Archive of Our Own ^beta

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 SimK, who volunteers with the Translation Committee.

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

I'm a translator, beta and the team coordinator for the Malay language translation team. We translate, among other things, news posts and announcements, as well as support sections for the OTW and AO3 such as the FAQ and Terms of Service. While there's not much fanfiction in Malay on the Archive, it's important that it remain accessible to non-English speakers, or anyone who has an easier time with their native language, especially sections that can help members use the site to their full enjoyment.

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

When it comes to translating and beta-ing, I don't really have a set schedule and generally do it after work on weekdays. As a team coordinator I organize team meetings that I try to keep fairly regular, where we discuss terms and some of the more complicated translations we face. We work together to set standard terms in order to maintain consistency throughout our translations, but that isn't always easy. Colloquial Malay, which we use on an everyday basis, can differ very much from standard written Malay, and we often end up with long discussions about exactly how formal or "slangy" we should go.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I'm not living in Malaysia at the moment, and when I saw the recruitment notice I saw it as an excellent opportunity to maintain my command of Malay and to keep in touch with the language, especially living in a country now where almost no one speaks it. I've also been using the Archive almost since its inception; it's only right that I give back to the community that has given me so much joy over the years.

What's the most fun thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?

Finding out how much work goes on behind the scenes. Most people are familiar with the Archive, but aren't aware of the many other branches that the coexist with it, such as Fanlore, Transformative Works and Cultures, Open Doors and Legal Advocacy. Running all that takes a lot of work and it's just great to be a part of that.

Within the translation team itself, my favourite parts are the post-meeting chats where we talk about some of the stranger phrases we've had to translate, complain about Malay and English language conventions, and reminiscence about our Malaysian education system. Also sometimes just wrangling with a particularly tricky translation can be immensely satisfying. I really enjoy translating legalese, FAQs and any exciting announcements that the OTW and AO3 have to make, such as this year's Hugo Awards News Packet.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I read and write a lot of fanfic, and every now and then try my hand at a fanvid. I joined fandom in the early 2000s (when Geocities was still around!) and haven't left since. Over the years, I've cycled through various fandoms, making a [bad?] habit of arriving slightly too late once most of the excitement has passed. But as it goes in fandom, there's always someone still hanging around, or discovering it at the same time as you are, so it's never dull. I love rarepairs, and in my current fandom I'm trying to nurture a few pairing canoes, alongside the steady tugboat of my OTP.

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.

Do you have experience in communications? Or would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? Are you fluent in a Chinese dialect? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

• Elections Communication Specialist - closing 02 October 2019 at 23:59 UTC
• Policy & Abuse Staff - closing 02 October 2019 at 23:59 UTC
• Policy & Abuse Staff (Chinese) - closing 02 October 2019 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 02 October 2019

Policy & Abuse Staff

The AO3 Policy & Abuse Committee is dedicated to helping users deal with the various situations that may arise. We also handle any complaints that come in about content uploaded to the Archive of Our Own. The team determines if complaints are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are; our major goals are to adhere to the TOS, to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible, and to keep every individual case completely confidential. We work closely with other AO3 related committees such as Support and Content.

We are seeking people who can keep in close contact, be patient in rephrasing explanations, make and document decisions, cooperate within and outside of their team, and ask for help when it's needed. Staffers need to be able to handle complex and sometimes-disturbing content, and must be able to commit a sufficient amount of time to the team on a regular basis.

Policy & Abuse staffers are required to spend at least five hours a week handling committee work, though it often tends to be more. Please be sure you can handle the workload before applying.

Applications are due 02 October 2019

Policy & Abuse Staff (Chinese)

The AO3 Policy & Abuse Committee is dedicated to helping users deal with the various situations that may arise. We also handle any complaints that come in about content uploaded to the Archive of Our Own. The team determines if complaints are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are; our major goals are to adhere to the TOS, to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible, and to keep every individual case completely confidential. We work closely with other AO3 related committees such as Support and Content.

We are seeking people who can keep in close contact, be patient in rephrasing explanations, make and document decisions, cooperate within and outside of their team, and ask for help when it's needed. Staffers need to be able to handle complex and sometimes-disturbing content, and must be able to commit a sufficient amount of time to the team on a regular basis.

Policy & Abuse staffers are required to spend at least 5 hours a week handling committee work, though it often tends to be more. Please be sure you can handle the workload before applying.

Staffers for this position will need to be able to use both English and Chinese fluently. (Traditional and Simplified both welcome).

Applications are due 02 October 2019

Apply at the volunteering page!

I. THE ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN WINS A HUGO AWARD

Champagne and fireworks!! The Archive of Our Own won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work at the Hugo Awards ceremony at Dublin 2019: an Irish Worldcon, the 77th World Science Fiction Convention.

We're thrilled by this win, and we thank everyone who has helped AO3 get to where it is today. We had a party over on our Tumblr and our Twitter to celebrate with fans.

II. 2019 OTW BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTIONS RESULTS

Congrats to our newest Board members: Kirsten Wright and Rebecca Sentance!

The 2019 Board of Directors elections ran from 10-12 August, with results announced on 13 August.

Thanks to all the candidates who ran, the volunteers and staff from across the OTW (especially from the Communications, Translation, Webs, and Development & Membership committees) who assisted the Elections committee, and to all the members who made their voices heard by voting. 2019 saw, according to Elections' voting statistics, the highest turnout ever for an OTW election, with a 22.5% turnout of potential voter (an increase over 2018's 14.6%). Even more impressive was the 270% increase in the number of ballots cast (from 827 to 2234)!

III. AT THE AO3

AO3's Hugo Award win caused ripples behind the scenes of the Archive, too. Support saw its overall ticket numbers go up in August, as a result of many users writing in with congratulations! By contrast, Policy & Abuse received approximately 1,000 tickets this month, down from July's 1,500.

All of these tickets for Support and Policy & Abuse rely on web-based forms, and those forms don't work without some back-end help! Accessibility, Design & Technology spent August, amongst other tasks, on the Zoho API migration, which keeps the forms working without interruption. They thank both Support and Policy & Abuse for their help testing; please see the Release Notes for additional information.

Also during August, Open Doors completed the import of Underground, an archive dedicated to the 1986 film Labyrinth.

Finally, Tag Wrangling handled around 232,000 tags in July, slightly up from the previous month. August numbers will be available next month.

III. TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS AND CULTURES CALL FOR PAPERS

TWC's Production team has been preparing General issue No. 30 (September 2019) and special issue No. 31 on "Fan Fiction and Ancient Scribal Cultures" (December 2019), while their editorial teams have been reviewing and accepting essays for the three upcoming issues in 2020. If you are interested in upcoming issues or potentially contributing, check out TWC's Calls for Papers for upcoming special issues on "Fandom and Theatre" and "Fan Studies Pedagogies."

IV. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

As of 26 August the OTW has 753 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Staff: Jessie Casiulis (Translation), Reanna (Support)
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: AllanV, Allonym, Alyndra, aproudhermit, ArcadianMaggie, argentconflagration, Bagel, Barnesarmed, Beth Paige, BiffElderberry, bredrumm, BrinaH, Chach, CJ Apple, crimsonherbarium, DAzebras, Deirdre, Ekala, Ekevka, Ellsey, endofthyme, faejilly, Fluegel, Giana, Harlow, iroh, JR, kentucka, Kittiehawke, Klyn, ladybubblegum, LauraKellyA, mits, morcise, Ocèanna, pixxc, Raven, RedShepherd, Sarah Fox, Thane, vindetta and 1 other Tag Wrangler
New Translation Volunteers: Gakovic, Mira.A and 3 other Translators

Departing Committee Chairs: Kate Flanagan (Fanlore)
Departing Committee Staff: 1 Systems staffer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Bella Irvine and Rebecca Lee
Departing Translation Volunteers: Sunny, vasilymo and 5 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.

We’re as excited as you are about the AO3’s Hugo win, and we are shouting it to the rafters! We are grateful to the World Science Fiction Society for recognizing the AO3 with the award, as well as to the many OTW volunteers who build and maintain the site, and all of the amazing fans who post and enjoy works on it.

The World Science Fiction Society has asked us to help them get the word out about what the award represented—specifically, they want to make sure people know that the Hugo was awarded to the AO3, and not to any particular work(s) hosted on it. Therefore, while we can all be proud of the AO3’s Hugo win and we can all be proud of what we contributed to making it possible, the award does not make any individual fanwork or creator “Hugo winners”—the WSFS awarded that distinction to the AO3 as a whole. In particular, the WSFS asked us to convey this reminder so that no one mistakenly describes themselves as having personally won a Hugo Award.

Thanks for sharing our enthusiasm, and consider yourselves reminded! We appreciate every one of your contributions.

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 with the Volunteers & Recruiting Committee.

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

I am a volunteer for the Volunteers & Recruiting committee within the OTW. The OTW is a non-profit organization, relying fully on its volunteers to achieve its goals. Volunteers need to have access to the tools required for their position, as well as training and support for these tools as required. My work with Volunteers & Recruiting helps with exactly that -- we setup our new volunteers with accounts on our organization wide tools and maintain the documentation regarding them in order to prevent confusion on how a particular tool functions, or how to do specific things within that tool.

In addition, whenever other committees require additional volunteers and request recruitment, we facilitate the setup of application forms on the OTW website and we manage the recruitment campaign throughout its duration. This includes organizing applications and sending them to committee chairs after the closing date. These activities help provide the infrastructure for the rest of the organization and is why I consider Volunteers & Recruiting one of the core pieces of how the OTW functions.

I also volunteer for the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee, which fields reports of Terms of Service violations on the Archive. Volunteering for both internal and external positions in the OTW is unique because it provides me with insight into how we are interfacing with each other inside the OTW, as well as how the OTW interfaces with users of its projects.

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

I typically start off my daily work with the OTW's internal chat platform, which allows me to effortlessly check up on things I missed overnight and see what others are up to, as well as comment on anything needing feedback within our committee or other committees. From there, I move on to our ticket queue, where I check for any new cases. From here is where things vary throughout the week as we have many different types of requests. Some examples are volunteering queries, induction of new personnel, and other tasks such as name changes.

After working on tickets, I move on to any other committee work, which also varies depending on the time of the year. Sometimes I might be facilitating a recruitment campaign, while other times I might be contributing to various committee projects such as implementation of new OTW-wide tools or auditing tool accesses. One thing I learned since joining the OTW is that no day is the same -- one day could be quiet, and the next could be full of different cases.

What made you decide to volunteer?

My first encounter with fanfiction was a number of years ago when I stumbled across a fic about a YouTuber I watched at the time. I only remember it vaguely, and I since have not been able to find it, but I remember at the time thinking it was surprisingly well written for some random story I stumbled across on the internet. It didn’t lead to anything at the time, but I like to think it planted a seed in my mind for later.

A few years after that, I stumbled across some fanfiction again on Reddit. The particular post linked to a fic on AO3. From there, I began surfing other stories on the site. I got hooked and haven’t stopped reading fanfiction since. Eventually, having read on the Archive for at least a couple months, I began to wonder, who runs this “Archive”? That was when I discovered the OTW, read more about it and its history, and fell in love. I’m a little bit of a workaholic by choice, and love contributing my free time supporting things I enjoy. So naturally, I applied for the first position that was available, and here I am!

What's the most fun thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?

The people! There is always socializing going on in the internal OTW chat, and it’s not hard to find a channel or group of people to discuss a common interest. Although I haven’t been a volunteer for as long as some, I feel very welcome everywhere, and my fellow volunteers are polite and helpful. I have never felt like I couldn’t ask someone a question. Everyone is passionate in what they do and I have only the utmost respect for everyone for being able to keep things light, and at the same time get things done.

What fannish things do you like to do?

Moderating Discord communities, attending (and more recently, staffing) conventions, and reading/writing are some of the fannish things I do. I love reading, both normal books and fanfiction, but have trouble finding the time to do it. In the realm of writing, I’ve written a decent amount of fanfiction which is lying in my Google Drive not doing much. I mostly work on it when I’m bored with nothing else to do, and perhaps some day I’ll have something worth releasing into the wild. Most of the time when I write, it’s in the form of documentation or a technical setting, but I still enjoy doing it a lot. There’s something rewarding about finding those perfect words to explain something.

At the end of the day, I have to say the most fannish thing I like to do is, of course, my OTW work. In my opinion, nothing is greater than my work for the OTW and the Archive. I’m proud to volunteer and I am happy to have had the chance to do so.

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.

To cut down on abuse, we have just rolled out some changes to co-creating works, chapters, and series on the Archive. Until now, it was possible for any user to list you as a co-creator without your approval. We've added creator invitations to ensure you won't be listed as a co-creator until you accept the invitation. Additionally, we've added a preference that requires you to opt in before other users can invite you to become a co-creator.

Nothing will change about existing co-created items: all creators will still be able to edit the work, chapter, or series even if they do not enable the preference. Before you can be invited as a new co-creator, however, you will need to enable the "Allow others to invite me to be a co-creator" option on your Preferences page. (Where can I find my Preferences?)

Turning the preference off will not remove you from any co-created items, nor will it prevent any of the item's existing co-creators from making changes. You can turn the preference on and off as many times as you like. Turning the preference off will not delete any co-creator invitations -- you'll still be able to find them by following the "Creator Invitations" link on your Dashboard when you turn the preference back on.

If you need to add a co-creator who does not have the preference enabled and who you are unable to contact, you can use the Notes field to provide proper credit.

We're sorry we weren't able to announce this change ahead of time like we usually do, but adding co-creators who did not wish to be associated with a work was becoming an increasingly common abuse and spam tactic, and we didn't want to cause a spike in these incidents by publicizing it before this fix was live. We hope the changes provide relief for users who have been targeted and help everyone feel more in control of their experience on the Archive.

The new creator invitation system and related preference are the main changes in this release, but because they required a significant overhaul of the creator code, we also fixed a number of related bugs in the process!

Credits

• Coders: james_, Nerine Luna Cyran, Sarken, ticking instant
• Code reviewers: redsummernight, Sarken, ticking instant
• Testers: Ania, Ariana, bingeling, doughtier, james_, memorizingthedigitsofpi, Matty, mumble, Nary, redsummernight, Sammie Louise, Sarken, Stephanie Godden, ticking instant

Details

Adding creators and co-creators

• [AO3-5658] - We overhauled the way co-creating functions by adding an invitation system and requiring users to opt-in before they can be invited. For more details, please check out our post, "Important changes to adding work, chapter, and series co-creators."
• [AO3-4998] - If two or more users had the pseud Mary Sue, it wasn't possible to add either of them as a chapter co-creator unless you just happened to write their name in a very specific format. We've made it so it'll work without knowing that format. Specifically, if you enter a pseud that belongs to multiple users, you will get an error asking you to choose the proper user from a dropdown menu.
• [AO3-5606] - We fixed the same issue with series, too!
• [AO3-5662] - If you were trying to add both a co-creator and a series to a work at the same time, but there was an error adding the co-creator due to that whole "two Mary Sues" scenario we described above, the series would vanish and not get added to the work once you clarified the co-creator situation. We did a little work to make sure the series gets added now, too.
• [AO3-5061] - If you pressed "Preview" when making changes to your work's or chapter's creators, the proper creators weren't listed on the preview page. Now they are! (This does not apply to creators who are only invited -- they won't show up on the preview.)
• [AO3-5620] - It used to be that adding a co-creator to a chapter wouldn't add that co-creator to any series the work was in. Now it does!
• [AO3-5663] - Previously, if you had a series and added a co-created work to that series, the other user(s) on the work would not get listed as co-creators of the series. Now they will.
• [AO3-5261] - When someone added you as a co-creator, the email used to only say, "You've been added as a co-creator." Now we tell you exactly who added (or invited) you, which can be helpful if there's more than one other person on the work or series.
• [AO3-3915] - Using the form for editing multiple works to add a co-creator to multi-chapter works didn't add the person to all of the works' chapters. Now it does!

Removing creators

• [AO3-5334] - The option to remove yourself as a work or series co-creator previous said "Remove Me As Author," which makes certain assumptions about what you're editing. We've changed it to say "Co-Creator" instead. (We also tweaked the resultant error or success message to refer to creators rather than authors.)
• [AO3-5083] - While using the newly renamed "Remove Me As Co-Creator" button on a series correctly removed you as one of the series' creators, preventing you from making future edits, it incorrectly left your name on the series. Now your name will vanish along with your editing privileges.
• [AO3-5692] - On the form for editing multiple works, there was an option for removing co-creators. This option didn't work and wasn't actually something we wanted to provide, so we removed it.

Miscellaneous

• [AO3-5475] - The mass edit form used to give a rather unhelpful 500 error if one of your changes was invalid (e.g. you were trying to add a tag containing a banned character like * or ^). Now it will take you back to the form with an error message that tells you what the problem is and provides you with an opportunity to fix said problem.
• [AO3-5625] - Thanks to a bug we believe was generally caused by changing a work's creators using the mass edit form, it was occasionally impossible to edit a work you'd created. (Basically, while transferring the work, the bit in the database responsible for saying, "This user owns this chapter of this work," would go missing.) We've made it so the bug shouldn't happen anymore and so any works already affected by the bug should be editable now.
• [AO3-5659] - Once upon a time, we planned to make a /browse page for every user, and we had some code relating to it in place. This was so long ago that we'd kind of forgotten why we'd ever wanted that page, though, so we deleted the code.
• [AO3-5751] - Admins were previously only able to see draft works if they were one chapter and if they were given a direct link, which made it difficult to provide support for draft-related issues. Now admins can see drafts with multiple chapters and draft chapters on posted works. They can also access a user's Drafts page in case the user doesn't provide a direct link.
• [AO3-5753] - The character limit for comments was previously set to 4,300 characters -- a nod to the limit on LiveJournal, where many AO3 coders and users came from in the early days. But that was a long time ago, and some people like to leave much longer comments, so we've increased the limit to 10,000 characters.

Infrastructure

• [AO3-5729] - We upgraded to a more recent version of the nokogiri gem.

It's the Organization for Transformative Works' 12th anniversary!

Way back in 2007, there was an idea. An idea of fannish inclusiveness and independence. An idea of a home for all fans, fanworks, and fannish histories. And from that idea, the OTW was born.

From the beginning, we've always kept our beliefs in mind. Every time we defend the legality of fanworks or import an at-risk fanworks archive, we do it with the belief that fandom matters. Every time we publish academic works about fandom or collect stories about fandom, we do it as fans and for fans.

We wouldn't be here if it weren't for fans. Thank you for your contributions and support, whether you're an OTW member, an AO3 or Fanlore user, or someone who's sent in a nice note. After a dozen years, you've made more of an impact than you can imagine.

As part of our 12th anniversary celebration, we're sharing some new genre-themed graphics we've created for fans who want to show support for the OTW and its projects. Do you love horror? Sci-fi? Now you can show your OTW pride in a way that matches your ~aesthetic~!

We're also sharing some updated flyers which provide all the basics about the OTW. These can be printed to hand out at conventions or other fan gatherings, even the ones that take place in your living room.

Going forward, our Translation Committee will be adding additional language versions for both the flyers and graphics.

We hope you enjoy using these new resources to celebrate with us!