Archive of Our Own

I. AO3 TERMS OF SERVICE UPDATE

Policy & Abuse, Legal, and Accessibility, Design & Technology have been hard at work regarding an update to the AO3 Terms of Service. Among other things, this update involves clarifying wording in both the Content Policy and the "Underage" Archive Warning. This update will not affect what fanworks are allowed or not on AO3, nor will it affect how this Archive Warning is enforced.

In conjunction with Communications, a public call for feedback was posted and comments will be accepted until November 18. Please refer to the news post and Policy & Abuse's proposed changes for more detail.

II. OCTOBER MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Development & Membership worked with Communications to announce the October membership drive! With the help of Translation, the news posts were translated into 28 languages. Finance also posted the 2024 Budget Update in anticipation of the membership drive.

The October membership drive raised almost $215,000 USD from 6,995 donors, 6,020 of whom chose to be members! Development & Membership is now verifying addresses, packaging premiums, and heading to local post offices with the help of their new regional shipping specialists.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE AO3

In September, Support and Systems were handling issues related to downtime and site slowness. Systems has posted a post-mortem of events and analysis on their official AO3 account, which details the causes and effects of some of the issues.

Due to downtime and other factors, Support received 4,151 tickets in September, around double their usual monthly count. They ask for your patience as they work through the high volume of tickets.

Policy & Abuse received 2,264 tickets in September. They also have an incoming class of new volunteers and look forward to training them.

Also in September, Tag Wrangling volunteers wrangled over 430,000 tags, which amounts to over 1,000 tags per tag wrangler. They also finished their last recruitment round of the year and began inducting their latest batch of volunteers.

Open Doors announced the import of older works from due South Seekrit Santa, an exchange devoted to the Canadian television series due South. They also finished the last details from the West of the Moon archive import, an archive for hobbit-centric gen fanworks. They continue to work on other import projects and documentation for the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project.

IV. VARIOUS OTW ACTIVITY

Communications is happy to see their email delivery service has been steadily gaining followers since its launch. The service recently passed 1,000 subscribers and now has about 1,100 subscribers!

Fanlore ran a Video Game-themed month in October! You can check out featured articles on their Tumblr.

Development & Membership's convention outreach division organized a table for Confabulation Fan Convention at Chicago, USA. OTW volunteers had a blast talking about their experience volunteering, fan vidding, and exploring world landmarks!

Legal has responded to a number of user queries this month, including queries about YouTube counter-notices, shadowcasting, UK legislation, and academic research on fandom. They also dealt with some apps that are confusing users into believing they’re associated with the AO3.

TWC has been preparing two special issues: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies and Sports Fandoms to be released in the coming months.

V. GOVERNANCE

Board and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organized Board's fourth quarter public meeting on September 29. They had 55 attendees and answered 9 questions. The official minutes for this meeting were voted on and published on the OTW website.

Official Board turnover happened on October 1, and incoming Board members are getting settled in.

Board and BAT have been participating in several projects and policies related to the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap. BAT has also been working on procurement documentation, OTW website updates, and various cross-committee tasks. They’ve been assisting the Board on several ongoing projects, including Whistleblower Policy FAQ documentation and responding to external questions directed at the Board.

Strategic Planning is working on compiling internal sustainability plans from all committees as part of the plan’s internal sustainability goal. They're also reaching out to the committees responsible for the Paid Staff goal as those implementation goal dates approach.

VI. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting has been hard at work training their new recruits and getting them settled in, saying farewell to one of their chairs, Cyn, and welcoming Eevee as the new co-chair. They also conducted recruitment for 3 committees in October: AO3 Documentation, Elections, and Fanlore.

From September 22 to October 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 149 new requests and completed 135, leaving them with 62 open requests. As of October 22, 2024, the OTW has 924 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Eevee (Volunteers & Recruiting)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Team Lead
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Shipping Specialist
New Fanlore Volunteers: 3 Discord Moderators
New Open Doors Volunteers: Brianna Dardin (Senior Technical Volunteer) and 1 Administrative Support Volunteer
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Emka, iwasnttrainedforthis, megidola, Trinity, and 3 other Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: AnneHelena, Aquiles T. M., hans, Helpi K, Jaya, Luki, tritongue, and 2 other Translators
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 1 other Volunteer

Departing Directors: Kari Dayton and Michelle Schroeder
Departing Committee Chairs: Cyn (Volunteers & Recruiting)
Departing Board Assistant Team Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer and 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: SonoSvegliato (Import Assistant), Brianna Dardin and 2 other Technical Volunteers; 1 Administrative Volunteer
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: Arly Guevara
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Eevee (Supervisor role only), Lysippe, and 7 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Elintiriel (Volunteer Manager role only) and 1 other Volunteer Manager; Nachali, Parul Hunnargikar, Summerfanreader, and 4 other Translators

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.

I. BUMPS ALONG THE WAY

Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) and Systems investigated issues with users having trouble staying logged in. Unfortunately, what should've been a simple change to the code for handling cookies led to multiple periods of disruption.

The issues seem to have been resolved, but they're still working together to figure out the cause and prevent issues like this in the future. Systems plans to release a postmortem work on their official AO3 account once they are confident that the issues are fully resolved. Elsewhere, AD&T worked on small bug fixes and enhancements.

II. AT THE AO3

Tag Wrangling paused their long-running project to standardize fandom tree structures, and they will conduct a comprehensive review of the current guidelines regarding them. Discussions regarding the guidelines are in development, so they can better meet users' needs.

In August, tag wranglers handled more than 450,000 tags across over 67,000 fandoms, which amounts to more than a thousand tags per wrangler. Policy & Abuse received 2,175 tickets, while Support received 2,358 tickets.

AO3 Documentation has been holding meetings regarding updates to their style guide, and has been working on updates on several documents.

Open Doors completed importing The 9 Forum, an archive of fanworks for the 2009 film "9". They also announced the import of the Choices Fanfic Archive, for works based on the game "Choices: Stories You Play". They are continuing work on other import projects, reviewing applications for the Import Assistant role, and documentation for the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project.

III. ELSEWHERE AT OTW

Communications and Translation celebrated the OTW's 17th anniversary! They are glad to see users celebrating in news post comments sections and across social media. The anniversary-specific site skin was well received, and also led to some users exploring site skins for the first time!

Fanlore had a busy month with their Stub September editing challenge! It was a big success; thanks to everyone who took part and awarded badges. Video Game Month also started October 1 – check out Fanlore's Tumblr and Twitter/X for more information!

Development & Membership has been busy preparing for the upcoming Drive in October! They are excited to share the new thank-you gifts they have been working on. They have also been working hard to improve some of their documentation this month, and getting additional gift shipping support set up.

Legal joined allies in sending a letter to the U.S. Senate and Congress expressing concerns with the proposed NO FAKES Act. The act would create constitutionally questionable restrictions on free expression and put undue burdens on Internet platforms.

Transformative Works and Cultures published their annual general issue on September 15 – this is Issue #43 for the journal! Next up, they have two special issues: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies and Sports Fandoms.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board had a busy month. They are in the process of finalizing Board turnover as they welcome two elected Board members: Erica Frank and Rachel Linton. They also ran the fourth quarter public Board meeting on September 30. Meeting minutes will be made available soon on the OTW website.

Board Assistants Team continued its work on ongoing projects, such as overseeing the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap. They also helped draft FAQs for the OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy so the project can be officially marked as complete. Additionally, they worked on some internal policies and procedures and prepared for the public Board meeting.

Strategic Planning has reviewed the 1-year assessment of the Strategic Plan with the Board to prepare for its release to the OTW and in public-facing announcements.

V. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for 3 committees in September: Open Doors, Tag Wrangling, and Policy & Abuse.

From August 24 to September 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 102 new requests, and completed 109, leaving them with 53 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of September 22, 2024, the OTW has 925 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Directors: Erica Frank, Rachel Linton
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Chair Track Volunteers and 1 Media Outreach Volunteer
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 3 Shipping Specialists
New Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
New Translation Volunteers: Teelee (Task Assistant), 1 other Task Assistant, and 1 Volunteer Manager
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: infinity-inkling and Query (VolCom Volunteers)

Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ceme, Dan L (Tag Wranglers), and Madi (Supervisor role only)
Departing Translation Volunteers: Reptile Ruler (Translator), and 1 other Translator

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.

I. 2024 ELECTION FINALIZED

Elections successfully closed the 2024 OTW Board Director election! Congratulations to the new Directors: Erica Frank and Rachel Linton. Erica and Rachel will be replacing Kari and Michelle, who have both reached the end of their Board terms.

Many committees collaborated throughout the election process:
Communications helped coordinate election-related news posts, Translation made election content available in 26 languages,
Development & Membership coordinated with OTW members and helped distribute ballots!

Elections would like to thank all the candidates who ran, the volunteers from across the OTW who assisted the Elections Committee in their work, and everyone who engaged with the election, either by asking questions or turning out to vote.

Statistics from this year’s election were made available on August 29: out of 14,959 eligible votes, 3,415 cast a ballot, representing 22.8% of potential voters.

II. TO SEE IN SEPTEMBER

Fanlore’s themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Fanlore’s next editing challenge, Stub September, will have a fantasy adventure theme and run from September 15-29. Everyone is encouraged to participate! Keep an eye on their Twitter/X and Tumblr for announcements about the upcoming challenge.

Transformative Works and Cultures will publish their annual general issue on September 15th. They also recently announced a call for papers for an upcoming special issue on Gaming Fandom!

III. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design & Technology tested and released the update to Sentry, their new service for monitoring Archive performance and errors. That release also included some fixes for an annoying tag set nomination bug, as a treat. Also in August, Systems dealt with an issue with one of their firewalls which impacted the Archive. They believe the issue was identified, which should prevent this type of problem from having such an impact in the future.

AO3 Documentation has made minor changes to some of their live documentation based on cross-committee feedback.

Open Doors continues work across various activities, and their Import Assistants are almost done importing The 9 Forum! They have also announced the import of Sentinel Angst, a Yahoo Group belonging to The Sentinel fandom, set to begin after October.

In July, Policy & Abuse received 2,411 tickets, while Support received 2,171 tickets. They continue to work on keeping up with responding to users’ questions and reports!

In August, Tag Wrangling welcomed their newest group of volunteers. Tag wranglers continue to work hard to keep up with the growth of the archive – in July, they wrangled more than 460,000 tags or over 1,100 tags per wrangler!

IV. ELSEWHERE AT OTW

Communications and Legal have been collaborating on News Posts regarding upcoming legislative proposals in the US and Canada. While these bills don't directly affect AO3, they would change online fandom experiences if passed, and the OTW is committed to keeping fans informed about legislative developments.

Translation has been busy translating Elections and Open Doors announcements. Recruitment for new translators has just started, and the committee hopes to welcome new translators soon!

Development and Membership arranged for the OTW's attendance at DEFCON in Las Vegas, Nevada (August 8-11) and FanExpo Chicago (August 16-18).

V. GOVERNANCE

Board and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) participated in various projects and worked on several different policies. They are in the process of preparing for Board turnover as the 2024 Election results were released, and they are planning for their next public meeting on the Board Discord in late September/early October.

Board and BAT, in collaboration with Finance, Legal, and the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee, have finalized the OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy and are now working on developing FAQs for the policy. They also are working on Procurement Policy related documents, such as a Request for Proposal template. Moreover, Board started initial steps toward Paid Staff Transition Lead Strategic Planning goal -- further updates will be shared later.

BAT has also focused on continuing their current projects, such as helping oversee the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap, CSAM Protection Policy, working on OTW website updates, and helping Board with several other projects.

Strategic Planning finished drafts of the 1-year assessment of the Strategic Plan to review with the Board for OTW and public-facing announcements. They also began compiling internal sustainability plans from all committees as part of the internal sustainability goal.

VI. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees in August: Translation and Fanlore.

From July 23 to August 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 162 new requests, and completed 152, leaving them with 71 open requests. As of August 23, 2024, the OTW has 930 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Alicia Zhao, Anastasija Vasilevska, Antoinette, Blue Shadow, Carrot, CorgiBlu, Crepe, CuriousDuck, cutesytootsie, Echo H, Eirvyan, Emmy, Erica L., Eve T., Hayden, Hokori, Jayzee, Jessio, Kitchel, Koschei, laleia, LezSTH, Linwelin, Lizyrd, lostdandelion, LPCollins, Lysippe, mwritesff, Oona, pawzzles, Pipdip, redpanda, Rian, ryuuseirune, Saint Corvus, Sanity, Sel, sewichii, starpoked, Stars, Tamyra, tilly, Umdlye, viol, and 1 other Tag Wrangler
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Production Manager
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Mitzi, Ducky, Ankita, Anishi, and 3 other Volunteers

Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: Amy Lowell
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Administrative Volunteer and 1 Import Assistant
Departing Support Volunteers: Karlo (Support Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: ElleC, Kaesa, marie belle, MickyRC, Mossflower, Nexidava, and 13 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: nire, Decembre, and 6 other Translators

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.

I. 2024 ELECTION COMING SOON

This year's election will take place from August 16-19. As there are 2 open seats and 4 candidates, the election will be contested. Voting instructions have been emailed to all eligible members. If you have not received your voting instructions by email, or if you have a different question, you can contact Elections.

Elections has posted candidates' answers to the Q&A questions on their website. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions to the candidates during the Q&A and the Candidate Chat on Discord! The transcript of that chat is available on the Elections site.

The Elections Committee asks all members of the public to be respectful towards all candidates and other volunteers when discussing or promoting the election. Please do not attempt to directly contact or harass candidates, their families, or their employers.

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design, & Technology (AD&T) stumbled into some issues at the beginning of the month with staging, the version of the Archive where new features and bug fixes are tested. Fortunately Systems was able to resolve the issue by the middle of the month. AD&T also ran into issues with their application monitoring service, which are still being worked through with the help of Legal, Volunteers & Recruiting, and Finance.

Once staging was in working order, AD&T put together a small release focused on improvements including text updates, CSS fixes, and changes to their linters and automated tests. They also posted release notes covering changes from February through May, and they coordinated with Support and Systems on announcing downtime in preparation for an Elasticsearch update.

Open Doors has made continuous progress across a range of archive imports. Meanwhile, they are developing their AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) documentation to get ready for working with fanzine publishers to import their fanzines' works.

Policy & Abuse received 2,386 tickets in June, bringing the total amount of tickets received in the first half of 2024 to 13,500 (for more information, refer to the pie chart). Additionally, some of their volunteers participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit.

Support received 2,051 tickets in June, including a large volume of Fannish Next-of-Kin requests. Please have patience as they work through these! They also helped revise the new and improved Fannish Next-of-Kin FAQ page.

Tag Wrangling finished up another round of recruitment in July, made preparations to welcome their new volunteers, and worked on several sets of tag mapping for Open Doors. In June, wranglers handled more than 430,000 tags across over 66,100 fandoms—more than a thousand tags per wrangler!

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanhackers volunteers from Communications are looking forward to their online zine! The theme is Fandom and Friendship. Fanhackers welcome submissions in traditional format such as essays and papers alongside visual and multimedia work. Please tell your fandom friends about the project! Details on how to submit can be found on the Fanhackers website.

Fanlore held a Fandom in Color editing chat in their Discord server on July 29. You can also check out the month's highlighted pages on their Tumblr.

Legal has been responding to user queries, keeping a close eye on proposed legislation about copyright and free expression, and dealing with apps that have used OTW/AO3 trademarks in confusing ways and sites that have tried to profit from AO3 users' work.

Translation has concluded their latest recruitment round, welcoming a total of 16 translators across 12 language teams. Nearly all their teams have finished translating all platforms and news posts for this year's election—an amazing feat of hard work! They're working on getting the translated platforms uploaded and will then be posting information for voters up until the election itself.

On Twitter/X, Transformative Works and Cultures has just finished counting down their ten most cited articles since the beginning of the journal. Elsewhere, they’re disseminating a new call for papers for a special issue on Disability and preparing the upcoming publication of their annual general issue.

IV. GOVERNANCE

In July, Board successfully ran the third public Board meeting of 2024. There were 23 attendees and they received a total of 7 questions from participants, all of which were answered live during the meeting. Minutes from this meeting are available on the OTW website.

Board also finished reviewing Board Training and Recruitment related documents, researched and approved a new customer relationship management service for Board emails, and approved the Board Break & Hiatus Policy.

Board Assistants Team worked on a lot this month: ongoing projects, helping oversee the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap, moderating a public Board meeting and more! This public meeting was the first test of asynchronous question procedures—a project researched by Board Assistant Project Specialists—and it went great!

Lots of work was cross-committee this month, including scoping and planning around external training resources, creating a template for volunteers to track their hours, and supporting various projects and policies.

Development & Membership has been catching up on shipping out donation gifts. If you've been waiting for a gift, be sure to check your email for a shipping notification (of the parcel, not fandom kind).

V. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for 3 committees and 1 subcommittee this month: Fanlore, Tag Wrangling, Volunteers & Recruiting, and Internal Complaint & Conflict Resolution.

From June 25 to July 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 115 new requests, and completed 108, leaving them with 34 open requests.

As of July 23, 2024, the OTW has 907 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: wichard (Policy & Abuse), Kari Dayton (Webs)
New AD&T Volunteers: Bilka (Coding Volunteer)
New Board Assistants Team Volunteers: 1 Moderator
New Communications Volunteers: 1 Report Writer
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Alecto Gaia, Kate G, xeno, and 1 other Moderator
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Graphic Designer
New Fanlore Volunteers: 3 Chair Track Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Gloriosa, Marina Monto, RayboVeld, and 22 other Translators; 1 Volunteer Manager, and 1 Task Assistant
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Review Editor

Departing Committee Chairs: 1 Webs Chair
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: dearjenna (Graphic Designer)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: A.Heidi, Anh Pham, onwardorange, and 3 other Import Assistants
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: catchmeifyoucreon, catmisae, hematophage, Noelia, and 4 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 2 Translators
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Review Editor
Departing Webs Volunteers: 2 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.

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

The Fanlore annual bingo was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who took part and awarded badges, and special thanks to Chimaera and FaalThien for their mythical creature and illuminated manuscript themed graphics.

Fanlore's Fandom in Color event runs all throughout July! The celebration highlights beloved characters of color, the contributions made by fans of color to fandom, and more. Check out Fanlore's Tumblr and Twitter for spotlighted pages.

II. AT THE AO3

Systems worked with Support and others to investigate reports about slow access in some regions. They believe this issue should be resolved now, but if you still have difficulty loading the Archive, check out AO3's posts on Tumblr and Twitter about alternate ways to access the site.

AO3 Documentation finished their biannual documentation review! \o/ The months-long process provided them insight on how they might update their writing style, along with which documents they plan to prioritize next.

Open Doors announced the import of The House of Tucker, a Star Trek: Enterprise archive focused on the character Charles "Trip" Tucker III. Meanwhile, Accessibility, Design & Technology deployed 0.9.370, which included internationalization improvements and an update that will eventually let them upgrade the Redis servers without downtime.

In May, Policy & Abuse received 2,314 tickets, and Support received 2,011 tickets. Both committees conducted recruitment earlier this year, and they’re welcoming and training their new volunteers!

Also in May, Tag Wrangling wrangled over 400,000 tags, which is more than 960 tags per wrangler! More broadly, the committee has been hard at work designing procedures for facilitating temporary wrangling assistance. They also began audits of older piped relationship tags, and they plan to update them in accordance with current guidelines.

III. REACHING OUT TO FANS

Transformative Works and Cultures announced a Call for Papers for their next special issue which will focus on disability and fandom. Deadline for submissions is January 1, 2025 with an anticipated publication in March 2026.

Development & Membership's Con Outreach division also has exciting plans. Volunteers plan to table at Worldcon Glasgow and Fan Expo Chicago in August. Also, while volunteers won't be tabling at Defcon, the OTW's beloved Tumblr mod will be prowling the floor with swag. Make sure to swing by and say hello!

Curious about what it's like volunteering for the OTW? Con Outreach also has plans to run an event during Confabulation in October, which will discuss all things OTW volunteering. More information will be shared closer to the date!

IV. ELECTIONS IN FULL SWING

The 2024 election season is underway! The deadline to donate for this year's election was June 30, and Development & Membership and Translation ran a mini drive the weekend of June 21 to encourage membership. Development & Membership has been answering queries about donations and voter eligibility, while Translation has 25 language teams working on elections content, including the mini drive announcement.

Elections has posted the candidate bios and platforms on their website. The committee has also been hard at work coordinating Candidate Q&A posts and live candidate chats. The 2024 election timeline was announced last month on the Elections website; this year's election will take place from August 16-19.

V. GOVERNANCE

Board has announced their next public meeting will be held on July 14 at 1 pm UTC (what time is that for you?). The meeting will be held in Board's public Discord server, and the agenda has been posted in advance on the OTW website. This meeting will trial a new workflow for submitting questions asynchronously; more details are available in the Discord server itself.

Internally, Board has also reworked the first two sections of Board training, completed asynchronous discussions about the OTW Culture Roadmap, and opened the Whistleblower Protection Policy to the entire OTW volunteerbase for feedback.

The Board Assistants Team has also been hard at work on a variety of projects, including a Procurement Request for Proposals template, CSAM Protection Procedures, nonprofit training resources, OTW website updates, and more!

VI. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

In June, Volunteers & Recruiting set up a new subcommittee under Communications, supported Elections in setting up the upcoming election campaign, and conducted recruitment for a number of committees.

From May 24 to June 24, Volunteers & Recruiting received 182 new requests, and completed 206, leaving them with 55 open requests. As of June 24, 2024, the OTW has 912 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Bridget Kies (TWC)
New AD&T Volunteers: 1 Coding Volunteer
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator
New Development & Membership Volunteers: xeno (Convention Specialist) and 1 Membership Data Specialist
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Allonautilus, Alruin, RadioCobalt, and 2 other Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Jeza, Maura, NaomiLP, and 8 other Translators
New TWC Volunteers: Amanda Hartley and 1 other Copyeditor; Courtney Lazore, Ember, and 1 other Proofreader

Departing Directors: 1 Diversity Consultant Research Officer
Departing Committee Chairs: Karen Hellekson (TWC) and 1 Communications Chair
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Docs Editor
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Posting Specialist, Site Moderator, and Media Outreach Lead
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: greenmegsnoham (Graphic Designer)
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: greenmegsnoham (Graphic Designer) and shiningpaperclip (Policy & Admin Volunteer)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Cyn (Import Assistant)
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 2 Policy & Abuse Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 1 Tag Wrangling Supervisor and 7 Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting 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.

I. PARTNERING WITH FANS AND OTHERS

In May, Legal Advocacy joined allies to file an amicus brief in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of McGucken v. Valnet. The brief emphasized the importance of existing legal standards regarding who is responsible for material that is visible on one site but hosted by a different site (known as embedding). Embedding is a key tool for web users, including fans, and the OTW supports fans' ability to embed images on the AO3 and other sites.

Also in May, OTW Legal joined a coalition of LGBTQ+, reproductive justice, and civil rights organizations in sending a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives reiterating their objections to the pending "Kids Online Safety Act" (KOSA) as currently drafted and urging the U.S. Congress to reject the bill as drafted. They also worked with Communications to encourage users in California, U.S., to oppose the pending age verification bill AB3080. OTW Legal is watching a number of fan-unfriendly legislative proposals and will keep working to oppose them!

The OTW also received a letter of appreciation from U.S. Congressperson Anna Eshoo (D-CA) for our support of the Invest in Child Safety Act of 2024, which—unlike KOSA—is actually aimed at preventing and investigating child exploitation on the Internet.

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design, & Technology upgraded the Archive to Rails 7! After that excitement, they shifted to work on a release with a variety of bug fixes and new features. Systems also investigated a solution to remove a single point of failure from the Archive.

Open Doors announced the import of a group of archives focusing on the HBO Oz TV series, including Unit B, Twisted Sisterhood, and the earlier works of Oz Magi.

In April, Policy & Abuse received 2,596 tickets, and Support received 2,263 tickets. In the same month, tag wranglers handled more than 429,000 tags, across over 21,400 fandoms—more than 1,100 per active wrangler! Tag Wrangling also implemented the first of several planned initiatives to let some volunteers assist with tasks that had previously been done by supervisors.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications has added a new subcommittee with volunteers who will be doing News Post Comment Moderation. They released a post announcing the new policy which will apply to news posts made at the OTW website and the AO3 News blog.

Fanlore held an editing chat focused on Asian fandom in their Discord server, and it was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who took part, and to their volunteers for running the event. Pan-Asian Fandom Month ran throughout May on Fanlore's social channels; you can check out the pages they highlighted on Tumblr.

Fanlore's annual Fanlore Bingo Challenge has just started! This year, it's from Monday, June 3, to Sunday, June 16, and the theme is mythical creatures. Any Fanlore visitors and editors, new and old alike, are invited to participate.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board had a busy month! They published the April public Board meeting minutes to the OTW website and started preparation for the next public meeting in July 2024. They started work on an internal Organizational Culture Roadmap based on insights from the external culture consultant report, as well as internal feedback from volunteers, with the assistance of the Board Assistants Team. The Board Assistants Team also continued work on projects like the OTW Procurement Policy and updating the OTW website.

Elections worked with Translation to announce the 2024 Election Timeline. If you would like to vote in the 2024 Elections, the deadline for membership is June 30.

Development & Membership has been hard at work shipping donation gifts and are preparing for the elections membership drive in June. On the Con Outreach side, volunteers attended a con in Budapest, Hungary! C2e2 was a blast, and the Fannibals were out in fabulous force. Be sure to check out the AO3 fic rec collections to see what everyone recommended!

V. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From April 23 to May 24, Volunteers & Recruiting received 200 new requests, and completed 165, leaving them with 5 open requests.

As of May 24, 2024, the OTW has 905 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: natalieee5 (Strategic Planning) and 1 News Post Moderation Lead
New Communications Volunteers: zamolodchikohyeah (Graphics Volunteer) and 1 Report Writer
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 2 News Post Moderators
New Support Volunteers: Mille K, Adrian, RRHand, Aiden, Hanni, Alchem, Caty, and 25 other Support Volunteers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Akira, Ashrue, Azul, bittersweetResilience, Cascade, Cesium, CJacky, Cliff, Concrastinator, Daph, Daria G, Deniz, Droggelbecher, Fiona Young, Flick, Glowsval, Hollandia, Holly T, HollyW, Jae Ocean, Juss, K. Lee, Keegan, Kereudio, kiwiana, Lemon Bread, Marie Shady, Maru, Mechthild, mediant, Meggie, Mori, none1791, Palarista, pan, Rhiannon, skeleton_boots, Sol, Tack, Tal, thegreyhermit, wistfulbirdie, Yenn, Zelda, and zyncope (All Tag Wranglers)
New Webs Volunteers: Kari Dayton (Acting Co-Chair)

Departing Committee Chairs: Arly Guevara (Strategic Planning) and Harley G. (Communications)
Departing Communications Volunteers: 2 Graphics Volunteers
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: Effie Sapuridis (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer) and 1 Discord Moderator
Departing Support Volunteers: 4 Support Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ben Q, Jel, Ky, and 20 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 6 Translators

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.

I. GET YOUR NEWS HERE!

Communications has now launched the long awaited OTW News by Email service along with assistance from Translation. The service to deliver our news posts directly to subscribers' email inboxes is free. Including English, there are 16 languages currently available. It's possible more will be added in the future, and if so they will be announced in a future OTW Newsletter issue.

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design & Technology spent most of April working on miscellaneous fixes, including updating the blocking feature to apply to gifts. They also had an unexpected few days where a sudden influx of abusive spam led them to temporarily disable guest comments. Together with Policy & Abuse, Support, and Systems they handled the attack and discussed ways to better combat ongoing and future issues with abuse and spam in comments. Translation also worked to create a quick turnaround on the news post explaining the spam situation to AO3 users.

Open Doors presented at a Library of Congress meeting on digital preservation infrastructure! They also announced the import of PHOENIX: Michael Biehn Archive, a multi-fandom fanworks archive focusing on characters played by the actor Michael Biehn.

Support received 2,003 tickets in March. Policy & Abuse received 2,057 tickets in March, and is slowly gearing up for a new round of recruitment. As part of the preparations, they've updated their Policy & Abuse committee information page, and reviewed their Confidentiality Policy. Anyone interested in joining the committee should keep an eye out for more information soon!

Tag Wrangling continued work on the test phase for new procedures for wrangling tags not associated with specific fandoms. They're currently in the process of updating the second round, which includes the canonization of There Was Only One Bed, Mommy Kink, Isekai and Transmigration, and a number of tags related to COVID-19. They also reorganized some tags on the Gender Related tree, renamed some tags that needed renaming, and consolidated some tags to help make browsing and filtering easier.

Tag Wrangling Supervisors additionally took steps to begin implementation of testing for new procedures to allow spreading out workloads from tasks that were previously either solely or primarily worked on by supervisors. Lastly, they made revisions to the workflow for handling Russian language tags to allow the increased volume of tagging in Russian to be handled more efficiently. In March, wranglers handled more than 370,000 tags across over 64,000 fandoms - more than 930 tags per wrangler!

III. WANTING YOUR ACTIONS

Development & Membership's Conventions and Live Events team was at Supanova in Melbourne, Australia. They also plan to be at C2E2 in Chicago, U.S. and the Budapest, Hungary Comic Con. If you left a fanwork recommendation at one of our convention tables, check them out in the AO3 collection for Live Event Recs. We would also love to see photos of where you’ve put your stickers and your #OTWThreeTropeDraw fanworks! Tag the OTW on your social media of choice, come visit us at our convention booths, or add your recs to the Archive.

Fanlore has updated the documentation of their featured article process and are now gearing up for their May themed month which will focus on Asian fandoms. Keep an eye on Fanlore's Tumblr and Twitter/X for featured articles, and come by their Discord server for one of the themed editing chats in May!

Legal responded to a number of user queries and press queries about fanworks and copyright law, including questions about fanbinding and proposed U.S. state age verification laws. They’re watching those legal proposals as they develop. As currently written, none of them are likely to affect the OTW or AO3, but Legal encourages concerned people to contact their state representatives, because Internet age verification laws in general are likely to be bad for other fan spaces.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board has had a busy month! They wrapped up OTW's contract with the corporate culture consulting firm and have started drafting the Roadmap that will help guide the organization's priorities and strategies for the next few years. Board also checked in with several committees as it is the beginning of a new quarter, and finished work on a few policies. These policies have been handed off to other involved committees for their review and sign-off. Also in April, Board had its second public meeting of 2024. The meeting had 88 attendees and Board answered a total of 12 questions live and 10 more two weeks after the meeting. Minutes from this meeting will be available soon.

Strategic Planning is also working to support the Organizational Culture Roadmap, underneath the Diversifying Spaces goal and support the implementation of that Roadmap as well.

The Board Assistants Team had a busy month as well, continuing work on OTW-wide CSAM procedures and an OTW Procurement Policy. They also began developing procedures for asking Board members asynchronous questions to be answered during public Board meetings, and investigating free training resources for non-profit volunteers. They also worked with Board on several joint projects including tasks for our culture audit and Roadmap.

OTW's Cybersecurity Delegate has been getting their grubby paws into understanding how information flows throughout OTW and the Archive, as well as having an initial meeting with the first set of committee chairs. They will be gathering information about what people are working on, what they are worried about protecting, and where they see gaps that they need help closing.

Elections has been gearing up for the 2024 election season. This year’s election will be held August 16th through the 19th. The last day to donate and become a member so that you can vote will be June 30th.

Development & Membership ran the April membership drive which raised US$207,088.91 from 6,073 donors. More than 5,200 of these donors became members or extended their membership! Development & Membership also shipped nearly all gifts tied to the October 2023 drive. Translation translated drive posts into 27 languages, and is now preparing to translate Elections posts.

V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting worked on external recruitment for two Support positions. They’ve also continued working hard behind the scenes on our internal projects, including the new Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) Subcommittee.

As of April 23, 2024 the OTW has 866 volunteers. \o/
Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: FrozenSpellMaster, Jacalyn Brooks, Lori P, and 3 other Graphics Volunteers
New Fanlore Volunteers: Jasmine T (Discord Moderator Volunteer), Indes (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer), Aazeen (Outreach Analyst Volunteer), and 2 other Social Media & Outreach Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Poro (Volunteer Manager), Cristina Dinu, Illiterations, Silvia L, and 3 other Translators

Departing Communications Volunteers: 2 Media Outreach Volunteers, 1 Event Coordinator, 1 Recruitment Training & Documentation Assistant, and 1 Report Writer
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: C. Ryan Smith (Volunteer)
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: Jasmine T (Fanlore Discord Moderator)
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Nrandom (Chair Assistant, Supervisor, and Tag Wrangler), bittercape, Giulia F, SaraChimera, Sturmlight, and 3 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Alice M (Translation Volunteer Manager), Adi M., Cynassa, Ellensax, Lies, and 7 other Translators

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.

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.