I. FANLORE NEWS
Fanlore has been all systems go in August preparing for their next challenge, Stub September, which will run from September 13 to 26, as well as the public launch of their Discord server! They’ve also been carrying out more testing for their upcoming MediaWiki upgrade and preparing a number of updates to their Wish List page.
II. GOVERNANCE
Following the successful contested election that Elections organized in August, the Board of Directors is very happy to welcome its newest members, E. Anna Szegedi, Antonius Melisse, and Kari Dayton! Anna and Kari will be replacing Lex de Leon and Natalia Gruber, who are just at the end of their terms, and Antonius will be completing the term of departing director Kati Eggert, who is stepping down from the role for personal reasons.
Translation did a great deal of work during this year’s election, with Development & Membership and Communications also helping out. Thank you to our voting members! The 2021 Election statistics post summarizes some information about this year’s election, including ballots cast and voter turnout, both this year and in comparison to last year.
III. AT THE AO3
Accessibility, Design, & Technology deployed a code update to limit how many tags you can add to a work. Although this change will limit the number of fandom, character, relationship, and additional tags on each work to a maximum of 75, works that already have over 75 tags will keep all of their tags unless the creator tries to update it, and they should not be reported to the Support or Policy & Abuse teams. In addition, staff clarified that the new limits will not apply to bookmarks, series, or gift exchanges and prompt memes run on the site.
Open Doors completed the import of DoyleCordy! They also welcomed three new members to its team of import assistants, who assist committee staff with tasks related to archive imports. The import assistants completed a number of tasks in August, including searching Sarek and Amanda Archive, The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive, and 春日泽 (SpringFen) for works already on AO3; cleaning up metadata of works on VinXperience; and compiling tracking spreadsheets for an additional archive yet to be announced.
In August, Tag Wrangling made some updates to their internal FAQ to bring it in line with updated policies. Behind the scenes, they also made some improvements to their process for resolving issues involving tags incorrectly marked as synonyms of other tags that aren’t associated with any specific fandom, which should hopefully allow them to address those tags more quickly. Tag Wranglers have also continued to handle truly massive numbers of incoming tags–in July, more than 410,000 tags across more than 45,000 fandoms.
At the time of this writing, Policy & Abuse was on track to receive 2710 tickets in August, which is a small increase from last month. Support was on track to receive about 1400 tickets in August.
IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
In August, Legal helped users understand what Tumblr’s “Post+” plan would mean for Tumblr users and fans more generally, via a public post and some discussion with the press.
TWC upgraded its software (to OJS 3.3) and is now working to correct graphics broken during the transition. Production for the September 15 issue is ongoing. Meanwhile, Webs has been busy working with DNSrecord for the past month.
We could use more sugestions for our Guest Post series, and are currently particularly interested in locating podficcers and fan crafters, so let us know if you or someone you know would be interested.
V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS
From 25 July to 23 August, Volunteers & Recruiting received 121 new requests, and completed 114, leaving us with 34 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).
As of 23 August 2021, the OTW has 1,043 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Committee Staff: eliotjay, Luz Villarreal (both Open Doors) and 2 other Open Doors staffers, 1 Policy & Abuse Staffer
New Open Doors Volunteers: Brianna Dardin & 3 other volunteers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Ada_Li, Aenys, Anahlia, Anggi, angrytomato, Ark, Autumn, bittercape, bloodfruit, c0ldspark, Cherie, Chocho, Elise, ErinO, Fern, Fynn, ger, Halcyon, IronLucario, iwasnttrainedforthis, Jully, KQLink, Laila, Losie, Lyria, marie belle, MFY11EP, mithrel, NadaZen, NellNanyoky, Oliviaireth, ovenmittens, Pyr, Rain Shadow, Rex P., Submariner, tiara0204, Tobisco, Venti, Wrblu, Xylia, zedille, & 2 other volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Harold Liu
Departing Committee Staff: 1 AO3 Documentation staffer, 2 Support staffers, Rimb (Translation)
Departing Strategic Planning Staff: royrichard
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Harold Liu, Mandy Gooch, Mierke, renaissance, Vasileios Pasialiokis & 1 other volunteer
Departing Translation Volunteers: Quality, spectralarchers, Vasileios Pasialiokis & 6 other volunteers
For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.