Committees

The OTW is organized into committees, which are all made up of volunteers. Each committee has a specific focus, though most work together in supporting various OTW projects and contributing to the success of the organization. If you’re interested in giving your time to support the OTW, check the volunteer listings to see if there’s an open position that matches your skills and interests. The OTW committees are:

Accessibility, Design, & Technology
Co-Chairs: mumble & sarken
Coordinates software design and development on behalf of the Organization for Transformative Works. The main project currently occupying the Committee is the creation of an open-source software package, OTW-Archive, to build and support the Archive of Our Own.

AO3 Documentation
Co-Chairs: Claire P. Baker, Michelle Schroeder & Sammie Louise
The AO3 Documentation Committee exists to create and maintain complete and up-to-date user-facing and internal documentation for the Archive of Our Own. This includes but is not limited to FAQs, tutorials, screencasts, and other AO3-related documentation.

Communications
Co-chairs: Jess Hindes & Kirsten Korona
Handles press releases, newsletters, blog posts, media contacts, and other tasks related to promoting our various projects. Additionally, promotes communication within the OTW itself, keeping information flowing between the various committees.

Development & Membership
Co-Chairs: Amy2, Amy Lowell & Nrandom
Handles fundraising and membership-building for the organization. Also maintains our secure database of member and donor information, and ensures that each member is able to vote in OTW elections.

Elections
Co-Chairs: briar_pipe, disjointed, Emma Lloyd, Jenny McDevitt & Marion McGowan
The Elections Committee runs the annual election for members of the Board of Directors of the OTW. This election takes place in August every year, voted on by the paid members of the OTW. Elections is responsible for all aspects of the elections process, from start to finish. These include candidate preparation, technical aspects of running the election, making certain the entire process follows our by-laws, and running the candidacy period (when candidates are introduced to the members and are asked questions).

Fanlore
Chair: Rebecca Sentance
Maintains the Fanlore wiki. This includes supporting Fanlore wiki editors, as well as establishing a flexible infrastructure to define and organize the wiki’s content.

Finance
Chair: Yuechiang Luo
Finance is responsible for keeping the OTW’s books accurate, making and tracking payments, working with the Board on creating and updating the budget, preparing and releasing accurate and informative financial statements, and ensuring that the OTW meets all its tax filing requirements.

Legal
Chair: Betsy Rosenblatt
Carries out the Organization’s Legal Advocacy activities, advises the Board and various committees on legal matters, and liaises with other advocacy groups and outside legal counsel. Mostly comprised of legal professionals.

Open Doors
Co-Chairs: Alison Watson & Eskici
Open Doors works to preserve at-risk fanworks of all kinds.

Policy & Abuse
Co-Chairs: Aenya, Mai Daye, & Ranowa
Handles abuse functions for the Archive of Our Own, such as complaints and Terms of Service violations.

Strategic Planning
Co-Chairs: Arly Guevara & Kate Sanders
Reviews and revises the strategic plan for the OTW every 1 – 3 years.

Support
Co-Chairs: Nary
Handles communication between users and the various teams involved with the Archive of Our Own. The Support team helps to resolve technical problems experienced by users and passes on users’ feedback.

Systems
Chair: Frost The Fox
Manages servers and infrastructure for the OTW and its projects.

Tag Wrangling
Co-Chairs: brhi, Dre, & Qem 
Sorts and organizes tags on the Archive of Our Own according to the Archive’s Tag Wrangling guidelines, linking related tags together for better filtering and searching, while allowing users to tag their works however they prefer.

Translation
Co-Chairs: Heleen & Ioana & Natalia Gruber & Priscilla
Coordinates volunteer translators and liaises with other committees to make their projects and documents available in as many languages as possible.

TWC
Chair: Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse
Administers Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), an international peer-reviewed twice-yearly academic online journal in the field of media studies. This involves administering TWC’s open-source journal software (OJS), considering submissions, and working with authors and content as necessary. They also shepherd documents through OJS for peer review, revision, copyedit, and layout.

Volunteers & Recruiting
Co-Chairs: Alison Watson & Cyn
Recruits and manages volunteers for all committees and projects, equips them with a variety of tools, and tracks their service. Volunteers also maintains a large database of volunteer records, manages recruitment drives, and creates internal reference materials and documentation for OTW projects and committees. This aids internal transparency and continuity by building and maintaining a robust knowledge base.

Webs
Chair: Alex Tischer
The web committee does the design and maintenance for Organization for Transformative Works websites. Our CMS of choice is WordPress, and we’re always looking for qualified developers to help out.

Currently, we are responsible for:

Contact the Webs Committee if you’re interested in volunteering, or to report a technical problem with one of the sites above.