Archive of Our Own ^beta

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Communications committee (Comms) disseminates information to the general public, media, and fans. We draft and beta news posts and social media posts, and are often the first point of contact for anyone interested in the OTW.

We asked Comms for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Communications Committee Specific Questions

Question: We're so thankful for how fast you guys always respond when the ao3 website goes down. I was wondering what's the circus like behind the scenes when it happens? xD Do you usually first notice when we start panicking, or does someone keep an eye on it 24/7, do emails start flying from social team to it, is it usually scary or is it very organised and calm since you're so experienced, who makes the decision to pull the plug for a few hours if it's really bad and looks hopeless, stuff like this. Thank you!
Committee answer:
Accessibility, Design, & Technology (AD&T) and Systems (our two main technical committees) have already given their own replies to this, but from Comms’ end, we often are the ones that handle posting and disseminating information for downtimes! We work hand in hand with AD&T and Systems to ensure that we're distributing the most accurate and concise information to the public, and coordinate with our fellow volunteers to make sure that it’s sent out in time. We do our best to handle the public logistics so that our coders can focus on their own work!

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• It truly depends on the week! Typically I would say ~4 hours, for just keeping on top of things and my weekly tasks. It can be upwards of 10 if there's things outside of the norm or that require a bit of research. (Caitlynne)
• For me, it depends on the time of year most of all! As an Event Coordinator, half of the year I'd say it's ~2-6 hours a week. The bulk of our anniversaries and holidays converge into fall and winter, during that time it's more ~6-8 hours. (Elin)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• I hop on my computer pretty frequently throughout the week, so I tailor my OTW time to when I'm on my PC. If there's a day I'm busy and away from my PC, I know I'll have to "catch up" the next day when I have time, so to speak. (Tiana)
• I try to check our chat tool/the Comms email when I can throughout the day and give a dedicated half hour or so on my laptop in the evenings. It doesn't always work out, but that's the goal! (callmeri)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• I like that tending the little OTW!Tumblr corner of the landscape helps the whole fandom ecosystem. (Remi)
• The best part of volunteering at the OTW is the people, for sure! The social aspect is easily what motivates me the most to stay. I have made lots of friends and the Communications committee has been a really supportive environment! (stork)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• We are fans just like you! There are so many different cultures and fandoms coming together every day to make the organisation run. (Tal)
• We are really big on emojis! The custom emoji feature on our chat tool is definitely getting a lot of mileage with us XD. Also, you can put OTW work on your resume if you want to. (stork)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• Check the Tumblr notes and ask box in the morning, before scrolling through my personal dash and then the tags the organisation follows looking for Things To Queue. Mosey through the #ao3 tag on occasion to reply or leave little notes to folks. Every day is similar, but none are The Same. (Remi)
• I often start by checking and responding to messages from other volunteers, and then make a list of current tasks to work on. Sometimes that means brainstorming activities for a special milestone, other times it's writing posts, or preparing for an event. (Elin)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• I love bats and think they're super cute, but identify with possums on an emotional level. (Caitlynne)
• My favorite animal is a saiga antelope. Fave dog breed: Irish wolfhound. (Communications volunteer)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• For a dyslexic person I seem to read A LOT of fanfic... I actually tend to read more on AO3 than actual books?? Anyway, my favourite of all time would have to be unholyverse. I don't think anything can beat that… (Gray)
• I love reading fic so much it's kind of concerning how many tabs I have open all the time. My favourite fic is locked but another fave is between the sheets by DasWarSchonKaputt. og. goat. mother. (choux)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• I do write. I enjoy the creativity and the ability to explore characters. (Communications volunteer)
• I do! It's my favorite hobby and one I neglected a bit last year. I hope to get back into the swing of it in 2026. (Tiana)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• I’m very active in the Dan and Phil fandom :3 (Gray)
• Mostly MDZS and IWTV for the past few years, but Heated Rivalry took over my brain so it looks like I'm getting on that ride. (callmeri)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• I'm also a tag wrangler, so I get to participate in tag translation (every tag wrangled needs to have a documented english translation). There aren't as many German works, but we have loads of German volunteers – this means there's often several of us running to translate whenever there's a German tag. it's really cool to see very specific cultural references in works! (Tal)
• I read a TON of socmed AUs in Filipino along with the Filipino fics in general! I'm super happy to see fanwork in Filipino and when a creator is Filipino as well! especially when I see actual locations or cultural tidbits getting referenced. (choux)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers, check out this work on AO3, where we collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Volunteers & Recruiting committee (VolCom) is in charge of inducting, retiring, and placing volunteers on hiatus. They handle personnel records and tool access, as well as assisting with the formation of new committees, subcommittees, and workgroups.

We asked VolCom for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Volunteers & Recruiting Committee Specific Questions

Question: Sometimes I want to help the OTW, and consider applying for a volunteer position like tag wrangling, but I don't have a lot of time to commit. Is there anything I can do sporadically, or without a lot of time per week?
Committee answer:
All of our roles come with a weekly time expectation—when we recruit for a role, we post a position description, it's listed there. For some roles, the time requirement starts at two hours per week, while for others it may be five hours or more. How this time is split up in a week depends a lot on the role.
If you find yourself not having enough time to volunteer, but still want to support the OTW, please take a look at our How You Can Help page.

Question: Since this is a non-profit organization, if I wanted to become a volunteer (for fun and because I care about the work being done here), would I be able to use my time as legitimate service hours? (for highschool for example)
Committee answer:
The OTW is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the United States, but whether we are a good fit for legitimate service hours depends on the specific requirements your school/work/etc may have. Our volunteers usually do not volunteer under the name they use at school or at work, but if you are comfortable letting either your Chairs or the Volunteers & Recruiting committee know that name, you can receive a written proof of volunteering. If there are other requirements, e.g. a proof of volunteered hours, we can't guarantee that this will be possible for all roles. If you are considering this option, please reach out to the relevant committee via the contact form to discuss what's possible.

Question: Is there a limit to how many times someone can apply to volunteer and be rejected? How many times should you try before giving up? I've applied at least five or six times to different groups and I'm wondering if I should stop bothering you!
Committee answer:
We do not have a limit for applications to the OTW in general. However, if you've been repeatedly not accepted for a role, chances are that you are not fulfilling the requirements for that role. Additionally, some committees might have their own restrictions (see the recruitment post and/or position description). Please also consider your application quality and whether there are other reasons that might lead to you not being offered a role. You can email us and ask why an application was rejected - it depends on the committee how much feedback they are willing to give, as the goal is not to write the "perfect application". Our roles differ a lot in the skills required, so keep an eye out for other roles that might be better suited for your skill set!

Question: What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who'd love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.
Committee answer:
The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, for those roles it mostly depends on being the "type" for the role. For us in VolCom, it's more of the latter than the former. For example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks of to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• This tends to vary by week as well as by role! As a tag wrangler I used to spend about 3 hours a week on my fandoms, and though it has required some "pruning" of what fandoms I'm working on, most of mine were currently consistent enough that this is a pretty stable amount of time for me. For Volunteers & Recruiting, where I serve as both volunteer and co-chair, the time is a lot more fluid. For volunteer-specific tasks I can go between 5-10 hours a week, and for chair work that's an addition of another 3-5 hours per week. The work done isn't always in solid chunks of time -- I do try to count in the time I have even when I'm just catching up on messages from various other volunteers/committees, but in general that's where I've fallen. (Eevee)
• I'm a VolCom volunteer and it depends, but I'm mainly spending around 4 to 5 hours minimum working for my committee. It can go from processing inductions or removals or following up on a specific request we've received from an OTW member, which in this case is usually pretty easy, to bigger tasks like running recruitments or reviewing documents. In that last case, I like to take 2 solid hours during every work session to really dive into it. (Kalincka)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• I usually block some time on my weekly calendar to get to it! Usually, I do OTW work in the evening, after I've come back from my day job. I work an 8-4, and I live fairly close to my workplace, which means that commuting doesn't eat up too much of my schedule. There are days when I don't do OTW work, but I always check my emails and Slack multiple times a day to make sure I'm not skipping something urgent. Tasks can vary so even if they're mainly cases, they vary, so I don't find it too repetitive! (Kalincka)
• I spend at least fifteen minutes every day on volunteering - keeping up with what's happening, seeing if there is anything urgent that needs to be dealt with. Usually, that means I look at my emails and our internal chat platform at least three to four times a day. This is mostly the same every day. I work on cases and on documentation frequently - sometimes that happens spontaneously, sometimes I block time in my personal calendar so I don't end up making other plans. This is not as regular and scheduled as me keeping track of what's going on in the organization and my committee, but it usually happens for a few hours every two to three days.
  I also have the benefit of having a very flexible daytime job and working a lot from home, which means a lot of my work days consist of me doing an hour of my paid job, an hour of OTW work, three hours of paid job, and so on.There are a lot of recurring tasks or categories of tasks, but it's still so many different categories of tasks that it's not getting boring. (corr)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• I love meeting other volunteers and learning how the OTW works. I find it super fascinating to learn how such a large organization runs and at the same time meet the people behind the scenes of it all. (Bekyro)
• Getting to work together with so many people from all over the world who care for so many different fandoms. I have gotten to talk to people from so many countries that I would have never met otherwise. I also think that AO3 (and the whole OTW) defies a world in which value and worth are measured in financial units - we don't get paid, the writers on AO3 and Fanlore don't get paid, the readers don't get paid. Being a part of this awesome project makes me proud and happy. (corr)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• We don't have shareholders or people with financial interests that tell us what to do. We're all regular fandom people who love fandom and want to maintain a place that's a home (an archive) to all transformative works. Sometimes, when I browse through discussions about the OTW, I get the feeling that people don't know that we are not a for-profit company, that we are not making any money, that every wrangled tag, every written news post, every design decision for AO3, every Fanlore policy, all of these things are made by fandom people in their free time. We're doing this not because we want to earn money with AO3 or the other projects, but because we love fandom and are dedicated to the OTW's mission. (corr)
• There is a lot more to the OTW than AO3! I encourage people to check out Open Doors and the other projects the OTW is holding up, it's worth a look. I know I've learned so much thanks to Fanlore, and I didn't even know that it was OTW volunteers that upheld this platform. (Kalincka)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• There's one thing that never changes, and it's checking emails/cases/messages. It's the foundation of my typical day. The tasks in themselves always vary. As a VolCom volunteer I'm pretty sure I do at least one removal per week. (Kalincka)
• I check my emails and our chat platform multiple times a day to monitor if something urgent comes up - as I get sent an email for every change in our cases, I also keep track of those like that. That's what I do every day. On days that I do active work, I focus either on documentation, training, or handling cases, and spend one to five hours doing that. (corr)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• My favorite animal are sheep! Unfortunately, I don't own any sheep. My favorite breed of cat is trash can kitty, all of the cats I have are the ones nobody at the shelter wanted, and they are the best cats I've ever met (I might be biased). (corr)
• I would have to say birds, especially parrots. I love Sun conures, but cockatiels are definitely high up there too (if they weren’t, my own would probably peck me) (yes, I am very biased). If we include fantasy creatures, dragons are also at the top (Bekyro)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• I love reading fanfic! It's the reason I stumbled upon the OTW in the first place. I wouldn't say I've got a single favorite fic in the entire world, but I keep a list. Off the top of my head, and since we're in an end-of-the-year period, I would heavily recommend reading this Klaus fic (formerly titled 'In the name of love'). It warms my heart every time (Kalincka)
• I do! While I do not have any favorite fic, as I read depending on my mood, I do have a bunch I keep returning to. I’m scared to check how big my collection of fics I reread has gotten nowadays. (Bekyro)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• I do, even if it's less than I'd like due to lack of time. I have about 350k words published on AO3 and half a million in drafts, which is what I wrote in the last four years.
  I like to get my readers to yell at me. My writer discord is really good at getting upset with me, if I'm not being insulted for hurting their feelings, I didn't do my job right. I am mostly a character-driven writer, and I like to put my characters into situations or make them face negative consequences. I also love to write healing, but I am decidedly not a fluff writer - the things I write as comfort for myself tend to get comments of people saying that I still hurt them. (corr)
• I do, though ironically not as much since I started volunteering for the OTW. I love expanding on the worlds given to us, doing missing scenes, fixing tragedies from canon, or imagining canon-compliant AUs (I promise, these are possible!). (Eevee)
• I do not, to the despair of my fic writing friends. Although I may give it a try sometime if the mood strikes. (Bekyro)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• I've not been super active in fandom spaces lately, but the last time I was active was in Haikyuu!! and SK8. Recently I've fallen into a danmei rabbit hole starting with 2ha but I haven't read/written much in it. I also read a lot of bl manhwa/manga! (Eevee)
• A few years ago, I read this questionable book series called All For The Game by Nora Sakavic, and I have accepted my fate of living in this fandom. I love-hate the books, I love-hate the fandom, and I have found amazing friends in the fandom. Apart from that, I read a lot fandom-blind, as I am looking for specific kinds of stories or tropes. (corr)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• I love that they exist! I think AO3 was one of the first sites where I saw the language I grew up speaking as an option and something about that felt so validating? I don't read in my native language, but I come across them when translations are requested for tags in my native language and I'm always so excited when they show up. (Eevee)
• While I don’t read any of them myself, I do find it nice knowing they exist. Especially as my native tongue is a smaller one, and it normally tends to drown among the countless bigger languages that exists (Bekyro)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers, check out this work on AO3, where we collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Tag Wrangling committee sorts, organizes, and connects tags used on the Archive of Our Own (AO3) website, according to Tag Wrangling guidelines, to make them more easily filterable by users. They work, for example, closely with the Support committee to handle user requests for sorting and connecting tags, and the Open Doors committee to "map" tags used in other archives.

We asked the Tag Wrangling committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Tag Wrangling Committee Specific Questions

Question: First, thank you for all the work you've been doing on the No Fandom Freeforms this year. I and many people I know are very happy about the newly canonized tags. I have been following developments on another Wrangling Policy, fandom metatags, with interest for several years, and I was excited to see an update about it in the June 2025 Newsletter (https://www.ao3.icu/admin_posts/31888). Is there anything more you can tell us about that process, like what 'phase two of three' means or what sort of timeframe we can expect to see changes to the publicly accessible Wrangling Guidelines or fandom tags?

Committee answer:
Thank you for the kind words! For major changes to the Guidelines, we have a three phase process that we work through.

• Phase 1 - Discussion and Brainstorming - The time where the initial issue to be addressed is laid out, and committee members bring forward concerns and potential solutions.
• Phase 2 - Compromise - Different fandoms have different needs and priorities, so it's not always possible to find a solution that suits everyone. During this phase, we select the solution that will work best in the widest range of cases, and discuss how the proposal can be incorporated into existing guidelines.
• Phase 3 - Drafting - Language and relevant examples are written and brought to the committee for feedback.

In terms of a timeframe, it's very dependent on how complex the initial issue is and how quickly we are able to find a solution that addresses most major concerns. While we understand that a long wait can be frustrating, making sure we take adequate time to fully understand and address all aspects of an issue should minimize negative unintended consequences and prevent the need to revisit guidelines too frequently.

Question: A couple times now, I have advised other AO3 users dealing with fandom tags that haven't been canonized, sometimes for months. I've told them to use the Support Form to raise the issue and hopefully get a wrangler designated to manage the fandom. Do you have specific advice for what to information put on the support form that would help Support and Tag Wrangling process the request?

Committee answer:
Thank you for directing users with questions or concerns to Support! That is exactly the right strategy for these situations. If a fandom tag has had a work visible on it (i.e. not in an unrevealed collection) for more than a month, you are welcome to fill in the Support form to request its canonization, using their contact form.

It’s fine to include multiple tags in the same request that you would like to have reviewed.

When you submit a Support request, it can be helpful to provide links to information on the the sources of canon as this will aid the fandom bin wranglers in identifying and actioning the fandom tag, especially if it’s difficult to search for or could easily be confused with another fandom (say, a movie with the same name released in another country).

Links to sources provided can include information databases, official websites, and places where the canon source can be purchased. They do not need to be in English, particularly if the source material is non-English (where we may need to refer to non-English sources as part of actioning the tag!) though including non-English sources may increase the number of volunteers who need to review your request.

Question: What's the process for moving an unofficial/freeform tag into a proper one you can filter with?

Committee answer:
Great question! Here is a very brief description of the life cycle of a tag.
A user adds a tag on their work. A wrangler then reviews tags in the "bins" assigned to them and determines whether the tag is fandom-specific (Example: The Force from Star Wars) or a general concept (Example: planets). If the former, the tag is "wrangled" to the particular fandom. If the latter, the tag is assigned to "No Fandom".

What happens from this point is dependent on the type of tag (Character, Relationship, or Additional). There are specific criteria for whether a tag should be made a "canonical" or a "synonym". (You can find definitions for all of these wrangling-related terms in our Tag Wrangling Guidelines). Some tags require a minimum level of usage before they will be canonized/appear in the autocomplete/filters.

General concept tags stored in No Fandom typically need to go through a special process of review and discussion by the Tag Wrangling committee before they can be canonized. This process is in place to ensure tags are organized, easily understood by users, and do not duplicate existing canonicals.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?
This answer varies a lot in Tag Wrangling depending on what projects people are working on and their chosen self-assigned workloads. In general, many wranglers prefer not to track the specific time spent, with some of the joking answers shared including: “I reserve the right to to be silent”, “more than I probably should” and “that's between me and the hyperfixation gods”.

The reality is like Cascade says: “It varies! Sometimes just an hour or two to clean up small fandoms, other times I get into the zone and will spend 10 or more hours in busier fandoms or working on a large project.”

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• Dean makes a dollar, I make a dime, so I wrangle your tags on university's time. (For academic purposes this is a joke.) Some smaller issues (especially with smaller fandoms) can be easily resolved by taking 5 minutes away from what you're doing, but bigger jobs (big fandoms, confusing canons, loads of tags, especially untranslated tags, etc.) need plenty of time and attention, so I usually wrangle them at home in the evenings or on my days off. And not everyone wrangles every day, unless they want to and have time to do it. Every wrangler works at their own leisure (this is volunteering, after all), but we are required to work through our tag bins at least once every 2 weeks. (Ravenna)
• I have a bit of a routine of things I do most days (check small fandoms for tags, send off tags that need translations, send off tags that belong to other wranglers, and clear a few pages of tags from the active fandoms), but apart from that it varies! Some days I'll look for freeform tags that I can canonize, sometimes I'll work on internal reference pages, or sometimes I might contribute to other ongoing projects. There's always something that can be done! (Tag Wrangling volunteer)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• As a tag wrangler, it amazes me just how…creative some authors can be. I have seen tags that never in my mind I could come up with, and browsed fics that I would not normally read just to see the context of those tags lol (LaReveuse)
• I love how unconventionally fun the volunteer team is. I used to assume that the OTW was all stone-cold strict behind the scenes, but, really, our wrangling work mostly consists of giggling at tags and cheering when our favorite fandoms get canonized. (Bowekatan)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• I think more people should know about co-wrangling. Wrangling seems pretty individual, but with larger and/or more complicated fandoms, one person isn't enough and you need a team of people to take care of the fandom. There is that teamwork aspect where teams discuss new changes and ask each other questions, not to mention you can divide the work up in a configuration that works for the team. Depending on what different people prefer to handle, you might even get to avoid the kinds of tasks you don't enjoy as much if one of your co-wranglers really enjoys doing those tasks. I personally really enjoy co-wrangling and have made friends with a lot of people who I've co-wrangled with, and I don't think that aspect of wrangling is spoken about enough. (Tag Wrangling volunteer)
• I wish more people understood the sheer volume of fic posted, and therefore the astonishing number of tags we wrangle. (Jmathieson)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• It depends on the week, and can vary based on the workload at my real life job, my social commitments, and the volume of works in the fandoms I wrangle! I generally try to do a clean up of my smaller fandoms every day, which takes about 5-10 minutes. Since I wrangle a number of popular fandoms and mega-fandoms as well, I try to set aside at least an hour when I want to jump into those. On average, I'd say I spend at least five hours a week on wrangling, but that can greatly increase! Sometimes you just get really into the zone, and somehow five hours in one sitting have already passed! (Kenn)
• I usually do a tiny bit of wrangling every weekday so I keep my bins low on tags, and then do longer wrangling projects on the weekends. I keep an ongoing list of projects I have in mind so I don't get sucked into them during my work week. (ellexamines)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• Some favourite animals from wranglers include dogs, horses, foxes, moths (specifically domestic silkmoths), dolphins and various varieties of big cats!
• One wrangler, Loxaris specified: “Even though I like all animals, my favourites are dogs, closely followed by horses - their ancient, mutually beneficial connection with humans is what most fuels my love for them. For dog breeds, although I have a very marked preference for larger ones, I am currently captivated by the zerdava (kudos to you if you know it); a somewhat wistful dream of mine is to own one someday.”

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• Overwhelmingly wranglers enjoy reading fanfic and it's a regular point of discussion in social chats. Lists of fanfiction recommendations are regularly shared and swapped amongst wranglers.
• I love reading. I love it so much that I currently have 4 library cards in my wallet. While the right book can be great, fanfiction is also a lot of fun! I love the unique stories that are told and seeing the creativity and humour that so many creators share with us! When I’m not ready to say goodbye to another world just yet, it’s great to have fanfic to turn to, to continue playing with that world. My favourites will change, but right now I’m quite fond of and re-reading Tossawary’s Stepping up. (Tag Wrangling volunteer)
• I love it, and read it so much I don't get around to reading published books much, RIP. My favourite is the Halo Effect series. (spacegandalf)
• Some favourites from the team include a sugar coated pill and a pick me up by whomstisthis, While Mighty Oaks Do Fall by WitchofEndor, Desert of Ghosts by rednightmare, as well as mosaic broken hearts and this is me trying by hanville, but there are many, many more favourites amongst the team!

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• One of my favorite things about writing fic is posting a work for a fandom I wrangle and immediately wrangling my own tags! Writing fic is definitely a creative outlet for me and I think it’s very interesting to have both a writer and wrangler perspective on fanfic. (Xylia)
• I do! Most of the fanfic I write is not fanfic that I will ever share with the public, but I enjoy writing it for myself to get the plot bunnies out of my brain. Occasionally I will get a burst of inspiration and post a fic that I have written. One thing that I really enjoy about fanfic writing is how freeing it is. There is no obligation to be good at it, and you can write whatever you want, with no expectations aside from what you allow yourself to be held to. I don't consider myself a fantastic writer but it doesn't matter, because the point of fanfic isn't to be good at it, it's to have fun! (Tag Wrangling volunteer)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?
Wranglers are in many fandoms that are constantly changing, but a few of the current ones that were volunteered include but are not limited to:

Ooe (Visual Novel), Digimon Adventure, Kingdom Hearts, Kanto Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Helluva Boss, Malevolent (an Eldritch Horror podcast), Jurassic Park/World, Spider-Man, The Pitt, Batman, Heated Rivalry, Critical Role, Scum Villain and Aurora (Webcomic) in fact - many webcomics both large and small have wrangling fans currently in them!

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• Yes, absolutely! It's a delight to see works in my language (and to have tags sent to our translation team to be translated into English 🤭). It's one of those overlooked parts of language (and thus culture) preservation, making things in your mother tongue and putting them out there for everyone to see. There are so many benefits! It helps language learners to absorb culture and writing/speaking conventions, translations into mother tongue help people whose english isn't up to the level of reading comfortably, they create an environment that goes against the notion of anglocentrism and helps people from all cultures feel more welcome, and so much more! Seeing fics in my mother tongue and other languages besides English always makes me happy 🥰 (Ravenna)
• I used to be indifferent to reading in Indonesian, but when we reached 1 million Chinese/Mandarin works in the archive this year, I thought "I want my mother tongue to do that too!", so now I try to support fanfic written in Indonesian as much as possible! (Tag Wrangling volunteer)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Tag Wranglers, check out this work on AO3, where we collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Translation committee's main responsibility is making content from the OTW and its various projects accessible to fans who don't speak English. This includes content for the organization's main site, FAQs on AO3, Open Doors import announcements, and AO3 news posts, among other things. They also collaborate with other OTW committees, for example to help them communicate with non-English speaking fans and users.

We asked the Translation committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Translation Committee Specific Question

Question: Is there a software required if one wanted to volunteer? Also, are there any specific devices required?
Committee answer:
While we have no specific software requirements for volunteering, we definitely recommend using a device with a bigger screen in general, like a desktop or a laptop, or at least a tablet, as that makes it easier to keep everything you need for your work on your screen. One of our requirements for any software we use is that it can run in a common internet browser on a computer, without any local installs, though they may require an app on mobile devices.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• It varies a lot week to week! Some weeks are very quiet and there's not a lot to work on, but when I do get an assignment, I tend to spend about a couple of hours on it, and that will usually be it for the week unless we're working on time sensitive tasks or projects, when things can get more hectic! Translation in particular sets generous deadlines to complete our assignments (5 or 7 days depending on what we're working on), which gives us plenty of time to work on it even after RL work hours and factoring in other real life things. I also sometimes help the Tag Wrangling team with their Spanish tags, but that accounts for a couple of minutes of quick work overall, I'd say. So... tl;dr, about 2-3 hours, give or take, depending on what we have to do for the week! (Saku)
• It depends on the task, but an average of 2-3 hours per week suffices. (Nameless_ghoul_7)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• I usually find time for this during the weekend, considering my day job, so it's more of a weekend activity for me. And I prefer to do my translation in one go, and then go through it again afterwards in my free time post weekday work.
  It's definitely taught me to be good at time management, because you can't predict how your week is going to go at any point. (Ana)
• I use a time tracker to help me track the time I spend on OTW volunteer tasks, though that usually ends up working more in retrospective, where towards the end of each week I look at the hours I did to evaluate whether my current workload is adequate or whether I should delegate some of my work to other people (or if that's not an option, what I can deprioritise and put off until a bit later). I usually try to pick up some volunteer manager or chair trainee work every other day or so (unless I'm working on something that requires daily attention), just to avoid driving myself insane, because at the end of the day there's always more work I could be picking up still. (Rhine)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• My favourite part of volunteering at the OTW has been meeting several new people from around the world and seeing how our different POVs and experiences help with different understandings of life in different spaces and how independently of our differences, cultures and upbringing we're united by pure passion for what we do in and for fandom. Passion and compassion is often hidden or missing in "work spaces" and the OTW has been a positive space filled with positive learning experiences for me since the moment I started volunteering. It's an ever evolving space that takes every instance to be better. (CottonDuck)
• I was going to say "the people!" and that is mostly true (I've met some wonderful folks as part of Translation, and it's been a great time overall!), but if I sit down to really think about it, I think my favorite part is that it feels very gratifying to be giving back to a community that has done so much for fandom and fan spaces. I don't read a lot of fanfiction myself anymore, much as I do occasionally write it, but fandom is still very important to me and I've made a lot of good friends thanks to it, so it feels good to be able to contribute my time and skills and do something for a space that has done so much for me in turn. It's good work and good people all around, and it feels good to be part of it through my work for the OTW and AO3. (Saku)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• How chill the Translation volunteer managers are! If we need something, be it a hiatus, more time on a task, or clarification on some part of the text, we’re pretty much always granted them! And having a full week to do the task is very nice too, I originally thought it was going to be much more hectic. (kati)
• The sheer scope of work that is involved! There are so many volunteers, like, seriously, *so many*, and each of us have our own little roles to perform, thus helping everything run like clockwork. Having said all that, it's all strictly on a volunteer basis, which makes it probably the only “work place” I've seen where we all actually enjoy doing what we do. (Ana)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• Mostly the same as any normal day. Only that I set apart one or two hours most days to translate what's been assigned to me. (ttom)
• It varies a lot! As Translation volunteer managers, we handle several different tasks, depending on the time of year, and what projects are currently going on. For example, if I'm on duty for managing our email inbox and handing out tasks for the week—we alternate regularly—I'll set aside around 2-3 hours a day after work for that. When we are recruiting for new translators, I'll spend a chunk of time in a week holding interviews. There are also routine tasks that each of us rotates through, like preparing meetings or coordinating the upload of translated content to the OTW and AO3 websites. Independent of the task, I usually work through shorter items on my to-do list on weekday nights, and leave bigger tasks for the weekend. (Elin)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• Cats... I love cats and I have one. (Nameless_ghoul_7)
• Cats, giraffes, turtles, butterflies, and I can go on. As for cats, I love the Egyptian Maus that I currently have. (AnneHelena)
• My favourite animal is the betta! I loved aquaculture a lot!! My favourite breed of dog is the Indian Pariah Dog. (Aditi Mandavgane)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• I love reading fanfics and it's difficult to choose a favourite one. But among the recent fics I am reading, Bifurcation Sandbox by Gardenersnake8822 is a favourite. (Gloriosa)
• I love reading fanfic! It's definitely become a hobby, and has been the brunt of my reading as of late (because books are expensive < / 3). It's really difficult to pick a favorite work, since I've read so many amazing fics, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick "The Lowlander" by user foxymoxy! It's a BTS-Dragon Age crossover fic that takes the captor/prisoner trope and really dissects and does something interesting with it. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I re-read it all the time. (Somber)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• Yes! I have a writing account on some platforms like AO3 (ofc, duh), Twitter, Wattpad, and Medium. There are so many things I love about writing. But, I’m going to list 3 of them here:
  1. I can finally read my ship in tropes that I really wanted to read.
  2. The research process. I gained knowledge while doing my hobby. I learn how to write better, to portray the emotion better, to explore and experiment with my characters’ personality, discover interesting information, and so on.
  3. It helps me clear my mind. (Keane)
• I used to write original stories that never went anywhere and only started writing and publishing fanfiction in order to learn about AO3's user interface so that I could translate the tutorials more accurately. I like how freeing it feels not to have to worry too much about writing well enough for the general audience – it's just me and the five people (at most) who will ever see my silly little stories! (Slovenian Translation volunteer)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• I’m currently obsessed with F1: The Movie and Ocean's Eleven Trilogy. (Cassie)
• I've been in the Star Wars fandom for more than 20 years at this point, mostly on the Rogue One / Andor side nowadays. (Auré)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• My answer is yes, absolutely! Especially on AO3 in particular, because Mandarin Chinese authors have been facing immense opposition in the form of censorship and takedowns of both digital and physical publications of our works. The 227 incident that resulted in AO3 being banned in Mainland China was a major turning point in the involvement of AO3 within Chinese fandom communities, so every time I see a new Mandarin Chinese work on AO3 I'm always grateful that one more author has found a safe avenue to share their creations with the rest of fandom. (Chinese Translation volunteer)
• Absolutely! My first language is Portuguese and I always find it surprising when I see works on some fandoms that are definitely not popular in my country. It’s like an invisible thread suddenly connects me to someone I don’t know but share two things in common: a language and a love for a fandom that makes us want to spend time and effort creating something to share with that community. Funny enough, I usually like to read fanfics in the language my brain associates them with. For example, I don’t speak Korean, and I usually watch K-dramas with English subtitles to continue learning English, so that’s the language my brain associates that series with. When I see a work in Portuguese for that fandom, it’s like my horizons have suddenly been broadened. And if I get a chance to make an online friend because of it? Even better! (Amanda)
• I translate English to Marathi, and I don't see a lot of Marathi fanfic on the site, but when I stumble upon one, my heart soars and I feel on top of the world! (Aditi Mandavgane)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Translation volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Support committee is the first point of contact for users of the Archive of Our Own (AO3) when they encounter issues, have questions, or want to submit feedback or feature requests. Internally at the OTW, Support collaborates with other committees frequently, forwarding relevant questions and information to them, or consulting them on specific topics. Besides answering tickets, they also handle several other tasks, like maintaining the AO3 Known Issues page or assisting with testing bug fixes and new features on AO3.

We asked the Support committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Support Committee Specific Question

How is Fannish Next of Kin enacted after one of the parties involved in the agreement passes away?

Committee answer:
After a creator with a Fannish Next-of-Kin passes away, the FNOK can contact us and the fannish next-of-kin agreement is activated. We will update the email associated with the account to match the address provided by your next-of-kin. Your next-of-kin will then be able to reset the password through the normal "Forgot password" process. Control will then be fully transferred to your FNOK. Please see our Fannish Next-of-Kin FAQ for more information.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• I try to focus more on meeting the expected number of tickets over how many hours I spend working in a week but I think I do hit the ten hours per week that I signed up for. (Louie)
• Not super sure, but definitely a lot! I should probably try and time it at some point to check. I'd say over 15 hours, and that's me low-balling it. (Mille K)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• First, I catch up on our internal chat tool; then I work on any of my Support tickets that need something done; and then I beta tickets from other Support volunteers, interspersing it with a few tickets of my own. If there is something specific that needs to be done by a Chair Assistant or I'm working on a project, then that comes before betas. (Jennifer)
• Chaos! It really depends on the rest of my schedule for the day, and my energy levels. I prioritize urgent tasks as much as possible. (Kyrie)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• It sounds cliche I know, but helping others. And the volunteering environment is great, everyone's just so nice! :D (Wtchmn23)
• Answering user's tickets and mentoring saltlings (new Support volunteers) (Jennifer)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• Just that the number of tickets compared to the number of people (and the time they are able to spend on it) means that some tickets either slip through the cracks or have other reasons they're not responded to in a "timely" manner (PK)
• That despite the fact that we all lead busy lives, the amount of passion people put into doing all they reasonably can for the OTW, our projects, our users, and our fellow volunteers is staggering. Oh and looking at other Support volunteers answers... that we are not paid xD This is not our only job and we're definitely not available 24/7! (Kyrie)
• That unlike many other Support forms out there on the internet, there are real humans on the other side. I love helping people, but it’s hard to keep your spirits up when the folks you volunteer for just swear at you. (Paula)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• My standard daily routine is: check our ticketing system to see if any tickets have been proofread (betaed) by another volunteer, then check our internal chat tool for key messages and replies. After that, I'll go back to our ticketing system to work on open tickets and find some new ones. Before logging off, I ask senior salts to look up user information I need for my tickets on our internal chat tool for the next day. Newer folks don’t get access to that information right away. (ZZ)
• First, I do some backreading of the messages in channels, check out the odd tickets that were mentioned or documents (like the opportunity to submit answers for this Q&A). Then, I will do some tickets. I start by sending out all my tickets that have been betaed, and then I get my hands on new ones. I'd like to start from later tickets and there's usually a date of where I am now and I start from there. At last I try to do some betas. (Wtchmn23)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• Today, the ADHD says dragonflies. Butterflies and moths also commonly come up. (Sam)
• I like finches and birds in general though they also scare me a lot. (ChangYan)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• Very much so, although I'd have trouble picking one single "favorite". The one I've probably recommended the most is "Don't Go", which is in the She-Ra fandom, and was actually written by the creator under an alias. (PK)
• I think my fave is a work called Love Is (Not) A Battlefield, Or: Gay Panic! At the BB Lounge, which is a fantastic Ya Boy Kongming! work. It's just extremely cute and sweet, and funny! And very true to canon. (Mille K)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• Yes. I enjoy being creative and hearing from my readers that my work brings them joy (or sadness, sometimes you've got to write the angst) (Anren)
• I do dabble in writing, but translation is my true love and calling. Ann Goldstein says "translating can be like lining up unruly toddlers who have their own sense of order," and nothing excites me more than an intellectual puzzle of trying to pin down the exact right word. (Liv)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• Batman! It's funny cause I don't really know much about canon I just piece together canon from what I read. (killiane)
• Woo, I am in a lot now. Mainly F1 RPF, sometimes code geass, or quanzhigaoshou (Sorry I don't know the exact english name) My bookmarks show that I was really into Star Trek a couple years ago. (Ziting)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• This question is more challenging than the rest for me, because I have very complicated feelings about Vietnamese fandom on AO3 lol. I rarely read Vietnamese fic on AO3, but in 2024 while I was hyperactive in a Vietnamese survival show fandom, during the period of three months I:
  1. translated around 600-800 Vietnamese tags,
  2. published multiple fanworks in Vietnamese and English,
  3. created a whole fanblog (it now has more than 2 thousands followers lmao) to promote AO3 to Vietnamese fans,
  4. indirectly (allegedly) skyrocketed the amount of Vietnamese Support tickets as a result, oops 😂
  One year later, looking at the current Vietnamese fanworks stat on AO3, I'm quite fond of the whole journey despite the occasional hiccups I encountered. (Anh Pham)
• Years ago when I first discovered fandom, the English community was way bigger than the Chinese one, at least for my ship. So I hung out on Tumblr and AO3, read a lot of amazing and frankly life-changing fics, commented and made rec lists and made friends with people from all over the world. It was one of the best things that happened to me and I wouldn't change it for anything. In 2021, however, we had a renaissance in Chinese fandom. And let me tell you, being able to read and write and participate in fests in your native language is like an epiphany. Is this something y'all have been able to enjoy all the time? Jealousy does not begin to describe how I feel. No more fumbling, no more worrying, I can be as unhinged as I want. Eventually we became good friends in real life, too. We call each other nicknames and meet up several times a year. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare to this. (Liv)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Support volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

On December 5, people all over the world observed International Volunteer Day (IVD) to acknowledge the work of volunteer workers everywhere, and their efforts, dedication, and passion. Since its conception in 1985, IVD has invited us to recognize the ways in which volunteers contribute to communities and are at the forefront of many people-led initiatives.

Here at the Organisation of Transformative Works (OTW) we depend entirely on that drive, as our organization is 100% volunteer-run! Our volunteers handle our strategic planning, administration, infrastructure, development, any day-to-day tasks required in running a non-profit organization, and so on. Volunteers aren't just the backbone of the OTW, they are its whole skeleton!

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of an OTW volunteer looks like? The answer is: It's hard to say! Depending on where in the OTW they are active, their tasks and responsibilities can look very different from those of the next volunteer. Volunteers also work a very wide range of weekly hours, depending on their position(s) and availability: anything from one hour to over twenty hours a week!

For this IVD, we wanted to give you a chance to get to know those volunteers behind the scenes of the OTW and its projects. That is why we sent out a call across our social media for you to send us your most burning questions.

Here are some of those questions with answers from our volunteers!

Questions for Specific Committees

• Question for the Policy & Abuse committee:
  How often do you deal with people who want to censor something on AO3? Is it a common complaint?
  Committee Answer:
  AO3 frequently receives complaints about "offensive content", which includes suggesting that we should remove or censor content that is allowed on AO3. In the past five years, complaints about offensive content have consistently been one of the top three types of Policy & Abuse tickets, albeit not the largest. The Policy & Abuse committee regularly publishes a breakdown of the previous year's tickets, which for 2024 can be found here. Information about 2025's tickets will be available in a newsletter early next year.
• Question for the Volunteers & Recruiting committee:
  What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who'd love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.
  Committee answer:
  The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, so for those roles it mostly depends on being the "type" for the role. For us in VolCom (Volunteers & Recruiting Committee), it's more of the latter than the former; for example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks from to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions across Committees

• How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?
  For myself on Systems, it varies. I usually spend at least an hour a day between checking in on alerts, tickets, and responding to any inquiries from other committees internally. It usually ends up being more, as some of those requests are more involved than others. Any time there's an outage or issue, the number of hours usually goes much higher. (FrostTheFox, Systems committee chair)
• How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?
  What I do each day varies based on what events are coming up for Board and the OTW! We may be working on research projects, preparing for a public Board meeting, replying to questions from the public, or many other things. The variety is a huge part of why I enjoy what I do honestly. I wouldn't enjoy it as much if it was the same every day. Volunteering for the OTW is nice because by and large, you get to pick what ours and schedule you'd like to have. I personally try and block out sections of my time to work on OTW-related tasks and do occasional checking in outside of this time. (therealmorticia, Board Assistants Team committee chair)
• What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?
  Assisting AO3 users, most notably Vietnamese and Chinese users, in my capacity as Support volunteer. Some weeks when the stress from my other OTW roles catches up to me, doing Support work and answering Support tickets remind me of the reason why I started this whole endeavour in the first place: I want to give back to fandom and help AO3 users navigate the Archive a little bit easier. (Anh Pham, Support committee)
• What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?
  Sometimes the things you think will be simplest are the hardest, and vice versa. Personally, I've had to nix features I really wanted myself because they just wouldn't be practical given our volume of users and current resources. (Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee volunteer)
• What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?
  I volunteer as an Open Doors Administrative Volunteer and as an Open Doors Chair Assistant. Both are project management-oriented roles: I help manage archive imports and the committee itself! I start my volunteering time by checking on the status of my archives, answering questions as they arise, making sure archive import tasks are progressing along - it's always something different! I also work on various projects for committee management, such as documenting workflows and new procedures or running weekly working meetings. (Kayla, Open Doors committee)
• What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?
  Aside from cats & dogs, my favorite animal is a sloth. They’re mood and they sound really funny (look it up on youtube!). Favorite dog breed is airedale terrier, because my boyfriend has one and she’s hilarious. She lives with his mom now that he’s studying/working in my city, and I’ve only seen her a few times, so I’m convinced she thinks I’m some sort of weird extension of my bf that just randomly appears every 6 months or so. (kati, Translation committee)
• Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?
  I do! Finding a favorite was the hardest thing I've ever done and I had to dig through my bookmarks, anything by author hanville would make the cut, to be honest, but my absolute favorite is mosaic broken hearts with this is me trying as a really, really close second. (Camila Lopez, Tag Wrangling committee)
• Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?
  I write so many fics. @.@ It's a lot of fun to explore favourite characters in new ways, and to get to expand the worlds in which they live. I'm also cursed to have very few fandoms in which my favourite characters or ships have a lot of content, so I end up having to make it all myself. (Fun fact: I actually found my partner due to a rare pair!) (C, AO3 Documentation committee)
• What fandoms are you (currently) in?
  Well, Heated Rivalry obviously. I'm also really into Fallout, The Pitt, and Formula 1 RPF. (I'm not even a sports person. I don't know how I ended up in sports RPF, yet here I am.) (Whatsit, Policy & Abuse committee)
• Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue? I grew up in German fandom, and I owe some German fandom writers a lot when it comes to my own existence in fandom. I very much stay away from it now lmao. I can't handle anything remotely smutty written in German, and some peculiarities of fanfiction that I can tolerate in English are a dealbreaker in German, as well as grammar and punctuation. I do love that it exists - fanfiction and fandom in general is an amazing space that should not be limited by the language one speaks. (corr, Volunteers & Recruiting committee)

(For more answers from our volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll post additional replies to each question!)

We are exceedingly grateful to all volunteers who have taken time out of their day to compose answers, and for the amazing work they do at the OTW on a daily basis! They are the lifeblood of the OTW, AO3, and our other projects!

If you too want to become part of the OTW and help out as a volunteer, keep an eye on our recruitment posts! And if you're afraid of missing a post, no worries: You can subscribe to our monthly OTW News by Email service for a neat summary of what's currently happening at the OTW!

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Start the party, the AO3 is turning 15 today! This year has been full of exciting new milestones. Our total number of users has passed 7.5 million, with the number of works on the archive surpassing 13.8 million! (with over 1.6 million of them written in languages other than English)

To celebrate AO3’s birthday, we prepared two fandom-related activities: a trivia game and a prompt challenge. You can find further details below!

Trivia Game!
How much do you know about AO3, beyond where to find your favorite works? About its history, infrastructure, or functionalities? Find out by participating in our AO3 trivia game. Who knows – you might win a cool prize!

For the next 15 days starting today, we will post a new trivia question every day (in this post and on our socials), along with a link to a Google form where you can submit your answer. We will check your submissions at the end of the 15 days, and randomly draw names from the highest scorers; they will receive AO3 merch as a prize!

• Day 1 - How many members does AO3 have (on the day of posting)? Submit your answer here!
• Day 2 - How old is the OTW, the parent organization behind AO3? Submit your answer here!
• Day 3 - What is the title of the fanwork, which currently has the most kudos on AO3? Submit your answer here!
• Day 4 - What is the most expensive donation reward for OTW donations? Submit your answer here!
• Day 5 - In what year was AO3 founded and who first proposed the idea for it? Submit your answer here!
• Day 6 - Which fanwork was bookmarked most by people last year (2023)? Submit your answer here!
• Day 7 - What are our two definitions of the word kudos? Submit your answer here!
• Day 8 - When did AO3 reach 10 million works posted on the site? Submit your answer here!
• Day 9 - The OTW (Organization for Transformative Works) is the volunteer-run parent organization behind AO3. How many volunteers does it have? Submit your answer here!
• Day 10 - What does the term "conceptual drift" mean in the context of metatags? Submit your answer here!
• Day 11 - What are three goals of the OTW Fanhackers Project? Submit your answer here!
• Day 12 - When did AO3 pass 10 million members on the site? Submit your answer here!
• Day 13 - AO3 is one of OTW’s many projects, along with Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), a peer-reviewed journal on fanworks and practices. When does TWC publish its annual general issue? Submit your answer here!
• Day 14 - What was the first major donation brokered by the OTW Open Doors project? Submit your answer here!
• Day 15 - What is the maximum number of tags an author can add to their work? Submit your answer here!

Prompts!
As a fun challenge for fanwork creators, the AO3 Prompt game will run for 15 days alongside the trivia game. Each day, a new prompt will be posted on our socials and to the collection! Don’t worry about missing one: you can choose prompts as inspiration strikes, using as few or as many as you like. When you’re done writing, you can add your work(s) to our AO3 anniversary collection!

So make sure to keep an eye on our social media channels, where we will post every day!

Thank you for celebrating 15 years of AO3 with us!

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.

Another International Fanworks Day has gone by and once again, we at the Organization for Transformative Works are grateful for the enthusiasm and participation of our visitors. IFD is all about celebrating the creativity of the fandom community and it was on full display this year!

The theme for #IFD2022 was Fandom Classics, and we encouraged you to post remixes of or tributes to classic fanworks as well as to to recommend your favorite fandom classics in our Feedback Fest. We're blown away by the number of recommendations we received: easily enough fanworks to keep us busy until IFD 2023.

We'd also like to thank everybody who participated in our chatroom games marathon, which ran from 21.00 UTC on February 14 until 03.00 UTC on February 16. Once again, we hosted the games on our dedicated Discord server and our volunteer moderators were entertained, amused, and impressed by the cheerful enthusiasm of everybody who participated (including the very many people who chose to play games instead of sleeping - we're sorry!). As usual, the fandom songs produced in the Lyrics Round Robin game rounds can be found at our dedicated IFD AO3 account.

If you didn't manage to participate in any of the above events, don't worry: the Fanlore IFD challenge will be running until Sunday, February 20th, with a different editing challenge each day. It's suitable for new and experienced editors alike, so check it out and join in!