alias_sqbr

Chiming in late here. And I feel as though I'm repeating some of what's been said but...

Part of what is causing all the fuss is that, as you say, you are trying to cover as much as possible. But at the same time, it's sounding like your vested interests are in just a few places, and those places are the areas of fandom that are female-dominated. You're saying, point blank in OTW's values statement, that fandom's identity is valuable because it is not male, or queer, or anything . And that is exclusionary.

Now, I know that it's not be meant to taken that way, but it can very easily be read that way. And I honestly don't think you can say that you value IDIC if you're also stating a preference for the values and history of one group before all others.

Would someone who is a member of a fandom that is not and never has been traditionally female, read that values statement and then feel comfortable approaching OTW for help? Would they feel confidant that, all other things considered, that they'd get the same treatment as someone in a female dominated fandom? If money is tight, who gets first dibs?

That's the litmus test. I think the language of that one statement needs to be changed so that it would pass the test 99% of the time. We can still honour that fact that great swathes of fandom are female and that this is awesome and unusual, but as an organisation trying to work for as many fans as possible, you also need to assign positive value to the spaces that aren't female.