sqbr:
The current members of the OTW Board, eight days before the term of the two new directors starts, have just appointed Andrea Horbinski to the Board for a one-year term. The vote was 4 ayes (Andrea Horbinski herself, Margaret MacRae, Jessica Steiner and Cat Meier) and one abstention (Eylul Dogruel ”but not against :)” in her words).
All OTW volunteers and members present at the Board meeting, including Elections staff, protested against this blatant disenfranchisement of OTW members, ignoring that Andrea ranked nowhere near third in the recent elections. They received this response from Board member Margaret MacRae:
“Open board is for people to observe, it is not an open conversation hour with board although board can decide to open topics to the public. While I understand that some of you are not aware of the general ethics in this situation, this is not the time or place for a discussion on the proper time for a board member to abstain or what is considered a conflict of interest. In this case since we are unable to complete our meeting we will be moving to closed and issuing a statement to address your questions and concerns about this shortly.Here is a blog post on some of the general ethical issues you are all asking about in the mean time http://www.cityethics.org/node/268 ″
Update: The board’s now announced that Horbinski will be resigning as of December 15th, along with five other people:
After discussion with the rest of the Board, Andrea Horbinski has decided to decline the appointment to the OTW Board for 2016. She has tendered her resignation from the Board effective 15 December 2015. Soledad Griffin, Jessica Steiner, Eylul Dogruel, Cat Meier, and M.J. MacRae are also resigning from the Board effective on that date.
Edit: This page contains a list of all of the 2015 board members, if you’re wondering who that leaves. Spoilers – apparently no one? Okay, guys, good work.
As has been announced elsewhere, I’ve decided to decline appointment to the OTW Board of Directors for the 2016 term and have tendered my resignation from the Board, effective 15 December 2015.
It’s been a privilege to serve on the Board for the past three years, and I wish the 2016 Board and the OTW all the best for their future success.
TL;DR: The entire board just resigned. There’s no board as of December 15th.
If anyone out there is crawling AO3 to make backups, you want to let us know who and where you are? This is not a good sign.
Correction: the two members who were elected to the Board in the November elections, Matty Bowers and Atiya Hakeem, will definitely be there. Their terms start on December 1.
The OTW will go on, and the AO3 will definitely go on. Matty and Atiya have both worked directly on AO3 for years, and they will do everything to make it thrive and to keep the OTW healthy. Don’t worry.
Many OTW volunteers and members were furious about today’s events (never mind many earlier ones) and a clean slate for the two legitimately elected Board members is basically the best possible scenario we could hope for. None of the members who resigned today were elected by the members; they all joined the Board in uncontested elections.
tl;dr THIS IS A POSITIVE CHANGE. o/