Offerta di lavoro

Fanlore is appealing for help in an urgent effort to assist fans affected by the disappearance of free sites on FortuneCity, an early Internet website provider that hosted many personal fanfic websites and small archives due to its free accounts. In conjunction with the more clearly communicated Geocities fadeout a few years ago, this action on Fortunecity's part has meant the loss of another chunk of fannish history.

Fanlore is hosting the website addresses of the now deleted sites. Knowing the addresses to old sites gives fans searching for them a chance to recover and access the content once held there by going through the Wayback Machine.

A Google spreadsheet has been started so that volunteers can "claim a fandom, read the instructions...and pitch in."

Although an email was sent to account holders, many of the addresses tied to those accounts are no longer valid or are no longer frequently used by the maintainers. In addition many fans did not see an announcement banner because it was placed with the site ads, which many users have blocked while visiting the site.

The effort to document the URLs of the missing pages is urgent because they are currently stored by Google, but Google deletes its cached records in a short time if a webpage disappears or changes. This is why many typing fingers are needed, to record those addresses before they disappear from search results.

If you can help, please do the following:

1) Sign up on the Google spreadsheet for particular fandoms. Follow the instructions to record the addresses.
2) Contact Fanlore if you need help with the project, or want to submit addresses but do not have a Fanlore account (use Fanlore's contact page here: http://transformativeworks.org/contact/fanlore%20gardeners and put "FortuneCity help!" in the subject line)

If you are an author or artist whose work was deleted by FortuneCity, we would welcome it on the Archive of Our Own. If you need an invitation to upload your work there, contact AO3 Support via our support form and put "FortuneCity content" in the summary line.

Please do what you can to help rescue these lost works!

As the OTW continues with our Willing to Serve recruitment drive, those of us on the Volunteers & Recruiting committee wanted to take the opportunity to talk about different levels of involvement and the different role categories within the organization: Chair, Staff, and Volunteer. Everyone in the OTW is volunteering; there are no paid positions in the organisation, which can sometimes get confusing since Volunteer is also a specific type of position within the org. We welcome participation at any level you are comfortable with, from a few hours spent in a single testing party all the way up to the equivalent of a full-time job. Of course, most of the people who choose to donate their time and energy to the OTW fall somewhere in the middle.

As the end of the OTW's fourth full term approaches, our Volunteers & Recruiting committee is starting the search for people who are willing to serve on our committees in 2012. Some of our current staff will be returning to the same roles, some will be changing focus and trying new things, and many are ready to share their knowledge and responsibilities. All are looking for enthusiastic, dedicated people to join them.

Our committees are currently busy reviewing what they've done this year and thinking about what they want to accomplish next year, determining how many people each team needs and what those people might be doing. Most of our committees only require one thing: enthusiasm! We can teach the rest (there are exceptions, of course — we can't impart the experience and knowledge that the Legal committee requires of its members, for example), and we're eager to find a place for you. Again, please note that while we're taking information now, we will be forming the committees when we come back from our break in mid-January.

We're happy to hear from people year-round, but right now we're focused on assembling the standing committees that make up OTW staff. We take a brief break at the end of each calendar year and reconvene in January, so that's when you can expect to hear back, and when all of our new 2012 staff will start work. We realize that it can be annoying to wait, especially when you want to help! We ask that you do so, though, because we want to start everyone on the same footing, feeling refreshed and with all the training and orientation they need.

Take a look at our OTW Committee descriptions, and fill out our volunteer interest form if anything piques your interest! You'll hear from us in January — we're looking forward to working with you!

Do you code for the Archive of Our Own or would you like to do so? Now is the time to learn how! Jenny, Training lead for the OTW's Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee, will lead a chat on coding for the OTW and the AO3, and also cover challenge moderation and challenge code. If you're a current coder, a new coder, or interested and curious about coding, this is the chat for you! If you've run a challenge on AO3 or want to learn more about how that works, this is the chat for you, too!

All are welcome! The chat will be held on Saturday, 27 August at 04:00 UTC (what time is it in my timezone?) in OTW's public chatroom on Campfire. The chatroom can be accessed at https://fanarchive.campfirenow.com/e79cc.

Accessibility, Design, & Technology is the guiding body that coordinates software design and development on behalf of the Organization for Transformative Works.

It's the middle of 2011, and the Fanlore wiki committee is feeling the need for some new energy and new enthusiasm. We're also short on members, so we're putting out a call: we are looking for more fans to join the Fanlore Wiki Committee!

What's the wiki committee, exactly? The wiki committee is a group of volunteers which works to keep Fanlore up and running.

What projects is the wiki committee working on? One of our big areas of focus this year is trying to increase fannish diversity on the wiki, and on outreach to fan communities which are (so far) under-represented on Fanlore. Lately we've also been working on shifting how categories work on the wiki.

Do I already have to be an OTW volunteer in order to join the wiki committee? Nope! We welcome anyone who wants to join the committee, whether or not that person is already an OTW staffer/volunteer. (Becoming an OTW staffer/volunteer is easy, we promise.)

What's the time commitment? The wiki committee usually meets via chat for one or two hours every two weeks. We do the rest of our work via email and via Basecamp, the website used by all of the OTW committees to work collaboratively on our various projects.

I don't know how to edit wiki pages, is that a problem? Not at all. We can teach you! And also, some of our work (especially the outreach work) doesn't involve actual wiki editing at all.

Are you looking for any skills in particular? We could definitely use some CSS experts; we're also especially interested in folks who are enthusiastic about helping us to reach out to communities currently under-represented on the wiki.

I think I'm interested. What do I do? Drop a comment on this post or contact us and we'll get back to you asap!

I don't have the time for this, but I know someone else who might. Feel free to spread the word in your own journal or via email to anyone you think would be a good fit.

Do you love the Archive? Do you have skills in database analysis? Would you like to make these great two tastes taste great together?

We're looking for a MySQL database developer who can help us optimise our database performance on the Archive of Our Own. The Archive is run on MySQL 5.0 and Rails 3, but you don't need to know Rails to help -- we would really like someone who can look over our database query logs and help us spot inefficiencies!

You'd be joining a team of dedicated and passionate volunteers with a love of fandom and tech-geekery. We're looking for someone with the time and skills to help us evaluate and optimise our current setup — this can be a short-term commitment, although if you are able to join us for the long haul your skills will be very welcome.

If you're interested, please contact our Volunteers and Recruitment Committee using 'MySQL database developer' as your subject line, and let us know your skills and experience.

Your Archive needs YOU!

Mirrored from an original post on the Archive of Our Own.

It's that time again! As the end of the OTW's third term approaches, we are in search of people who are willing to serve on our committees. We have accomplished amazing things during this term, and we have big plans on the horizon for the next one! Many of our current committee members will be returning, and we are looking for enthusiastic and dedicated people to join them.

We've provided descriptions of the committees and their jobs below. Please note that while we're taking information now, we will be forming the committees when we come back from our break in mid-January.

So how many teens in the United States do you think are familiar with the concept of fair use? How many are exposed instead solely to the message that copyright infringement is always a crime? Between warnings on DVDs, television PSAs, movie theater anti-piracy ads, and print advertising, kids are usually pretty familiar with a vague idea that copyright is that law that means you can't copy stuff, and that in particular, any commercially produced entertainment or cultural property is sacrosanct. The message is that remix, criticism, reinterpretation, and transformation are legally transgressive. Missing from this message is both the actual aim of copyright law and the idea that there are legitimate artistic and critical reasons to use copyrighted material, and that such use is legal. The OTW believes that education about the principles of fair use and similar rights around the world are an important part of the defense and preservation of fanworks -- our rights to create, share, and enjoy our work. To that end, we are developing resources for schools, teachers, and students that will allow students to learn about their rights, and how to exercise those rights.

It's that time again! As the end of the OTW's second term nears, we will soon begin putting together the next round of committees for our third term, which means we are once again in search of people who are willing to serve. We did an amazing amount of work during our second term, and we have a lot of things planned for the next. Many of our current committee members will be returning for a third term, and we are looking for enthusiastic and dedicated people to join them.

Description: Now that we're close to Open Beta, we want to put in place a Support Team who will be responsible for responding to user questions and problems on the Archive of Our Own. The Support Team will respond to queries filed through the support form on the Archive, and liaise with members of other teams to resolve bugs and provide users with accurate information.