sarasa_cat: Corpo V (Default)
sarasa_cat ([personal profile] sarasa_cat) wrote in [personal profile] owlmoose 2011-11-16 09:23 am (UTC)

As a way-out-on-the-edges-outsider, I don't know enough about what is going on in the OTW to form a reasoned opinion. Mostly it's just my long standing weird feelings (above) that now feel "confirmed" by all of the terribly sad posts I've been reading over the past month.

But, beyond OTW/AO3, in my real life experience working on large, multifaceted, distributed projects run mostly by volunteer efforts, I've learned a lot about the importance of transparency (as skud said) and the need to invite, welcome, and trust lots of people--strangers!--to come right in and make all sorts of meaningful *small* contributions that add up into something far larger than any one person (or small group of people) could ever envision, manage, or accomplish on their own (like wikipedia).

Additionally there is a related but different concept: egoless programming which, IMHO, is best for all efforts but is absolutely necessary for the health of any volunteer effort or open source effort. Of course, the "egoless programming" concept can be applied to any creative effort. High quality concrit and egolessness go together hand in hand.

Anyhow, the formula I've seen for success is in creating bottom up efforts led by approachable people who check their egos at the door. Lots of top-down centralized control just doesn't seem to work well. But, that's all just speaking from my experience...

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