Welcome to our September, 2009 newsletter. Get news from all your favorite committees about all your favorite OTW projects…right beneath the cut!
Abuse:
Abuse is busy preparing for open beta! We’re working closely with ADT and the newly-formed Support subcommittee to refine procedures and best practices, and there is some really exciting code and design coming out of this collaboration… which no one will ever see because it is admin-only. But we’re really excited anyway.
ADT/Archive:
err.. +points at News Post #4+
+falls over+
Board:
The Board has been working through some of the stickier financial, administrative and personnel parts of the move to colocation and the upcoming membership drive and electoin.
Communications:
Communications has been continuing to try to bring you all the OTW-related news you could want in these exciting times. We’ve also done a couple of interviews; more news of these coming soon.
Content Policy:
We’re double- and triple-checking all the interactions between the Archive Terms of Service and the code that ADT is finalizing; there are some fantastic features we’re excited to nail down the details on.
Development/Membership:
DevMem has been busy behind the scenes working with Webmasters and Systems on readying our donations software and introducing new features for our October donation drive. Right now we’re gearing up, which means everything from collecting new lolcats to drafting our materials so that the Translation folks can work their magic. We’re also working with Elections to ensure that we can provide the materials they need in the event that we have a contested board election this November. Throughout, we’ve been kvelling about the news that the OTW finally owns our own servers — it’s exciting to know that our fundraising work has paid off in such a tangible way!
Documentation:
No report.
Elections:
Sept. 23 was our first deadline to declare candidacy in the Board elections. We are now extending the nomination period for a week: email [email protected] before September 30, 2009 to throw your hat in the ring, or if you have any questions.
Finance Update:
FinComm continues to pay the bills, keep the lights on—and oh, yeah, I think we bought some expensive computer equipment lately.
Journal:
TWC No. 3 appeared on September 15, and it’s available here:
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/issue/current
The issue features articles, interviews, dialogues, and book reviews discussing a variety of fandoms and topics through a number of different voices. Look for our in-depth update in otw_news!
Legal:
The OTW was asked to collaborate with the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Right to Write Fund on an amicus brief in the pending Salinger/60 Years Later case. The OTW’s Rebecca Tushnet and Casey Fiesler collaborated with lawyers from Stanford’s Center for the Internet and Society and the UC Berkeley School of Law to produce the brief, which was served on August 3, 2009. You can download a .pdf of the amicus brief by right-clicking and saving.
We also filed two sets of answers to the Copyright Office’s supplemental questions regarding a proposed exemption to the DMCA for vidders and other remix artists. These documents can be downloaded and read on the Legal Advocacy page as well as the Vid Test Suite page of the Vidding History project.
Open Doors:
GeoCities Rescue: Open Doors wishes to remind everyone that GeoCities is closing for good on October 26, 2009!!! If you have fic on a GeoCities site that you want to preserve, or if you are the moderator or site admin of a fanfiction archive there, please Contact Open Doors!
Fan Culture Preservation Project: Just a quick update! In the three months since we’ve been open, we’ve processed nine fairly significant donations, with a tenth–a large donation of well over 500 classic zines–in the works. Check out our project page for more information; we’ll keep you posted as these collections are cataloged.
Systems:
Systems has been working to install us on our new servers so we can move to Open Beta as soon as possible! They’ve also been helping Webmasters gear up for the October Membership Drive.
Translations:
We are very happy to report that we’ve begun to translate news posts to those languages which have the necessary womanpower—we believe this is a vital step towards our self avowed goal: international outreach. We are continuing to move our language teams to Basecamp, the Org’s organizational platform. The teams have been busy as usual translating the website and Archive News posts to the different languages.
Vidding History:
The Vidding History committee worked with the OTW’s legal team to file two sets of answers to the Copyright Office’s supplemental questions regarding a proposed exemption to the DMCA for vidders and other remix artists. These documents can be downloaded and read on the Vid Test Suite page of the Vidding History project.
Volunteers:
Volunteers has been heroically continuing to help OTW connect with fabulous and talented people (and if you’re a coder with IE7 skills, call us! Call us toll-free right now!)
Webmasters:
We recently launched the brand-new OTW Elections site, the product of several months of collaboration among Webmasters, Elections, Systems, and Translation. We worked with the Translation team to add two new languages — French and Danish — to the main website. We also launched our new site theme, Cavatica (named for our committee’s heroine, Charlotte A. Cavatica), which is visually similar to the old theme but will be easier to maintain and adapt as the site evolves. Finally, we’re preparing for the October membership and donations drive.
Wiki:
Fanlore is currently advertising for Documentation Specialists to help with reorganizing and rewriting policy pages and help files. If you’re interested, please do volunteer!