coaltide | C-c-c-c-c-coal bomb!

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2023

C-c-c-c-c-coal bomb!

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There have been cases of fans of color getting serious racist harassment from other fans on AO3, and AO3 not supporting them well at all. Ditto for volunteer on volunteer racism being handled badly. In terms of stuff that's clearly a racism problem and clearly does need worked on, that's the main specific things I know about, although tbh I have no direct evidence that the way the racist harassment was handled was worse than the ways they've handled other kinds of harassment. (and the block/mute feature was a huge step forward there.)

There's also been really bad stuff against some of the Asian volunteers from within and without the org, which is mixed up in the complicated mess around AO3 suddenly getting a whole a lot of Chinese users a few years ago and really, really not being prepared to deal with that gracefully. (Like, they certainly could have fumbled it a lot worse - but there's stuff involved there that it's fair to call racism, including directly against one of the new board members.) But many of the people mad about AO3 being racist are at best unaware of that - or don't like that talking about Asian fans isn't about them, so actively take part in it.

This is, of course, unfortunately all further complicated by the fact that a lot of the loudest voices about the very real racism problems have also gotten "anti-racism" mixed up with "shipwars" and are also so invested in hating AO3 that literally anything AO3 does can get added to the list of racist offenses.

One of the big early meta posts in the most recent go-round was pointing out that before AO3 can do anything real to fix their racism problems they need to have someone do a study on what their racism problems actually are, beyond a few very high-profile incidents and a lot of shouting, but unfortunately it got mostly buried under other things that came out in the comments of that post. (Also that's not going to happen because the two possible outcomes are that AO3 learns that their racism problem is way worse than they knew, or they are going to be forced to defend a study that points out that the problems the anti-racist fans are complaining about were wildly exaggerated, which is a lose-lose for them.)

What was this serious racist harassment by fans? Can you please quote or link to at least one that lists actual examples. Because yes, I've only seen the "Finn Star Wars bottoms/tops in this fic and that's racist (and the other way around is racist too, and it's even more racist if he's not in the fic)" wank. I want to believe you that racist harassment happened/happens, but absolutely no one has ever linked or even quoted anything that wasn't bullshit.

I did see ONE actual example of sexism in a fic summary, where one male fic writer flat out stated that he hated female slash writers and was doing this fic as a "challenge of war" or some bullshit. I've never seen something like that for racism in the wild, so please, please show me an actual example that actually exists.

How was the influx of chinese fans fumbled? From what I saw, the main problem was that the chinese fans couldn't be bothered to choose the correct language so the english language tags were full of chinese stuff... AO3 changed it so that there was no default language and everyone had to go through the bother of choosing a language every time. Which seems pretty nice and non-racist to me, especially because the chinese fandom has always done everything they could to keep non-chinese fans out of their spaces. Too many non-chinese people on weibo? Lock the downloads and hide the password in such a way that you have to be fluent to understand the riddle. Surely western fandom has been nicer to chinese fans than chinese fandom has ever been to western fans.

The worst of the Chinese fandom stuff I know about - beyond nasty things said in the open as part of the last few Board elections - involves internal decisions about how Weibo moderation will be handled. See above about the secrecy problems that make it hard to talk about this stuff. :/

There is a compilation that gets linked around sometimes of a few of the cases of fan-on-fan harassment but it was compiled by some of the worst bullies in the whole mess so I don't keep it on hand to link to, and also all of the specific cases I know of on there predate the block feature and a few internal reforms to Abuse procedures. Also for obvious reasons people who have been harassed tend to not be super excited about sharing their AO3 names around as examples of people who can be harassed. But if you are friends with any fans of color who use AO3, even the ones who think the anti-AO3-racism people are full of bullshit can usually tell you a story or two.

However if you find it unlikely or unbelievable that people of color have been harassed on AO3 using racism as a tool of the bullying, and that AO3 handled it incompetently, you're probably beyond hope. The first part is standard on every website that allows user comments, and handling things incompetently is standard for AO3.

No, I don't find it unbelievable or unlikely. I just want to see some evidence, any evidence, because I don't like condemning people just because I'm told they're evil.

I have seen evidence of black fans being shitty towards asians.
I have seen evidence of black fans being shitty towards mixed people.
I have seen evidence of black wankers using racism as a shipwar and harassment tool.

SO PLEASE give me some evidence that white fans have harassed black fans on AO3. Like, people are perfectly capable of linking and quoting the other three things. Surely it cannot be this hard to show a handful of examples?

I AM friends with plenty of asian fans who share my asian fandoms, and none of them have seen anything either. Maybe I've just chosen nice, small fandoms or something.

because I don't like condemning people just because I'm told they're evil

Who exactly do you think you're being asked to condemn?

AO3? You all want me to fall in line and go "AO3 is horribly racist".

Jesus. No one is coming for you, coalie. You can keep AO3. Plenty of fans of all races are using it. Yes, you can make your own decisions. Get off your cross.

he Asian candidates who just ran for Board think it's worth saving.

It's also true that many people have felt hurt or frustrated on it and recent conversations have provided the last straw. A lot of the information that came out in recent months about volunteer treatment is incredibly disheartening.

Elections volunteers fought back when a previous board ousted a Black treasurer in, er, convoluted ways, then tried to re-elect another Board member in extremely underhanded ways - but Elections committee just passed a supremely racist question on to Zixin Z claiming their hands were tied because it was policy all questions got answered.

Tag Wrangling volunteering is, according to my volunteer friends, a fairly chill group where it's easy to focus on the parts of the archive you love and hang out with enthusiasts, but Tag Wrangling chairs just Nice White Lady'd dhobikikutti.

Communications volunteers posted announcements about strategic updates and mentioned EOTWR, but didn't even think that that topic would require immediate and careful monitoring of the comments, so the post immediately got people complaining about free speech and dropping racist dogwhistles, some of which stayed up for hours.

I don't want you to "fall into line". I would like it if you would acknowledge that AO3 does not always handle things well and some of the people who are upset have pretty strong reasons to be upset. Even if you didn't personally witness anything outrageous they experienced.

It's kind of hilarious that you claim you don't want me to fall in line and in the very next sentence say you would like me to fall in line.

Look, I'm quite ready to agree that there's racism on the org... just as soon as someone shows facts instead of vague allegations.

NC Congratulations. You, coalie, win coaltide's "worse than Gheyn" award!

Aaaand here we are. Wanting evidence = racism. Nice going there, asshole.

Well, yeah, if people keep saying "here's a link to racism", "here's multiple instances of racism", "here's a form of racism you acknowledge exists," and you say "but show me the real racism", then all anyone needs to do is hold up a mirror.

Look, the nutheadgee thing I (and another person, who was a tiny bit faster) linked contains actual, direct examples. That's a black woman who flat out says "mixies need to be oppressed harder" under her own name, on her own social media (now in an archive because she deleted later) and with screencaps of her own Ao3 (because she's somehow convinced she's in the right).

I want that. Something clear and direct, not a vague "someone was racist to me". It really shouldn't be hard to get a screencap of an Ao3 comment with the n-word or literally ANYTHING.

Instead all I get is more vague bullshit. Literally none of the things that got linked here (except for the nutheadgee thing I and another coalie linked) are actual examples. Everything else is vague allegations with no direct examples or quotes or screencaps.

The dhobikikutti dreamwidth thing, for example, SAYS there was racism, but doesn't expand or explain or quote or ANYTHING. She never comes out and says a fellow volunteer used a slur, or ignored her, or anything direct. Just "there was racism" and then everyone is supposed to accept that with literally zero way to verify.

How was the influx of chinese fans fumbled?

Coalie, that's a perfectly reasonable question, but the entire rest of your paragraph is a litany of resentful complaints about Chinese fans inconveniencing you. It's pretty bad faith.

Wow, that's such a bad faith reading.

How was the influx of chinese fans fumbled? From what I saw, the main problem was that the chinese fans couldn't be bothered to choose the correct language so the english language tags were full of chinese stuff... AO3 changed it so that there was no default language and everyone had to go through the bother of choosing a language every time. Which seems pretty nice and non-racist to me, especially because the chinese fandom has always done everything they could to keep non-chinese fans out of their spaces. Too many non-chinese people on weibo? Lock the downloads and hide the password in such a way that you have to be fluent to understand the riddle. Surely western fandom has been nicer to chinese fans than chinese fandom has ever been to western fans.

Points made above:

-The Chinese fans beginning to use AO3 caused problems for other people and behaved badly
-AO3 made a change and this change was a problem because it inconvenienced other people; this is the Chinese fans' fault
-That was so nice and accommodating of AO3, clearly the Chinese fans should have been grateful
-Chinese fandom, a monolith, is hostile and specifically xenophobic, especially compared to AO3, a welcoming haven
-Claim that one specific action by Weibo prove points that all Chinese fandom spaces are uniformly xenophobic
-Claim that one specific action by AO3 proves that Western fandom spaces are uniformly nicer

You could make this more racist, I truly believe you! But. This is seriously racist.

Wow, that's an incredible bad faith reading. Congrats, you're an asshole.

one male fic writer flat out stated that he hated female slash writers and was doing this fic as a "challenge of war" or some bullshit.

Was this Nickolaus Pacione, by any chance?

And by female slash writers, he means women who would never fuck him in a million years.

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