The entire OTW Board just resigned

[schneefink]

Good things first: The NY Riveters won their second game against Boston! They were horribly outshot, but Nana Fujimoto was magic in goal. Apparently they are copying the Rangers' strategy. It's not sustainable in the long term, but the NWHL season is shorter... The Pride are playing very well.

Now... okay, I don't even know how to classify what just happened. I was almost done writing a post about the complete and utter bullshit that were the most recent decisions of the OTW Board, in which I expressed my confidence that the situation would get resolved. (I'd heard people complaining about the Board, but I honestly hadn't realized it was this bad.) Then, a few minutes ago, maybe three hours after the initial clusterfuck, the whole OTW Board resigned. Holy shit. The only appropriate reaction, but I did not expect it to happen this fast.

We still have two Board members - the two elected in the last election who were not yet voting-eligible - and now... I guess there will have to be a new election? I feel so sorry for the Election committee, they are already exhausted.

More info on Tumblr, Twitter, ff_a and other places. I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but wow would I have missed things, so probably not quite now yet. I wonder what I'll wake up to tomorrow. Staffers who haven't been online the past few hours will get quite a shock.

Comments

[snickfic]

I just saw the OTW news! I am watching the updates on ffa, and I am just agog. WTAF??!? But I'm also seeing some optimism that this will be a change for the better for the OTW. Here's hoping.

[schneefink]

I was in the public discussion chat room when staffers got the resignation email. I could barely believe it at first.
But yes, I do think it's a chance for improvement! We had excellent candidates in this year's election, that's a very good start.

[gaffsie]

I had no idea things were so dire at the OTW. O_o

[schneefink]

Me either! My committee doesn't work with the Board much, but I'm pretty sure nobody expected this.

[frith_in_thorns]

I mean. Wow.

[schneefink]

Yup. That... happened.

[arduinna]

My bet is that the newly elected Board members decide to bring on the other three candidates who ran in the election, so they'll have 5 total who have already made the mental commitment to the job, and who specifically wanted to work to make changes in the org.

This could turn out to be a seriously good thing.

[schneefink]

That would be the easiest way to do. But since the old Board just resigned over appointing a Board member that was not elected, I'm not sure if that's ideal. (Even if you actually respect the order of how many votes each candidate got, that means less if you appoint all of them.) Maybe they'll appoint the one who came third for a full term and the other two for half a term/until they can hold the next elections?
So much cake for Elections.

[vicki_rae]

Wow. Just. Wow.

The board's realization of how pissed people really were might have been triggered by the volunteer who requested a "vote of no confidence" general meeting.

The 5th place candidate received 2.89 times more votes than the 6th place candidate, Andrea, who the board then reappointed to a suddenly vacant seat.

I mean, really, who could have predicted that people would be upset when the board voted back in the candidate who was dead last by a landslide in the just held election.

[schneefink]

Right? What a strange thing for people to be upset over! Idk what they were thinking.

The more cynical part of me thinks the only reason the Board actually stepped down was because several people absolutely crucial to the continued survival of the org threatened to resign if they did not.

[beatrice_otter]

Yeah, but from what I know of the board, they think they are the only ones absolutely crucial to the continued survival of the org, with the various staffers/volunteers/committees as the people they need to Save The Org From.

[schneefink]

That must be what they were thinking, to explain their behaviour, but it's absolutely baffling to me how they could come to that conclusion. They must have been pretty far removed from the day-to-day committee work.

[alchemise]

I've been making this face a lot tonight: o.O O.o

[schneefink]

Same. A fellow staffer was away from the internet for the past few days and just came online a few hours ago, I can only imagine their face when seeing the news.

[yuuago]

... What even.

"Holy shit" definitely seems like the most suitable reaction, here.

[schneefink]

I found out about the first part of it about half an hour after Andrea's appointment, but couldn't write about it because all that came to mind were swear words.

[dhampyresa]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

WHAT THE HELL

[schneefink]

Exactly.

[myrdschaem]

I stayed up late and flipped my shit on tumblr when this went down, but again, what the fuck even. I mean, I'm glad that the board did resign (though I think the theories on ffa about them figuring they will be caalled back to help are not entirely unlikely speculations.)

The two remaining member will have their hands full thanks to this, but I hope this time they can make the steps to get more professional and transparent. I think I'll try to keep more uptodate with the otw inner workings this time though!

[schneefink]

I still haven't figured out how best to use Tumblr for updates. The tracked tag shows only new posts but not what others add, so you're reliant on what others reblog, doesn't seem very reliable. But maybe there are better ways.

I'm really pretty sure the old Board won't come back (unless they're voted back in in a membership election, which seems unlikely.) They resigned effective December 15, so they still have about three weeks to pass on their knowledge.

I'm planning to pay more attention too, let's see how that goes.

[myrdschaem]

Yeah, I doubt anyone will want them back, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on in their heads. I mean. Anyway, good riddance to them. :)

I think for tumblr to get you updates you a) have to find people you like as your follows - if they're interested in topics or have diverse interests, yu get new information. And for general updates, I think tumblrs that collect stuff are good. I think for otw, there was one that was called unofficial otw election or similiar? So they reblog recipes, commentary and answers. And they're going to be alot faster on that because as a themed blog they have more followers, who can also alert them when stuff happens. I think these kind of blogs, if properly run, are not a bad idea to look into.

[schneefink]

I got it wrong: I know how to use Tumblr for updates, but not how to find the discussions. It's always about following the right people, and if it's a new topic you first have to figure out who that is. I prefer places like ffa for things like that.

[myrdschaem]

Ah, sorry! Yeah, ffa is probably good for that as an open discussionspace. Finding it on tumblr is hard... Either you get lucky or you have to start the discussion, which is not easy honestly. But I think that would be similiar to LJ? Outside of big communal spaces I wouldn't have known how to find discussions. But I was also only a lurker, so that might be my fault.

[schneefink]

On LJ you had communities, and if the discussions weren't happening there you could at least find the people who would probably be involved. DW has less of that, which is a shame, but at least the site search works better than Tumblr's and I use it a lot in cases like this.

[myrdschaem]

How would you do that? Look at the subscribers or search for people with that at their interest? I honestly have no clue, please enlighten me to your journal-wise fandom ways!

[schneefink]

I don't use LJ much anymore, so I don't know how it looks there. On DW, you could search by interest but in my experience interest don't always tend to be complete or up to date. What I do is I go to "home" and then search, either directly by "Search Dreamwidth" or via Explore -> Site and Journal search. I find it very useful.