Agenda
- Decisions made since last public meeting
- Board annual roadmap for 2026
- OTW Culture Roadmap update
- Any other business (questions & answers)
Transcript
The meeting can be read in full on the official OTW Board Discord server. In order to access it, you’ll need to join our Discord server.
Present
- Anh Pham
- Elizabeth Wiltshire
- Harlan Lieberman-Berg
- Qiao Chu
- Rachel Linton
Guests
- a.
- ae13310613
- ailinen
- alogical
- arty
- Arvion
- Beatrice_Otter
- briar
- celli
- CMDonovann
- copacet
- DawnWinters
- EchoEkhi
- Egg
- eli
- EliotWL
- Evelyn Ciara
- ficforthought
- Gammarad
- havesomewords
- Jane
- kanadka
- Kathryn S
- ladydragona
- Linya
- LtMel
- Lulu
- Lydia
- Moonbob
- Moro
- MustardPot
- nonplussed
- nova
- pitytheviolins
- plinky
- rein
- Sanity
- sarcasticallyinclined
- ShirouHokuto
- SisterWolf (she/they)
- slumber
- Snow
- Sobriquett
- Starcasting
- Sullie Tosho
- Talmoon
- The Girl Reading This
- therealmorticia
- Trix
- Ultraviolet_Ink
- Water_eddown
- Wist
- xeno
- ZG
Open Session
Decisions made since the last public meeting
- Approved minutes of previous public Board meeting.
- Approved finance request.
- Approved appointment of Support co-Chair.
- Approved appointment of ICCR co-lead.
- Approved sign-on to amicus brief regarding trademark protection of a classic fairytale character.
- Approved revised Confidentiality Policy for Board.
- Approved updated Open Doors Terms of Service.
- Approved Communications creation of RedNote social media account.
- Approved OTW Procurement and Purchasing Policy.
Board annual roadmap for 2026
2025 Roadmap Wrap-Up
As it’s a new year, we’d like to do a wrap up of what was accomplished on our 2025 Board Roadmap and also outline our 2026 Board Roadmap.
We originally shared the 2025 Board Roadmap in our January 2025 meeting, you can see the messages here.
You can also view them in our minutes here.
We have had some successes in achieving goals we set out in our 2025 Board Roadmap! Some work requires a longer timeframe and is still in progress, carried forward onto our 2026 Roadmap.
Trust, Safety, and Accountability
- Review and revise OTW policies for volunteer discipline (Carried over from 2024): this work is still ongoing. We’re pleased to share that the Code of Conduct review project (a core part of this goal) is in full swing: we have surveyed volunteers, analysed their feedback, and completed the first draft of the revised Code of Conduct based on research and feedback collected. To support this, the project team have also engaged specialist consultants to review the draft revised Code of Conduct to ensure it meets industry standards.
- Improve Board transparency by sharing regular updates and improving the Board response time to communication (Carried over from 2024): this work is (and will always be) ongoing
- Review Board Confidentiality Agreement (this policy is reviewed every two years): completed – the updated policy was approved and implemented on November 15, 2025
- Make efficiency improvements to how Board members agree to the Board Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Policies: completed
- Review and revamp the OTW Conflict of Interest Policy: still in progress
Soliciting Expertise
- Finalize OTW Procurement Policy and related documentation (Continued from 2024): Partially completed – the Procurement Policy was reviewed by our Legal Committee and approved by the Board in January 2026. Documentation for requesting quotes and proposals has been drafted and is undergoing review.
- Create Requests for Proposal (RFPs) for various consultants/contractors (Carried over from 2024): In progress..The Board is working with a number of committees to engage with consultants/contractors to provide expertise and support the continuing growth of both AO3 and other projects. The Board will continue to engage with committees to assess and respond to these needs as they arise.
Following Existing Plans
- Collaborate with Paid Staff Transition Co-leads to work on transitioning the OTW to a hybrid volunteer-paid staff model: still in progress. The Paid Staff Transition project has laid significant groundwork to help the OTW transition to a hybrid volunteer-paid staff model, including conducting an initial assessment of paid staffing needs and identifying available pathways for nonprofit organizations to bring on paid staff. To streamline this work going forward, the Paid Staff Transition project will be combined with the Board-OCR workgroup and move forward with an in-depth assessment of available options to determine which is the best approach for the OTW.
- Collaborate with OTW Roadmap Team and work on Organizational goals (Continued from 2024).
- Support implementation of the Strategic Plan by completing our own goals and supporting other committees (Continued from 2024).
Board Sustainability & Proposals to the Board
- Optimize and document the procedures for the annual turnover of Board members post-election: yet to be actioned
- Review and improve internal instructions on How to Make a Proposal to the Board: completed
- Address and resolve proposals carried over from 2024.
Board Assistants Team (BAT) Committee
- Work with BATs to create systems to better manage Board tasks (Continued from 2024): still in progress
- Increase active BAT membership by 20%: completed and announced in the October 2025 public meeting (hooray! 🦇)
- Create and improve documentation around regular BAT and Board tasks: still in progress. Substantial documentation was created in 2025 however there is still more to do.
2026 Board Roadmap
Below is our 2026 Board Roadmap. While we aim to complete all these goals, progress may be dependent on a number of factors outside our control. We will continue to post updates on our progress on these and other tasks in the Newsletter and in Public Board Meetings like this one.
Trust, Safety, and Accountability
- Review and revise OTW policies for volunteer discipline (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Continue our commitment to Board transparency by sharing regular updates and improving the Board response time to communication (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Review and revamp the OTW Conflict of Interest Policy (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Assist the development and expansion of the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) subcommittee to provide improved avenues of support for volunteers (new)
Soliciting Expertise
- Finalize procurement-related documentation (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Engage short-term contractors and subject matter experts to support progress of committee-specific projects (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
Following Existing Plans
- Combine Paid Staff Transition project with joint Board-OCR workgroup to continue work on transitioning to hybrid volunteer-paid staff model (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Support implementation of the Strategic Plan by completing our own goals and supporting other committees (Carried over from 2025)
- Work with BATs to create systems to better manage Board tasks (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Create and improve documentation around regular BAT and Board tasks (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
OTW Sustainability & Proposals to the Board
- Optimize and document the procedures for the annual turnover of Board members post-election (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Optimize and document the procedures for the annual “Still Willing to Board” survey, as well as personnel admin tasks resulting from this (New)
- Address and resolve proposals carried over from 2025 (Ongoing)
- Provide retention and recruitment support to committees requesting assistance (New).
Each year after the turnover period in September/October, the Board conducts annual Board-committee check-ins with all OTW committees. Since the last public meeting, we have completed more than 90% of those check-ins. Based on our findings from these check-ins, volunteer burnout and retention issues are the most common challenges that our teams are facing. Moving forward, we would like to more proactively provide retention and recruitment support to committees requesting assistance.
Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup
- Work with OCR to address Culture Roadmap goals
- Support OCR external recruitment
- Develop further OCR independence from Board and BAT
Note: the BAT Committee goals, which have previously been listed separately, have now been incorporated under Follow Existing Plans in our 2026 road map. Going forward, documenting BAT and Board tasks and improving task management will be an ongoing goal.
OTW Culture Roadmap update
Since the last update in our October 2025 public meeting, we have had multiple discussions with the heads of the Organizational Culture Roadmap (OCR) about the future plan and development of the OCR workgroup itself. One of our foremost concerns is to ensure OCR’s independence from Board turnover and its ability to continue critical work without relying too much on Board and/or BAT resources. As part of this process, Kathryn chose to step down from the Board to continue leading the OCR workgroup.
Although we have been sharing updates to the OTW Culture Roadmap in Board public meetings, we expect this may change in the future once the OCR workgroup is fully established, especially after the workgroup size increases through external recruitment. OCR is also excited to announce that they will be recruiting externally in February 2026. Please keep an eye out for the recruitment announcement, currently scheduled for February 18. If you are interested in making the OTW a more accessible, equitable, and supportive place to volunteer, we would love for you to apply!
Since the previous public meeting, aside from the updates posted above regarding the Code of Conduct review, we’re pleased to share that we’ve made significant progress on the Crisis procedures goal: The OTW Crisis Communication Guidelines document has been reviewed and approved. The OTW Crisis Management Plan and related documents are expected to be reviewed by all OTW volunteers later this month.
AOB
No items
Open Question time
Q1: What steps, if any, are being taken to address the excessive number of spam comments appearing on works across the site?
A: As you mentioned, AO3 has been experiencing a heightened volume of spam since mid-2025. We’ve alerted our users about this spam through both a news post about “art commission” scammers seeking user information as well as a number of social media communications.
Our Policy & Abuse (PAC), Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T), and Systems committees have been working together to both respond to reports of spam and to make technical adjustments to prevent spam from being posted. However, the spam volume remains very high and spammers continue to innovate to get around existing measures. We will continue to make adjustments to try and address the spam problem as it continues to evolve. For security reasons, we choose not to publicize the specific measures being taken–that makes them easier to get around! We’re very grateful to our PAC, AD&T, and Systems volunteers, who have been working very hard to respond to this issue.
Q2: Were the recent Board resignations caused by policy/Board work/goals disagreements, whether fully or partially? If so, could you please share those disagreements or their general topic?
A: In December, we announced the resignations of Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm from the Board in this news post. These resignations were, to the best of our knowledge, for personal reasons and not a result of policy, work, or goal disagreements. We wish both Erica and Kathryn all the best and are very grateful for their service to the OTW, both in their time as Directors and in their continuing non-Director roles.
Q3: What has the Paid Staff Transition project achieved so far?
A: The Paid Staff Transition project has laid significant groundwork necessary for our progress toward the goal of hiring paid staff in addition to volunteers. Specifically, the project has identified where paid employees are needed across the Organization, and developed an overview of potential pathways for non-profit and online organizations such as ourselves to transition to engaging paid staff.
Q4: How does Board ensure volunteer safety and make the internal chat tool a safe, welcoming space while ICCR is not yet set up to process cases? What avenues do volunteers have to file complaints that will be addressed in a reasonable timeframe?
A: The Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) subcommittee was proposed in 2023 and developed and launched in 2024. While ICCR processed a handful of cases last year, the bulk of their time was spent recruiting, training, and setting up tools to create a sustainable process. ICCR’s new processes are now in place, and the subcommittee has begun accepting and processing reports. We expect the subcommittee and process to continue to evolve. Continuing to support the development of ICCR to set everyone up for success is on the Board Roadmap for this year, shared earlier in this meeting. We will also continue to assess other potential tools to support volunteer complaints.
In the interim, existing procedures for reporting complaints and conflicts remain in effect. Volunteers can still find options for giving feedback and reporting grievances both within and outside their committee(s) in the OTW Volunteer Handbook. If a volunteer has urgent concerns that require immediate attention, we ask that they escalate them to the Board via email.
[Below clarification were added on March 18]
After consultation with relevant stakeholders, we want to clarify that, although ICCR was created in 2024 and had gone through multiple recruitments, the subcommittee had not been fully established nor was working at full capacity to address internal complaints and conflicts for OTW volunteers. While the existing reporting procedures have been in place in the interim, our previous answer underestimated the actual time and effort internal complaints got addressed in practice. We sincerely apologise and hope this clarification assuages people’s concerns about our prior answer.
Q5: I recently became aware that you maintain a record of old usernames and email addresses associated with an AO3 account, and some volunteers can search/view that data. For user privacy, can an easy way to request deletion of that old data be set up?
A: As a policy matter, email and username change logs are retained in our database for anti-abuse purposes. However, access to this data is restricted to a limited set of volunteers to protect user privacy. In addition to technical restrictions on who can access the data, any individual with access is required to sign a confidentiality policy surrounding its use. Violations of those policies are taken very seriously. We do not currently offer a way to request further deletion of this data.
Q6: The bylaws don’t mandate term length. Giving the person taking over the recently vacated term a 4 year term rather than 1 gives them more time after training to meaningfully contribute. How effective can someone be with just 1 year? Requesting this proposal be looked into by the Board.
A: Thank you for the suggestion, and the Board will take it under consideration. However, in general, three-year Board terms are already a substantial commitment for Board members. While longer terms can give individual Board members more time to complete projects, they are also more likely to lead to burnout and restrict the number of individuals who could serve in the role. The position requires a very high time commitment and there are already a limited number of people who are able to make a three-year commitment, let alone a longer one.
Q7: Is the board able to share any of the identified areas where paid staff are most desired/needed?
A: Beyond the use of paid contractors and consultants to support specific committees and projects, one significant area we have identified that would benefit from paid staff is an executive director (ED) to support the operational and administrative running of the organization. There are other committee-specific paid staff needs that we are also discussing with relevant committees, but ED is the only area solid enough to share at this stage.
Q8: any thoughts on the trend of commercial piracy of fan works and how fans and OTW can respond to it?
A: We’re not exactly sure what you’re referring to here, but the OTW believes that transformative fanworks are legal, and that fan creators hold the copyright to their individual fanworks. Therefore, you retain ownership of your fanworks, and if they are stolen and reposted, you may be able to file a DMCA to take them down. If you have questions about the legal status of your fanworks, you can contact our Legal committee via their contact form with specific questions: https://www.transformativeworks.org/contact_us/
Q9: For the new Code of Conduct draft and the work with feedback gathering and analysis, could you provide some key takeaways? Any major points in the draft you think are worth mentioning, whether as a point of breakthrough or up for discussion?
A: The Code of Conduct project is led by the Volunteers & Recruiting Committee with collaboration across multiple teams, including but not limited to the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup, the Board Assistants Team, and limited oversight from the Board. While we are notified about the current progress of the Code of Conduct project, the drafted Code of Conduct and the report on volunteers feedback responses are still under limited review from the project team. We expect to share more updates in future Board public meetings when they become available to us.
Q10: What kind of transparency can we expect to know about paid contractors, staff, and ultimately funding to protect both our interest and the privacy of the paid individuals?
A: As the Organization for Transformative Works is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, we have certain obligations to make information about our financials available to our members and to the public. Our annual reports cover general numbers and uses, and more details are available in our audited financial statements and our form 990s. We are proud to have received a platinum transparency rating from Candid. We commit to make public the roles and job titles of any paid staff, and any further levels of detail provided will be determined as we move forward with this work.
Q11: what was the Finance request that was approved?
A: We approved a Finance request for our AD&T committee to engage a subject-matter consultant on some performance improvement initiatives.
Q12: Will there be more openings for volunteers? And when will we know about that?
A: Yes, the OTW regularly recruits for a broad range of volunteer positions and we will be recruiting again soon. We announce new openings through News Posts on the AO3 homepage and on the OTW website here.
You can also receive news about volunteer opportunities directly in your email inbox through our OTW News by Email service.
Q13: Can I volunteer for AO3 and list it on my college application to showcase my skills and commitment?
A: A number of volunteers with the OTW choose to list their volunteer work on resumes and applications. Volunteers can ask their committee chairs or our Volunteers and Recruiting Committee (VolCom) for assistance in verifying their volunteer work or receiving a letter of recommendation.
If you are not a volunteer and are interested in volunteering, you can receive news about volunteer opportunities directly in your email inbox through our OTW News by Email service.
Q14: When the ICCR is fully up and running, will previous volunteers that feel they were discriminated against during their previous tenure be able to utilize them or will the ICCR only apply to active current volunteers?
A: As we shared previously, ICCR is a subcommittee of the Volunteers and Recruiting Committee and processes around this are still being developed. We believe that setting up formal protocols regarding complaint and conflict resolution for our current and active volunteers is still our top priority during this stage. However, we are open to investigate and discuss the potential of setting up a similar/related system for taking reports from previous volunteers, assuming we have a foundation in place to support our current and active volunteers.
We do acknowledge that, as with our whistleblower policy, it is important for previous volunteers to still have a venue to raise important concerns, and we will work to ensure that there is an avenue to do so even if the exact process differs.
Asynchronous Questions
All questions asked were answered live, so there are no asynchronous question responses.
The meeting was adjourned at 01:03 18 January 2026 UTC.
Minutes approved by the Board on 23 January 2026.