Tag Wrangling Committee

  • Volunteer Recruiting: Wiki Committee Staff, Tag Wrangling Volunteer

    By Claudia Rebaza on Lunedì, 23 June 2014 - 4:24pm
    Message type:
    Volunteering
    Tag:
    Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting, Wiki Committee

    Banner by Erin of a close-up of Rosie the Riveter's arm with an OTW logo on it and the words 'OTW Recruitment'

    We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Translation Staff and Communications Chair Track Staff. Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

    • Wiki Committee Staff - Closing 30 June 2014 UTC
    • Tag Wrangling Volunteer - Closing 30 June 2014 UTC

    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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

    Wiki Committee Staff The Wiki Committee supervises Fanlore: we provide direction, write policies and help documents, promote the wiki, organise and support Gardeners, communicate with users, and keep the site running. We handle requests for support and complaints from users and do our best to help the Fanlore community grow.

    If you like Fanlore and are interested in helping the site improve, you could consider joining the Wiki committee. Applications are due 30 June 2014 UTC

    Tag Wrangling Volunteers Tag Wrangling Volunteers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! Based on internal guidelines, we choose which form a tag takes in the filters and auto-complete, and we link tags together to make the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s Steve/Tony with tentacles or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff).

    If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and application form.

    Please note: due to (amazing!) interest in wrangling, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only. See the application for which fandoms are in need. Applications are due 30 June UTC

    Leggi tutto

  • The OTW Needs Volunteers!

    By Claudia Rebaza on Lunedì, 17 March 2014 - 5:52pm
    Message type:
    Volunteering
    Tag:
    AO3 Documentation, Strategic Planning, Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting, Web Strategy, Design & Development Committee

    Banner by Erin of a close-up of Rosie the Riveter's arm with an OTW logo on it and the words 'OTW Recruitment'

    We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Support Staff, Translation Volunteers and Communications Graphics Volunteers.
    Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

    • AO3 Documentation Volunteers - applications accepted until 24 March
    • Strategic Planning Staff - applications accepted until 24 March
    • Tag Wrangling Volunteers - applications accepted until 24 March
    • Web Developer - applications accepted until 24 March

    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.

    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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

    AO3 Documentation Volunteers

    The AO3 Documentation Workgroup manages external AO3 docs such as the FAQs and Tutorials. We’re looking for people who are familiar with the Archive of Our Own and have experience with writing and proofreading help documentation. If you enjoy helping your fellow fans learn how AO3 works, please click through to read the full details and apply to join the workgroup.

    Applications are due 24 March 2014

    Strategic Planning Staff The Strategic Planning Committee is looking for a staff member! We need someone interested in strategic planning, writing, and data processing who is willing to jump in with both feet. We're a professional, collaborative committee of people who believe in supporting each other through our work, and we want someone who is excited about the idea of being part of an environment of support, creativity, and critique. We are willing to train the right person in the OTW's processes, practices, and tools if you're willing to commit your time and energy to us!

    Applications are due 24 March 2014

    Tag Wrangler VolunteersThe Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! Based on internal guidelines, we choose which form a tag takes in the filters and auto-complete, and we link tags together to make the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s Steve/Tony with tentacles or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff).

    If you like organizing, working in teams, or excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and application form.

    Please note: due to (amazing!) interest in wrangling, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only. See the application for which fandoms are in need.

    Applications are due 24 March 2014

    Web Developer Do you have experience with Drupal and website management? Join our team of Web Developers! Web Developers are responsible for improvements to and maintenance of the primary OTW web properties. You will participate in an on-call rotation with other Web Developers, design and implement new features and fixes for the websites, and help to determine priorities for future web development efforts.

    Applications are due 24 March 2014

    Leggi tutto

  • Volunteers needed for AD&T, Strategic Planning, and Tag Wrangling!

    By .Stephanie Chrystal on Lunedì, 30 September 2013 - 6:41pm
    Message type:
    Volunteering
    Tag:
    Accessibility, Design, & Technology, Strategic Planning, Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting

    OTW Recruitment

    We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Support staffers. The chairs are reviewing applications and should be contacting people within the next two weeks.

    Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

    • Strategic Planning Staff - Deadline: 7 October 2013
    • Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) Coding Volunteer - Closing after 20 applications
    • Tag Wrangling volunteer - Closing after 50 applications

    We also have one role still open for additional technical staff

    • Web Developer Staff

    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.

    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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

    Strategic Planning Staff
    The Strategic Planning Committee is looking for a staff member! We need someone interested in strategic planning, writing, and data processing who is willing to jump in with both feet. We're a professional, collaborative committee of people who believe in supporting each other through our work, and we want someone who is excited about the idea of being part of an environment of support, creativity, and critique. We are willing to train the right person in the OTW's processes, practices, and tools if you're willing to commit your time and energy to us!

    Applications for this role will be accepted until 7 October 2013.

    Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) Coding Volunteer
    The Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee is the guiding body that coordinates software design and development on behalf of the Organization for Transformative Works. AD&T is committed to developing high quality, accessible products that support the goals of the OTW while having a good time and providing opportunities for professional and personal growth for its members.

    The main project currently occupying the committee is the creation and ongoing maintenance of the Archive of Our Own, a free, Open Source website currently supporting over 200,000 registered users and weathering 38 million page views a week.

    We are looking for experienced coders to join our team of volunteers and help us fix bugs and improve existing features.

    Applications for this role will be closed after we have received 20.

    Tag Wrangling volunteers The Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! We choose which form of a fandom title appears on the Media pages, as well as all the character, relationship, and additional tags which appear in the filters and the auto-complete, and we link tags together to make all the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s Steve/Tony with tentacles or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff).

    If you like organizing, bringing order to chaos, excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, or you just get a kick out of seeing all the wacky and wonderful terms fans come up with, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join our team, click through to the job description and application form.

    Please note: due to (amazing!) interest in wrangling volunteering, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only. See the application within for which fandoms are in need.

    Applications will be closed after we have received 50.

    Leggi tutto

  • Looking for Tag Wranglers once again!

    By Claudia Rebaza on Martedì, 23 July 2013 - 5:00pm
    Message type:
    Announcement
    Tag:
    Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting

    Updated: Thanks to a quick response from many readers, we are temporarily closing tag wrangling recruitment again. If you've missed your chance, keep an eye on our website, as we'll be reopening intake once we've processed the newest tag wranglers.

    We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Communications Graphics Volunteers, for which chairs are currently reviewing applications.

    Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

    • Tag Wrangling (reopening) - Applications accepted on an ongoing basis (role may be temporarily closed based on level of interest)

    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 volunteers@transformativeworks.org 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.

    Tag Wrangling

    The Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! We choose which form of a fandom title appears on the Media pages, as well as all the character, relationship, and additional tags which appear in the filters and the auto-complete, and we link tags together to make all the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they're looking for, whether that's Steve/Tony with tentacles or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff).

    If you like organizing, bringing order to chaos, excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, or you just get a kick out of seeing all the wacky and wonderful terms fans come up with, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join our team, click through to the job description and application form.

    Please note: due to (amazing!) interest in wrangling volunteering, we're currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only. We’re currently seeking wranglers for the following fandoms and fandom types. (If you have no knowledge of or interest in wrangling any of the below, please don’t apply at this time, as there won’t be any wrangling work available for you to do. In the future we’ll open recruitment for other fandoms, as needed!)

    • Any fandoms listed on the first 3 pages of the Fandoms in need of a wrangler page
    • Any fandoms with a canon originally in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Russian. (Volunteers interested in these should preferably have some fluency in the language, due to lack of English-language references for many.)
    • Homestuck
    • Star Wars (especially the Extended Canon)
    • Finnish Music RPF
    • DCU (comics and animated canons)

    Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

    Leggi tutto

  • AO3 Newsletter - May/June/July

    By Camden on Martedì, 16 July 2013 - 7:02pm
    Message type:
    Newsletter
    Tag:
    Accessibility, Design, & Technology, Support Committee, Tag Wrangling Committee

    Hello AO3! This newsletter has been, um, a long time coming for which we sincerely apologize. Here's what we've been up to in the past three months.

    Cool stuff on the Archive!

    To our overwhelming delight, Time Magazine named us as one of the "50 Best Websites of 2013." Thank you to everyone -- from staffers to users -- who make this website what it is!

    852 Prospect moved in with us in May. This move was orchestrated by the hard work of the 852 Prospect archivists, Open Doors and AD&T. Please join us in welcoming the Archive to the Archive!

    Tag Wrangling has been hard at work with their new tools to help users search by original language titles as well as transliterated fandom titles. Check out more information about these tools here.

    There were two small deploys in early May and late June: Releases 0.9.6.1 and 0.9.7. 0.9.6.1 focused on code needed for the 852 Prospect move as well as a couple of fixes. 0.9.7 included more fixes as well as integrating Travis-CI into the testing process.

    Our Content Policy workgroup has been hard at work with our TOS and FAQ in anticipation of the inclusion of fannish nonfiction on the Archive. These proposed changes went up for public review at the end of June. We thank everyone who provided input!

    The OTW unveiled the Archive of Our Own Diversity Statement, a statement which has been years in the making. We encourage you all to read it and hold us to it as we continue to develop the Archive in the many years to come.

    What’s up in the world of tags?

    Several small changes to guidelines have clarified what freeform tags we canonize, including how we handle episode tags and fandom fusion AUs - check out the subtags of Alternate Universe - Fusion to find Jane Austen fusions and your fandom favorites with Pokemon! We've also changed guidelines for translated fandom tags, so you may notice Japanese, Cyrillic, and other non-Latin alphabets when browsing the fandoms lists.

    Adventures with Support

    We have new people! Annie, girlmarauders, and Katherine have all joined our merry little band. Bring on the tickets!

    AD&T Committee business of note

    AD&T has been busy with small fixes and releases as well as working on documentation and necessary groundwork to recruit new coders in the fall!

    Tag Wrangling Committee business of note

    We've inducted and trained almost 50 new volunteers in May, and are planning to re-open wrangling volunteering on a limited basis in July. The wrangling staff has also posted several more advanced tutorials for both our new wranglers and experienced wranglers, so all of us are wrangling "on the same page", so to speak. With over 12,000 canonical fandoms on the Archive, all the work of our wrangling volunteers is very appreciated!

    Questions? Comments?

    We welcome feedback from users! If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments of the latest news post, or send in a Support request (if you're reporting a bug, please send that to Support, as they're super efficient - comments on our news posts sometimes get overlooked).

    Mirrored from an original post on AO3 News.

    Leggi tutto

  • Translated Fandom Tags

    By Claudia Rebaza on Lunedì, 17 June 2013 - 9:13pm
    Message type:
    Announcement
    Tag:
    Tag Wrangling Committee

    Good news for everyone in non-English-language, non-Latin-alphabet fandoms - our fandom tags will now include titles in the actual language, not just transliterations!

    Tag Wrangling policy has always been to make our fandom tags in the form "Original Language Title | Translated English Title". However, due to limitations in the Archive code for writing systems such as Chinese, Cyrillic, Hangul, and Japanese, we've used transliterated titles, rendering those languages into the Latin alphabet. This has caused problems because there are multiple transliteration systems in use. Since users have to guess which one we're using, and because in many cases the transliterated titles are never used by anyone in the fandom, the tags aren't reflective of real fannish practices.

    The Archive now has improved features for wrangling fandom tags, however, so we've changed our guidelines for wrangling them. Starting immediately, we'll be wrangling fandom tags in all languages as "Original Language Title | Translated English Title", using the original language's writing system. (For fandoms which do commonly use the transliterated titles, such as many anime and manga fandoms, the canonicals will be in the form "Original Language Title | Transliterated Title [| Translated English Title (if it exists)]"

    This is an interim solution; we hope to someday get full support for tags in all languages. This guideline is a test case to see how well such tags work for users. For now we're mostly going to stick to handling new fandoms this way, and only changing existing tags on a limited basis until we have a better idea of their usability, and as we have the resources to do so. (With several thousand non-English fandoms on the Archive, it'll take the wranglers time to review all of them!) We also won't be changing most character and relationship tags until we have better support for making those in non-Latin-alphabet languages.

    So what does this mean for you?

    1) You'll be able to search for fandom titles in either the original language or the English translated title, and find the tags in the autocomplete under either title.

    2) For fandoms which only use the original or translated titles, you'll be able to browse alphabetically in the fandoms-by-media listings by the English translated title. (We don't yet have proper support for listing tags in non-Latin-alphabet order). So the fandom ボクと魔王 | Okage: Shadow King will appear in Video Games under "O", not "B".

    We hope this change will make the Archive more inclusive and welcoming to fans of all fandoms, in all languages. Please let us know what you think of this change, and thank you for your patience as we work to improve the Archive's tags!

    Mirrored from an original post on AO3 News. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

    Leggi tutto

  • Volunteer Recruiting: AO3 Support & Tag Wrangling

    By Curtis Jefferson on Domenica, 5 May 2013 - 10:24pm
    Message type:
    Volunteering
    Tag:
    Support Committee, Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting

    We would like to thank everyone who responded to our initial call for Tag Wranglers, AO3 Documentation Volunteers, and Communications Staff. The AO3 Documentation Lead and Communications Chairs are reviewing applications and should be contacting people within the next two weeks.

    Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

    • Support Staff - Applications due May 12
    • Tag Wrangler Volunteer (reopening) - Applications accepted on an ongoing basis (role may be temporarily closed based on level of interest)

    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 volunteers (at) transformativeworks.org 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.

    Note: We are working on a set of Volunteering Frequently Asked Questions that we hope to have posted within the next few weeks. If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know.

    Support Staff
    The Support Committee handles communication between users and the various teams involved with the Archive of Our Own. We receive questions and ideas about all aspects of the Archive from users. The Support team helps to answer questions about using the Archive, diagnosing issues, documenting bugs for the coders to address, getting the most out of features like skins or challenges, passing on questions about tags to the wranglers, documenting requests for new or improved features, or getting answers about general policy.

    If you like to interact with a wide variety of people through email and answer their questions, if you're familiar with the Archive, and you like finding the answers to issues, you might enjoy working as Support staff! To come join us, fill out the Support job description and application form. Applications are due May 12

    Tag Wrangler Volunteer
    The Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! We choose which form of a fandom title appears on the Media pages, as well as all the character, relationship, and additional tags which appear in the filters and the auto-complete. We link tags together to make all the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s alternate universes with Cloud Strife, Steve/Tony and tentacles, or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff!)

    If you like organizing, bringing order to chaos, excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, or you just get a kick out of seeing all the wacky and wonderful terms fans come up with, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join our team, click through to the Tag Wrangler job description and application form. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis

    Leggi tutto

  • Archive of Our Own Newsletter - March/April 2013

    By Camden on Martedì, 30 April 2013 - 1:34am
    Message type:
    Archive Update
    Tag:
    Accessibility, Design, & Technology, Support Committee, Tag Wrangling Committee

    March and April were busy busy busy months for the Archive. Our output included, among other things, a new header, an updated roadmap, and our annual April Showers promotion, a joint effort between Fanlore and the AO3 to highlight the fandoms you love!

    All the Archive news that's fit to print!

    As part of the continuing discussion about the OTW's decision to include meta, or fandom nonfiction, on the Archive, the OTW's Board released a statement. This statement outlined the history of the decision as well as the Board's reasons for including fandom nonfiction on the Archive. Another post, which was the culmination of a discussion between several committees, further clarified the position of the Archive's thoughts on fandom nonfiction and tentatively outlined the steps that would be necessary in introducing fandom nonfiction into the Archive.

    The OTW Board released an updated Archive Roadmap. The Roadmap outlines future improvements and changes of the Archive. It is maintained by the Accessibility, Design & Technology committee, though it was created with the input of several other committees including Abuse, Internationalization & Outreach, Open Doors, Support, Systems, Tag Wranglers, and Translation. If you're interested in the future of the Archive, go check it out!

    Although the event was not run by Archive committees (big props to the Development & Membership committee for all their hard work!), AO3 was happy to host a banner for the OTW's annual April Membership Drive as well as contributing a post sharing how much it costs to run the Archive. This year's drive was the most successful drive in OTW history. Thank you to everyone who donated!

    Release 0.9.6 went live and what a release it was! It presented us with, most notably, a new header and new notification emails. Other new features included the ability to disable guest comments, and a new and improved front page. This release fixed several bugs, updated Tag Wrangling and Admin features, and gave us several other goodies. Unfortunately, this release also presented some unanticipated problems for several users. Our known issues posts describes these issues and we encourage any users who are encountering problems with Release 0.9.6 to look at the above post or contact Support.

    Fanlore and AO3 ran their annual April Showers promotion, showcasing fandoms on AO3 and on Fanlore. The Archive's tumblr ao3org with the Fanlore twitter highlighted a fandom a day for the month of April.

    Adventures with Support

    In the months of March and April so far, we've managed 798 unique tickets so far - and we still have a couple days to go!

    AD&T Committee business of note

    In addition to releases, we've been working on documentation to start recruitment for selected positions soon.

    Support Committee business of note

    We will be holding another Open Chat session with the Support Staff in our public chat room (the link will be made available on the day of the chat) this coming Saturday, May 04, 2013 at 16:00:00 UTC lasting through this Sunday, May 05, 2013 at 04:00:00 UTC. Members of Support will be available to interact with users one-on-one in live chat. See what time that is where you live. (Real Life Monsters ate the April chat.)

    Tag Wrangling Committee business of note

    Tag Wrangling opened for volunteers and had such an overwhelming response that we had to hit the pause button long enough to catch up! We've now inducted the over 50 (\o/) new volunteers, and should be re-opening recruitment soon. In concert with that, staff have been hard at work putting together a comprehensive training plan; our basic tutorials are already completed and in use, and more advanced instruction is on the way. Meanwhile our new wranglers have enthusiastically been helping all our experienced hands in cleaning up tags in fandoms across the Archive; we're looking in better shape than ever!

    And finally...

    We are floored by the generosity of the participants in AO3 Auction. From the bottom of our squeeing hearts: THANK YOU!

    Questions? Comments?

    We welcome feedback from users! If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments of the latest news post, or send in a Support request (if you're reporting a bug, please send that to Support, as they're super efficient - comments on our news posts sometimes get overlooked).

    Mirrored from an original post on AO3 News.

    Leggi tutto

  • Volunteer Recruiting: AO3 Documentation, Communications, and Tag Wranglers

    By Curtis Jefferson on Venerdì, 12 April 2013 - 6:42pm
    Message type:
    Volunteering
    Tag:
    AO3 Documentation, Communications Committee, Tag Wrangling Committee, Volunteers & Recruiting

    We are pleased to announce that our first applications for new OTW volunteers are open! We have three roles from across the OTW in the first round:

    • AO3 Documentation Volunteer
    • Communications Staff (Media Outreach)
    • Tag Wrangler Volunteer
      Updated 14 April 2013 - Due to the fantastic response from individuals interested in Tag Wrangling, we've temporarily closed the application while we train the over 50 volunteers who have already responded and get them settled in. We aim to reopen Tag Wrangler recruiting in mid-May.

    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.

    You may be wondering why you aren't seeing positions listed here that you know are open. Those committees are finalizing their position descriptions and training plans, and we will be posting those opportunities when they're ready.

    If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know through the Volunteers & Recruiting contact form.

    AO3 Documentation Volunteer
    The AO3 Documentation Workgroup manages external AO3 docs such as the FAQs and Tutorials, and helps create and/or expand our internal knowledge base.

    We’re looking for some people who are familiar with the Archive of Our Own and are good at writing and proofreading help documentation. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, click through to read the full details and apply to join the workgroup. Applications are due April 26

    Communications Staff (Media Outreach)
    Communications has primary responsibility for internal and external communication for the OTW. We manage the OTW blog and social media outlets and assist other teams in managing project-specific communication. We also field requests from outside the organization and work to spread awareness of the OTW and its projects.

    We’re currently looking for someone to perform Media Outreach, which involves making direct pitches to media contacts and working to place stories about the OTW. If you have knowledge or experience in the area of media relations and are interested in helping build up our communication strategies, click through to learn more about the role and apply to join the Communication Staff Applications are due April 26

    Tag Wrangler Volunteer
    The Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! We choose which form of a fandom title appears on the Media pages, as well as all the character, relationship, and additional tags which appear in the filters and the auto-complete. We link tags together to make all the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s alternate universes with Cloud Strife, Steve/Tony and tentacles, or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff!)

    If you like organizing, bringing order to chaos, excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, or you just get a kick out of seeing all the wacky and wonderful terms fans come up with, you might enjoy tag wrangling! Updated 14 April 2013 - Due to the fantastic response from individuals interested in Tag Wrangling, we've temporarily closed the application while we train the over 50 volunteers who have already responded and get them settled in. We aim to reopen Tag Wrangler recruiting in mid-May.

    Leggi tutto

  • OTW Fannews: Public challenges and social tagging

    By Claudia Rebaza on Mercoledì, 20 March 2013 - 5:44pm
    Message type:
    News of Note
    Tag:
    Intellectual Property, DMCA, Takedowns, Gaming, Books, Television, Tag Wrangling Committee
    • A thesis written about the AO3's tagging system "attempts to begin exploring the question of what kind of environment the site's particular blend of open social tagging and some behind-the-scenes vocabulary control, plus hierarchical linking, creates for the users who search through it for fiction." The study, conducted in 2012, had a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and the survey was completed by 116 people. "The current online information glut calls for some sort of subject labeling to facilitate efficiency in searching, but the volume of information is well beyond a size that could ever be dealt with by information professionals. “Social tagging” is an approach to this problem that lets non-professionals attempt to organize online information via tagging, for their own and one another's use. But social tagging is a new and rapidly evolving field, and so no consensus has yet been reached on its overall usefulness, or on what best practices might be."
    • Two rather different stories about fan video game makers were in the news recently. TechDirt summed things up in its post title: "Makers Of Firefly 'Fan-game' Abuse DMCA To Try To Silence Critic". "While I think that these kinds of games should be allowed...it appears that DarkCryo -- a company that is really skirting a pretty fine line concerning copyright -- decided to abuse the DMCA and file a takedown notice on [a critic's] posting of a DarkCryo logo image."
    • The other story was a little more typical, discussing how "Hasbro halts production of unauthorized "My Little Pony" video game". "This isn't the first time Hasbro has issued successful takedown notices for clearly illegal uses of its product, or even the first time it's taken down an MLP-inspired game. Previous instances where Hasbro has stepped in include the illegal download website Ponyarchive and the popular, though short-lived,multiplayer game MLP Online. Hasbro also took down the abridged series Friendship is Witchcraft, which should have been protected under under the Fair Use copyright clause afforded to transformative works within the U.S. However, issues of copyright and trademark are separate concerns with separate legal justifications. While Hasbro has so far been tolerant of copyright-protected fanwork such as fanart and fanfiction, it seems to have a rigid policy forbidding reuse of its official images and trademarks."
    • Some authors decided to challenge the claims of long dead creators' estates and, as the New York Times pointed out, highlighted a schism in the Sherlock Holmes fandom. "The suit, which stems from the estate’s efforts to collect a licensing fee for a planned collection of new Holmes-related stories by Sara Paretsky, Michael Connelly and other contemporary writers, makes a seemingly simple argument. Of the 60 Conan Doyle stories and novels...only the 10 stories first published in the United States after 1923 remain under copyright. Therefore, the suit asserts, many fees paid to the estate for the use of the character have been unnecessary. But it’s also shaping up to be something of what one blogger called 'a Sherlockian Civil War.'" The battle was laid out as being between the old guard (and, until recently, male only) Baker Street Irregulars versus the Baker Street Babes, "a group of young female Sherlockians who host a regular podcast."

    What legal and technology fan stories do you have an interest in? Add them to Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

    We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

    Leggi tutto

Pagine

Subscribe to Tag Wrangling Committee