#ao3 diacritics issue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

projectemmatyler · 4 years

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The damn diacritics on AO3 (aka What’s Your Effing Problem Jennie)

(disclaimer here: Jennie is a placeholder name that I for some reason don’t like. No offense to any Jennies meant.)

First few things I’d like to clarify here before I really light into this.

I am, as of March 2020, a member of OTW (Organization for Transformative Works), parent organization of Archive of Our Own, better known as Ao3. I am also a volunteer attached to Tag Wrangling committee, which means I get to see all your dumb shit you write in tags, try to make sense of it and link it to the canonical tags and/or make new ones if enough of you guys write the same thing in the tags. That’s my job that I do without any pay, for no real obligatory amount of time per week, with pleasure because I’m a fan, doing this for fans, to make their life on Ao3 happier and easier to navigate.

I also don’t speak for the OTW as organization, or AO3 as project, or any of the committees there - I speak as me, myself and I. And boy do I have shit to say here.

I am, surprise surprise, a fan of MXTX works. I’m also one of more than a dozen wranglers who’re currently panting as they try to keep our wrangling to-dos in all MXTX fandoms (including Módào Zǔshī, Untamed, Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, and Tiān Guān Cì Fú). Yes, over a dozen wranglers. You heard me right. Not everyone there is willing out themselves (for some it may even be dangerous to out themselves as parts of OTW!), but I am willing, and I’m not going to shy away from calling several people, some of which include former wranglers who I have to admit have never met, on their BS.

So, the whole shebang was brought to me when a Twitter user decided that they can speak for Ao3, OTW and Tag Wrangling volunteers - that are about 400 in total right now - and say that one single person, who must be straight, white cisgender American (because why the eff not, this is something Cool Kids Say With No Repercussions Or Second Thoughts), decided to unilaterally decide that all Chinese fandoms, MDZS and Guardian in particular (we’ll come back to that later!), would be using pinyin tone markers. Instead of framing this as ‘this makes everyone’s life difficult, can we talk about this?’, this person decided it’d rather attack the organization; more specifically, a part of organization in whose purview the decision of making standards for canon fandom tags, and the smallest subsection of that part - us.

Yes, you attacked us. Thanks for that. What a nice thank you we get for dealing with your tags (and also, we have to use pinyin too!)

But moving on from my salty feelings.

The discourse that went on from there assumed three things:

One - there’s one MXTX wrangler.

Two - we’re all white American folk.

Three - we do this to spite Guardian and MDZS fandoms.

First one I already disputed (also, we get over 100 tags daily from MXTX fandoms at minimum, and when there are fan events, the numbers can climb up to 200 - do you really think one person could do it and stay sane?). Third one I can also dispute by the fact that I wrangle Liàn Yǔ Zhì Zuò Rén | Mr. Love: Queen's Choice and follow same rules. The rules for diacritics are also not even unique only to Chinese fandoms: Star Wars’ Padmé Amidala tag also has diacritics to name the most well known one, as do Polish-named and Spanish-named characters!

And yet, somehow, it’s only Guardian and MDZS that are being attacked. Why?

Because of the assumption number 2: we’re all darn racist white folk that come from good ole’ US of A.

As someone who’s decidedly not an American citizen (heck, my native language is not even English!) and find it quite offensive to be called that, I’m incensed. I’m incensed on the behalf of all Chinese-descent, Chinese-immigrant and China-inhabiting members that I work with as a MDZS wrangler, wrangler in general and fellow OTW volunteer. I’m incensed on the assumption that the English-speaking fandom, who is primarily based in US, is arbitrarily attacking Ao3, and this time me specifically as MDZS wrangler, on their goddamn entitlement, and claiming that the most international community I’ve ever had the pleasure to be part of as a fan is not taking their opinion into consideration, so therefore I have to be racist.

In not so polite words, go get that stick out of your ass, you special little snowflake.

I literally don’t give a shit if you’re PoC when you’re behaving like a stereotypical Karen on the block. I don’t care how much you wave your ‘I’m a protected group‘ card; if you’re an entitled piece of shit, you’re an entitled piece of shit and I’ll say it.

OTW, and Ao3 as its biggest and most well known project, is not perfect, as I’ve found out quickly after joining - we are a decentralized group of 800+ volunteers from all walks of life and all across the world, who are divided into groups that had to make rules that’ll accommodate an international fandom, and not just US-centric, English speaking one. Tag Wrangling rules have been subject to change before, and they are still subject to change - if the wrangling staff, volunteers and Board all manage to agree on something that’ll be inclusive to everyone, the change can be made, and we wranglers will gladly comply. However, framing this as your goddamn social justice crusade against Ao3, and only using two biggest Chinese-media fandoms in US specifically, stinks of typical entitlement I’ve been dealing since I was thirteen and naively stumbled into Fanfiction dot net, where I discovered fanfic.

I am sick and tired of fractions of US-based fandom refusing to even try to engage into a constructive conversation about fandoms, insisting that the entire international fandom has to accept their frame of mind, while at the same time not bothering to even try and understand our own frames (yes, I’m talking about all the ‘oh, you’re of X ethnicity, you must be an Y nationality’ shitstick I see all the time). I’m sick and tired of issues only being raised once US fandom learns about it, and preferably not even research the background for those things before starting a crusade while they’re at it.

In short, I’m tired of entitled, special snowflake Jennies who think waving their PoC, non-heterosexual, non-cisgender cards gets them a get out of jail card for their shitty-ass behavior. You’re not being crusaders for justice, you’re just being shitty-ass people, and please stop while you’re still ahead.

Talk with us constructively if you want to change, and piss off if you don’t.

This is me fuming at nearly 12 AM, because I can no longer ignore this shit. I repeat again for contrary idjits who didn’t read my disclaimer: I speak as me, myself and I, wrangler of MDZS, TGCF and SVSSS, and also MCQL, and not as spokeperson for either OTW, Ao3 or Tag Wrangling Committee.

#ao3 #ao3 discourse #mdzs #svsss #tgcf #mxtx #mxtx fandom #chinese fandom #ao3 diacritics issue #tags #tag wrangling #tag wrangler rant #rant

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