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A lot of people showed up to the OTW board meeting today (several times the attendance they've ever had) and they were not prepared. A number of people have writeups, here's one with links to other writeups.
I'm actually not writing about the meeting itself but about the problems the day before (Saturday) in the Help channel of that server which have since been deleted. (Regular deletion of that channel is a pre-existing policy which was stated in the channel header beforehand, this is not something they decided after-the-fact. That channel is (supposed to be) for quick technical questions only.) Here's my memory of what happened. I don't remember names.
A user asked if they could add the Pluralkit bot to the server as an accessibility tool. Pluralkit is a Discord bot that makes it easier for users who are systems to show which person in their system is speaking at any given time. Someone else objected because you can't block people with Pluralkit, and they need the ability to block for their own mental health. Someone official (I forget who) said that they wouldn't be adding Pluralkit because it evades blocks, and asked if there was any other bot or process that would provide the same functionality while still leaving the user blockable.
At this point, I shifted my attention to another server that has people who are systems, and asked if anybody could recommend an alternative to Pluralkit. Nobody had an alternative that worked better, and also explained why Pluralkit doesn't allow people to be blocked. Messages posted using Pluralkit are not, from a backend point of view, posted by your account; they are posted using other forms of metadata called webhooks. Therefore, if someone blocks your account/username, it does not block any message you (or any member of your system) sends using Pluralkit because Discord's back end doesn't know it's from your account. Because of this, anyone using Pluralkit cannot be blocked by anyone for any reason. This is a problem for both moderating and for other users, some of whom need the ability to block people for their own mental health. (For example, if you have idiosyncratic triggers and don't want to have to explain your trauma to get people to spoiler mention of things that nobody but you would ever think of as a trigger--it's easier just to block people who talk about that a lot than to explain things.)
After getting this explanation and talking about some other stuff, I went back to the OTW channel and found that there had been a LOT of discussion on the issue in the meantime, some heated and some not. There were several people, for example, who misunderstood the problem, and thought that Pluralkit allowed bad-faith users to evade blocks, and argued that since bad-faith users can use a lot of other tools (such as making new accounts) to evade blocks, that Pluralkit should not be singled out like that. (In fact, a Pluralkit user does not need to evade blocks; even the best faith Pluralkit user can't be blocked, because of the way it works.) There were reciprocal accusations of ableism from both the people asking for pluralkit and the people who need the ability to block for their own mental health.
But things didn't go down the toilet until somebody showed up and started making really nasty and dismissive comments about systems and people with dissociative identity disorder, accusing them of faking it and being liars. At which point a lot of people got mad at that person for good reason.
There was no moderation at any point. Presumably this is because the server is only used for board meetings and few people show up for those and they aren't used to needing moderators, especially not on days when there is no board meeting. And despite the time and place of the meeting being advertised by several different people with lots of reach in fandom (which I've never seen happen before), nobody in the organization thought to try and prepare for an influx of people either ahead of time or on the day of. On the one hand, I can't blame them, because they've never had a turnout like this in the history of the organization, and it's really hard to prepare for something unprecedented. On the other hand, it's an unfortunate failure, because some people got hurt and a lot of people got even more upset than they were to begin with.
I'm actually not writing about the meeting itself but about the problems the day before (Saturday) in the Help channel of that server which have since been deleted. (Regular deletion of that channel is a pre-existing policy which was stated in the channel header beforehand, this is not something they decided after-the-fact. That channel is (supposed to be) for quick technical questions only.) Here's my memory of what happened. I don't remember names.
A user asked if they could add the Pluralkit bot to the server as an accessibility tool. Pluralkit is a Discord bot that makes it easier for users who are systems to show which person in their system is speaking at any given time. Someone else objected because you can't block people with Pluralkit, and they need the ability to block for their own mental health. Someone official (I forget who) said that they wouldn't be adding Pluralkit because it evades blocks, and asked if there was any other bot or process that would provide the same functionality while still leaving the user blockable.
At this point, I shifted my attention to another server that has people who are systems, and asked if anybody could recommend an alternative to Pluralkit. Nobody had an alternative that worked better, and also explained why Pluralkit doesn't allow people to be blocked. Messages posted using Pluralkit are not, from a backend point of view, posted by your account; they are posted using other forms of metadata called webhooks. Therefore, if someone blocks your account/username, it does not block any message you (or any member of your system) sends using Pluralkit because Discord's back end doesn't know it's from your account. Because of this, anyone using Pluralkit cannot be blocked by anyone for any reason. This is a problem for both moderating and for other users, some of whom need the ability to block people for their own mental health. (For example, if you have idiosyncratic triggers and don't want to have to explain your trauma to get people to spoiler mention of things that nobody but you would ever think of as a trigger--it's easier just to block people who talk about that a lot than to explain things.)
After getting this explanation and talking about some other stuff, I went back to the OTW channel and found that there had been a LOT of discussion on the issue in the meantime, some heated and some not. There were several people, for example, who misunderstood the problem, and thought that Pluralkit allowed bad-faith users to evade blocks, and argued that since bad-faith users can use a lot of other tools (such as making new accounts) to evade blocks, that Pluralkit should not be singled out like that. (In fact, a Pluralkit user does not need to evade blocks; even the best faith Pluralkit user can't be blocked, because of the way it works.) There were reciprocal accusations of ableism from both the people asking for pluralkit and the people who need the ability to block for their own mental health.
But things didn't go down the toilet until somebody showed up and started making really nasty and dismissive comments about systems and people with dissociative identity disorder, accusing them of faking it and being liars. At which point a lot of people got mad at that person for good reason.
There was no moderation at any point. Presumably this is because the server is only used for board meetings and few people show up for those and they aren't used to needing moderators, especially not on days when there is no board meeting. And despite the time and place of the meeting being advertised by several different people with lots of reach in fandom (which I've never seen happen before), nobody in the organization thought to try and prepare for an influx of people either ahead of time or on the day of. On the one hand, I can't blame them, because they've never had a turnout like this in the history of the organization, and it's really hard to prepare for something unprecedented. On the other hand, it's an unfortunate failure, because some people got hurt and a lot of people got even more upset than they were to begin with.
