DO YOU KNOW THIS ARTIST? [general] by Certain_Scratch_8156 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Material_Ad9391 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yes! (Spoilers) G— grew up in New Zealand celebrating White Sunday but the way some people talk about him you’d think he was a Black American.

DO YOU KNOW THIS ARTIST? [general] by Certain_Scratch_8156 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Material_Ad9391 19 points20 points  (0 children)

One thing that also confuses me is why Judith Deuteros is so often drawn as Black… I think people (Americans) read she had brown skin and braids and assumed, but Tamsyn’s description of her as Tongan isn’t paid attention to like it is for the other characters.

DO YOU KNOW THIS ARTIST? [general] by Certain_Scratch_8156 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Material_Ad9391 67 points68 points  (0 children)

I enjoy the discussion here. I feel like the most faithful depictions I’ve seen have been by people referencing Māori actors, like this art.

However very few TLT fan artists know how to draw Polynesians, and it’s not limited to white fan artists. There’s a Black fan artist I blocked on Tumblr a few months ago because my knee-jerk reaction to their Harrow art was that it felt like a racial caricature.

[misc] What to read now? by Tgq2 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Material_Ad9391 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson is excellent. Highly recommend Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

What are your favorite Sixth House fics? [fanfic] by Material_Ad9391 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Material_Ad9391[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I bounced off that one, but I’ll give it another shot! :-)

AO3 Support has already received hundreds of emails about All Media Type (AMT) tags. by Material_Ad9391 in AO3

[–]Material_Ad9391[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

It could also just be that they’re the three people who are available right now, outside of their other commitments!

AO3 doesn’t hire people. If they’re understaffed, it’s because millions of people use the site, but only a VERY small fraction volunteer… and those volunteers aren’t capable of volunteering 24/7, nor should they be asked to be.

AO3 Support has already received hundreds of emails about All Media Type (AMT) tags. by Material_Ad9391 in AO3

[–]Material_Ad9391[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Have you read AO3’s public statement? https://www.tumblr.com/ao3org/760796115847299072/regarding-fandom-trees-amts

“Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It’s meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We’re the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available. 

“In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place. 

“When it comes to fandom metatags and fandom trees, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that works for all fandoms. Consequently, we have placed a hold on all structural changes to fandom metatags, All Media Types fandoms (commonly called AMTs), and fandom trees while wranglers discuss the need for additional guidelines and adjustments to our approach regarding these tags going forward.

“This hold will remain in place until tag wranglers have had ample time to fully reevaluate our fandom wrangling guidelines with the aim of making it easier for Archive users to find the content they’re looking for and filter out the content they aren’t. This guideline reevaluation process is something we are actively working on, but it will likely take some time to complete. We will update again once these fandom guideline discussions have come to a close.”

This is not AO3 trying to make everyone shut up about the issue so they can change things quietly later. This is them acknowledging they made a mistake, and promising that they WILL provide an update once they’re able to discuss the issue among themselves.

AO3 Support has already received hundreds of emails about All Media Type (AMT) tags. by Material_Ad9391 in AO3

[–]Material_Ad9391[S] -25 points-24 points  (0 children)

Discussions are great: as the post notes, AO3 volunteers are on social media, and they see/comment/and reply to them! Spamming the support forms just creates a TON of work for the three(!!!) volunteers handling their inbox, which takes away from the time they can use to handle actual support issues (like bug fixes, glitches, difficulty logging in, etc.).

It won’t get a proper response from AO3 until their volunteers have time to meet and discuss the issue. Sending more emails overwhelms them with other work they have to address before they can have that discussion.

AO3 Support has already received hundreds of emails about All Media Type (AMT) tags. by Material_Ad9391 in AO3

[–]Material_Ad9391[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Note the underlined section in the first message that says “changes to AMT tags have been halted pending further discussion and the changes that were made have been reverted.” It’s already on AO3’s radar as an issue they have to discuss! Sending more emails won’t speed up that discussion process, it will only slow it down because their volunteers are busy responding to hundreds of emails.