Archive of Our Own ^beta

I. 101 IMPORTS

Open Doors posted their 2023 roundup and announced the completion of over 100 at-risk archive imports since 2012! They are continuing to work on previously announced imports and will be announcing new incoming archives soon.

II. AT THE AO3

AO3 Documentation uploaded two new documents, the brand new Gifts FAQ and an updated History and Mark For Later FAQ. They are still working away on their Review process to check all the uploaded FAQs and Tutorials and see which will need to be revised in the near future.

Accessibility, Design and Technology spent the first half of March testing and deploying an upgrade to Ruby 3.1, which will – among other things – enable future improvements to how PDF downloads are generated. After that, they pivoted to a mini release for a little break from more involved testing. Systems worked alongside AD&T to upgrade the Archive to Ruby 3.1, which will help us towards our goal of bringing our production servers to the newest version of Debian. They also finished a short work for the public that explains the big picture actions taken during last year’s DDoS attacks.

Policy and Abuse received 1,983 tickets in February and Support received 1968 tickets in February, with Tag Wrangling wranglers handling more than 416,000 tags across more than 63,000 fandoms - more than a thousand tags for each wrangling volunteer!

Tag Wrangling also continued work on the ongoing project to address some updates to canonical tags not associated with specific fandoms. In addition to some earlier updates they've made some tweaks to some tags in the Alternate Universe tag tree. Tags for Alternate Universe - Age of Sail, Tudor Era, and American Revolution will now be found subtagged under the "Alternate Universe - Historical" tag, among other improvements.

III. NEW ISSUES AND FACES

TWC published issue no. 42 of Transformative Works and Cultures on March 15, 2024. This was a special issue on the theme of “Fandoms and Platforms,” guest edited by Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard.

Fanlore is in the process of rolling out an update to its Featured Article process. Meanwhile Legal answered a lot of user queries and released a public post urging users to oppose efforts to pass an overreaching right-of-publicity law in Tennessee, USA.

Development and Membership's Conventions and Live Events had a blast at Ret-Con, where one of our volunteers hosted a panel on fic searching, and at Emerald City Comic Con, where they offered custom AoTree stickers. Tag OTW in photos if you grabbed one, or come see our volunteers soon at Supanova in Melbourne or C2E2 in Chicago.

Communications has new site mods at X, Facebook and LinkedIn and March's 5 Things post featured Tumblr mod, Remi. They also released the results of February's IFD2024 Survey with the assistance of Translation, who wrapped up the last International Fanworks Day survey report translations. They were also hard at work translating news posts and graphics for the April membership drive.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board is in the process of preparing for their previously announced second quarter public meeting in late April. The Board Assistants Team completed some internal projects and began new ones including the first draft of an organization-wide CSAM policy, which will address how we handle reports of CSAM on our sites as well as attacks similar to the May 2022 Attacks. In addition, the newly appointed Board Cybersecurity Delegate has begun work.

Strategic Planning has been working on the early steps of our Paid Staff and Cybersecurity Strategic Plan and Diversifying Spaces goals. They have received
Results from an internal SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) survey from OTW committees.

V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting worked on external recruitment for three Tag Wrangling positions and one Communications position, as well as internal recruitment for one Volunteers and Recruiting position. They’ve also continued working hard behind the scenes on internal projects.

The committee has officially kicked off an Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) subcommittee, and are in the process of learning and setting up the associated tool for it.

From 22 February to 23 March, Volunteers & Recruiting received 141 new requests, and completed 124, leaving us with 57 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of 23 March 2024, the OTW has 859 volunteers. Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Jenni D. (QA&T Lead), iManga (ICCR Lead), Fiona M & telescopicpoems (AO3 Docs Chairs)
New BAT Volunteers: 1 Board Cybersecurity Delegate
New Communications Volunteers: Elintiriel (Event Coordinator), bringyourbasket and choux (Media Outreach Volunteers), Cold Sky (Site Moderator), Antonia (Chair Track Volunteer), 1 Event Coordinator, 1 Media Outreach Volunteer, and 2 Site Moderators
New Fanlore Volunteers: Skeptic (Discord Moderator Volunteer), 1 Discord Moderator Volunteer, 2 Outreach Analysts, and 1 Social Media Moderator Volunteer
New Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Import Assistant
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Derpinaz, pitytheviolins, Slumber and 1 other Supervisor
New Translation Volunteers: mango mochi (Volunteer Manager), Ezster, Iva, Janka, Julia Neugarten, KHR, Kristine Tentere (Translators), and 5 Translators

Departing Committee Chairs: Sammie Louise (AO3 Docs)
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 BAT Moderator
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Administrative Volunteers
Departing Support Volunteers: 1 Support Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: owlwinter, sahar, Mika and 19 other Tag Wranglers

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 Organization for Transformative Works's April membership drive is over and we are delighted to say that we are finishing with a total of $207,088.91 raised, far exceeding our goal of $50,000. These donations came from 6073 people in 70 countries: thank you to every single one of you, as well as to all of you who posted and shared the news about the drive!

We are particularly pleased that 5206 donors chose to either take up or renew OTW membership with their donation. The OTW would not exist without its users all around the world, and your continued support for us is our absolute pride and joy! We are so glad to know that our ongoing mission to support, protect, and provide access to the history of fanworks and fan culture continues to resonate with the people that matter most of all: the fans themselves.

If you were intending to donate or join and haven't yet done so, don't worry! The OTW accepts donations all year round and you can always choose to become a member with a donation of US$10 or more. Memberships run for one calendar year from the date of your donation, so if you donate now you'll be able to vote in the 2024 OTW Board elections, which will take place in August. Our exclusive thank-you gifts are available whenever you donate!

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 OTW has recently completed two surveys with our project users to find out more about what they know about our work. In our 16th Anniversary Survey, 87% of the 67,474 fans who responded said that they had never heard of OTW's Open Doors. However, in our International Fanworks Day (IFD) 10th Anniversary Survey, over 60% of survey takers said they did know that the OTW preserves fandom archives, although only 28% knew that we help preserve physical fanworks as well.

So we'd like to put a spotlight on the important work that this OTW project does. Open Doors began in 2009 by facilitating donations of fan creations, such as zines, audio and video tapes, and ephemera, to academic libraries who house and preserve them. In 2012, they began the first of over 100 digital archive imports to AO3. This project imports archive content in all languages and formats.

In 2022, they went one step further and created the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project, through which fanfiction and fanart originally published in print fanzines is imported to AO3.

When you support the OTW, you support the work of Open Doors and all our projects in preserving the history and works created by fans over decades. And for those who are able to donate, we have some items we think you'll find worth keeping as well!

Our IFD survey revealed that over 11% of the survey takers had created fannish poetry. But if you haven't yet, with a US$75 donation you can try your hand at it with our new poetry magnets featuring fun fannish words!

For a US$40 donation, we now have a new sticker set of animal themed OTW + project logos.

You can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Just select the gift you want, and if the total for that donation doesn't reach the amount needed for the gift you selected, future donations will be applied. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members have the right to vote for the Board of Directors — the OTW’s governing board. You have until June 30, 2024, to become a member if you would like to vote in this year’s election, which will be held in August.

We hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate to keep Open Doors doing their work, as well as Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. And for all of those OTW members who are renewing their membership, thank you for your continued support!

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.

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2023 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2024 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2024 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2024 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$36,323.75 spent so far out of US$317,388.37 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• 47.2% 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 also include US$120,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$20,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$1,814.10 spent so far out of US$10,618.35 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$314.00 spent so far out of US$4,220.80 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize.

Fanlore

• US$1,603.11 spent so far out of US$18,249.93 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,947.20 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$20,537.62 spent so far out of US$159,357.74 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$39,976.35 spent so far out of US$161,831.47 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2024 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 will account for about 22.4% of our income in 2024. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, 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 and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$230,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$78,066.43 received so far (as of February 29, 2024) and US$448,320.00 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'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2024 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The OTW launched a user survey as part of the International Fanworks Day's 10th annual celebration. It was launched on February 9th and closed on February 19th. The survey, which asked 12 questions, was offered in 25 languages and was started by 55,620 people.

This survey report covers the following:

1) How many responses there were to each question
2) How many people gave which answers.

Below is an example from the report:

Q8: Have you ever used AO3 bookmarks to rec a fanwork?

50,591 survey takers answered this question.

Yes – 36,026 (71.37%)
No – 14,565 (28.63%)

Visit this link to access the rest of the survey responses.

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 Remi, who volunteers as a Tumblr moderator on our Communications committee.

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

I run the OTW Tumblr account! The OTW was born of a love of fandom, and Tumblr is a place where a lot of fandom things happen. Still. No matter what the other news sites say about Tumblr. There are writers and artists, gifmakers and fancrafters, people whose whole blogs are finding fandom things and promoting their brilliant creators.

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

A couple of times a day I check the askbox and notes in the activity feed. A few times a week I trawl the tags for more posts to put into the queue. Some days the work is just being another point of contact for people trying to find information on the OTW, but sometimes it is about being a fandom sounding board—and those parts are my favorite. I try to balance queuing posts and reblogging polls, since those are usually time-constrained.

Sometimes I will get an ask that prompts me to start a conversation with another OTW team, and then I get to post something about how the OTW works that I didn’t know before someone asked. It might be tag wrangling on AO3, how things get imported to Open Doors—OTW heading to cons, even!

What made you decide to volunteer?

The call for volunteers went out, and I came across the Tumblr post mentioning that one of the openings was for a Tumblr mod. I have been a longtime supporter of the OTW and their mission, and I have been in and around various fandoms on Tumblr for a long time. This seemed like a way I could contribute to the OTW on an ongoing basis.

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

There was that one time that the Tumblr blog was the only available communications platform due to a DDOS attack that took down all the OTW servers, right at the same time as Twitter was only viewable to logged-in Twitter users. That was definitely a challenge. If y’all are on Tumblr you will know that other than one-liner news updates via the Supernatural meme, it is not the best place for breaking news that requires continuous updates.

At least once a day I worry that I am not finding enough fandom variety in the queue. Finding fandom content for a fandom you aren’t in? Surprisingly stressful.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I have been an avid fic reader in a variety of fandoms for most of my adult life. I will read all sorts of things—I have a weakness for crossovers (although not usually fusions), crack-treated-seriously, and when someone fleshes out a canon’s worldbuilding. My friends will often laugh at me because I am almost always more excited to read about sidekicks than the protagonists.

I sort fic by word count and start with the longest! I will rarely find anything under 10,000 words without someone sending it to me. I started reading fanfiction because I always wanted to know what happened next, or what happened when we weren’t there in canon—so longfics are my go-to.

I beta read for a handful of writers. I really love being excited and screaming my excitement at a writer as they are writing. Beta reading was my first non-commenting contribution to fanworks, and my enjoyment of that led to me joining some fandom events.

I am not really an author, and the only art I make is fiber art. Luckily I found some events that were extremely supportive of the inclusion of fibercraft! I started to crochet fandom amigurumi for the artist-entry, and on occasion I have even sent them to the authors who inspired them! I also add fandom-related colorwork to my knitwear.

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.

Tennessee's proposal of the ELVIS Act might sound like something fun for fans, but in fact has the potential to create problems for fans engaging in a variety of fannish activities. This legislation is moving forward next week under pressure from Tennessee Governor Lee, but there is still some time to voice concerns and message the governor about how this act will hurt the public interest.

A number of organizations including the American Society for Collective Rights Licensing, Authors Guild, Copyright Clearance Center, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are sponsoring this act. The proposed legislation creates a new right of publicity “in any medium in any manner” for life + 10 years.

OTW Legal is concerned about the potential impact of this Act, and believes Tennessee fans should be aware of the profound risks posed to both RPF and fictional fanworks that invoke an actor's image. One part of the law is relatively minor: it adds “voice” to the existing right of publicity, which covers commercial uses. But it goes further. There is new, broad liability for anyone who knowingly “publishes, performs, distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to the public” content that includes someone's voice or likeness, with no limitation to commercial uses. This could potentially harm artists, authors who describe an actor (or a character played by a particular actor), vidders, and other fannish creators. There is also broad liability for anyone who “distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service or device” whose purpose is to make the replicas.

Because the ELVIS Act establishes liability for both the “user” and the “developer/platform”, it means that – without clear definitions – there could be a legal free-for-all on social media. The act's wording could mean that anyone clicking on an infringing document could be at legal risk. One of the OTW's partner organizations, NetChoice has more information about why the ELVIS Act could put fans at risk just for posting concert photos or for being associated with violations. As their post points out, there could be better laws passed instead to ban deep fakes.
The ELVIS Act is unnecessary as Tennessee law already adequately handles fraud, deception, and misappropriating someone’s likeness. If you are also concerned about this Act, let Tennessee officials know.

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.

Would you like to wrangle AO3 tags? Can you read and translate from Russian to English? Can you read and translate from Filipino to English? Are you a digital artist interested in the OTW's work? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

• Tag Wrangling Volunteer - closing 20 March 2024 at 23:59 UTC [or after 90 applications]
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Russian) - closing 20 March 2024 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Filipino) - closing 20 March 2024 at 23:59 UTC [or after 30 applications]
• Communications Graphics Volunteer - closing 20 March 2024 at 23:59 UTC [or after 40 applications]

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.

Tag Wrangling Volunteer

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are in need.

Wranglers need to be fluent in English but we welcome applicants who are also fluent in other languages, especially Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), Português brasileiro (Brazilian Portuguese), Čeština (Czech), Español (Spanish), isiZulu (Zulu), Italiano (Italian), Polski (Polish), Suomi (Finnish), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), Türkçe (Turkish), Українська (Ukrainian), ไทย (Thai), 한국어 (Korean), беларуская (Belarusian) and 中文 (Chinese - we welcome all dialects) — but help with other languages would be much appreciated!

Applications are due 20 March 2024 [or after 90 applications]

Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Russian)

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you're a fluent Russian speaker who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. We’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Russian (we welcome all dialects!). The work for this position will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Russian into English. While this role has specific language requirements, we also always welcome multilingual speakers as part of our regular role, so please consider applying for that role if translating for any language as part of the wrangling team is of interest.

Applications are due 20 March 2024 [or after 30 applications]

Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Filipino)

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.

If you're a fluent Filipino speaker who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.

Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. We’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Filipino (we welcome all dialects!). The work for this position will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Filipino into English. While this role has specific language requirements, we also always welcome multilingual speakers as part of our regular role, so please consider applying for that role if translating for any language as part of the wrangling team is of interest.

Applications are due 20 March 2024 [or after 30 applications]

Apply at the volunteering page!

If you have further questions, please contact us.

Communications Graphics Volunteer

Are you a digital artist interested in the OTW's work? The OTW Communications committee is looking for graphic designers to create digital art for our news posts and other official documents. Communications is the main information distribution team for the OTW. We manage the OTW News blog and related social media accounts, and we assist other teams in managing project-specific communication. If you would like to join the OTW and help bring news to fandom and the public, click through to learn more about the role and apply to join as a Communications Graphics Volunteer.

Applications are due 20 March 2024 [or after 30 applications]

Apply at the volunteering page!

If you have further questions, please contact us.

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.