End Racism in the O·T·W

That the Organization for Transformative Works has incredibly lax and permissive standards regarding what kinds of fanworks they permit on their website, Archive of Our Own, is a fact so welknown among the fans who frequent it that any comment on the matter feels like an exercise in stating the obvious. Haven’t read their Terms of Service recently? Here you go :⁠—

I. Offensive Content Policy

As provided in part I.E.3 of the Terms of Service, the OTW is not liable to you for any Content to which you are exposed on or because of the Service.

Unless it violates some other policy, we will not remove Content for offensiveness, no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that Content to be.

As A·O·3 is one of the largest fan “archives” (fannish term of art) and a place a great many people go (or might like to) in order to consume fanworks, this kind of blithe, cheerfully dismissive stance ought to read as a clear & obvious dereliction of duty. It should come as no surprise that many people find the prospect of going to a fanspace populated with “awful, repugnant” works (works which, to be painfully clear, might suggest, threaten, or otherwise constitute bigotry, harassment, or violence towards themselves or their loved ones) to be somewhat undesirable, and that their presence has a chilling effect (to say the least) on who feels welcome and able to participate in fandom as a whole.

Of course, getting the O·T·W to actually revise this policy has thus far been about as difficult as one might imagine, considering that the O·T·W is an incredibly disorganized nonprofit run entirely by volunteers and whose board is effectively decided by personality contest with little actual meaningful organizational power besides. Fans were, through much effort (starting, in a sense, in 2020, but ongoing, in a different since, as part of an effort which has persisted since the organization’s founding), able to at least get the O·T·W to entertain the idea of hiring a Diversity Consultant (temporary; not staff) to help them fix some of their problems, although the farthest they have gotten in that respect so far (in 2023) is appointing a Diversity Consultant Research Officer (a volunteer), whose job it is to research whether or how the organization even wants a Diversity Consultant (because, evidently, they just don’t know).

The Board has been brainstorming the possibility of instating two new officer roles in the OTW: A Paid Staff Transition Officer and a Diversity Consultant Research Officer. The people in these roles would be responsible for overseeing and managing progress on both of these projects, since historically, the OTW tends to struggle to advance long-term projects due to the frequent turnover of Board members. […]

[…]

[…] the Diversity Consultant Research Officer would […] research and explore possibilities for diversity consultants and present their findings to the Board, who would then evaluate them and make a decision on how to move forward.

Avenues that we will consider and plan for addressing diversity and inclusion include:

• Contracting with an individual or organization to consult on issues of racial bias and inequality within the Organization and its projects. Options for this will be researched by a dedicated Diversity Consultant Research Officer, appointed by the Board of Directors.

The current timeline is for the (still hypothetical) Diversity Consultant’s work to be “completed” within the next five years, with an unknown percentage of that time spent actually getting them in the position. Of course, we all know that diversity work never ends, so what we really have learned is that while the O·T·W doesn’t know when they will actually be hiring someone to the job, they certainly do know when they will be firing them.

This information has been extremely difficult to extract and this schedule is obviously painfully, and unacceptably, slow.

This June will mark the three‐year anniversary of the O·T·W beginning to make some of these commitments, and consequently some fans have decided to once again raise a fuss to try and get the ball rolling a little faster. However, instead of using the usual fan tactic of being loud on blogs, social media, and the occasional board meeting, they have decided to instead go with direct action, which I think is excellent. They’re calling their movement “End O·T·W Racism” and have issued a call to action for the dates 17–31 May. In addition to the usual social media campaigning, they hope to get the issue in fans’ faces through the voluntary changing of fanwork titles to ‹ End Racism in the OTW ›—a tactic which is disruptive enough that people will definitely notice, but not so disruptive that it constitutes a T·o·S violation that A·O·3 could reasonably retaliate against.

Now, generally speaking, I am far more interested in antiracist & feminist & queer fandom existing without A·O·3 than within. As the above probably makes clear, I think that the O·T·W as an organization is inept and that the possibility of End O·T·W Racism having any of their demands met is slim‐to‐nil. Nevertheless, I whole·heartedly support this action, and I do so for the following reasons :⁠—

1. Successfully applying pressure to the O·T·W will result in one of two outcomes :⁠— ① They could show their true colours, retaliate, and demonstrate hypocrisy by refusing to give platform and voice to antiracist fans even as they continue to defend their right to give platform to the racist ones. Or, more optimistically, ② they could respond favourably with change. Both of these outcomes advance the cause, in different ways. The third outcome—the status quo—is that they continue to leave the question open and fail to make any meaningful progress, which is an invitation to apply more pressure because clearly we have not applied enough then!

2. If successful, this action could serve as a template for future feminist & queer radical actions in fandom (in addition to ongoing antiracist efforts). As a lesbian, this obviously matters to me, and I think that any lesbian who cares about lesbian fannish fiction should work in solidarity with this movement because we desperately need to learn how to organize ourselves. Even if the action is unsuccessful, it could at least serve as a warning of things to not attempt again.

3. I believe that the organizing potential that these sorts of actions provide is useful in its own right, regardless of any other result. I hope that the people running this programme are learning things and I also hope that we all are able to learn things from them. But I also think that the very fact that they have organized themselves is incredibly valuable, in that it allows these conversations to escape the informal networks of fannish social circles to which they have (mostly) been contained until now. I am certain that I have no idea who any of the people running this action are, and I am also certain that if they had simply, as a group of friends, all decided to do undertake this action on their own (without any further organizational structure or competency) I never would have even heard about it, much less be writing a blogpost on the subject. This is largely how antiracist action on A·O·3 has progressed so far (blogposts on blogs I don’t follow and author’s notes on fics I don’t read), and the movement desperately needs to escape the limits that this structurelessness has enforced. Even if this particular action is ultimately worthless in terms of its direct effects, simply by existing it provides a cultural reference point for people outside of those cliques and circles to begin to think about further organizing, which is vital.

4. Fans need to get used to seeing other fans organize politically and engage in direct, disruptive, and occasionally confrontational political action. Fans need to get used to seeing it because fans need to be doing it, and until they see it happen they won’t realize that it is a thing they even can do. The O·T·W is a nightmare in part because fans have no idea how to organize in a way which actually gets anything done. Every attempt at maybe not being quite so accommodating to active racists and fascists is seen as “anti behaviour” by some because organized harassment campaigns are so much the only form of meaningful organization that most fans encounter that they have learned to treat “organized action” and “harassment” as equivalent. This needs to change.

With respect to the action itself, as an author who publishes on A·O·3, the steps I personally will be taking (beginning 17 May) are as follows :⁠—

• I plan to set the title of nearly every fic I have published since 10 June 2020—the date of “This Week In Fandom, Volume 149”—to ‹ End Racism in the OTW ›, in solidarity. Specific exceptions will made for the following minority of works :⁠—

  • Joke fic, where the title & summary is setting up the joke. Example: In Hyrule, they don’t say “baka”.

  • Meta fic, where the title is necessary for describing the subject of the meta. Example: Zelda’s Fingers Could Conceivably Be Longer Than Link’s.

  • Fic with fictional authorship, for which changing the title would be breaking the fourth wall. Example: Strange Stories from the Surface.

  (Why make exceptions? Because these are niche works, because I don’t think leaving a few fics with their original titles will negatively impact the action, and because these are the few instances where changing the title does substantially affect the work itself and not merely how it is presented in A·O·3’s interface.)

• I will include a note explaining the previous point at the beginning of every affected fic. The following note text is planned :⁠—

  This fic, which was first published after the O·T·W’s “This Week in Fandom, Volume 149” (10 June 2020) but before the implementation of meaningful antiracist policies anywhere in the organization, has been titled ‹ End Racism in the OTW › in solidarity with the End O·T·W Racism protest | movement. You can read more about the original call to action and my personal take on it. I have no plans to further revise the title of this fic.

  For fics whose titles did not change, I am planning a slightly different note :⁠—

  This fic was orignially published after the O·T·W’s “This Week in Fandom, Volume 149” (10 June 2020) but before the implementation of meaningful antiracist policies anywhere in the organization. In solidarity with the End O·T·W Racism protest | movement, the author respectfully demands immediate action from the Organization for Transformative Works on this issue. For more, read End O·T·W Racism’s original call to action, or see my own personal take on it.

• I will maintain this policy indefinitely, until either :⁠—

  • The demands of the End O·T·W Racism call to action have been satisfied, or

  • Participation in a future action requires me to act differently, or

  • I am banned from A·O·3.

  Although the End O·T·W Racism action is currently only planned for 17–31 May, with fan·authors free to set their titles back its end, I personally feel that it is better that the historical context in which these fics were created and published not be erased. I certainly think “this fic was published during a time when the Organization for Transformative Works was grappling, largely unsuccessfully, with the racism of various fans who used its service” makes for a far juicier and more interesting title than than anything else I might come up with. If the O·T·W somehow manages to pull principled action out its arse and address these problems, perhaps at a future date I will see that history as less relevant. As things currently stand, its relevance is direct and immediate, so I don’t see any reason to scrub it off once the action completes.

I invite any other fan·authors who read this post to join me in solidarity.