May saw an important accomplishment by the OTW: the successful importation of 852 Prospect to the AO3. Open Doors has been happily tying up loose ends since then by uploading any missing content, and helping authors claim their stories, remove duplicate stories, and update redirect links.
However other major news and activity came from other sources. The AO3 got some national kudos as one of TIME magazine's choices for the 50 Best Websites of 2013. Later on, the announcement by Amazon that it would be launching a pay-version for fanfiction through its self-publishing infrastructure got a lot of media attention and Communications has been fielding a number of media requests from around the world seeking comment.
Legal staffers were among those who responded to press inquiries about the implications of Amazon's Kindle Worlds program, and their post on the matter was awaited by many fans. Legal also passed along a request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation asking for help from fans to combat a legal challenge to podcasts.
There were two huge pieces of news for the OTW this month: the success of its membership drive and its new volunteer recruitment system. Development & Membership received more than 2,054 individual donations totaling US$53,243.99 over the 3-9 April drive period. Thank you to everyone who participated! (See the thank-you post for more about the drive.)
We would also like to say a huge "thank you" to the mods, writers, and bidders of http://ao3auction.tumblr.com, an independently organized fan auction benefiting the OTW. The auction recently closed with an amazing pledge total of US$16,729! For tax reasons, the OTW cannot officially endorse third-party fundraisers — that's why we didn't promote the auction while it was still going on. However, we're extremely grateful when fans choose to put on such events. Aside from the money they raise, it means a lot to all the OTW staff and volunteers to see our fellow fans making such a wonderful show of support for our work. Thank you.
The Survey workgroup, together with Communications, compiled and released the OTW's 2012 Community Survey Report. The 183 page report contained information from all 89 survey questions and cross-tabulated results. There were 5,895 people who provided feedback about their use of our projects and awareness of our activities. The OTW wants to thank everyone who gave their time and feedback!
Welcome to the OTW's first organization newsletter for 2013! This newsletter appears every month from February to November (omitting our term break period in December and January). Since our last check-in there have been changes to the Board, changes to the chairs and staff of various committees, new policies and procedures, and a lot of work carried over from 2012.
August has been a month of largely non-public work, as technical and documentation preparations have been going on across various committees for things to be launched next month, including a new code push at the AO3, the release of a Code of Conduct draft for staff and volunteers across the org, and celebrations of the OTW's fifth anniversary.
Our top OTW story for June has to be the growing crush of users and user hopefuls at the AO3 and the resulting groans from our favorite fanworks ship. It was all hands on deck, primarily for those on the Accessibility, Design and Technology and Systems committees, but also from Support and Communications, who posted and tweeted about the problems to keep users in the loop, handled user questions and fed reported issues to our team of coders.
