because sometimes that's what's needed. mental vacation.

( i therefore present an experiment in inanity: me. rambling for OVER AN HOUR. (significantly over an hour.) )

i made sure to talk about brands as a shout-out to plumnoir.tumblr.com and any haters she may smack down in the future. <3

originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/673027.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:

i am about to pass out, seriously. and i promised myself i would make an endorsement post. i am really really not going to make any real sense tonight, though, so it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. it's a 48 hour voting period! there's time!

i actually don't know who i'm voting for, anyway. :p well, i sort of do. i'm definitely going to vote for jenny scott-thompson, who i think has a real drive to make things right, and welcoming, and accessible; nikisha sanders, who (despite the characterizations) goes out of her way to listen to people and ask them what they need, want, and hope for the org, and knows how we can get there; and julia beck, who is my oldest non-webmaster friend in the otw, and is committed to diversity and all the myriad voices who wish to speak.

i just don't know if i'll rank anyone beyond those three. i need to re-read and do a bit more research before i decide if i want to add betsy rosenblatt to the mix. i am completely unfamiliar with her; i have never worked with her, and i don't know anyone who has worked with her who i can ask (who isn't attached to the legal committee). i am cautiously optimistic, but despite, you know, transcribing all the damn chats, i haven't had time to read them in a thinky way. er, except for the bits that made me go 0_o, which i think weren't her? but obviously, i need to actually check.

okay, seriously, my eyes won't stay open.

(ps okay, so usually i know who i'm voting for well ahead of time? so this is weird? in govt elections i vote for two, because mattcallow isn't eligible to vote in those, and that means i have extra responsibility to spend my votes wisely or whatever. but not this time. also, last night he said "hmmmm. maybe you should just cast my vote for me." (yeah, he's a member. after saying our household already donated enough of my time or something, then he joined anyway.) anyway, i was all "OMGWTFBBQ NO NO THAT IS WRONG AND BAD IT'S YOUR VOTE DON'T USE IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BUT HOW COULD YOU EVEN SUGGEST THAT I WANT A DIVORCE. AND ALSO NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN." anyway i don't remember what happened after that. yesterday? what is yesterday? what is time.)(wow that anecdote was less pointless when i was thinking of including it in this post sixteen hours ago. maybe there was a punchline? idk.)

originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/672867.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:

so. this is a post made partly from a chat i had with someone the other night. i was sad and dispirited! it is my usual mode, lately. in any case, it doesn't actually take a whole lot of poking to get me to go all "yeah yeah wait let's not focus on the personal thoughts or emotions or whatever, let me find my FLAMING SWORD OF JUSTICE" (nb i really only use my flaming sword of justice to soapbox a bit. possibly it is in actuality my FLAMING SOAPBOX OF JUSTICE. anyway. also i tend to only use it in small groups, and not generally as weaponry. though it's actually got some specific opinions this time, rather than just vague rallying. whatevs.)

anyway. the next day she (the person i was chatting with) emailed me the cleaned up text of our chat, specifically the swordy bits, under the subject line: "You are going to post this". which is why it includes proper capitalization (fyi). also why it is more hortatory and less structured.

so. a tiny preface. i have been otw staff for four years. i was a chair in my second term, a board member in my third term, board president in this, my fourth term. i love the otw, desperately. but i'm out. i let the board know in september that i am resigning my seat as of the end of the term; i am also leaving all other roles, entirely. that's...well. it makes me more than a little heartsick. this, in many ways, is the best job i have ever had. i've worked with an amazing, breathtaking assembly of people, across roles - volunteers, enthused supporters, staff, board members. it's been a tremendous honor. i spent much of the year telling myself that i could not walk away honorably because i had asked people to donate both money and time, and i asked them for those things on the strength of my belief in the org, and my belief that it was for them, for all of us -- and that i have a responsibility to them to make sure that the org they believe in is reality, or becomes reality. but then i had a bit of a revelation. there was a conflict, and i realized two things: (1) i cannot effect that change, that transformation. i am too conflict averse, too unwilling to assert, and at this point, everything i put forward, no matter what, is unacceptable not on its own merits or lack thereof, but because it comes from me. (i tested this recently! oh the lols when i saw that a different voice meant that a suggestion was laudable rather than evil. well. my internal, depressed lols.) (2) i am just going to further destroy my health, my career, and my personal life if i stay, to no end. i'll throw myself on your damn grenade any day of the week; but not if it is entirely in vain.

the otw, staff, volunteers, and board, is crammed with wonderful, amazing, inspiring people. you probably wouldn't recognize their names. i've been in arguments with some, some have made me cry, some have made me roll my eyes. they're almost entirely people i would happily do anything for. i've mentored a whole bunch of them, which has been -- well. that alone was worth the price of admission. i will always be grateful for that.

and. i am working on a post specifically about the election, and who i think will be amazing on the board, and why. i hope to have the spoons. people already on the board who are amazing? kristen murphy and ira gladkova. people leaving who have been amazing? hele braunstein and sheila lane. thank you. thank you for our disagreements and long talks and for your passion. (i also was going to make a post about non-board amazingness, but that will need to wait. this is wordy enough.)

and finally: my philosophy (some of it): (1) ymmv, more voices more better, there is no such thing as one true pov, and you cannot generalize the specific onto the other specific; (2) you cannot have responsibility without authority *or* authority without responsibility, both are toxic.

I want us to build a better world, one that has space for us and recognizes our worth, and I think the OTW is part of that. I think it's a means to that end, one of many, hopefully, but that's part of what upsets me when I hear Francesca Coppa & Naomi Novik say it's only about the archive. It should be about all of us (equally) having a voice in our own culture, not being erased, not being belittled, knowing that we have value, and knowing that we have a heritage. That's why I joined. The archive is one of many pieces of evidence for that larger fight; it's a platform for legal battles, preserving our work while we stand to defend our own thoughts and their validity.

Francesca Coppa and Naomi Novik talk a bit against top-down culture, but then they turn around and defend it, pander to it, because they, they specifically, have spots to preserve. But I want all of us to have equal voice in legal fights, testimony, whatever. Sure, we need the big names to be there, but that isn't all of it. You need the little voices, too. We need to show that it isn't one woman or five friends, but thousands worldwide, maybe more, and we engage, we think, we create. That's the insides of our brains. That's what we do while working third shift or doing data entry or driving our commutes or talking with friends or reading a magazine. We are in conversation with the world. We are NOT passive in that: CONversation, WITH -- and advertising, arts, events, books, movies, TV, comics, all of it, we interact with it. We aren't just consuming. We are never passive. We're thinking, musing, exploring, joking, discussing, wanting, mocking, hating, and loving. All these are 1:1 acts, not top down. It shouldn't be about maintaining the visibility of a few individuals and having an archive. We're not passive, and trying to build an org to communicate that 1:1 experience on top-down principles is doomed -- not as an organization per se, but in carrying out the mission as currently stated.

I'm not letting Walt Disney tell me what to think; why would I let anyone else? If the org, as individuals and as a group, can step forward to talk as an equal, to ask, and to find common ways we can work together to achieve a common aim, then yes, this is our answer. That is the power and potential of the OTW. But I cannot deal any longer with an org that echoes the very thing we are fighting.

originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/672594.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:

okay, so, i haven't had time for...at least the past month (or two? idek) to read lj/dw or even think about posting, though happily people have occasionally shoved links to posts at me and i've read those? someday, man, someday soon, i will actually have time to do wacky things like read posts by my friends and get a haircut and finally unpack the stuff that is randomly crammed in the garage and finish repairing the closet door. maybe.

anyway. right now i am working on all the otw election stuffs, srsly. well, not all, because i am...not the elections officer yay! which means none of the braining part has anything to do with me, just the documenting and pushing buttons and helping with testing, etc. which is sort of the bit i like, anyway. (the rest, tbh, stresses me the fuck out. it stressed me the fuck out last year, so that's neither unexpected nor new. i take shit seriously! ethics, man. fairness! anyway. so i get a little anxious about being extra careful, and -- well, i'm a pretty anxious person to start with.)

erm, that's all neither here nor there, except part of what i am furiously working on is an explanation of how the voting process actually works! because it is confusing! and awesome. but i personally can't explain it without like 17 trillion words. or just a link to wikipedia. we use a modified irv process. that's preferential voting! it's awesome, you really don't have to ever vote *against* a candidate, only *for* them! and i hear it's near-impossible to game, which...i am not a mathematician, so i couldn't have done that anyway (i don't really know what "game" means here, but someone smart told me that and so i am saying it too. shenanigans are shenanigans, right). and the actual process is crammed with checks and balances, which also helps, imo -- because it means we can all be confident in the process itself, removing at least one stress element.

anyway. in pursuit of explaining the process, i have asked people who can actually do graphic things to make happy charts. and one is nearly through beta! and the other is still in the works! and i expect that they will make an awesome, hopefully helpful post on transformativeworks.org by monday! i have handed people who have braining-type spoons available my 17 trillion rambly words and begged them to make sense of them. and then anatsuno mused about how she had to work out how the process worked on a piece of paper and i was all GPOY!!!!1!1!!!!1!!!! and tried to talk about it with her and...failed again, stupid words.

so. i made a HUGELY oversimplified set of graphics that kind of get it across. they may or may not later make an official appearance, but that remains to be seen. if you have concrit or questions, i welcome ways to make it better (that don't require, like, skill.)

i will also be editing this post tonight and tomorrow to make the images accessible - i also welcome suggestions for alt text. i am running out of steam and want to get this out now while i still potentially have time to workshop it a bit. <3

( the otw uses a modified version of instant runoff voting )

okay. massive thanks to via_ostiense and anatsuno for visual and text beta.

/collapses, crawls back in hole.

ps this is not an official post, etc etc, my name is allison morris and i'm on the otw board, etc etc more, i speak for me here, not anybody else, as per usual, there you go. disfuckingclaimed. :D expect official post later and brainier and with more capitalization/fewer !!!

originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/672452.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:

so. i have some thoughts on podfic reading, and if i don't just throw them out there, i'm going to stew over them forever, just like my thoughts on all sorts of other things that are important to me. things that i have both strong political beliefs about, and emotional responses to. subjects where those external beliefs and internal responses are in conflict. (for the record, many of my emotional responses have to do with shame, fear, anxiety, belief that i shouldn't take pride in things/be arrogant, should just let other, better, smarter, prettier, more talented people do their thing. i'm not looking for reassurances here, i already know that's bullshit.)

so here is some emotion, and some philosophy, and we'll see if it makes any sense.

( this got long. whoops? )

originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/642493.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:

expanded notes from writercon podfic program:

(looking at this now, i can see why i went over my time limit. a lot. but it was all scrawled out on paper until now, and apparently i cannot judge the scope of notes when they are in ballpoint. this is mostly just the skeletal bulletpoints i was speaking from, with the links i promised. hopefully i haven't forgotten any. where my notes had no chance of making sense to anyone but me, i made them sentencey and expounded.)

( Read more... )

iwas traveling all day today, from 7 am until the train rolled in at midnight. crikey. /collapses.

okay, so: i'm at writercon. which--well, i know this is like a theme of my life, but i expected to get more of the things i need to get done over the last 36 hours (in airports, on planes, yesterday afternoon, late last night) completed. or at least started.

had my first panel, this morning at 10, after too little sleep (up most of the night, slumber-party style, talking with cathexys) and a hurried (but very pleasant) breakfast with nwhepcat and gwynnega and a lovely woman who we invited over from another table but it was before noon and i've already managed to totally space out on her name. sorry!

anyway, i was on a panel about adjectives (value, use, and overuse). which was fun, though i had a disproportionate attack of nerves ahead of time. am on a gen fic panel this afternoon, and i feel far more secure about what i have to say on that topic, so.


anyway, this post is one of the things i meant to get done yesterday. the dvd_commentary challenge is about to start! tomorrow! i am co-modding again this year with seperis, and she brings the details here. it's a long interactive discussion with a favorite story--ridiculously rewarding to do.

and, of course, just like when i posted last year (did i post about this last year? was it the year before? i can't find it. where does the freaking time go? (whoops, found it. last year i mostly just referred to the previous year, when i was wordy)), i would really like to take the opportunity to talk about secondary fanworks, fanworks about fanworks! and that post STILL isn't ready. seriously, it is not going to be another year before that sees the light of day--hopefully it won't even be another week.

but one thing i want to make sure i get out right now is: transformation policies on fanworks. every time i gear up for one of these things, anything to do particularly with secondary fanworks, i take a moment (or many moments) to bemoan the cold-call situation of approaching authors to ask permission to podfic, or write a commentary. and i know from experience that there are a lot of authors who would *love* to be podficced (or whatever), but aren't, because the potential reader is too nervous to email them out of the blue. lots of authors have open transformation policies on their websites, and hey! funnily enough, if you've ever wondered why astolat or resonant or auburn (or many other writers) are often podficced/commented on/remixed/etc? well, that's why. stating you are open to further transformative use of your work removes a huge barrier to that use--it's scary to approach someone out of the blue to ask permission, and it also creates a commitment that may be too much for people who are (a) overcommitted, or (b) new to the form.

so the idea comes up, every time i get into this situation/have these discussions, that it would be awesome if there was such a thing as a central list of the people who are pro-further-transformation--but. no. this is a logistical impossibility. people have tried! there are lists. many, many short lists that are in no way trackable or particularly findable.

usually, transformation policies are statements on fan lj profiles or on their personal websites. i don't have a transformation policy on my lj profile because (for the most part) this isn't actually where i post my work. and unless you are already familiar with an author's work, you aren't going to know her website, if she has one--and if you already know her website, then you probably already know her transformative policy. this is backward, the opposite of a list. i don't have a solution to this, or rather, i have ideas, but the infrastructure isn't there yet, so.

my current semi-solution? more places where we are going anyway where we can put our blanket transformation permissions if that's how we roll--making it it easier for potential podficcers/commenters/artists/remixers to find you as an attractive source to honor that way. so i'm proposing two additional places, one for now, one for later: fanlore user pages, and aooo author profiles. anyone can create a fanlore account, and it's a great place to search for this kind of information, and only the user can edit their user page. mine's here, with my transformation statement now included. the archive of our own is still in closed beta, but, as a stable non-commercial multifandom archive, when it does go into open beta (in october! (probably!)) it brings together both the place where the fic is (if you choose to use it) and that statement. my profile is here, also now with statement included.


what i'm really saying here: if you like being podficced, remixed, commentaried, whatever, or you *want* to be podficced or whatever, then here's a way to not have to raise your hand every time, and to take a proactive step to encourage it.

please pardon my inability to write with logic or continuity. sigh. this is why i can't get that damn secondary fanworks post out--it's crammed with stuff like this. :/

happy things today:

- milestone cask porter. oh man, seriously. except it should come in halves only rather than full pints, because half-way through, i've stopped registering most of the deliciousness. not that what's left isn't fantastic, just that if i had to stop to order another, maybe the break would be helpful.

- a spanish-language podfic community!!! i am over the moon. with any luck, this means the archive will manage to have offerings in three languages! (though this does remind me about my sadly spotty success archiving the cache of finnish podfics. it may be time to try again.)

- one of my staff members got a promotion! i am so proud i could bust, honestly.

- i'm starting to actually make progress on my massive podfic-editing backlog. slowly but surely.

- crossposting is a go, i hear. this would be a test post.

- success! testing an edit, and an icon change.

forward-looking:

i got my wiscon schedule.

Gadgets: Then, Now and When - Cyberpunk and steampunk are alluring gadget-heavy genres: what roles do gadgets and their inventors play in characterization and world-building? What gadgets exist that we never dreamt we'd see, and which do we think we may see within our lifetimes? What are the fictional gadgets we wish really existed? Which real gadgets can't we live without, and which do we take for granted? (raz0rgirl proposed this one.

Robots from the future (and the past) - Man-made beings have been a favorite science fiction theme since Frankenstein. In the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, earlier representations of robots and cyborgs are updated for the twenty-first century, and they frequently appear as female figures. As robot apocalypse narratives shift focus from oversized metal horrors to sympathetic and/or devious human simulacra linked by wireless networks, what anxieties about the way we understand the human are being worked through in these shows and other cyborg-centric futures? What histories and (science) fictions do they invoke? And what do these narratives signify when it comes to gender, race, and class? (i believe this was ms futuransky's proposal)

Adapt, Revise, Revisit: When is a Copy Not the Source? - What constitutes an adaptation, and how is that different from a remake? At what point is something new created? Where within the tradition of reinterpretation do new visionings break away from their predecessors as independent works? What role does viewer or reader expectation play? Why does a new work keep the same name as the previous iteration if they are otherwise very different? How much does capitalism play a role when a "property" is owned by a corporation? We'll look at recent film and television remakes, as well as plays, novels, short stories, comics, and other works that have been adapted into new formats, to consider these questions. (raz0rgirl and i co-wrote this one, and i'm moderating.)

and my paper! appears to be part of a presentation called Technological and Supernatural Identity Construction. possibly. i mean, i can't really read that part, but maybe. my abstract:

Reflected Self, Refracted Identities: The Meanings Of Multiplicity - Speculative fiction allows for duplication of the self by faithfully copying the body, allowing multiple iterations of a character to interact and potentially enter into competition with each other. The duplication trope reflects enduring interest in issues of identity, validity of experience, and what it means to be unique. Is a duplicate an inherent threat to the original? How long does a perfect copy remain identical as experiences diverge? Can copies be allowed an identity beyond that of the original, and can they coexist? This paper will examine contemporary television, focusing on Battlestar Galactica (2003), Stargate: Atlantis, and Farscape.

so. there's that.

looking back:

so. pca/aca. jam-packed, that was. i mean, i hate to be a grind and all, but i never get to go to actual *productive*, thinky conferences - not that (public) library conferences don't have the occasional really good session, and i will happily admit that i get a lot out of even the poor sessions, but they aren't as great with the thinkyness. i mean, they're more top-down: here's what our library did - the end. take the tools you can and apply them as you may. like i said, maybe it's because i don't have anything at stake in an academic conference - i am not going to have to come home and quantify what i got out of it or risk losing the ability to network. anyway. my point is, i begrudged every hour i spent not in a session, when a session was going on. (though every session i missed was due to my own hangover decision, and i made a conscious choice every time.)

( what i attended, and other details of the trip )

see, this is why posting is hard. i save up too much and have to type for sixteen damn hours. and the result is not exactly riveting. but at least if i get amnesia, now i'll know what i did last wednesday and thursday.

(manually xposted from dreamwidth. i will be very pleased when i can do this with a tickybox.)

okay, today is crazy enough that i'm making a blanket info post: anyone who says they want a dreamwidth invite, i'll keep a list. in the meantime - i strongly suggest you head over there, log in with your openid, and validate the email address attached to it - that will enter you in a lottery for an invite. it also means that if you have not acquired an invite when open beta hits (april 30), you will get an invite then.

and another piece of advice, since i managed to figure this out, but i pieced it together from a number of sources - if you get in during closed beta, and want to import your lj:

- go to http://www.dreamwidth.org/misc/beta.bml and upgrade your account to premium paid or seed. this will open icon spaces. it will revert to basic when open beta hits, but that doesn't matter right now.

- then go to http://www.dreamwidth.org/misc/import.bml to import. the icons and tags will import fast; entries may churn along for a little while; comments took hours. but it worked really well for me.

- your best bet is to *not* upload icons before you import. import your lj icons, then add more. it seems like it might cause odd behavior.

- themes: there are only two right now, as the system isn't finished. you *can* import an lj style (legitimately if it's open source - the lj style i use is proprietary) if you like. there's a whole fidgety process. i decided it wasn't worth importing one and messing with it, and am going to wait for the new system to roll out. but i *did* modify the colors of the default theme, which was easy - instructions are here.

( list of people i will give codes to, when/if i get them )