2025 OTW Elections Candidates Announcement

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2025-06-23 00:47:17 UTC

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Organization for Transformative Works: Elections News: Cast Your Vote!

Candidates Announcement

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2025 Election (in alphabetical order by given name):

C. Ryan S.
Elizabeth W.
Harlan L.B.

Because we have 2 seats to be filled and 3 candidates, the 2025 election will be contested – that is, the members of the OTW will vote on which candidates fill the seats. The Elections Committee is excited to introduce the candidates to all of the members of the OTW! Included in this post are links to short Bios and Platforms written by the candidates. This post also marks the beginning of our Q&A period, during which we invite the public to submit questions for the candidates. Additionally, we will be holding a series of live chats – dates and times for those are to be announced based on candidate availability. Information on the voting period and how to vote will also be posted shortly. In the meantime, there is a timeline of Elections events available here for your reference. Read on to learn more about our candidates and how you can submit questions for them!

Platforms and Bios

We asked each candidate to provide us with a Bio that sums up their professional and fannish experience, as well as to write a Platform about their goals for their term on the Board by answering the following questions:

Why did you decide to run for election to the Board?
What skills and/or experience would you bring to the Board?
Choose one or two goals for the OTW that are important to you and that you would be interested in working on during your term. Why do you value these goals? How would you work with others to achieve them?
What is your experience with the OTW's projects and how would you collaborate with the relevant committees to support and strengthen them? Try to include a range of projects, though feel free to emphasize particular ones you have experience with.
How would you balance your Board work with other roles in the OTW, or how do you plan to hand over your current roles to focus on Board work?

You can read both the candidates' answers to these questions and their bios by following the links below.

Question & Answer (Q&A)

To better accommodate the time constraints of the election and the workload for candidates, we are asking voters to limit to one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded. Limit of three questions per person. Anyone may submit questions via the Elections form. Please submit all questions by 11:59pm UTC on June 29 (what time is that where I live?). All candidates will answer each question submitted, subject to the following restrictions:

Questions must be a maximum of 50 words long.
Any submitted questions repeating what is already addressed on Platforms will be ignored. This is to allow candidates to dedicate more time to answering new questions.
Similar questions will be grouped together to avoid candidates giving repetitive answers. Elections volunteers will decide which questions are similar enough to group.
If you have a follow-up to a Platform question, please specifically mention it is a follow-up so Elections volunteers know not to treat it as a repeat.
One question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded.
Maximum of three questions per person.

The posting date for answers will be chosen depending on the number of questions received. Posts will be spread out, arranged by topic, to make it easier for voters to read all the answers.

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Cerevox Mon 23 Jun 2025 08:30AM UTC

Looks like another low turn out vote. 2 candidates who's platforms can be summed up as "Yay otw" but with buzzwords, and 1 who straight out says they are running to make it contested. I get that board roles are important, but when almost every platform is functionally identical, year after year, it really makes the vote feel pointless.

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1. MalcontentCatboy Mon 23 Jun 2025 07:07PM UTC
  
  I think part of it is the nature of the site and the content it hosts. I don't even want people to know I have this account; attaching my real name to the organization would be an extreme decision. That's with my personal status really only making a connection to the site an inconvenience to me. There's a lot of people out there for whom it could be a financial or even legal risk. It isn't too surprising then that the pool of candidates is fairly small and mostly comes from within the organization itself.
  However, for me personally, I think that AO3 is being run pretty well. It's kind of hard to be upset about an "old guard" slate when there isn't much to be upset about. I know not everyone thinks that, but, there's always going to be people unhappy about how things are. The point is the site is accomplishing its core goal with minimal problems, so why should we really need people running on oppositional platforms? Leave that for when things hit the fan.
  It's also worth pointing out they're required to have these votes.
  
  Last Edited Mon 23 Jun 2025 07:08PM UTC
  
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2. 1. LadyShelley Mon 23 Jun 2025 09:21PM UTC
    
    It isn't too surprising then that the pool of candidates is fairly small and mostly comes from within the organization itself.
    I thought board candidates had to come from within. They had to already be a part of one committee or another to even be considered. For example, I couldn't run for the board as I'm currently not on any committees (though I have thought about it. That conflict resolution committee doesn't look that different from admin-ing fan forums, and I've done that for decades). So before I could run for the board, I would have to serve on that committee or another one first.
    
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  2. 1. MalcontentCatboy Tue 24 Jun 2025 05:57AM UTC
      
      That's an even better explanation!
      
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smookinz Tue 24 Jun 2025 07:37PM UTC

These people are NOT worthy canidates 💀

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1. ziddyzee Tue 24 Jun 2025 09:22PM UTC
  
  LMFAOOOO i love this
  
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McRuruily Wed 25 Jun 2025 05:30AM UTC

I mean…. Okay but… ok lmao stop. But ao3 is being run by good candidates, i hope…

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ziddyzee Wed 25 Jun 2025 06:11AM UTC

hi i read and summarized them all so you dont have to read allat
for c ryan s
1. running to make the election contested
2. ambiguous "many skills" from being on many different committees, dungeon master, student council, moderator of communities so just discord or reddit mod
3. bro did NOT state a goal, a general statement of "all goals are important, we should be ambitious, btw congrats team for meeting goals that werent specified or stated"
4. ok so bro does have qualification, has served on many committees, would say the best way to handle committees is listen to them and give them what they want
5. he wouldn't step back from his current committee roles and would use google calender and trello to keep up with his schedule.
for elizabeth w
1. running bc she personally believes that the otw's work is super important, that its important the otw matures, and shes now running b/c she has time and energy to dedicate to otw board
2. her skills are commercial experience("overseen multimillion dollar procurement activities, managing contracts, running financial analyses"), communication(nerd to corporate translator?), change and project management("moving financial practice from a dollar based framework to risk based thresholds"), and experience(tag wrangler since 2022, chair of board assistant team since its founding in 2023)
3. most important goals to her are organizational maturity and internationalization. to help achieve progress in organization maturity, she would start certain projects that address specific issues, and internationalization she would make non-english users would be a top priority
4. has had at least some contact with most committees, would hold regular meetings with committees, and would open doors(haha) for more board collaboration with committees
5. will give more BAT work to co chair, and reduce the fandoms that she tag wrangles for so that she can balance that w/ being a board member
for harlan l.b.
1. the otw's work is deeply important to him, so he's stepping back from some of his responsibilities to run for board
2. communication(has talked with many volunteers), budgeting(has worked in govt and business budgeting), software vendor acquisition and management
3. biggest goal is making sure the otw has resources long term, and would look at the resources currently available to make sure they are being used sustainably. would be a massive group effort.
4. has worked on the open doors committee, CSD(what does that mean), and BAT. did not mention how he would support and strengthen committees.
5. if elected, he would continue much of his work in CSD but "from the other side, turning recommendations into actions to be taken by various committees". for open doors, it's usually slow going over there so he'll be able to do his board work.
my diagnosis: elizabeth is most qualified, harlan is ok, i'd probably get banned for what i have to say about ryan. all im going to say is that in my personal opinion, he;s underqualified compared to the other candidates, and only running to make this election an election. i would suggest voting for elizabeth and harlan. ABSOLUTELY NOT RYAN. thank you

Last Edited Wed 25 Jun 2025 06:15AM UTC

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1. ChipsWithDinoNuggies Wed 25 Jun 2025 07:19AM UTC
  
  This comment describes how I feel, but laid out nicely. I would also be banned for what I want to say about Ryan, because I cannot be bothered phrasing it correctly <3
  
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2. katriesque Wed 25 Jun 2025 05:18PM UTC
  
  Ryan is clearly running as a backup candidate, but I wouldn't say anything bad about him because of that - it IS important to make sure the election is an election. There was a AO3 board candidate a couple of years ago who it turned out had run for political office as a Republican in the U.S., and another one from a couple years before that who expressed some pro-censorship stuff. So if there were only two candidates running for the two open seats, then both of them would be guaranteed to get on the Board even if it turned out that one of them was really bad for some reason. By having a backup candidate like Ryan run, it means that if it turns out that one of the other two candidates is unacceptable for whatever reason, voters will have the option to make sure the unacceptable person doesn't get in.
  So basically: don't vote for Ryan, because Ryan doesn't WANT anybody to vote for him, which is why his candidacy statement is intentionally mid; he thinks he's doing more useful things in his current role at AO3 than he would be on the Board...unless, at some point between now and the election, one of the other two candidates says or does something that makes them an unacceptable choice, in which case he's available as an adequate fallback option.
  
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3. 1. NeaPoulain Wed 25 Jun 2025 07:17PM UTC
    
    ☝🏼☝🏼 This is my general feeling. We need contested elections in the otw even if we have Ryans in them.
    Hopefully we could have contested elections with no backup candidate... but. I'll take this.
    
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  2. razielim Thu 26 Jun 2025 06:04PM UTC
    
    +1 Ryan's not doing anything wrong.
    
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  3. ziddyzee Thu 26 Jun 2025 08:58PM UTC
    
    ohhh i wasnt aware of that, thank you for explaining!
    
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  4. lycillis_jalcity_rouge Fri 27 Jun 2025 02:32PM UTC
    
    Yes Yes Yes
    
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4. Asophogus (seasystem) Wed 25 Jun 2025 05:27PM UTC
  
  additional notes
  ryan: linked to goals from 2018 that got done, includes establishing the OTW newsletter and tableing at more conventions
  harlan: CSD stands for cybersecurity delegate, as in the one in charge of the cybersecurity audit from the strategic plan. that report was finished in march 2025 and is currently being actioned.
  I've never heard of any of these people besides knowing there even was a cybersecurity delegate (because I follow along with the strategic plan god I love roadmaps), but I also would not vote for the candidate openly saying he's only running to make it contested. kudos to him anyway for bothering to make it contested cause otherwize absolutely no one would bother paying attention to who's getting elected or what any of them are saying lol.
  
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5. Insomniosa Thu 26 Jun 2025 05:26AM UTC
  
  lmao thanks for the summary
  elizabeth seems to be the one with a clear trajectory
  
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6. LordiTheRailgun Thu 26 Jun 2025 06:01AM UTC
  
  It's worth noting similar concerns were raised regarding C Ryan S' participation during the last election. I'm not sure what to feel about the fact that little has changed but suppose one can only admire the gusto and consistency.
  Harlan and Elizabeth W(in) though seem like great choices indeed.
  
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soulmatedulce Wed 25 Jun 2025 12:18PM UTC

Elizabeth ✨

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NeaPoulain Wed 25 Jun 2025 07:19PM UTC

I'm glad someone is talking about internationalisation, we've been desperately need the otw to put focus on people that do not speak English as it's first language.
The loss we've had in Spanish fandoms because this was never prioritized from the beginning was terrible. I'm glad to see it's being mentioned ❤️

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1. MalcontentCatboy Thu 26 Jun 2025 03:25AM UTC
  
  It's always been odd to me the site only really supports English when the list of languages for works is so excessively long. I guess it's easy to add an entry to a list, but string tables aren't that hard to implement, either.
  
  Last Edited Thu 26 Jun 2025 03:26AM UTC
  
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2. 1. NeaPoulain Thu 26 Jun 2025 03:31AM UTC
    
    I know that technically it can be a challenge and done without care can end up in very funny mistranslations, so I'm very happy they take their time as long as they do it (:
    
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fruitythread Thu 26 Jun 2025 01:11PM UTC

do you know what ojamajo doremi is? any form of no and i dont vote for you

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JaneBuzJane Thu 26 Jun 2025 01:41PM UTC

After reading the bios of these candidates, the goals seem really abstract. I am torn between if that's a good thing or a bad thing - like it's good to have high level goals, but none of these candidates list the concrete steps they'd take to achieve them.

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Just_A_Young_Writer Thu 26 Jun 2025 02:29PM UTC

Well, I think it's quite obvious who will win this election, but we'll have to wait and see.

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lycillis_jalcity_rouge Fri 27 Jun 2025 03:05PM UTC

Question no. 1: How will you apply your commercial experience to Ao3?

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1. OTW_Elections (Official) Fri 27 Jun 2025 07:43PM UTC
  
  Hi lycillis_jalcity_rouge,
  Please be aware that Q&A questions can only be accepted through the Elections Contact form.
  If you would like to submit your question to the Candidate Q&A, please send it to us via that form.
  Thanks for your interest in the Q&A,
  Marion
  Elections
  
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lycillis_jalcity_rouge Fri 27 Jun 2025 03:07PM UTC

Question no. 2: If you could make sure that one (1) goal would be 100% accomplished during your time in office, what would it be?
(Ignoring, of course, that goals take time to complete---you would just snap your fingers, basically, and it'd be completed.)

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1. OTW_Elections (Official) Fri 27 Jun 2025 07:43PM UTC
  
  Hi lycillis_jalcity_rouge,
  Please be aware that Q&A questions can only be accepted through the Elections Contact form.
  If you would like to submit your question to the Candidate Q&A, please send it to us via that form.
  Thanks again for your interest in the Q&A,
  Marion
  Elections
  
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