Posts by Harley G.
October 2023 Membership Drive: The Meaning of Membership
After the Archive of Our Own (AO3), Fanlore, and our donation form went down due to the DDoS attacks in July, many fans responded by donating in the following months. We greatly appreciate both your generosity and your desire to respond to the attacks with this show of support. We received a 35% bump in donations in July and August of 2023 compared to July and August in 2022. That’s why, during our usual October membership drive, we want to encourage you to become a member of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) — the nonprofit organization behind AO3 and Fanlore, among other projects —… Read more
OTW 16th Anniversary Survey Report
On September 5, 2023 the OTW launched a user survey to coincide with its 16th anniversary. The purpose of this survey was to identify locations used by fans for fandom activities in order to better understand where they might be encountering and sharing news. In compliance with our Strategic Plan’s Vision Statement, we also used this survey to establish a baseline of fans’ familiarity with the OTW and its projects. The survey asked between 16 and 35 ticky box and radio button questions (depending on what answers were given) and was open for 16 days, closing on September 21. During that time the survey was… Read more
OTW Guest Post: Peizhen Wu
Every month the OTW hosts guest posts on our OTW News accounts to provide an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom. These posts express each individual’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Peizhen Wu is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literary Studies at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a Chinese citizen living abroad, she thinks critically about boundaries, identities, and trans-cultural influences. She writes about fan fiction, queerness, science fiction, and Digital Humanities. Today, Peizhen talks about her article in Transformative Works and Cultures. How did you first find out about fandom… Read more
Five Things Anh Phạm Said
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 Anh, who recently became a member of our Board of Directors. How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does? Disclaimer: since being elected to the OTW Board in the summer of 2023, what I do now in September 2023 is quite different from what I did as an OTW volunteer previously. I… Read more
September 2023 Newsletter, Volume 182
I. MILESTONES! The OTW got to celebrate its 16th anniversary month with a new milestone at its Archive of Our Own project! On September 18th the 60,000th fandom was canonized by Tag Wrangling. That fandom is Kołysanka | Lullaby (2010) which comes to us courtesy of Fandom Kombat. In August, more than 550,000 tags were wrangled, which works out to more than 1,250 per active Tag Wrangler. OTW’s anniversary was also marked by a survey which was accessed 90,607 times. The survey ran from September 5 – 21. The Communications Committee is at work creating a public report on the results, which should be released… Read more