s hard to think of the OTW as a business that needs to function as a business, but it is. The reality is that very, very few of us have experience with non-profit Boards. I think that lack of a business background is very strongly affecting our opinions. This is not a Big Bang or gift exchange fest, or a single person (or even a team of a few people) running a single fandom archive. It’s not even the guys running animemusicvideos.org or vidders.net, and those are pretty large archives. It’s bigger than that.
I think there are things that the casual user doesn’t know about or doesn’t really think about when reading on the AO3: The OTW is registered as a non-profit business in the United States and pays yearly taxes. It raised $266,684 in the two membership drives in 2015, and likely at least a bit more from donations at other times of the year. It spent $165,513 in 2015 on AO3 server-type expenses – and that’s only the stuff directly needed to keep the archive up and running, there are other OTW expenses. The AO3 gets almost 50 million page views a week (and this number is from 2014 so it’s likely more by now). There are over 500 volunteers working for the Org, some a few hours a week, some basically as full-time jobs. It’s a business and needs to be treated as such if we want it to last a long time. In fact, it was deliberately set up as a non-profit business (http://astolat.livejournal.com/166326.html#cutid1) because that was the best chance for it to LAST and grow and thrive for decades and decades as it was passed from one hand to the next.
LJ, DW, Tumblr, Twitter, FF.Net, Pinboard, Delicious, and Wattpad (and probably others I’m not even thinking of) are also businesses, and fandom mostly gets along or in the past has gotten along just fine on them. Yes, I realize fandom has its issues with each platform, but no one is throwing a fit when they spend money on business things. Obviously the endgame is different for the OTW (being dedicated to the preservation of fanworks, not the largest possible yearly financial statement), but OTW is still a business. If we’re willing to pay for the above services (and make no mistake, we are paying for them in some way even if the direct services are free – think advertizing, or them using/selling our information) why are we not willing to pay for fandom to create the spaces we live in?
This is not just growing pains for the Org/within the Org as it transfers from a small startup to a midsized non-profit, as others have suggested. These are also growing pains for fandom as we get used to the idea of fandom having a professional, established, somewhat centralized presence in the world. I’m not saying the OTW is THE ONLY WAY to do fandom, or the best way, or anything like that! But it is a growing presence online. This is a different way to look at fandom, and it will be unsettling for some. For some, even the very thought of the OTW “speaking for all of fandom” was unsettling from the beginning. We all resisted the commercialization of fandom through things like FanLib, and I believe that was a correct call on our part. But the OTW isn’t trying to directly monetize fanworks, simply to provide a structure and environment in which to keep fanworks safe. That is an important distinction, one which I think fandom will come to terms with over time.
We are sensitive to being exploited by commercial entities – think FanLib, LiveJournal, iMeem, and so on - but the OTW isn’t trying to exploit anyone, or run off with anyone’s money. It’s ok that the OTW is a business. It’s ok for us to acknowledge it as a business, that doesn’t threaten the gift culture that fandom thrives on. In fact, it supports it: volunteers don’t get paid (with a few exceptions), they give of their time so others may enjoy the AO3, Journal, Fanlore, ect… just like they would if they were running a Big Bang, or single fandom archive. The structure of the OTW is very different than that of a Big Bang, but people giving of their time to run them both is basically the same. The OTW spending money to keep itself working well and efficiently (even by paying people) doesn’t interfere with fan culture – it promotes it by making sure it lasts for longer than it does when we rely on the short lifespan and waxing and waning support of regular commercial ventures.
In the meantime we may have to put up with the court of public opinion which will have its outcry over things it doesn’t understand. And I include myself in the camp of not always understanding everything about this situation – but I am trying. I think we’re all building this new fannish experience and infrastructure together. We’re experiencing growing pains, but fandom is strong and we will get through this – as we always do.
no subject
Date: Saturday, December 19th, 2015 09:09 pm (UTC)I think what we're running into is just the usual nonprofit double standard: people everywhere, including far outside of fandom, tend to have a double standard when it comes to any organization that involves ~ideals~. If the objective is business, we don't judge too harshly. If the people running it are "Us" and the objective is "The Cause", we go completely bonkers.
Our type of "fandom" is used to being second class citizens. We expect our hosts to treat us like crap and to be the also-ran, barely-tolerated wing of geekdom. Our expectations are low when it comes to businesses. So when we get something that could cater to us perfectly, whether it's a big fandom event like Yuletide or Tumblr warnings tagging habits or OTW, we're twice as rabid about it being all things to all people at all times. It's like how we react to the first major character of minority X being in some piece of media: they should be perfect in all ways but also three-dimensional and realistically flawed and and and. It's a scarcity mentality. There might not ever be another [thing] that's for ME, so this one has to do it all.
I see it in how people react to the idea of founding things too: Suggest that somebody not do Yuletide and/or found their own fest, and there are a million excuses. Suggest the idea of rival archives and it Can't Be Done. True, setting up all of OTW again would be too much for most people and probably unproductive, but I remember a time when there were plenty of rival archives with lots of people crossposting. There's always going to be some new person to mouth off to the press and unintentionally speak for all of fandom. There's always going to be some new fannish site or event or whatever being founded by a new person. Hegemonic centralization of fandom isn't a good thing because it will inevitably lead to a situation that's pretty okay for most people and not actually great for anyone, but I feel like most of the problem is people who don't want to speak up themselves, can't find anyone who's already saying what they'd say if they did, and then blame whoever is speaking up. (Or don't with to build a thing, run a thing, etc.) There's plenty to criticize in OTW, but I feel like some of the angriest and least useful criticism is of this type.
I do wish we were further along on having a viable package that other people could take and do their own archive with. Efiction was such a boon to fandom. There are plenty of legit issues with OTW/AO3, but that top layer of desperation in reactions would be greatly helped by OTW not having to be the be all end all.
no subject
Date: Friday, January 22nd, 2016 09:56 pm (UTC)Double standard, interesting point. I think you're correct on that, though I wouldn't have thought of it that way.
"It's a scarcity mentality. There might not ever be another [thing] that's for ME, so this one has to do it all."
Yes, yes exactly. I've done this myself sometimes, it's hard to avoid sometimes.
"Suggest that somebody not do Yuletide and/or found their own fest, and there are a million excuses.... (Or don't with to build a thing, run a thing, etc.) There's plenty to criticize in OTW, but I feel like some of the angriest and least useful criticism is of this type."
Also true! The OTW works VERY hard to do the right thing, I've seen this personally. I've been part of that hard work. People who rage against it are so hurtful to me because there are flaws but it's not an overall awful Org! And since people care that means it can get better! Being hateful is just the completely unhelpful.
"but that top layer of desperation in reactions would be greatly helped by OTW not having to be the be all end all."
True. There's a lot I wish were better/further along with OTW/AO3, but I do think we'll get there sooner rather than later with the new leadership. *hopes*
In short, I agree with all this! And I finally reblogged your post with my thoughts. Lol, it's like a decade later in Tumblr time, no one cares now, but whatever.