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.