If 1/3 of the people forgot to add their hours reliably you still have data from the 2/3 who did, and now know roughly how much strain 2/3 of your volunteer workforce is under. That is more collated information than you had before. If it is enough to be useful for discussion on further change, good, if not, iterate the process further and figure out how to improve things.
Similar for if the data isn't entirely accurate. Data collection does not need to be perfect on the first round - there is no perfect data collection. There is only more and less accurate data collection, and the conclusions or understandings drawn from it.
... volunteering for the OTW is volunteer work, not volunteer fun, as you and various others have pointed out before. And given the firehose of information now available on what it's like to actually volunteer work inside the OTW... if it was my job, I'd quit. Immediately. Money isn't worth this level of trouble. Fortunately for the OTW, it seems no few people believe the OTW and what it does is worth the trouble. (no few fans, readers, writers, or other members of the OTW or international public at large also agree, hence donations and volunteers and so on)
Denise in particular has already given you a very succinct suggestion on something you - or rather, the OTW - might want to try as a solution to the collective 'we have no info on how heavy the load is, where the pain points burning people out are, or how many more people we need in what specialty or skill' problem. You yourself have stated, up front, that it would be a good thing for the OTW as a whole to have better information about those issues.
Perhaps instead of arguing that an imperfect solution is worse than none, work on what an imperfect solution gives to improve what can be done step by step. In the manner of the OTW and the imperfect but slowly improving solution of the AO3 to fandom's needs.
Comment on Resignation of OTW Directors
stormyseasons Mon 31 Jul 2023 12:51PM UTC
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