Volunteer

Interested in helping out with OTW or one of the projects? Volunteers of all backgrounds and from all countries are welcome. All meetings and communications are conducted online. For more detailed descriptions of our committees and their recruitment needs, please see the Committee Descriptions for 2012. To volunteer, please fill out the Volunteer Interest Form.

The OTW committees and working groups are:

Abuse

2012 chair: Franzeska Dickson
Handles abuse functions for the Archive of Our Own, such as complaints and Terms of Service violations.

Accessibility, Design, & Technology

2012 co-chairs: Amelia and Elz
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.

Communications

2012 co-chairs: Lucy Pearson and Claudia Rebaza
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.

Content Policy

2012 chair: Rebecca Tushnet
Designs and implements the Terms of Service and other content policies for the Archive of Our Own.

Development & Membership

2012 chair: Kristen Murphy
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.

Financial

2012 chair: Nikisha Sanders
Tracks spending, writes checks, maintains financial records, and develops a budget for the OTW.

Internationalization & Outreach

2012 chair: Andrea Horbinski
Works to increase the international visibility and accessibility of OTW and its projects.

Journal

2012 chair: Karen Hellekson
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. We also shepherd documents through OJS for peer review, revision, copyedit, and layout.

Legal

2012 chair: Rebecca Tushnet
Advises the Board and various committees on legal matters and liaises with outside legal counsel. Mostly comprised of legal professionals.

Open Doors

2012 chair: Heather Cook
Open Doors works to preserve at-risk fanworks of all kinds.

Support

2012 chair: Matty Lynne
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

2012 co-chairs: Sidra and Arrow
Manages servers and infrastructure for the OTW and its projects.

Tag Wrangling

2012 co-chairs: Alison Watson and Emilie Karr
The Tag Wrangling Committee and their team of volunteer “Tag Wranglers” maintain and administer the tags on the Archive of Our Own, curating the folksonomy system that links related tags together for better filtering and searching, while allowing users to tag their works however they prefer.

The Tag Wrangling Committee induct, advise and assist tag wrangler volunteers in handling new and existing issues, compose and maintain the written guidelines and tutorials to coordinate tag wrangler activity, communicate with other OTW committees on matters related to tagging, and serve as liaisons for moderators of challenges and ficathons hosted at the Archive with respect to tagging.

Tag Wrangling volunteers sort and organize tags in their claimed fandoms according to the Archive’s Tag Wrangling guidelines, researching source canon and other sources to unravel tag conflicts when required. They discuss and help solve sticky organization puzzles with other wranglers in chat or on the email discussion list. Volunteer time varies depending on how many fandoms are signed up for and how busy they are. Fandoms currently in need of wranglers are listed here, though this list changes frequently.

Translation

2012 co-chairs: Julia Beck and Agnieszka Siemienska
Coordinates volunteer translators and liaises with other committees to make their projects and documents available in as many languages as possible.

Vidding

2012 chair: Francesca Coppa
Manages the development of the OTW's many vidding-related projects, which include Vidding History, the Vidding Community Resource Site, the Dark Archive, and A Torrent of Our Own. We also are involved in advocacy efforts in conjunction with the OTW's Legal committee.

Volunteers & Recruiting

2012 chair: Renay
Recruits and manages volunteers and staffers 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 staffing 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 knowledgebase.

Webmasters

2012 chair: Kristen Murphy
Manages the OTW's informational websites and maintains the software packages that run transformativeworks.org and associated sites (Drupal), Open Doors (HTML/Drupal), Transformative Works and Cultures (OJS), and our donation and membership database (CiviCRM).

Wiki

2012 chair: Aethel
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.