copperbadge:

Hey, Anon who sent me the ask about AO3 discourse, I did get it and I had a complicated reaction to it, but I decided against posting it with my response because I’m not sure some people who share your reaction share some what you said surrounding your reaction, and if I respond publicly they kind of become my views because I gave you the platform? I realize this is very vague but ultimately I guess it boils down to me being uncomfortable posting your ask publicly. And since it’s Anon…

Anyway, I have a complex relationship to AO3 and I have spent a long few minutes trying to write about the fundraising discussion from the point of view of someone who has worked in the nonprofit world all his adult life, because a lot of the accusations being flung at AO3 surrounding its fundraising are so familiar to us as to be boring and tired (you can read up on the basics of the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle here). But I can’t…work out a good way to articulate it as a defense of AO3 without also discussing other aspects of AO3 that can’t be talked about in the specific but sound wrong and evasive when talked about in the general. 

So I guess in the most abstract sense, I am for AO3 and AO3′s mission both as a nonprofit employee and as a writer; particularly coming from the nonprofit sector, the arguments against AO3′s fundraising are laughably tired and generally the realm of people who are just selfish fucks who don’t want to give; and finally, I can’t talk about the rest of it without getting into stories that aren’t mine to tell and would be detrimental and derailing to the discussion as a whole but which are still vital for me to express if I wanted to talk about AO3′s history.

Phew, okay, maybe that can be an end of it.