Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Do you have experience copyediting or proofreading academic journals? Would you like to wrangle AO3 tags? Can you read and translate from Spanish or Portuguese to English? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We’re excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Open Doors Import Assistant – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications
- TWC Copyeditor – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC
- TWC Proofreader – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC
- Tag Wrangler – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC or after 115 applications
- Tag Wrangler (Spanish) – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications
- Tag Wrangler (Portuguese) – closing 29 March 2023 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don’t see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Open Doors Import Assistant
Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Enjoy spreadsheets, self-paced projects, and helping protect fanworks from getting lost over time? Still guiltily–or not so guiltily–love the first fanwork that opened your eyes to fandom?
Open Doors is a committee dedicated to preserving fanworks in their many formats, and we’re looking for volunteers to support this goal. The work we do preserves fan history, love, and dedication to fandom: we keep fanworks from offline and at-risk archives from being lost, divert fanzines from the trash, and more.
Our import assistants contribute to our goal by:
- Manually importing works to AO3 from rescued digital archives and fanzines
- Searching AO3 for existing copies of works that creators have already uploaded themselves (to prevent us from importing duplicate versions when we import an archive)
- Compiling spreadsheets of works from an archive to be imported and/or tags to use on those works
- Copyediting/proofreading works from fanzines that have been scanned from PDFs (to ensure that the scanned works were translated properly by the software we used)
The training is self-directed, and so is the work for the most part, though we also have weekly working meetings/parties for people to all chip in and work on tasks together! Import assistants can generally alternate the types of tasks they work on -at any one time we usually have several tasks of different types available.
If you’re interested, click on through for a longer description of what we’re looking for and the time commitment. For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task and a questionnaire within 3 days of submitting your application.
Applications are due 29 March 2023 or after 30 applications
TWC Copyeditor
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international peer-reviewed Gold Open Access online publication about fan-related topics that seeks to promote dialogue between the academic community and fan communities. Copyeditors professionally copyedit submissions for TWC according to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 17, Merriam-Webster online, and the TWC style guide. Editorial standards are those of a university press. Applicants are required to pass a brief test. All returned tests will be assessed and the applicant provided with feedback.
Applications are due 29 March 2023
TWC Proofreader
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international peer-reviewed Gold Open Access online publication about fan-related topics that seeks to promote dialogue between the academic community and fan communities. Proofreaders carefully proofread the final online HTML-tagged manuscripts for online publication according to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 17, Merriam-Webster online, and the TWC style guide. Editorial standards are those of a university press. Applicants are required to pass a brief test. All returned tests will be assessed and the applicant provided with feedback.
Applications are due 29 March 2023
Tag Wrangler
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive, whether that’s Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Has an Angry Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī Kink, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark with angst, G-rated Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam fluff, or Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V Are Childhood Friends.
If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are in need. Wranglers need to be fluent in English but we welcome applicants who are also fluent in other languages, especially af Soomaali (Somali), Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), Filipino, Italiano (Italian), Polski (Polish), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), Русский (Russian), Українська (Ukrainian),ไทย (Thai) and 中文 (Chinese – we welcome all dialects) —help with other languages would be much appreciated!
Applications are due 29 March 2023
Tag Wrangler (Spanish)
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive, whether that’s Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto romance, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter with angst, G-rated Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam fluff, or Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V Are Childhood Friends.
If you’re a fluent Spanish speaker who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. We’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Spanish (we welcome all dialects!). The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Spanish into English.
Applications are due 29 March 2023
Tag Wrangler (Portuguese)
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive, whether that’s Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto romance, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter with angst, G-rated Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam fluff, or Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V Are Childhood Friends.
If you’re a fluent Portuguese speaker who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. We’re currently looking for applicants who are fluent in both English and Portuguese (we welcome all dialects!). The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Portuguese into English.
Applications are due 29 March 2023