Hi facetofcathy, Claudia from Communications here. I've drafted the last few months of the external newsletter so I wanted to address your suggestions.
You have a good point about the difficulty of keeping straight the responsibilities of our multiplicity of committees and workgroups. I think it's quite true that even OTW volunteers and staff aren't always clear on what each of them does, or to realize that all of them exist. I think this alone makes all of us more appreciative of the work that our Volunteers & Recruitment Committee does!
We've been making an effort to shorten the external newsletter and, I hope, make it a little less dry than a roll call of committee reports. As we have 24 of these groups at the present time though, explaining the purview of each group along with a line or two about their doings in a given month would be counterproductive to that goal.
In addition, the equation of a committee with its project is a bit problematic. It is clearer, of course, in the case of the AO3 since it has a multiplicity of committees connected to it. Our Journal Committee also does more than Transformative Works and Cultures, as evidenced in this month's blurb. And while the Wiki Committee's responsibility is the growth and care of Fanlore, its new forum project is an example of how it may become involved in wider OTW projects, even if they begin by being connected to Fanlore. What's more the Wiki Committee is careful about acknowledging the contributions of its editors, but those individuals are not on the committee itself, so equating the few people on the Wiki Committee with all of Fanlore is a bit of a disservice to them.
I think that in recent newsletters there has been a clearer connection between Wiki and Fanlore, as in last month's blurb "The Wiki Committee is still working together with Systems to install new anti-spam solutions. Fanlore is now using ReCaptcha" and the past three months before that discussing Wiki under the header "Fanlore and TWC". Indeed, I would quibble that one would need to be much more of an insider about the OTW to realize that it has an internal documentation wiki than to confuse the connection of the Wiki Committee to the Fanlore project. And the OTW already has an internal newsletter, circulated to those volunteers and staff in advance of this one each month. This external newsletter is intended for people not inside the organization, and as of late we have been trying to make it more a of a "one-stop update" about org news for those who prefer to have less content from us.
Nevertheless your point is well taken about a guide to committee functions. In future newsletters we will link to the committees page on our website for easier reference. (The mission of Abuse is stated there as "Handles abuse functions for the Archive of Our Own, such as complaints and Terms of Service violations.") In this way, people new to reading the newsletters will have a glossary guide, but those who are regular readers of the newsletter will not have to wade through committee explanations each time.
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You have a good point about the difficulty of keeping straight the responsibilities of our multiplicity of committees and workgroups. I think it's quite true that even OTW volunteers and staff aren't always clear on what each of them does, or to realize that all of them exist. I think this alone makes all of us more appreciative of the work that our Volunteers & Recruitment Committee does!
We've been making an effort to shorten the external newsletter and, I hope, make it a little less dry than a roll call of committee reports. As we have 24 of these groups at the present time though, explaining the purview of each group along with a line or two about their doings in a given month would be counterproductive to that goal.
In addition, the equation of a committee with its project is a bit problematic. It is clearer, of course, in the case of the AO3 since it has a multiplicity of committees connected to it. Our Journal Committee also does more than Transformative Works and Cultures, as evidenced in this month's blurb. And while the Wiki Committee's responsibility is the growth and care of Fanlore, its new forum project is an example of how it may become involved in wider OTW projects, even if they begin by being connected to Fanlore. What's more the Wiki Committee is careful about acknowledging the contributions of its editors, but those individuals are not on the committee itself, so equating the few people on the Wiki Committee with all of Fanlore is a bit of a disservice to them.
I think that in recent newsletters there has been a clearer connection between Wiki and Fanlore, as in last month's blurb "The Wiki Committee is still working together with Systems to install new anti-spam solutions. Fanlore is now using ReCaptcha" and the past three months before that discussing Wiki under the header "Fanlore and TWC". Indeed, I would quibble that one would need to be much more of an insider about the OTW to realize that it has an internal documentation wiki than to confuse the connection of the Wiki Committee to the Fanlore project. And the OTW already has an internal newsletter, circulated to those volunteers and staff in advance of this one each month. This external newsletter is intended for people not inside the organization, and as of late we have been trying to make it more a of a "one-stop update" about org news for those who prefer to have less content from us.
Nevertheless your point is well taken about a guide to committee functions. In future newsletters we will link to the committees page on our website for easier reference. (The mission of Abuse is stated there as "Handles abuse functions for the Archive of Our Own, such as complaints and Terms of Service violations.") In this way, people new to reading the newsletters will have a glossary guide, but those who are regular readers of the newsletter will not have to wade through committee explanations each time.