I. INTERNATIONAL FANWORKS DAY
What do fanworks mean to us? Apparently quite a lot of things! #WhatFanworksMeantoMe was the most successful of the OTW’s events for the 2018 celebration of International Fanworks Day on February 15th. Browse the hashtag on Twitter to experience all the different personal stories!
Communications worked hard on #IFD2018, and other OTW events for the celebration included IFDShare, a challenge to create short or quick fanworks, Feedback Fest, a celebration of fanworks through recommendations and other feedback, and games and public chat in an OTW-hosted chat room.
Fanlore also held an event for IFD, the Fanlore Challenge, which had a great response. New editors started Fanlore accounts and made load of edits to articles to earn shiny challenge badges!
Many thanks to the volunteers from all over the OTW who pitched in to help with planning, preparation, and hosting games in the chat room. Translation, in particular, helped make IFD a truly international event, translating posts into 24 languages!
See the wrap-up post for more details about #IFD2018.
II. THE FANFICTION READER WINS 2018 PROSE AWARD
One of the OTW’s founders (and current TWC staffer), Francesca Coppa won the 2018 PROSE Award for Media and Cultural Studies for The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age (University of Michigan Press, 2017). The PROSE Awards annually recognize “the very best in professional and scholarly publishing” and the OTW is incredibly proud of Francesca’s well earned award! If you’re interested in buying the book, royalties go to the OTW. (You can also use the OTW’s Amazon Smile link!)
III. AT THE AO3
In February, Open Doors completed two archive imports: The Boy, an archive for fanfiction about any character portrayed by actor Michael Shanks, and The New Adventures of Sinbad Fan Fiction Season 2, a The Adventures of Sinbad (TV) fanfiction archive. Open Doors also announced one other upcoming import: Obidala Network, a Star Wars fanfiction archive focused on the pairing Obi-Wan Kenobi/Padmé Amidala. Special thanks to Tag Wrangling and Systems for all their help!
Accessibility, Design & Technology did lots of work behind the scenes this month in preparation for future upgrades. Thanks to AO3 users for being patient and understanding about hiccups in the Archive. Remember, follow @AO3_Status on Twitter for real-time updates on AO3.
Tag Wrangling reported approximately 616,000 tags wrangled for the month of January. February numbers will be available in the next newsletter.
Policy & Abuse (formerly Abuse), had over 800 tickets come in this month, similar to January’s numbers. By contrast, Support received 1660 tickets in February, up quite a bit from 1450 in January and 1329 in December 2017.
IV. ELSEWHERE IN THE OTW
Legal continued to work hard on petitions to clarify and expand exemptions to section 1201 of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In addition, Legal staffers worked on a reply submission and will be providing testimony. They have also responded to a number of queries from fans with legal questions, and have considered and addressed questions about the AO3 terms of service and content policies.
Systems installed new front end servers for many OTW projects during February.
Lastly, Webs assisted TWC in setting up their new Open Journal Systems installation for the TWC website.
V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS
As of the 27th of February 2018, the OTW has 653 volunteers. \o/
Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Committee Staff: Rachel Bussert (Translation), Relle (Translation), lareine (Translation), Rebecca Snyder (Translation), and 2 Communications staffers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 2babyturtles, Acrazyworldofdreams, ami, Anca Palade, antonomasia09, AshT, BasedGarbage, Brhi, camlights, Charlottec1, Deifire, DevinKos, Eonni_jagga, Fricklefracklefandomackles, GhostJ, Inrainbowz, Jade Hanson, Julia Santos, keena, Kitsune_Scribe, LaReveuse, Laura Kaye, Letícia Lopes, Lex deLeon, Marina M, Maygen, Megan Q, mopsi, Mouse, one_of_those_crushing_scenes, praecantrix, Quoth, Qwerty, Remi, Sam Bailey, SaraChimera, Soz, SylphOfPaperPlanes, Ulawan5 & zelazny
Departing Committee Staff: Kristen Murphy (Development & Membership), 1 Open Doors staffer, Amy Lee (Translation)
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Elf, Maygen, SavanannahM, and 1 other Tag Wrangler
Departing Translation Volunteers: Evmorfia, Lykke, and 2 other Translation volunteers
Departing TWC Volunteers: Shoshanna Green
For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.