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Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and all standard accounting guidelines and financial compliance requirements met. Preparation for the audit of 2023 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2024 budget update and are happy to present it here: (access the 2024 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2024 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$250,381.02 spent so far out of US$416,441.01 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• 55.1% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$120,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$15,000 in additional server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$6,899.70 spent so far out of US$9,344.33 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$3,488.74 spent so far out of US$5,444.70 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, the University of Amsterdam provided £1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures in 2023, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize.

Fanlore

• US$13,986.47 spent so far out of US$24,160.27 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$304.50 spent so far out of US$2,892.15 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$107,433.57 spent so far out of US$152,399.47 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$111,698.97 spent so far out of US$147,099.75 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2024 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 33.8% of our income in 2024. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. As the Archive and other projects of the OTW grow, we also spend more on tools and technology to support our volunteers, such as the tools used by various committees to communicate with and aid users and to track internal projects, further increasing expenses.
• US$651,741.98 received so far (as of September 30, 2024) and US$762,433.91 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2024 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Do you remember that one fanfic that kept you reading until dawn for the very first time? Or the fan art or video that led you to dig out all the works its creator shared? Have you ever tried to look into the stories of the authors who wrote fics before you were even born? You can find all this and more on Fanlore - the wiki for fanworks, fan creators, and fannish history!

Fanlore is a project run by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) with the goal of providing fans a place to record and share their histories, experiences and traditions. Fanlore records both the history and current state of our fan communities – fan works, fan activities, fan terminology, individual fans and fannish-related events. You can read about what fandoms were like in the olden days and document memorable events in your own fandoms, all on Fanlore! Check out the wiki’s New User Portal or join the Fanlore Discord server to connect with other editors and users.

We would not be able to preserve these cherished pieces of fandom history without the generous donations of our fellow fans and volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to keep all our projects running. As always, we have some shiny new donation gifts!

You can choose to display your love for fandom with some of our new thank-you gifts. For a US$40 donation, we have a new sticker set featuring popular AO3 tags. You can show off a bumper sticker saying "my other car is a ship" for a donation of US$50. For a donation of US$75 or more, you could carry home your groceries with a white and red shopping bag or you can announce your love for AO3 with our rainbow kudos pin.

You can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Select the gift you want, and if the total for that donation doesn't reach the amount needed for the gift you selected, future donations will be applied to the gift you’re saving for. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members can vote for the Board of Directors – the OTW’s governing board. Donating now and checking the “I wish to be a member” box will make you eligible to vote in the 2025 OTW Board Election.

We hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and become a member to support projects like Fanlore, Open Doors, Legal Advocacy, Transformative Works and Cultures, and the Archive of Our Own. Your contributions help keep our projects successful for new and long-time fans alike!

The Organization for Transformative Works's October membership drive is over and we are delighted to say that we are finishing with a total of $214,698.86 raised. We are particularly pleased that 6020 donors chose to either take up or renew OTW membership with their donation, far exceeding our goal of 4,500 members.

These donations came from 6,955 people in 86 countries: thank you to every single one of you, as well as to all of you who posted and shared the news about the drive! The OTW would not exist without its users all around the world, and your continued support for us is our absolute pride and joy! We are so glad to know that our ongoing mission to support, protect, and provide access to the history of fanworks and fan culture continues to resonate with the people that matter most of all: the fans themselves.

If you were intending to donate or join and haven't yet done so, don't worry! The OTW accepts donations year-round, and you can always choose to become a member with a donation of US$10 or more. Memberships run for one calendar year from the date of your donation. If you donate now, you'll be able to vote in next year's OTW Board election, which will take place in August 2025. Our exclusive thank-you gifts are also available whenever you donate!

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.

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 Isis C, who volunteers as a wrangler and Support liaison for the Tag Wrangling Committee.

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

My volunteer work fits into three closely-related bins. As a tag wrangler, I connect users' character, relationship, and freeform tags to our canonical tags, and I make new canonical tags as needed. I wrangle about 70 fandoms, mostly historical and SFF book and TV fandoms, with a few video games and RPF fandoms thrown in there.

As a tag wrangling supervisor, I do all sorts of administrative and management tasks related to wrangling. For example, I help manage all phases of wrangler recruitment and training: I evaluate applications, send out acceptances, monitor training progress, and set up training schedules. Sometimes I mentor new wranglers or new supervisors, and there are always random administrative tasks to do.

As a Tag Wrangling/Support Liaison, I ferry user requests for tags to be canonized or re-wrangled to the wranglers of those fandoms, and I answer user questions about wrangling guidelines and processes. (If you ask Support why a search on Trans Danny Fenton returns a few Hawaii Five-O works, or how to find works with a particular AU Sans when they are all merged to Sans (Undertale), I'm probably the person who will answer.) There’s a lot about wrangling that isn’t obvious until you see it from the inside, but I like answering user questions because if users understand the process better, they’re more likely to tag in ways that will accomplish what they want.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

I have a very flexible schedule and a lot of free time, and I'm online a ridiculous amount of that free time! I find wrangling very relaxing, especially when it's easy - synning misspelled character names to the canonical tags, making relationship tags for characters that already have character tags, and other things that don't need research or a lot of thought - so I like to wrangle for a while before tackling real life things I don't like doing, like taxes or phoning for appointments or vacuuming, or even before writing fic or doing other things that require more brainpower.

Supervisor tasks require a bit more attention, so I like to do them when I have enough free time that I can concentrate on them. Of course I always warm up with a little easy wrangling!

Most of the Support tasks I take on require coordination with other wranglers, and Support requires communication with users to be beta-read by another volunteer before sending out, so I tend to do these in batches as well when I have a block of time. We have a lot of older wrangling-related tickets that have not yet been handled because there was too much work and not enough liaisons, so whenever I feel particularly motivated I try to answer the people who have probably given up on getting answers.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I'm old :-) and have been in mainstream science fiction and fantasy fandom for a very long time, although I didn't get into fanfiction-type fandom until 2002. (Which I realize is probably before many of the people reading this were born!) I get super enthusiastic about my hobbies and like to help organize things, so for example in 2002 and 2003, when fandom was mostly on mailing lists and fandom-specific forum sites, I coordinated an effort to help get fandom going on LiveJournal by collecting invite codes, which were required at the time, and distributing them to fanfiction writers and fanartists. I used to edit various fandom newsletter communities, back when that was a thing, too. Anyway, a fandom friend who was a wrangler encouraged me to apply during a recruitment, and that was all it took! When I became a supervisor, one of the tasks I enjoyed the most was helping out with support tickets, so when I got the chance to be a Support Liaison I immediately said yes please!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

As I mentioned, I'm old, and I started out on mailing lists where tags were fandom, characters, and pairing, and that was it. I never managed to get into Tumblr, which I suspect is where the use of descriptive tags started. Often I look at freeform tags that reference memes, or Gen Z slang, or newer terms for sexual identity, and I am completely baffled! Fortunately, the wrangler chat is a wonderful research source, and other wranglers are always kind about helping this little old lady across the street decipher tags.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I write and read fic, although not so much these days as way back when. (But I still get a smile on my face when my old works get kudos or comments!) I used to vid a little, too, but even though I haven't participated in Festivids for many years, I still enjoy watching the vids people create for small fandoms, and recommending the ones I love best. I also really like to beta read fic, because that way I can help good stories become great stories.

But my most intensive fannish involvement these days is being a fanwork exchange moderator. I moderated a number of small single-fandom exchanges pre-AO3, and wow, AO3 makes it so much easier. I love small fandoms, and I participated in Yuletide nearly from the beginning, so I was super excited to be invited to become part of the moderation team some years back. I also co-mod the current incarnation of the Worldbuilding Exchange, and sometimes I help out with other exchanges.

Now that our volunteer has said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

The AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is a partnership between the Open Doors committee and fan-run preservation project Zinedom through which fanfiction and fanart originally published in print fanzines is imported to the Archive of Our Own. Fanworks can be imported to AO3 with the consent of either the creators of the works or the publisher of the fanzine in which the fanworks were published.

Today, Open Doors is pleased to announce a list of collections that it has created since September 2023 to house fanworks imported through the FSHP. A collection has been created for each fanzine from which one or more fanworks have been imported, but these collections do not contain every work from each of these zines, and many so far only include one work each in cases where Open Doors only has permission to import that particular work. For full transparency, Open Doors plans to continue to announce collections as they are created that may or may not grow with additional fanworks as additional permissions are obtained from more creators in the future.

As of August 2024, Open Doors has created the following collections to represent fanzines from which it has imported works:

• A Portfolio of Poetry and Portraits
• Amazing Grace
• Astray in the Wilderness
• Beyond Dreams
• Broken Images
• California K/S
• Contact
• CrosSignals
• Daring Attempt
• Enter-comm
• First Time
• Gateway
• Guardian
• Happy Tails
• IDIC
• In the Wilderness
• KaleidoScope
• KisMet
• KSX
• Legacy
• Legends
• Naked Times
• Nightvisions
• Nome
• On the Edge
• One Shot
• Partners
• Potpourri
• Pushin' the Odds
• Quantum Chain
• Scattered Stars
• Sehlat's Roar
• Southern Star
• Spock's Arthropods
• Strange Justice
• The Complete Rack
• The K/S Press
• The Rack & All the King's Horses All the King's Men
• Three Eleven
• Universe Beyond
• Whalesong
• Within the Mirror

For answers to frequently asked questions, please see the FSHP page on the Open Doors website. If you'd like to give Open Doors permission to import any of your fanworks that have been previously published in print fanzines, or if you have any other FSHP-related queries, please contact the Open Doors Committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of any fanzines in which they may have been published on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

Thanks for your interest in preserving fannish history for future generations of readers!

- The Open Doors team

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on 18 November. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

In order to make AO3's rules clearer to our users, we intend to update the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS) in mid-November 2024. Once this occurs, all users will need to agree to the updated TOS to continue using AO3. The full text has been posted for public review, as well as a detailed explanation of what has (and hasn't) changed:

• AO3 Terms of Service: 2024 Update Guide
• AO3 Terms of Service: 2024 Draft
• AO3 Terms of Service FAQ: 2024 Draft

Summary of changes

As part of reorganizing the TOS for better clarity, the new TOS is structured differently than the old one. A detailed explanation of what was changed and why is available in the update guide. These are the highlights:

• We've clarified the Content Policy, but we haven't changed what works are or are not allowed. If your fanwork was allowed on AO3 before, then it is still allowed.
• The TOS has been split into three pages (General Principles, Content Policy, and Privacy Policy). This should make it easier to find what you're looking for when you want to know about a specific part of the TOS.
• We've simplified the language throughout the TOS and removed redundant or overly specific phrases and passages. When longer explanations would help to provide clarity, we've added new questions to the TOS FAQ instead.
• We've updated the descriptions of how we and our subprocessors collect and process user information (including personal information) in the Privacy Policy.
• The Abuse Policy has been generalized to provide the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee with greater flexibility to determine how to address TOS violations, while still providing protections for fanworks in accordance with AO3's mission.
• The "Underage" Archive Warning, which is used for works that depict or describe underage sex, is being renamed to "Underage Sex". This does not change the meaning of this warning or how it is enforced. When the TOS update occurs, all works with the "Underage" Archive Warning will be recategorized automatically to display the new "Underage Sex" Archive Warning label instead. If you have a work that carries the "Underage" warning and you don't want it to display the "Underage Sex" label, you can replace it with the "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" label at any time.

You can read the proposed changes and comment here on this news post with any questions, suggestions, or feedback you might have about the new TOS or TOS FAQ. Comments will remain open until November 18th, 2024. After comments close, the Board of Directors for the OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works, which is AO3's parent organization) will vote on the proposed changes to the Terms of Service. If the Board votes in favor, the Terms of Service will be updated and all users will be required to agree to the new TOS to continue using AO3.

To make your opinion heard prior to the Board vote, make sure to submit your comments here before November 18th.

ETA: We appreciate that all of you have many ideas, but please keep in mind that the Policy & Abuse committee handles AO3 rules, not AO3 features. If you have ideas for a feature (for example, improvements you want to see to Search and Filtering), please contact the Support committee about them instead. We won't be responding to feature requests on this news post.

I. AO3 TERMS OF SERVICE UPDATE

Policy & Abuse, Legal, and Accessibility, Design & Technology have been hard at work regarding an update to the AO3 Terms of Service. Among other things, this update involves clarifying wording in both the Content Policy and the "Underage" Archive Warning. This update will not affect what fanworks are allowed or not on AO3, nor will it affect how this Archive Warning is enforced.

In conjunction with Communications, a public call for feedback was posted and comments will be accepted until November 18. Please refer to the news post and Policy & Abuse's proposed changes for more detail.

II. OCTOBER MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Development & Membership worked with Communications to announce the October membership drive! With the help of Translation, the news posts were translated into 28 languages. Finance also posted the 2024 Budget Update in anticipation of the membership drive.

The October membership drive raised almost $215,000 USD from 6,995 donors, 6,020 of whom chose to be members! Development & Membership is now verifying addresses, packaging premiums, and heading to local post offices with the help of their new regional shipping specialists.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE AO3

In September, Support and Systems were handling issues related to downtime and site slowness. Systems has posted a post-mortem of events and analysis on their official AO3 account, which details the causes and effects of some of the issues.

Due to downtime and other factors, Support received 4,151 tickets in September, around double their usual monthly count. They ask for your patience as they work through the high volume of tickets.

Policy & Abuse received 2,264 tickets in September. They also have an incoming class of new volunteers and look forward to training them.

Also in September, Tag Wrangling volunteers wrangled over 430,000 tags, which amounts to over 1,000 tags per tag wrangler. They also finished their last recruitment round of the year and began inducting their latest batch of volunteers.

Open Doors announced the import of older works from due South Seekrit Santa, an exchange devoted to the Canadian television series due South. They also finished the last details from the West of the Moon archive import, an archive for hobbit-centric gen fanworks. They continue to work on other import projects and documentation for the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project.

IV. VARIOUS OTW ACTIVITY

Communications is happy to see their email delivery service has been steadily gaining followers since its launch. The service recently passed 1,000 subscribers and now has about 1,100 subscribers!

Fanlore ran a Video Game-themed month in October! You can check out featured articles on their Tumblr.

Development & Membership's convention outreach division organized a table for Confabulation Fan Convention at Chicago, USA. OTW volunteers had a blast talking about their experience volunteering, fan vidding, and exploring world landmarks!

Legal has responded to a number of user queries this month, including queries about YouTube counter-notices, shadowcasting, UK legislation, and academic research on fandom. They also dealt with some apps that are confusing users into believing they’re associated with the AO3.

TWC has been preparing two special issues: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies and Sports Fandoms to be released in the coming months.

V. GOVERNANCE

Board and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organized Board's fourth quarter public meeting on September 29. They had 55 attendees and answered 9 questions. The official minutes for this meeting were voted on and published on the OTW website.

Official Board turnover happened on October 1, and incoming Board members are getting settled in.

Board and BAT have been participating in several projects and policies related to the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap. BAT has also been working on procurement documentation, OTW website updates, and various cross-committee tasks. They’ve been assisting the Board on several ongoing projects, including Whistleblower Policy FAQ documentation and responding to external questions directed at the Board.

Strategic Planning is working on compiling internal sustainability plans from all committees as part of the plan’s internal sustainability goal. They're also reaching out to the committees responsible for the Paid Staff goal as those implementation goal dates approach.

VI. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting has been hard at work training their new recruits and getting them settled in, saying farewell to one of their chairs, Cyn, and welcoming Eevee as the new co-chair. They also conducted recruitment for 3 committees in October: AO3 Documentation, Elections, and Fanlore.

From September 22 to October 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 149 new requests and completed 135, leaving them with 62 open requests. As of October 22, 2024, the OTW has 924 volunteers. o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Eevee (Volunteers & Recruiting)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Team Lead
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Shipping Specialist
New Fanlore Volunteers: 3 Discord Moderators
New Open Doors Volunteers: Brianna Dardin (Senior Technical Volunteer) and 1 Administrative Support Volunteer
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Emka, iwasnttrainedforthis, megidola, Trinity, and 3 other Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: AnneHelena, Aquiles T. M., hans, Helpi K, Jaya, Luki, tritongue, and 2 other Translators
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 1 other Volunteer

Departing Directors: Kari Dayton and Michelle Schroeder
Departing Committee Chairs: Cyn (Volunteers & Recruiting)
Departing Board Assistant Team Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer and 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: SonoSvegliato (Import Assistant), Brianna Dardin and 2 other Technical Volunteers; 1 Administrative Volunteer
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: Arly Guevara
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Eevee (Supervisor role only), Lysippe, and 7 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Elintiriel (Volunteer Manager role only) and 1 other Volunteer Manager; Nachali, Parul Hunnargikar, Summerfanreader, and 4 other Translators

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.

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 LPCollins, who volunteers as a Dutch translator and beta reader for the Translation Committee.

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

I am part of the Translation committee, more specifically as a translator and beta reader for the Dutch team. (Hallo, iedereen!) I have also recently found my way into the Tag Wrangling committee, but that is all still very new and shiny, so I’ll be focussing on my role in Translation for this post. That role pretty much means that I help with the translation of the AO3 FAQs and tutorials, news posts, email templates and the occasional tag or user ticket that arrives in Dutch, a rare treat when speakers of your language are very accustomed to using English in online spaces. I am very proud of the role that our committee gets to play in diversifying the OTW and slowly but surely making it more accessible for users world-wide. Compared to the userbase speaking Chinese, Spanish or Russian, Dutch may seem like a very tiny, not-so-important piece of that puzzle, but doesn’t that only make it cooler that we can support such languages too?

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

One of my absolute favorite things about the Translation committee is that you get to schedule the work according to your own needs. I am a chaos demon with fluctuating energy levels, so I’m not sure about having a “typical week” and that’s perfectly fine with Translation.

Basically, at some point one of our lovely volunteer managers will send me an assignment, either a document that needs to be translated from scratch or a translation from one of my teammates that I need to beta read. Assignments always have a deadline too, shorter ones for urgent news posts and longer ones for longer documents. Depending on the length of the document, what I need to do with it, my mood and the alignment of the stars, I might do it right away, or spread it out over a week, or just do it on the day of the deadline. Then I let our staff know that I’m done and they send me a new task and so on. There have been weeks when I didn’t complete a single task and there have been days when I completed two, and it just works for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Look, I seem to be living in a world where all the paid jobs aren’t very interesting and all the interesting jobs aren’t very paid. (Will take recommendations for other worlds.) Point is, I am always drawn to ways to help organizations that I care about with a hands-on approach. Before I joined the OTW, I was a volunteer for IMAlive’s crisis support chat (big shout-out to Random Acts for providing my training), which I loved doing but unfortunately became too time-consuming when I needed to start working on my master’s thesis. Since I had been spending a lot of time on AO3 for years at that point, the OTW was an easy next target for when I did have some spare time again.

I also have a degree in Dutch and English linguistics and literature, so translator was definitely one of the most appealing OTW positions from the get-go. I distinctly remember waiting for a chance to apply, checking every Translation recruitment post that popped up on AO3 to see if they needed someone for Team Dutch yet, as the committee always recruits for specific languages. As soon as Dutch was listed in one of the posts, I didn’t hesitate about applying, and I was lucky enough to be welcomed to the team. Already two years have passed since then and I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Not gonna lie, I have witnessed some big internal discussions since joining the OTW, both about real-world events and about our own processes. I feel like those have been fought over enough, though, so I’ll share a challenge that’s more specific for Team Dutch.

In case you don’t know, Dutch is an official language in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname. Unfortunately, Suriname isn’t currently represented in our team, but we do have both Belgian and Dutch folks, and despite our countries being right next to each other, there are actually some differences between Belgian Dutch and Dutch… Dutch. (Just ask how we end our emails.) They definitely aren’t big enough to separate the languages, but we do try to walk that middle ground in our translations and make sure that everything sounds good for everyone. So sometimes I will be beta reading a document and change something that just sounds way too Dutch to me and sometimes one of my teammates will point out that they would never use my suggested turn of phrase in the Netherlands. As a linguist, I find this very interesting, but it is also quite challenging to avoid colloquialisms when you’re not even always aware of them!

What fannish things do you like to do?

First and foremost, I’m a fanfic writer. Always have been (even before I knew that there was a word for it) and always will be. As a writer, I also have an atrocious habit and it goes something like this: start a very long fic, pour out new chapters religiously for months and months, stumble upon a different fandom, come up with a fic idea for said new fandom that “surely won’t take long and that I just need to get out of my system so that I can return to the existing WIP in peace” aaaaand repeat. Dear reader, if you happen to be following one of my stories, I am so, so sorry, I swear I will finish it one day.

The love of my life is Supernatural and I will always come back to it, but I’m also very good at falling very hard for other fandoms on the side, ranging from The Boys to Danny Phantom to the latest Neil Gaiman-related show to Helluva Boss to anything that Richard Speight, Jr. worked on. One of my favorite things to do is hyperfixate on something new, then grab my friends by the shoulders and shake them until they agree to watch it too so that I can yell at them about it.

Of course I read fanfics too, mostly in short bursts when I’m looking for a very specific type of fic. For my wallet’s sake, I limit the number of Supernatural conventions I can go to to one per year. I perpetually have a Discord tab open to stay in touch with fellow fans, will occasionally scour YouTube for fanvids and spend the rest of my fandom time on the best social media site ever, Tumblr. (Kidding, not kidding.)

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

Hi! Right now we are busy with our primary project – major design update for posting campaigns editor. It will be ready really soon. But we also take time to respond to your requests and suggestions. Here is our change log for October 2018: Google+ Poster Shutting Down Since Google stops its support of Google+ […]

The post RSS Ground Change Log October 2018 appeared first on RSSground.com.

  This week LinkedIn has announced a major renovation of its Company Pages feature. You can now refer to them simply as Pages. As they say: “LinkedIn Pages — the next generation of LinkedIn Company Pages. Pages have been rebuilt from the ground up to make it easier for brands, institutions, and organizations, from small […]

The post New LinkedIn Pages Posting in RSS Ground appeared first on RSSground.com.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 21st 2018, we will be conducting a scheduled update of our systems. You may experience a short service downtime. Maintenance time is USA EST 02:00am – 06:00am (Eastern Standard Time USA (UTC -5)). We kindly ask you to refrain from using your RSS Ground account during this time. We truly apologize for […]

The post Planned Service Maintenance appeared first on RSSground.com.

From the very first days, RSS Ground was built based on our users’ needs, suggestions and requests. Our users is our main driving force, the core of RSS Ground. And for the majority of our users, it’s a Thanksgiving this week. We always prepare a gift for Thanksgiving and this year we will continue this […]

The post Thank You For Being With Us! appeared first on RSSground.com.

Hey there! Earlier this month we have announced a planned service maintenance. That was done in order to implement a new update we’ve been working on for the last several weeks. It includes user interface changes, new options and features, and some system changes. Please see the list of what was added below: Major interface […]

The post RSS Ground Changelog November 2018 appeared first on RSSground.com.

Dear Friends, At this special time of the year, RSS Ground team would like to send you its best greetings and wish you happy holidays. We express you our sincerest appreciation for being with RSS Ground. And we thank you for making our job enthralling and enjoyable. May God bless you and may the new […]

The post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! appeared first on RSSground.com.

RSS Ground is preparing a major update for its blog posters. And we would like to share some thoughts on blogging and its place in today’s life. Just recently “blogging” was extremely popular. Personal and business blogs are a part of our everyday’s life that we can hardly remember the times when it was otherwise. […]

The post Is Blogging Still Important For Life And Business? appeared first on RSSground.com.

We have planned several new service updates for this year, and you will be seeing them very often. Here is the first in this season report about our development process. We have made several fixes and updates in January. See the list below: New Content Elements In YouTube Video Feeds We have added new content elements […]

The post RSS Ground Changelog January 2019 appeared first on RSSground.com.

We have finally completed the renovation of our tools interfaces. Improved and unified layouts across all of our content generators and posters. And today it’s time to introduce updated WordPress and Blogger posters. These brand new content sharing tools will make a process of automated blog posting work like a charm. WordPress Poster User Guide […]

The post Meet New Automated WordPress and Blogger Posters appeared first on RSSground.com.

We have several amazing updates added to the service last month. These updates concern both content posting and content searching tools. Below is the list of updates for the month of February: New WordPress and Blogger Posters We have completed the renovation of our main tools interfaces. We have improved and unified layouts across all of […]

The post RSS Ground Changelog February 2019 appeared first on RSSground.com.

We have already shared our thoughts on why people do blog and why blogging is still afloat despite the rise of social media. We have also reasoned the help of automated blogging and even its necessity. And after RSS Ground has updated all of its automated posters we would like to dwell in more detail […]

The post Smart Way To Set Up Automated Blog Posting appeared first on RSSground.com.

We continue to grow and improve RSS Ground. We add new features and options, provide you with more tutorials and other useful information. And of course we don’t stop developing new tools. Read about RSS Ground latest news and updates

The post RSS Ground Changelog March 2019 appeared first on RSSground.com.

RSS is a valuable open standard that has found a new purpose in our connected world. You might not be able to access detailed analytics, but there are lots of other good reasons to keep it.

The post Is RSS Really Dead? appeared first on RSSground.com.

  You can hardly find a person who doesn’t know what Instagram is. And you can barely find internet marketers who don’t use Instagram in their marketing campaigns. Instagram is very popular and some even think that it will overtake Facebook. Actually, Facebook and Instagram are now closely collaborated, which only strengthens both of them.  […]

The post Why Is Instagram Content So Important? appeared first on RSSground.com.

We are glad to announce a new tool added to RSS Ground collection - Instagram Feeds.

The post New Instagram Feeds Generator! appeared first on RSSground.com.

We would like to launch a quick survey to find out your opinion on what would you like to see next in our service.

The post What’s next? appeared first on RSSground.com.

New tools, new features, new plans! RSS Ground is evolving and developing. We have a whole bunch of exacting updates released in June.

The post RSS Ground Changelog June 2019 appeared first on RSSground.com.

Dear RSS Ground users, Due to the recent changes in LinkedIn developers documentation and specifications, some of the remote LinkedIn account management options require a substantial update. For this reason and at this moment RSS Ground LinkedIn Poster can only make posts to your personal feed. Posting to specific company pages is not currently available. However, […]

The post LinkedIn Poster issues appeared first on RSSground.com.

Now you can generate self-updating content feeds with recent pins of any Pinterest user or Pinterest board, with fresh videos of any Vimeo user or Vimeo channel, and with recent media from iTunes USA.

The post Vimeo, Pinterest and iTunes Content Sources Just Added appeared first on RSSground.com.

After a recent release of a bunch of some new popular content sources, we are glad to announce a renovated and improved Twitter Feeds generator.

The post Upgraded Twitter Feeds Generator Is On The Fly! appeared first on RSSground.com.

Some of you might have noticed that our Facebook Feeds generator can right now generate only RSS feeds of your own Facebook pages..

The post Facebook Feeds Generator Is Experiencing Problems appeared first on RSSground.com.

Facebook review team has approved our Facebook Feeds app and now all Facebook feeds are working again. All previously generated Facebook feeds will be automatically resumed..

The post Facebook Feeds Are Back On appeared first on RSSground.com.

LinkedIn has finally approved our app! After the recent LinkedIn platform updates and long-awaited app review LinkedIn Poster is back to its normal functionality.

The post LinkedIn Company Pages Posting is Resumed appeared first on RSSground.com.

Now in Feeds Box you can change feeds title, add tags to your feeds, and, most remarkable, you can edit feeds' settings. We have also fine-tuned feeds search in your Feeds Box.

The post Feeds Editing And Better Search appeared first on RSSground.com.

We have made some changes to our Terms of Services. These changes were caused by accumulated experience and trends in the industry and the market.

The post Recent Terms of Services Update appeared first on RSSground.com.

Our service is just like a living organism, with its own worries and joys. And hope you feel the pulse of our live. Find out what we were working on lately.

The post RSS Ground Changelog October 2019 appeared first on RSSground.com.

Now you are be able to generate self-updating content feeds of your own Shopify store or any other Shopify store you like.

The post New Shopify Feeds Generator Just Released! appeared first on RSSground.com.

Now you can specify a pool of hashtags, and random hashtags from your pool will be added to your posts.

The post Advanced Hashtags Feature Will Enhance Your Automated Posting appeared first on RSSground.com.