Category: Spotlight

Uma cadeira de direção de cinema com a logo da OTW e as palavras OTW Guest Post

OTW Guest Post: Wenzhan

Claudia Rebaza 3 Comments

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.

Wenzhan(文栈) created SOSAD.FUN, a website for writers using Chinese to share their stories and receive feedback. Wenzhan taught herself programming to make the website and has been maintaining it in her spare time since. Today, Wenzhan shares a perspective that combines her experience as a reader and writer of both original and fan fiction stories, and as a website founder.

How did you first find out about fandom and fanworks?

I thought I was familiar with fandom and fanworks before I even knew the word “fandom” existed. When I was a kid, one of my friends would share with me her comic book collection, and together we would sit down and draw the scenes and the characters. Later, when the Harry Potter series became popular, I accidentally came across a translated story revolving around Harry but not happening in the official story line. In the story, a war survivor adult Harry time travels back to the beginning of the story, reversing regrets with a mature mind while struggling to hide his knowledge and abilities as an adult.

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Five Things an OTW Volunteer Said

Five Things Acts of Tekla Said

Claudia Rebaza

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 Acts of Tekla, who volunteers with the Open Doors Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I volunteer with the Open Doors Committee, which helps archive owners move the fanworks on their archives to the AO3 so that they stay online and accessible even if the original archive can no longer be kept up. We work with Translation and Communications, to create import announcements; Tag Wrangling, to make sure that the imported works are tagged appropriately; and Systems, to redirect old archive URLs to their new home on AO3.

We also sometimes work with Legal when there are questions about whether we can preserve something and still abide by our mandate to preserve privacy and creators’ control over their works. Sadly, the answer is sometimes that we can’t — one reason that everyone should designate a Fandom Next of Kin!

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Five Things an OTW Volunteer Said

Five Things Koteneko Said

Claudia Rebaza 6 Comments

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 Koteneko, who volunteers with the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

Being a translator for the Ukranian team, I make the OTW and all its projects easier to access for non-English speakers, so that everyone can know about transformative works, their legal status, etc. It encourages people to create fanworks by spreading knowledge about their legitimate nature.

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