I'd like to add my voice to the chorus saying that the decision to allow people to continue to post meta without infrastructure to support it in place is short-sighted and mealy-mouthed. If you don't want to punish people who previously posted meta in good faith, don't punish them. That doesn't mean you should encourage them to continue to the detriment of the archive's organization.
The insistence that people should be able to post whatever they want, regardless of whether the archive is actually prepared to support their fanworks, is just begging for a completely unnavigable end result. It certainly sounds like you've thought and discussed this for a long time, but the end result doesn't actually alleviate my concerns at all. Frankly, the fact that the OTW Board is so wrapped up in idealistic philosophy ("Everyone should be able to post whatever they want, whenever they want, even if it'll be a mess by the time we actually!") that it can't bear to place even a temporary restriction on its users makes me more concerned.
What actually would have answered my concerns: A reasonably quick timeline for building the infrastructure to sort meta out from fic (and could we please be able to mark crossovers while we're at it?) and a "We'll grandfather in meta that's already been posted, but please wait to post more for the time being." And then consistent updates on progress, not just radio silence and a big \o/ when the code is finally put together.
Tl;dr: I don't feel like the OTW Board took any of the (imo, incredibly reasonable) concerns aired on the previous post into consideration at all. And I am extremely disappointed in the way this entire issue has been handled.
And just so you know, the silence regarding ratcreature's comments and questions about Fanlore is starting to sound pretty damn deafening.
Comment on OTW Board response to concerns about the meta decision
Who Shot AR (akerwis) Tue 26 Feb 2013 05:19AM UTC
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nonnie (Guest) Tue 26 Feb 2013 01:36PM UTC
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