End OTW Racism
May. 31st, 2023 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fuzzybluemonkeysBouncing off of bcgphoenix's post that I found by way of tumblr:
The thing that rubs me the wrong way about the "but it's an archive!" argument is that (afaik) there's no such thing as a meatspace (treespace?) archive that collects ~everything~ without judgement or curation.
The limited physical space available is obviously a factor, but digital storage isn't infinite either. Professional librarians/archivists/curators are constantly making decisions about collection priorities and areas of focus. A University Archive is specifically going to be collecting items that pertain to that university. The library in which I work is all about convincing famous alumni to donate their belongings (some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the university itself). But what about Random Alum #7? Is their experience with the university not also valuable? Could the space taken up by that famous alum's awards that they got long after they graduated be used to house a scrapbook made by RA#7 while they were actually a student?
Furthermore, historical collections of all kinds have been having a reckoning of sorts and are starting to acknowledge all the things they haven't collected. In the case of the University Archive, that means admitting that students and alumni of color are vastly underrepresented in that space.
To drag this back around to AO3: If the genuine mission of AO3 is to collect every fanwork, it is failing! At a certain point, avoiding making a decision becomes a decision in and of itself. When there are authors of color who aren't contributing to the archive because they feel unwelcome, that is a curation choice.
Honestly, even if the social aspects of the site were completely eliminated, I'd argue that there's no such thing as an Archive Of Our Own that is 100% inclusive. They're always going to be excluding someone by virtue of their policies (or lack thereof).
Right now they're excluding fans of color. So the question is: who will they choose to exclude going forward?
bcgphoenix's post that I found by way of tumblr:The thing that rubs me the wrong way about the "but it's an archive!" argument is that (afaik) there's no such thing as a meatspace (treespace?) archive that collects ~everything~ without judgement or curation.
The limited physical space available is obviously a factor, but digital storage isn't infinite either. Professional librarians/archivists/curators are constantly making decisions about collection priorities and areas of focus. A University Archive is specifically going to be collecting items that pertain to that university. The library in which I work is all about convincing famous alumni to donate their belongings (some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the university itself). But what about Random Alum #7? Is their experience with the university not also valuable? Could the space taken up by that famous alum's awards that they got long after they graduated be used to house a scrapbook made by RA#7 while they were actually a student?
Furthermore, historical collections of all kinds have been having a reckoning of sorts and are starting to acknowledge all the things they haven't collected. In the case of the University Archive, that means admitting that students and alumni of color are vastly underrepresented in that space.
To drag this back around to AO3: If the genuine mission of AO3 is to collect every fanwork, it is failing! At a certain point, avoiding making a decision becomes a decision in and of itself. When there are authors of color who aren't contributing to the archive because they feel unwelcome, that is a curation choice.
Honestly, even if the social aspects of the site were completely eliminated, I'd argue that there's no such thing as an Archive Of Our Own that is 100% inclusive. They're always going to be excluding someone by virtue of their policies (or lack thereof).
Right now they're excluding fans of color. So the question is: who will they choose to exclude going forward?
