For more information about the purview of our committees, please see the committee listing on our website.
I. THANK YOU!
Development & Membership was happy to report record donations during our April membership drive. Translation produced over 100 translated posts this month for the membership drive, and helped Development & Membership respond to several potential donor messages.
Translation churned out translations for tweets and a couple of news posts in collaboration with Communications and Accessibility, Design and Technology. It’s been really exciting to see so much content reaching fans in several languages, with great results.
Communications released the OTW video at the end of the membership drive. Work is now underway in getting multiple language versions of the video completed by Translation.
Communication’s liaisons to Accessibility, Design and Technology and Wiki have been hard at work with those committees in April, creating and distributing tweets and posts for April Showers. It’s been a great month of spotlighting fandoms!
II. OVER AT AO3
The comment period has closed for proposed changes to the AO3’s Terms of Service. The changes announced by Content Policy will now include a DMCA policy that takes fair use into account while providing us with more protection in case we are threatened by copyright trolls.
Abuse received over 200 tickets in April. In the next few weeks they’ll be adding new staffers and getting them trained to help manage the workload.
Open Doors had their first open house Yuletide chat last week, and had another on May 4. They’ve mainly been working on Yuletide requests, while trying to keep other archive import projects moving along. They would also like to give their thanks and congratulations to Bettina, the German Speaking Slashers United mod, for completing the GSSU archive import into the AO3–over 700 works, safe in their new home!
Systems has been doing some spring cleaning of older out-of-date tickets, and continuing the never-ending quest to tune the Archive to get the best performance possible out of it.
Accessibility, Design and Technology continued their rolling releases with updates on April 4, April 13, April 17, April 21, and April 24. They also announced changes coming to the Archive FAQ System, and reassured users regarding the Heartbleed OpenSSL Security Vulnerability.
III. WORKING FOR YOU
Journal is finishing up production for the June guest-edited issue, and obtaining the final documents from authors for the September issue. They’ve already begun working with the guest editors of a 2015 issue.
Legal filed an amicus brief in the case of Garcia v. Google. This case involved the scope and application of the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which together prevent content hosts — like YouTube, the AO3, and many others — from being liable for what their users post.
Strategic Planning is training new staffers and have started a new round of surveys, reaching out to Translation, Finance, and Fan Video. They’re working through the info-gathering and data analysis stages for Journal and Fanhackers while plugging away on reports for Support, Communications, Abuse, DevMem and I&O. You can check out Strategic Planning’s completed reports on the OTW website.
Development & Membership announced plans for an OTW merchandise store and solicited comments from fans about what they should offer.
Communications reminded users of official sources of information on the OTW, how to contact us, and addressed a few other questions the OTW has been receiving.
IV. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruiting for 3 roles, inducted new personnel recruited last month and retired departing personnel. They also answered over 20 non-induction/removal requests, developed some tool documentation, and updated internal training documents.
New Committee Staff: Meep (Support), Nary (Support), Niko Thompson (Strategic Planning), Gryph (Strategic Planning), Kathryn Soderholm (Open Doors), Curtis Jefferson (Open Doors), kittypimms (Volunteers & Recruiting), & 1 Web Strategy, Design & Development
New Workgroup Members: Sammie Jarrett (AO3 Docs), Jennifer Reinhart (AO3 Docs), paraka (AO3 Docs), DekuDani (AO3 Docs), bobdog54 (AO3 Docs) & 7 Others (AO3 Docs)
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: abluegirl, deedidoo, Dr_Harbinger, IrogicalArgument, jon_dough, Sass, Slypher, TricksterWins, Yenelie, marrjoram, ThroughTheTulips, Ciel, Nana, parma, Eko, Val
New Translator Volunteers: Maite, Ana Carolina Nonato, Anneli G, Lisa Altevogt, Daphne, and 2 others
Departing Committee Staff: 1 Support staffer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 8
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteer: 1
Departing Translator Volunteers: 2