Archive of Our Own

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Frost the Fox, who volunteers on our Systems Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

As a volunteer for the Systems committee, we’re responsible for all of the OTW’s IT infrastructure, including our physical equipment such as our firewalls/routers, switches, and servers, as well as the many different software components that make up the Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, and our internal services that our committees use to conduct their business. Just like business IT departments, we provide and maintain the technical infrastructure to allow other committees to achieve their goals, and thus, the OTW’s goals.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

A typical week for Systems starts with our weekly meeting where we share our progress on any committee work we’re doing, bring up any important tasks that need to be done, and just generally catch up. Throughout the week we usually receive at least a couple of tickets for updates to some of our internal tools, which are usually pretty quick to take care of. Beyond this, things are different every week depending on what arises!

Sometimes we’ll have projects, requests from committees, or software updates that require changes to our configuration. In this case, we’ll use our configuration management system to implement the changes, and have them reviewed by at least 1 other person in the committee for sanity before deploying them. And of course, all infrastructure has its problems here and there. When there’s an outage on the AO3 or any of our other projects/tools, we respond and investigate the cause of the problem. We’ll identify the problem and liaise with other committees as needed to work towards a solution, and once we have one, implement it and monitor to ensure that things recover as expected.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I have a number of years of experience in the IT field ranging from generic help desk type work, to programming, to system administration. Having already been a part of the organization, I knew that there was a lot of infrastructure to maintain, and that there was not a huge amount of people to do so. I have a lot of fun working with technology, and volunteering with the OTW elsewhere had been very rewarding for me, so when I saw that Systems was recruiting, I knew I would be doing a disservice to myself if I didn’t apply.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

My work in my career in IT has been mostly focused towards general business operations which is focused a lot on internal services, as opposed to the OTW, which has more public services. While the basics of server operating systems, virtualization and the like transferred over, there were a lot of other technologies I wasn’t so familiar with that I had to learn, particularly those surrounding the Archive. Getting used to any organization and how their IT systems connect also takes some time. I wasn’t familiar with the configuration management software in use, so that in and of itself was a major learning curve for me, but once I became familiar with it, it made understanding what specific machines do so much easier.

There’s also the nervousness that many people have felt when deploying something to their production environment, except here it’s on a much larger scale than I’d ever dealt with before!

What fannish things do you like to do?

Recently I’ve gotten back into a bit of a writing mood, and I’ve been doing some work on an original story I played around with over a year ago. While that’s not something I’m likely to put on the Archive, it’s gotten the creative juices flowing, and I have some potentially fun ideas for some of my fandoms that I’ll be exploring! I mostly read fic so it’ll definitely be a new experience for me to put something out there for others to enjoy.

Speaking of reading, I’ve been doing a lot of that whenever my schedule permits. Some of that has been in my original fandoms such as Black Lagoon, Final Fantasy, Red Rising & Zootopia, and some in a couple of new fandoms like Hitman. I’m also working on finishing a couple of series and playing some different games that might also lead to new fandoms for me later on. In general I’m always bouncing around between different fandoms looking for something fun to read!

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

HarryPotterFanfiction.com, a Harry Potter fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on HarryPotterFanfiction.com
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

HarryPotterFanfiction.com initially opened in 2001, and as of 2021 contained over 85000 works by nearly 40000 authors. HPFF was no longer able to sustain itself financially, so the stories are being transferred to AO3 to save the many stories written by authors no longer with us.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Ronnie and Gwen to import HarryPotterFanfiction.com into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanart and graphics currently on HarryPotterFanfiction.com will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from HaryPotterFanfiction.com to the AO3 after December 2021.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on HarryPotterFanfiction.com?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.

Please contact Open Doors with your HarryPotterFanfiction.com pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your HarryPotterFanfiction.com account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the HarryPotterFanfiction.com mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection HarryPotterFanfiction.com

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of HarryPotterFanfiction.com on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve HarryPotterFanfiction.com!

- The Open Doors team, Ronnie and Gwen

Echoes from the West, a Saiyuki fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work on Echoes from the West
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Echoes from the West is being closed and imported to the AO3 due to the original provider being no longer able to support the archive.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Elvaron to import Echoes from the West into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. Eventually links to the old site will redirect to the collection on AO3, which can be searched and filtered in order to locate individual imported works.

We will begin importing works from Echoes from the West to the AO3 after December 2021.

What does this mean for creators who have works on Echoes from the West?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.

Please contact Open Doors with your Echoes from the West pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Echoes from the West account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Echoes from the West mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Echoes from the West

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Echoes from the West on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve Echoes from the West!

- The Open Doors team and Elvaron

I. OPEN DOORS IMPORTS

November was a busy month for Open Doors! They announced the upcoming imports of The Disney Kink Meme and The Harry Potter FanFic Archive, and they completed three archive imports: Twice Bitten, Gilmore Girls Slash, and Gilmore Girls Adult Fic. They also finished legitimizing the previous import of Sarek and Amanda Archive.

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design & Technology upgraded the Archive to ElasticSearch 7, with a much shorter downtime than anticipated. (It still brought us over the 210,000 Twitter followers threshold!) They've also been collaborating with Translation to start testing translated AO3 emails. Both teams are very excited to be one step closer to allowing AO3 users to receive AO3 emails in languages other than English!

Systems has installed their first system with the latest Debian release.

Policy & Abuse had a slight decrease in tickets in October, with about 2,300 new tickets by the end of October. Their new recruits have also entirely finished their training and are helping to tackle that big number! At the time of this writing, Support was on track to receive about 1,300 tickets in November, staying fairly level, and their team has been doing a great job of keeping up with the incoming tickets.

In November, Tag Wrangling assisted Open Doors with several tag mapping projects for new archive imports. They've made a few tweaks to some behind the scenes processes, but mainly they've been gearing up for an expected busy December--and a big thank you to Accessibility, Design & Technology for the recent updates to how the autocomplete handles accent marks, which has been a big time-saver in some fandoms. In October, around 430,000 tags were wrangled across more than 46,000 fandoms!

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

The Board of Directors has been working on preparing the position description for a Diversity Consultant Research Officer and have opened it for feedback from committee chairs.

Finance issued the 2020 audit and filed the tax return! Progress has also been made on the chart of accounts update, and at the time of this writing, Finance anticipated completing it by the end of November.

Translation has updated their map on the Translation page of the OTW website showing where in the world you can find Translation members. Feel free to check it out!

IV. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 25 October to 24 November, Volunteers & Recruiting received 145 new requests, and completed 164, leaving us with 18 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 24 November 2021, the OTW has 1,021 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Staff: Beth Boisvert, TheDarkFlygon, Zixin Zhang (all Open Doors), 1 Development & Membership staffer, Bethany L, cinnamonandtea, Lera, Tamara Mendelson (all Elections) and 2 other Elections staffers
New Open Doors Volunteers: 1 volunteer
New Translation Volunteers: angrytomato, Anouk, HajnalM, Hanbei Zhou, Sammi Lee, Sanjalee, Tanyarin Karuchit, and 3 other volunteers
New TWC Volunteers: A. Smith, Jillian Kovach, and 1 other volunteer

Departing Committee Chairs: Karen Wolf (Development & Membership), Rachel Bussert (Volunteers & Recruiting)
Departing Committee Staff: donshin (AO3 Documentation), Nele Noppe (Communications) and 2 other Communications staffers, Karen Wolf (Development & Membership), Clark Seanor (Elections) and 1 other Elections staffer, serkestic (Fanlore) and 6 other Fanlore staffers, 2 Finance staffers, 3 Open Doors staffers, Cath S (Policy & Abuse) and 10 other Policy & Abuse staffers, James Kruk (Strategic Planning and Support), 1 Support staffer, 1 Tag Wrangling staffer, Rachel Bussert (Volunteers & Recruiting) and 1 other Volunteers & Recruiting staffer
Departing AD&T QA Tester Volunteers: 1 volunteer
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 volunteer
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 2 volunteers
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Cryllia, Halcyon and 3 other volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Lisa Kruger, Quanna, ru, Sira Dragonnier, Vinoro, and 1 other volunteer
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 volunteer

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Mirissa, who volunteers as a Translation volunteer for Team Kyrgyz.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

My role in the OTW community is just the same as the other translators. I translate news and other OTW documents to help the community grow and make the experience for other people more comfortable. When I applied to be a translator for the Kyrgyz language there was no Kyrgyz language on the list of the application form. I wasn’t extremely surprised, because this language is not very well known, but it really is similar to Kazakh. It’s funny how long it took me to realize that I was the only translator on the team.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

My week as a volunteer isn't that unusual. Honestly, I am the type of person to procrastinate and do all the work at the last minute. But with my translation assignments, I take my time on them and try to make them the best way possible. I’m mostly on time, but sometimes I might face some technical issues, so my assignments might be overdue. Not only do I translate different documents, but since I am the only person on the Kyrgyz language team I also act as a beta.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I’ve been reading fanfics on AO3 for a long time after finding a really well-written work 3 years ago. As I got signed up for it and went through news posts I noticed a post saying that they needed translators. I got really interested in it and filled in the application form. At first I didn’t know which language team I should volunteer for, because I know Russian pretty decently as well, so it took me some time to figure out that I wanted to share my native language with the community.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

In the beginning, I was trying my best to get used to the system of how this role worked. Eventually, I got used to everything until the time to translate the membership drives came. I did understand the condition to finish it in 5 days, so I thought “Why not do it?” Maybe I had some challenges because the language I’m translating into might be a bit confusing for non-native speakers. So, I had to confirm something with the staff. I’m glad it all turned out well in the end.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I do not really stand out in the area of fannish stuff. Just like everyone, I do read fanfics and I also write my own fanfics on AO3. Well, I also do aesthetic journaling, but not that often since it really does take me a lot of time. I also watch videos of my favorite anime and Japanese voice actors, who doesn’t do that? I think that’s all I do as a fan (I’m thinking I sound really boring, don’t I?).

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

The Harry Potter FanFic Archive, a Harry Potter fanfiction archive run by Chad (CazBandit), is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have works on The Harry Potter FanFic Archive
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The creator and owner of HPFanFicArchive.com, Chad (CazBandit), died suddenly in March of 2020, but with the help of its new custodian HPFanFicArchive.com will continue through the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with the custodian of the Harry Potter FanFic Archive to import it into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfiction currently in The Harry Potter FanFic Archive will be hosted on the OTW's servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages. Eventually links to the old site will redirect to the collection on AO3, which can be searched and filtered in order to locate individual imported works.

Please note that The Harry Potter FanFic Archive will be closed to new and updated works from 12 December 2021, at which time we will take a full backup. The site will be permanently closed down on 31 December 2021.

We will begin importing works from The Harry Potter FanFic Archive to the AO3 after December 2021.

What does this mean for creators who have works on The Harry Potter FanFic Archive?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your Harry Potter FanFic Archive pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Harry Potter FanFic Archive account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Harry Potter FanFic Archive custodian to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Harry Potter FanFic Archive

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Harry Potter FanFic Archive on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're honored to be able to help preserve the works on the Harry Potter FanFic Archive, and while we mourn the loss of CazBandit, we also realize that we are fortunate that CazBandit had a friend who was given permission to preserve the archive on the AO3 so that it will not be lost. Thinking about the death of a fandom friend may be difficult, but it can also be an opportunity to consider what will happen to your fanworks and accounts and those of your friends after your deaths. The Archive of Our Own has an option to name a Fannish Next of Kin, someone who would be able to gain access to your accounts in the case of your death or incapacitation. By naming someone who can act on your behalf, you can decide ahead of time how you want your AO3 accounts handled going into the future.

We're excited to be able to help preserve the Harry Potter FanFic Archive!

- The Open Doors team and the HPFFA custodian

In these recent releases, we added the ability to freeze comment threads on works and news posts; added a limit to the number of tags on works; and prepared the site for localization, starting with our email notifications. As usual, there are also bug fixes and behind-the-scenes improvements. A special thank you to our first-time contributors Chantal, Daroc Alden, Gareth Bedford, Jonathan Means, Julia Feitosa, Kate Boyd, katzenfabrik, NightGlyde, Rudolf M. Schreier (ThePadawan), and Sharra Neely!

Credits

• Coders: ahiijny, Chantal, cosette, Daroc Alden, Enigel, Gareth Bedford, james_, Jonathan Means, Julia Feitosa, Kate Boyd, katzenfabrik, korrien, NightGlyde, redsummernight, Rudolf M. Schreier (ThePadawan), Sarken, Sharra Neely, ticking instant, tlee911
• Code reviewers: james_, redsummernight, Sarken, ticking instant
• Testers: Ant, Bea, Chrome, CJ Record, Claire Baker, Claudia, GoldenFalls, Huey, Izzy, james_, Lady Oscar, Laure Dauban, lydia-theda, mumble, Nary, Nat, Priscilla, Paula, QED, Qem, Rebecca Sentance, redsummernight, Ridicully, Runt, Sammie Louise, Sarken, Teyke

Details

0.9.298

Comment freezing and news post comment settings, deployed on February 12th. We missed this release from the last change log post...

• [AO3-4709] - We added comment freezing to all comments.
• [AO3-5880] - Anonymous series used to be included in the Recent Series list on your dashboard, spoiling the whole anonymous thing a bit. They're no longer there.
• [AO3-5928] - We disabled automatic schema dumping after migrations, since we prefer to do manual updates and it was causing annoying error messages.
• [AO3-5972] - It's now possible to delete a comment that's been marked as spam even if it has replies.
• [AO3-6027] - Admins can now turn off or restrict comments to registered users on admin posts.
• [AO3-6078] - There was escaped HTML in the success message when deleting works with certain characters in the titles. We've fixed that now.
• [AO3-6105] - We added a check to make sure edited tag set nominations belong to the tag set specified in the URL.
• [AO3-6107] - We updated the nokogiri gem to 1.11.0.
• [AO3-6108] - For better performance, we now cache comment counts in more places.
• [AO3-6111] - Also for better performance, we changed the way additional kudos are loaded at the bottom of works.
• [AO3-6115] - We fixed the rate limiting on log in attempts.
• [AO3-6122] - We made some changes to wrangling that had the unintended side effect of preventing some tags from being added to works (and making works that already used those tags impossible to edit). We reverted those wrangling changes.
• [AO3-6123] - We updated the mechanize gem to 2.7.7.
• [AO3-6124] - We made it so editing the comment settings on an admin post will update the settings for translations of the post as well -- that way, no one has to manually edit a few dozen posts.

0.9.306

Various tag clean-up tasks and security fixes, deployed on July 27th.

• [AO3-6187] - It was previously possible to set your works' "revised at" information to whatever you wanted, including a date in the future. Now we prevent that.
• [AO3-6126] - Trying to delete a work that had comment threads with deleted comments in the middle used to cause an error, but now the work will be deleted successfully.
• [AO3-6193] - We've fixed some flaky automated test failures for editing works.
• [AO3-5941] - We've made it faster for database admins to find out which accounts have used certain IP addresses.
• [AO3-5922] - We've also made it faster for them to look up comments by email.
• [AO3-6186] - We cleaned up some unused bits of code relating to prompts, to make things neater.
• [AO3-6195] - We also removed some unused scripts that were used for setting up development and staging databases. 🧹
• [AO3-5988] - There were some works in our database with non-canonical Rating and Category tags (e.g. "Teen & Up Audiences" instead of "Teen And Up Audiences"), so we added some code that would take care of those works and get rid of the erroneous tags.
• [AO3-6065] - We then made sure that works without a rating would receive the "Not Rated" tag (because otherwise those works were broken).
• [AO3-5964] - There were duplicates of tags, except with spaces added at the beginning or end, which led to problems when trying to edit the space-less tags. We made those duplicates more visibly distinct and thus manageable.
• [AO3-6110] - It was previously possible to add a parent skin of your choice to any skin you wanted, which really should not be possible! So we took care of that interesting little loophole.
• [AO3-5679] - On the page where moderators edit challenge assignments before sending them, we weren't properly sanitizing the input our autocomplete received from the "Giver" and "Recipient" fields. We've fixed that.
• [AO3-6165] - Whether deliberately or by accident, guest commenters sometimes enter other people's email addresses when leaving a comment. When someone replies to those comments, an annoyed person who has never used AO3 in their life writes in to complain, and then an annoyed volunteer has to manually update the email on the comment after another annoyed volunteer bans the email from being used in future comments. Now banning the email will prevent the sending of any future replies to comments from that address, eliminating one level of annoyance. (Please double check your email when you leave a guest comment! Only you can prevent annoyance fires!)
• [AO3-6165] - We updated the addressable gem from 2.7.0 to 2.8.0.

0.9.307

Tag limit on works plus some code clean-up, deployed on August 26th.

• [AO3-6094] - When sending an invitation code to someone, there should be a record of when it was sent. For some reason, there wasn't. Now this information is properly stored and displayed.
• [AO3-5565] - It was previously possible to bookmark the same work multiple times (i.e. if you had it open in different tabs). Since you really only need one (1) bookmark of a work, we make sure to prevent duplicates now.
• [AO3-5049] - Trying to change your email address to one already in use would result in a confusing little stack of error messages, some of which weren't even relevant. We now just give you the one that tells you that you'll have to pick a different email address, which is more helpful.
• [AO3-6206] - We updated the text of the email that is sent to a user when an admin hides one of their works.
• [AO3-6205] - We have added a user's ID to the user page accessed by admins, e.g. members of the Policy and Abuse team.
• [AO3-6153] - We introduced a limit to the number of tags that can be added to a work, requiring you to remove tags if you want to edit an existing work that goes over the new limit.
• [AO3-6196] - In our automated tests, we were using the contents of actual works graciously provided by volunteers. We have now replaced this text with more neutral placeholders.
• [AO3-6181] - We did some rewriting of the challenge signup code to make it less redundant.
• [AO3-5557] - We removed tests, code, and config variables for emailing abuse reports to the Policy & Abuse committee (since they already get a copy in their ticket tracker).
• [AO3-6070] - We still had some insecure http links languishing in the footer; those are now proper https links as well.
• [AO3-6149] - There used to be an admin-only page displaying the most recent comments across the whole site. It served no actual purpose, so we got rid of it.
• [AO3-6069] - Our linters (tools that analyze code for style or security issues) were living in a separate file from our other gems because one of them didn't play nice with our development environments. We figured out how to fix that and moved them into the file with our other gems.

0.9.308

Bug fixes and lots of internationalization work, deployed on November 1.

• [AO3-6188] - While all tag wranglers can make changes to a tag's diacritics or capitalization, only admins can make more significant edits to tag names. However, we mistakenly allowed wranglers to change any Asian characters in tag names, which definitely fell into the category of "significant edits." We've fixed it so only admins can change those characters.
• [AO3-6168] - The position of the button for leaving kudos will no longer cause the first line of kudos-givers to wrap prematurely.
• [AO3-6120] - When users access the Archive via a proxy, we display a security warning. However, the warning was appearing even for some addresses we own, causing confusion and concern. We've fixed that now.
• [AO3-6038] - We now give an error message if the comment you're replying to was marked as spam before you posted your reply. (Previously, the reply would be posted.)
• [AO3-3828] - We've made it so the automatic text on a work posted in response to a prompt in a Prompt Meme will now link to that prompt.
• [AO3-3642] - A wrangling error message that linked to the wrong tag due to non-escaped quotation marks will now link to the correct tag.
• [AO3-6220] - We updated some outdated FAQ links in some emails, as well as in the Terms of Service and Terms of Service FAQ.
• [AO3-6209] - We added some new database indexes related to tag sets to speed things up a bit.
• [AO3-6109] - For the third (and hopefully last!) time, we updated the configuration for the service our translators will use when translating emails and site copy.
• [AO3-6103] - We did a whole bunch of work to make the text of our emails more consistent so it will be easier to translate them.
• [AO3-5731] - If you didn't include a name in your support ticket, there was an extra space in the greeting of the emailed copy of your ticket. The space has been removed.
• [AO3-5372] - We've tweaked the padding on bookmarks to make it more consistent across the site.
• [AO3-2380] - Autocomplete tag suggestions will no longer rely on what the user enters matching the tag's diacritics, e.g., typing A should return results for  and vice versa.
• [AO3-6234] - We regenerated the list of false positives and issues that still need fixing raised by our security scanner.
• [AO3-6221] & [AO3-6222] - We updated the text of the Support and Policy & Abuse forms to reflect recent changes to the committees' responsibilities.
• [AO3-4311] - Changing the ISO code for an existing locale with an FAQ used to cause all FAQ pages to give a 500 error. Now the FAQs will continue to work!
• [AO3-6164] - It was possible to create an invalid FAQ category and cause all the FAQ pages to error. Fixing that seemed like a thing we should do, so we did it.

0.9.309

There's a limit on how many kudos guests can give in a certain time period, and on November 8, we deployed a JavaScript tweak to make that more user-friendly.

• [AO3-6252] - We added a helpful little error message in case you try to leave kudos and run into the rate limit.

I. LEGAL ADVOCACY

Legal received some great news in October: the U.S. Copyright Office renewed the vidders’ exemption to the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. In other words, we have won an additional three years of the existing exemption that allows vidders to decrypt DVDs, Blu-rays, or online sources for purposes of making noncommercial vids. Legal had previously submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright Office arguing for renewal and clarification of the vidders’ exemption earlier this year.

II. AT THE AO3

Open Doors announced the upcoming import of Of Elves and Men and completed the import of Gilmore Girls Adult Fic.

Policy & Abuse had a slight increase in tickets, with their numbers looking to be 2,400 new tickets by the end of October. Support received a typical number of tickets this month as well, with a special shout-out to Translation, who consistently provide translations for about 10% of Support's tickets.

In September, Tag Wrangling handled more than 340,000 tags across 46,000 fandoms.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Development & Membership ran a successful October Membership Drive--By Fans, For Fans--with news posts coordinated with Communications that Translation translated into 37 languages. The OTW raised a total of US$195,009.65, far above our goal of US$40,000. 6700 fans from 77 countries worldwide donated to the drive, and 4786 of those donors chose to begin or renew OTW membership. Thanks to everyone who donated and signal boosted!

Transformative Works and Cultures is on track for the March 2022 issue. New editors Poe Johnson and Mel Stanfill are learning the ropes, as is new managing editor Christine Mains. They also recently recruited for copyeditors and proofreaders.

Finance held a public meeting on October 16th to answer questions about the updated budget report.

IV. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 25 September to 24 October, Volunteers & Recruiting received 133 new requests, and completed 122, leaving us with 41 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 24 October 2021, the OTW has 1043 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Alastaire, Arcadia, Avery Renee, Carbon, Clemantines, EJ Bell, FatalGrace, faultystart, Fin, friki, Gretal, Ibdreams, Juhos, L. Rex, ladyvgrey, lawly, Leevie, LilianaMelo16, Lix Song, Malini, marevitreum, Minnie, Moche, Morgan Y, Schnikeys, Sin, Skald, Stardreamer, Tay, Tobias, VioletC and 6 other volunteers.

Departing Directors: Lex de Leon & Natalia Gruber
Departing Committee Staff: Llyrianna (Translation), Sijing Xie and 1 other AO3 Docs staffer, and 2 Support Staff
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: flamethrowr, Rebecca Snyder and 3 other volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Aatreyee, acousticAlkonost, Adhara, ambercatfish, Bibiana, Blanca Rodríguez, EisRequiem, Kockožder, Novella, Sophie K, stellahibernis, weisswald & 6 other volunteers

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

The Disney Kink Meme, a prompt meme focusing on the Disney animated (and some live-action) films, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work on The Disney Kink Meme
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The Disney Kink Meme was originally hosted on LiveJournal, and has since been moved to Dreamwidth. Participation on Dreamwidth, however, has tapered off significantly, so the moderators want to move the prompt meme to a more active location with a long-term future.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with krissielee and afterandalasia to import The Disney Kink Meme into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanworks and unfilled prompts currently in The Disney Kink Meme will be hosted on the OTW's servers. Fulfilled prompts will be embedded in their own AO3 work pages and associated with the prompts that inspired them.

We will begin importing works from The Disney Kink Meme to the AO3 after October.

What does this mean for creators who have work on The Disney Kink Meme?

Most prompts and fanwork fills on The Disney Kink Meme were posted anonymously. All the prompts, and the anonymous fills, will be imported to the AO3 using the collection's archivist account. If the creator of a fill chose not to post anonymously, however, and if they have an email address listed on their Dreamwidth or LiveJournal profile, we will send an import notification to that email address.

We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All fanworks archived on behalf of a self-identified creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. If you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your LiveJournal or Dreamwidth pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your LiveJournal or Dreamwidth account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Disney Kink Meme mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Disney Kink Meme

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Disney Kink Meme on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve The Disney Kink Meme!

- The Open Doors team, krissielee and afterandalasia

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Effie, who volunteers as a TWC Outreach and Communications editor.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

My role is fairly new! Originally, I applied to be an editor of Transformative Works and Cultures’ Symposium section. However, during my interview with Kristina and Karen I ended up discussing ideas for outreach and communications at length. This eventually led to the creation of my role: Outreach and Communications Editor. My main focus is on the journal’s social media presence, namely Tumblr and Twitter, though I also make sure that any calls for papers are posted around the Internet as well. I am hoping to scale up TWC’s outreach so that an even wider breadth of scholars (and fans!) feel confident submitting to the journal. Additionally, as I continue on with the role, I will take over most of the outward facing communications including press releases. This takes the task off the editors’ desks, which enables them to focus on what they do best, and allows for a more uniform tone across the journal’s communications.

I’ve been with OTW for years, though! I began volunteering on Fanlore back in 2018 and am still a member of the Fanlore social media team, though I have taken more of a backseat in that role.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

My weeks are pretty atypical and dependent on what (if anything) is coming out of TWC – not to mention that, this being a new role, I’m still trying to find the right rhythm for our social media. Moving forward, I think the weeks surrounding an issue release will be busiest, as I intend to get a few social media posts out leading up to the release and then, of course, focus on the release on the day of but also for a few weeks afterward! I think the opportunity to have a stronger presence on social media is one that we shouldn’t miss out on and I’m eager for the journal’s presence to be felt! On quieter weeks, I intend to remind followers of our upcoming calls for paper, as well as highlight pieces from recently released issues.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I have quite a lot of editorial experience and it’s something I love to engage in. I actually run my own young adult literary journal and have been on staff at AGNI literary journal for over half a decade. Social media is a big part of what I do in both of those roles, so I’ve become fairly confident in that area. At first, when I applied to be a Symposium editor, I did so because I enjoy editing but also because I think the Symposium section of TWC is wonderful. It offers authors and readers opportunities to start discussions on a variety of topics but, perhaps even more importantly, it’s a space for fan meta. But in the conversation/interview for that role, I got really carried away with what appears to be a passion of mine: outreach and communications. When Kristina and Karen offered me this new role, I was really pleased. I’m a devout reader of TWC and have felt, for a while now, that the work it produces needs to be read by more people! So I’m really thrilled to be part of the process in getting this work into people’s hands, so to speak!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

The biggest challenges I’ve found, in both my Fanlore work and in this new role at TWC, are (1) understanding the scope of OTW and the systems it has in place and (2) project planning. For the first challenge, I think it’s really easy to be a user of one, or many, of the OTW’s resources and not realize the amount of work that goes into each aspect of this massive organization. The Fanlore team alone, between social media staffers, graphic designers, gardeners, etc is made up of at least a couple dozen volunteers. TWC is also made up of a large group of volunteers and these are only two of the many projects under the OTW umbrella. At first, it is a little overwhelming to grasp who all does what and how! I still found this to be the case when I moved into my new role, despite being on Fanlore for so many years!

The second challenge, which is perhaps a more personal one, is more focused on project and time management. Being a volunteer for such a large organization means that you are responsible for ensuring you pull your weight within the role, or else other aspects might be delayed. It also requires pre-planning and recognizing that dedicated time must be set aside for your tasks. As a PhD student, I am aware of this to a degree but I think when we take on service/volunteer roles, there’s a danger of not giving it the importance it should hold. I will admit, this was something I had to adapt to (mentally) when I came on to the Fanlore team and, again, as a part of TWC, I am re-adjusting to ensure that I accomplish what I want to within the role. Luckily, the teams and communities that make up the OTW are incredible. During my time as a volunteer, I have encountered nothing but encouragement, support, and kindness from everyone I’ve interacted with. It’s truly wonderful being part of the team.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I often feel like a fraud when I say this but…the only fannish thing I do is read fanfiction! But fanfiction is a cornerstone of my life and has been for almost 25 years. In fact, it’s so crucial to who I am that I’m pursuing a PhD in media studies with a dissertation focused on fanfiction, storytelling, and new media platforms!

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Are you an experienced copyeditor or proofreader? Would you like to help translate OTW/AO3 news posts? Are you a frequent Tumblr user who enjoys helping others? Do you want to write technical documentation? Or manage infrastructure projects? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• News Translation Volunteer - closing 27 October 2021 at 23:59 UTC
• Tumblr Site Moderator - closing 27 October 2021 at 23:59 UTC [or after 40 applications]
• TWC Copyeditor - closing 27 October 2021 at 23:59 UTC
• TWC Proofreader - closing 27 October 2021 at 23:59 UTC
• Systems Technical Writer - closing 27 October 23:59 UTC
• Systems Committee Project Manager - closing 27 October 23:59 UTC

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

News Translation Volunteer

Would you like to help translate OTW/AO3 news posts? We are looking for volunteers of native or near-native fluency in their target languages, who can translate or beta news posts within five-day deadlines. If you enjoy working collaboratively, if you're fluent in a language other than English, if you're passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help us reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!

We particularly need people for Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Kyrgyz, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Ukrainian and Welsh — but help with other languages would be much appreciated.

(Please note that our Catalan, Czech, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Malay, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese teams are not accepting new members at this time.)

Applicants may be asked to translate and correct short text samples and will be invited to a chatroom interview as part of the selection process. More information about us can be found on the Translation committee page.

Applications are due October 27, 2021

Tumblr Site Moderator

The Communications Committee is recruiting a Tumblr Site Moderator to manage the Organization for Transformative Works' presence on Tumblr, the social networking site.

The moderator will be part of a small team of social media moderators working across the OTW's social media outlets. They will be expected to maintain an active presence on Tumblr, reblogging a range of posts of relevance and interest to the OTW's userbase. They will also handle incoming user queries and manage responses to the OTW's original news content.

This position is part of the Communications Committee. Communications is the main information distribution team for the OTW. We distribute information both internally to OTW personnel and externally to the general public, media, and fans. We also serve as the general first point of contact for those contacting the OTW.

For this position, we would like to find someone who is familiar with the conventions of Tumblr posting and has experience moderating a social media page. We would also be interested in hearing from those with customer service experience, especially in an online environment. We will expect you to have an interest in fandom at large and an understanding of the concerns and activities of the OTW (although we will of course provide you with training once you start). You should enjoy working in a team and you will need to have roughly 4-5 hours of time available across the week to dedicate to your OTW responsibilities.

If you're a frequent Tumblr user who enjoys helping others, has wide-ranging interests across the fandom space, and is curious and willing to learn, we'd love to hear from you!

Applications are due October 27, 2021 [or after 40 applications]

TWC Copyeditor

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international peer-reviewed Gold Open Access online publication about fan-related topics that seeks to promote dialogue between the academic community and fan communities.

Copyeditors professionally copyedit submissions for TWC according to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 17, Merriam-Webster online, and the TWC style guide. Editorial standards are those of a university press. Applicants are required to pass a brief test. All returned tests will be assessed and the applicant provided with feedback.

Applications are due October 27, 2021

TWC Proofreader

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international peer-reviewed Gold Open Access online publication about fan-related topics that seeks to promote dialogue between the academic community and fan communities.

Proofreaders carefully proofread the final online HTML-tagged manuscripts for online publication according to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 17, Merriam-Webster online, and the TWC style guide. Editorial standards are those of a university press. Applicants are required to pass a brief test. All returned tests will be assessed and the applicant provided with feedback.

Applications are due October 27, 2021

Systems Technical Writer

The Systems Committee supports, troubleshoots, and expands the technological infrastructure that underlies the OTW’s many projects.

Come help us keep on top of all of this technical information! We are looking for a skilled writer who will take the lead in ensuring our documentation is comprehensive and comprehensible, to help with training new team members and increasing knowledge transfer within Systems and from Systems to the wider OTW.

Applications are due October 27, 2021

Systems Committee Project Manager

The Systems Committee supports, troubleshoots, and expands the technological infrastructure that underlies the OTW’s many projects.

We need a Project Manager to help us to keep track of the many things that we're trying to achieve at once; to help with managing vendors, budget, and expenses; to liaise with other parts of the OTW, and to assist the Chair in managing the Systems Committee.

We are seeking someone who is organized, dedicated, and has strong leadership skills. A background in managing technical projects is a plus but not required. Good communication and interpersonal skills are a must, as we work remotely and are sometimes in the midst of dealing with sudden, stressful technical problems.

Applications are due October 27, 2021

Apply at the volunteering page!

The Organization for Transformative Works’s October membership drive is over, and we’re delighted to say that we raised a total of US$195,009.65, far outstripping our goal of US$40,000. This was made possible by the generosity of 6700 donors from 77 countries worldwide, of whom 4786 chose to begin or renew OTW membership. We are so grateful, as always, for our global community. Thank you! Your support enables us to continue working in service of our mission: to further the interests of the fans we represent by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in all its many forms.

We would also like to thank the volunteers whose service made this drive run so smoothly, and all of the users who posted, tweeted, and talked about the drive to their friends and acquaintances. Your help is invaluable in helping us to achieve our goals. We appreciate you all so much!

Finally, if you haven’t yet had time to make a contribution, don’t worry! We accept donations all year round. OTW membership, which is available to those making donations of US$10 and above, lasts for a full year from the date of the most recent US$10 donation; so anybody donating now will be eligible to vote in next year’s election for the OTW Board of Directors. The thank-you gifts we offer for donations of US$40 or above are also available on an ongoing basis. It’s always a good time to give!

The Organization for Transformative Works is a labor of love. It was created by fans, for fans. We are a nonprofit organization, and we rely 100% on donations: the donation of time from our volunteers, and the donation of funds from the community we serve. Today marks the beginning of our biannual membership drive, when we ask that those of you who are able to do so consider making a financial contribution to support our work. You can read about how we spend your money in our budget.

Your donations to the OTW support our work across all our projects: from the Archive of Our Own to Fanlore; from our academic journal, Transformative Works and Cultures, to our fanworks rescue project Open Doors and our Legal committee’s advocacy for transformative works worldwide. Donors also benefit more directly. With any one-time donation of US$10 or more, you can choose to take up an annual membership of the OTW, giving you the right to vote for our Board of Directors in the election that we hold in August every year.

Members also receive a digital icon which can be used on your AO3 or on social media profiles; and those who have maintained OTW membership for three, five, or ten years are eligible for exclusive commemorative gifts. Find out more about membership and voting here.

Those making donations of US$40 or above are able to select from a number of thank-you gifts. New this year are an OTW tumbler in limited-edition white, and a brand-new sticker set. If you can’t afford to make a donation of this size, don’t worry: we’ve got you. You can opt to set up a recurring donation at a level that suits you and let our Development and Membership team know which premium you’d like to save up for. Once your donations hit the eligible level, they will dispatch your gift.

The Organization for Transformative Works is a registered non-profit in the US, and donors in this country may be able to take advantage of matched giving schemes from their employer. Please consider speaking to your workplace to find out whether this is a possibility for you!

If you aren’t able to make a donation this time, please consider sharing this post with others, and know that we appreciate your support however you are able to give it. Thank you for your money, your time, and your love. We wouldn’t be here without it!

During 2021, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2020 audit of financial statements continues!

Meanwhile, the team has also been diligently working on the 2021 budget update and are happy to present it here (access the 2021 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2021 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$125,025.02 spent so far out of US$227,075.48 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• 62.1% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses include a planned US$100,000.00 for an expansion of server capacity to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$450.48 spent so far out of US$1,160.85 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$339.00 spent so far out of US$1,839.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$5,527.77 spent so far out of US$10,697.58 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees for various activities, including OTW trademarks (access all program expenses).

Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$598.32 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan will publish the book and host the fanvids, as well as make it accessible for free online for everyone to read and use.
• Budgeted expenses are for additional proofreading and publication (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$31,423.46 spent so far out of US$62,647.46 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$12,448.35 spent so far out of US$59,264.41 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2021 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 57% of our income in 2021. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which will significantly increase server equipment and server hosting expenses in the coming years. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more administrative support, further increasing expenses.
• US$482,542.83 received so far (as of July 31, 2021) and US$542,972.85 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 16 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Thanks for joining the chat!

To download the OTW's 2021 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

I. FANLORE NEWS

From September 13 to September 26, Fanlore hosted its annual Stub September challenge, a two-week challenge in which editors create and expand short articles ("stubs") on Fanlore. 236 new pages were created, and 3,422 edits were carried out!

Fanlore also carried out a comprehensive update of Fanlore's Wish List page, which included cleaning up outdated requests, adding links to new editor tutorials, and creating a new section for pages that need more international scope. Finally, Fanlore's social and graphics teams worked hard at preparing posts for an anime and manga themed month in October, or Fanimangalore, ongoing now.

II. AT THE AO3

Open Doors completed a whopping four archive imports in September! Be sure to check out the AO3 collections for The Tom Paris Dorm, Octaves of the Heart: Sublime Archives, I Will Remember You Marathon Archive (2005-2009), and The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive.

At the time of this writing, Policy & Abuse was on track to receive around 2,200 tickets in September. Meanwhile, Support is keeping consistently busy, with around 1,200 tickets a month, and now has 50 regular volunteers working on tickets! Roughly 15% of those Support tickets are in one of the non-English languages they support, with thanks to Translation for their assistance translating those tickets. Support recently took on some of Policy & Abuse's workload as well.

In August, Tag Wrangling wrangled more than 440,000 tags--almost a thousand tags per wrangler!

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

The Board of Directors hosted a public meeting on September 29 on Discord to welcome their new directors and elect the next set of officers for the coming year. The Board appointed Antonius Melisse to fill the vacancy left by director Kati Eggert and welcomed him, E. Anna Szegedi, and Kari Dayton to the Board. They also elected Antonius Melisse as this term's Board President, Alex Tischer as Secretary, and Finance chair Yuechiang Luo to continue her position as Treasurer.

TWC published Transformative Works and Cultures No. 36, a general issue, on time on September 15. They are pleased to announce that a new editor team comprising Poe Johnson and Mel Stanfill will be replacing current editors Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson over the course of the next year.

In September, Communications was pleased to announce the OTW's 14th anniversary. Finally, kudos to Translation, who dealt with 560 regular tasks and 119 time-sensitive tasks in September!

IV. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 23 August to 24 September, Volunteers & Recruiting received 92 new requests, and completed 87, leaving us with 30 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 24 September 2021, the OTW has 1034 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Directors: Antonius Melisse, E. Anna Szegedi, Kari Dayton
New Committee Chairs: disjointed (Elections), Nrandom (Development & Membership)
New Committee Staff: Diana-Fortyseven, Feanaria_, Hypatia, Kory, Principal of the Thing, Sarah Rose, Venhedish and 3 other Policy & Abuse staffers, 2 TWC

Departing Directors: Kati Eggert
Departing Committee Staff: Morgan Drake (Tag Wrangling), Jess White and 1 other Policy & Abuse staffer, Aque and 2 others Support staffers, 1 AO3 Documentation staffer, and 2 Elections staffers
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ashsmash, Morgan Drake, & 6 other volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Brina Recelj, SilenceoftheSolitude and 2 other volunteers

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Of Elves and Men, a multifandom fanfiction archive with a strong emphasis on The Lord of the Rings and The Lord of the Rings RPF, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on Of Elves and Men
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

As activity on the site has dwindled, the moderator, Alexcat, feels Of Elves and Men will be best preserved by moving it to AO3. Alexcat would like to preserve the work of the writers who were part of Of Elves and Men, and as a long lasting website, feels the site has much to preserve. Of Elves and Men was an important Tolkien site for many years and many of its works exist nowhere else.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Alexcat to import Of Elves and Men into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. Eventually links to the old site will redirect to the collection on AO3, which can be searched and filtered in order to locate individual imported works.

We will begin importing works from Of Elves and Men to the AO3 after October.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Of Elves and Men?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your Of Elves and Men pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Of Elves and Men account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Of Elves and Men mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Of Elves and Men

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Of Elves and Men on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve Of Elves and Men!

- The Open Doors team and Alexcat

Do you have strong non-fiction or technical writing skills? Do you like working in a team environment, making sure that essential tasks are done? Do you have experience working in Public Relations? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Elections Communication Specialist - closing 29 September 2021 at 23:59 UTC
• Elections Public Relations Specialist - closing 29 September 2021 at 23:59 UTC
• Elections Team Coordinator - closing 29 September 2021 at 23:59 UTC

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

Elections Communication Specialist

Do you have strong non-fiction or technical writing skills? Are you interested in writing and editing public newsposts? Then come join the Elections team!

The Elections Committee is responsible for running OTW Board elections; we ensure the fairness, timeliness, and confidentiality of the process. We are currently looking for Communications Specialists to act as the lead writers and editors of the committee. They are responsible for the quality of public news posts and large announcements, as well as editing internal documentation.

Applications are due September 29, 2021

Elections Public Relations Specialist

Do you have experience working in Public Relations? Do you want to help the OTW by improving awareness and understanding of the annual Board election process? Then come join the Elections team!

The Elections Committee is responsible for running OTW Board elections; we ensure the fairness, timeliness, and confidentiality of the process. We are currently looking for Public Relations Specialists to help us promote the annual election and improve understanding of the Elections Committee's work.

Applications are due September 29, 2021

Elections Team Coordinator

Are you a highly organized person? Do you like working in a team environment, making sure that essential tasks are done? Then come join the Elections team!

The Elections Committee is responsible for running OTW Board elections; we ensure the fairness, timeliness, and confidentiality of the process. We are currently looking for Team Coordinators to maintain our internal documentation and keep the team organized. Applicants must have strong organizational and administrative skills.

Applications are due September 29, 2021

Apply at the volunteering page!

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Cyn, who volunteers as a co-chair for our Volunteers & Recruiting Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I currently wear three hats: Translation Staff, Volunteers & Recruiting (VolCom) Staff and being one of VolCom’s co-chairs. I’m also a former Tag Wrangler, Open Doors Staffer, and Support Staffer.

VolCom staff ensure all volunteers have access to the necessary tools and resources needed to complete their work efficiently and effectively. We also process any volunteer onboardings (adding tools as needed) and volunteer departures (ensuring all tools are removed). One of our key responsibilities is to work with chairs of other committees to facilitate the administrative aspects of our monthly recruitment so that all roles in our organization are appropriately staffed. Since the OTW runs on the energy of volunteers who have decided to give their time and resources to it, I consider VolCom to be a key part of ensuring the OTW continues to operate smoothly. VolCom also works on long-term projects that affect the organization as a whole, such as the implementation of new tools, auditing tool access or developing a chair training plan that covers OTW-specific skills as well as more general leadership and management skills.

As one of VolCom’s co-chairs, I supervise staff to make sure everyone has tasks to work on, recruit and train newbies, ensure goals and tasks listed in our committee’s roadmap are being worked on, ensure documentation of our processes and projects is up to date and help other chairs with resolving Code of Conduct violations.

The Translation Committee helps coordinate the OTW’s efforts across the organization to translate site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs, and more. In my role as a Translation staffer, I am mostly involved with volunteer management which includes such things as assigning tasks to translators, running interviews and training chats, and handling any hiatus requests. I also help other committees if they need something translated, such as helping Policy & Abuse and Support with getting any tickets they may need to be translated that they can’t translate themselves.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Every week in VolCom is different so I may work on any of the following:

1. Welcoming and adding access to tools for new volunteers or removing a volunteer’s tool access if they are leaving the OTW.
2. Updating our internal volunteer database of who is starting or returning from a hiatus.
3. If a volunteer requests a name and/or email change, updating our internal volunteer database and any tools the volunteer has access to.
4. Processing requests to give a volunteer access to a tool.
5. Responding to general volunteering queries.
6. Working on one of our long-term projects.
7. If VolCom recently recruited new volunteers, I might spend some time during the week following up with them about their progress and/or walking them through our different tasks.

One of the more regular tasks I work on is processing requests for recruitment. If recruitment is 1-2 weeks away, I’ll deliver feedback to chairs on their recruitment documentation and training plan, set up the website application form, make the advertising post to give to Communications to send out when recruitment begins, and document which role is being recruited for our internal volunteer database. If we’re in the middle of recruitment I’ll organize the applications we received and, once recruitment is over, send the apps to committee chairs.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I see my volunteering as my way to give back to fandom since I’m a huge reader but not much of a writer. Although I’ve been reading fanfic for many years, I didn’t really stop to consider who ran the Archive of Our Own until one day when I happened to see the post looking for volunteers to join the Tag Wrangling Committee. That got me curious about who ran the Archive so I read more about the OTW and its projects. I loved that it was a non-profit organization run by and for fans so I decided to apply.

After joining the OTW as a wrangler, I was able to learn even more about the OTW’s projects and what goes on internally to keep everything running. I joined the Open Doors Committee to help save at-risk archives before learning more about VolCom from another volunteer who was on both the Open Doors and VolCom Committees. I thought the type of tasks VolCom did were the types of things I really enjoyed doing in my day job, so when I was asked if I was interested in joining I said yes and here we are!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

One of the biggest challenges I’ve had are the projects VolCom works on. Our projects can require a lot of time, research, and prior knowledge in related fields, and sometimes it's not clear until we’re in the middle of a project what needs to get done or what pathway to follow to carry a project out.

Another challenge I have is balancing my workload and communicating with VolCom staffers during busy periods. My day jobs have taken up a lot of time this year, so I’ve had to work on rebalancing real life and my volunteer commitments. Luckily one of my jobs is flexible and I usually have time to answer questions from VolCom staff or other volunteers during work hours. If I don’t have time during the day, then I work on volunteering when I should be sleeping (who needs sleep?).

What fannish things do you like to do?

Other than volunteering, I love to read fanfic, listen to podfics or watch fanvids. I’ve been reading fanfic since the very early 2000s when I started reading Sailor Moon fanfic on A Sailor Moon Romance. I then moved to Fanfiction.net looking for more fics and realized there were a lot more fandoms with fics I could read. I eventually wandered my way over to AO3 and I’ve been reading in many different fandoms ever since. I’m currently reading fics in 9-1-1, MCU, The Witcher, and Yuri on Ice with many more to come I’m sure.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

In order to better balance the workloads of our Support and Policy & Abuse committees, we are making some changes to who is responsible for which kinds of requests.

Policy & Abuse will continue to address Terms of Service violations, and Support will continue to answer questions on how to use the site and address bug reports, as always. But there are some cases which Policy & Abuse have previously been handling, and which will now be handled by Support. These are:

• Loss of access to an account (for example, if you no longer remember or have access to the email address you used to set up your account in order to receive a password reset)
• Questions and problems concerning orphaned works
• Works labeled with an incorrect language

If you need to report one of these issues, please contact Support. If you direct a report of any kind to the wrong department, it's okay! We'll either transfer the report directly, or ask you to resubmit it to the correct team.

We hope these changes will be helpful by allowing our Policy & Abuse team members to devote more of their time and energy to other issues!

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

I. FANLORE NEWS

Fanlore has been all systems go in August preparing for their next challenge, Stub September, which will run from September 13 to 26, as well as the public launch of their Discord server! They've also been carrying out more testing for their upcoming MediaWiki upgrade and preparing a number of updates to their Wish List page.

II. GOVERNANCE

Following the successful contested election that Elections organized in August, the Board of Directors is very happy to welcome its newest members, E. Anna Szegedi, Antonius Melisse, and Kari Dayton! Anna and Kari will be replacing Lex de Leon and Natalia Gruber, who are just at the end of their terms, and Antonius will be completing the term of departing director Kati Eggert, who is stepping down from the role for personal reasons.

Translation did a great deal of work during this year's election, with Development & Membership and Communications also helping out. Thank you to our voting members! The 2021 Election statistics post summarizes some information about this year's election, including ballots cast and voter turnout, both this year and in comparison to last year.

III. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design, & Technology deployed a code update to limit how many tags you can add to a work. Although this change will limit the number of fandom, character, relationship, and additional tags on each work to a maximum of 75, works that already have over 75 tags will keep all of their tags unless the creator tries to update it, and they should not be reported to the Support or Policy & Abuse teams. In addition, staff clarified that the new limits will not apply to bookmarks, series, or gift exchanges and prompt memes run on the site.

Open Doors completed the import of DoyleCordy! They also welcomed three new members to its team of import assistants, who assist committee staff with tasks related to archive imports. The import assistants completed a number of tasks in August, including searching Sarek and Amanda Archive, The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive, and 春日泽 (SpringFen) for works already on AO3; cleaning up metadata of works on VinXperience; and compiling tracking spreadsheets for an additional archive yet to be announced.

In August, Tag Wrangling made some updates to their internal FAQ to bring it in line with updated policies. Behind the scenes, they also made some improvements to their process for resolving issues involving tags incorrectly marked as synonyms of other tags that aren't associated with any specific fandom, which should hopefully allow them to address those tags more quickly. Tag Wranglers have also continued to handle truly massive numbers of incoming tags--in July, more than 410,000 tags across more than 45,000 fandoms.

At the time of this writing, Policy & Abuse was on track to receive 2710 tickets in August, which is a small increase from last month. Support was on track to receive about 1400 tickets in August.

IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

In August, Legal helped users understand what Tumblr’s “Post+” plan would mean for Tumblr users and fans more generally, via a public post and some discussion with the press.

TWC upgraded its software (to OJS 3.3) and is now working to correct graphics broken during the transition. Production for the September 15 issue is ongoing. Meanwhile, Webs has been busy working with DNSrecord for the past month.

We could use more suggestions for our Guest Post series, and are currently particularly interested in locating podficcers and fan crafters, so let us know if you or someone you know would be interested.

V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 25 July to 23 August, Volunteers & Recruiting received 121 new requests, and completed 114, leaving us with 34 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 23 August 2021, the OTW has 1,043 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Staff: eliotjay, Luz Villarreal (both Open Doors) and 2 other Open Doors staffers, 1 Policy & Abuse Staffer
New Open Doors Volunteers: Brianna Dardin & 3 other volunteers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ada_Li, Aenys, Anahlia, Anggi, angrytomato, Ark, Autumn, bittercape, bloodfruit, c0ldspark, Cherie, Chocho, Elise, ErinO, Fern, Fynn, ger, Halcyon, IronLucario, iwasnttrainedforthis, Jully, KQLink, Laila, Losie, Lyria, marie belle, MFY11EP, mithrel, NadaZen, NellNanyoky, Oliviaireth, ovenmittens, Pyr, Rain Shadow, Rex P., Submariner, tiara0204, Tobisco, Venti, Wrblu, Xylia, zedille, & 2 other volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Harold Liu

Departing Committee Staff: 1 AO3 Documentation staffer, 2 Support staffers, Rimb (Translation)
Departing Strategic Planning Staff: royrichard
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Harold Liu, Mandy Gooch, Mierke, renaissance, Vasileios Pasialiokis & 1 other volunteer
Departing Translation Volunteers: Quality, spectralarchers, Vasileios Pasialiokis & 6 other volunteers

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.