Comment on Resignation of OTW Directors

  1. impertinence Fri 28 Jul 2023 12:22AM UTC

    Tischer's comment was made in response to mainland Chinese volunteers protesting being ignored and poorly treated, the org using them for things like maintaining a Weibo presence while running roughshod over them and telling them what to post. At no point did anyone seriously argue that the OTW shouldn't have a common language. Tischer was being a racist dick in response to legitimate critique.

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    1. foxgloveincense Fri 28 Jul 2023 12:35AM UTC

      I just want to add to your post: Tischer was specifically trying to force the Weibo volunteer team to post announcements that would be very politically sensitive in China, and would absolutely get the Weibo volunteer team in legal trouble. When they voiced these concerns, Tischer (who afaik lives in Germany?) told them it's more important to stand up to the Chinese government than for the volunteers who live in China to be kept safe from potential arrest.

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      1. impertinence Fri 28 Jul 2023 12:36AM UTC

        Thank you, I knew about that incident but I had thought it happened prior to the referenced one.

        Tischer lives in the UK but is German.

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        1. foxgloveincense Fri 28 Jul 2023 12:38AM UTC

          Thank you for the correction! I might be confused about the timeline of events myself. I thought the two instances were related, but if they aren't that's on me for not keeping facts straight.

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          1. impertinence Fri 28 Jul 2023 12:46AM UTC

            Honestly, at this point, it's a W if any of us can remember anything without a fucking Trello board for it all. Bleak.

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          2. switchwitchbitch Fri 28 Jul 2023 01:00AM UTC

            They were voicing concerns in Chinese in protest of how OTW was ignoring their safety, and Alex responded in German that they needed a lingua franca to do anything. When they had articulated the same concerns in English and been ignored. This is my understanding of how part of that went down. Caveat that I'm just nobody lol and could be wrong.

            It's related to the "standing up to the Chinese government" comments because the Weibo team, all from mainland China, was asked to promote the rollout of new dialects/languages including Taiwanese. This put them at way more risk than they signed up for when volunteering

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            1. impertinence Fri 28 Jul 2023 01:01AM UTC

              Thank you for the added details!

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            2. foxgloveincense Fri 28 Jul 2023 01:22AM UTC

              Thank you for adding this.

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            3. azarias Fri 28 Jul 2023 03:04AM UTC

              Correction: the safety protest was in 2020 and not conducted in Chinese. The decision to communicate in Chinese as a form of protest was this year, in response to the Org deciding to shut down the Weibo account without consulting any Chinese-speaking volunteers, including the ones responsible for running the Weibo.

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              1. switchwitchbitch Fri 28 Jul 2023 05:31AM UTC

                Thank you very much for the correction!

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      3. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sat 29 Jul 2023 04:35AM UTC

        Holy actual what the fuck.

        The Great Firewall is practically universal knowledge. I would think the fact that Chinese fans are an at-risk group would also be so, within fannish circles.

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