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I. 2024 ELECTION FINALIZED
Elections successfully closed the 2024 OTW Board Director election! Congratulations to the new Directors: Erica Frank and Rachel Linton. Erica and Rachel will be replacing Kari and Michelle, who have both reached the end of their Board terms.
Many committees collaborated throughout the election process:
Communications helped coordinate election-related news posts, Translation made election content available in 26 languages,
Development & Membership coordinated with OTW members and helped distribute ballots!
Elections would like to thank all the candidates who ran, the volunteers from across the OTW who assisted the Elections Committee in their work, and everyone who engaged with the election, either by asking questions or turning out to vote.
Statistics from this year’s election were made available on August 29: out of 14,959 eligible votes, 3,415 cast a ballot, representing 22.8% of potential voters.
II. TO SEE IN SEPTEMBER
Fanlore’s themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Fanlore’s next editing challenge, Stub September, will have a fantasy adventure theme and run from September 15-29. Everyone is encouraged to participate! Keep an eye on their Twitter/X and Tumblr for announcements about the upcoming challenge.
Transformative Works and Cultures will publish their annual general issue on September 15th. They also recently announced a call for papers for an upcoming special issue on Gaming Fandom!
III. AT THE AO3
Accessibility, Design & Technology tested and released the update to Sentry, their new service for monitoring Archive performance and errors. That release also included some fixes for an annoying tag set nomination bug, as a treat. Also in August, Systems dealt with an issue with one of their firewalls which impacted the Archive. They believe the issue was identified, which should prevent this type of problem from having such an impact in the future.
AO3 Documentation has made minor changes to some of their live documentation based on cross-committee feedback.
Open Doors continues work across various activities, and their Import Assistants are almost done importing The 9 Forum! They have also announced the import of Sentinel Angst, a Yahoo Group belonging to The Sentinel fandom, set to begin after October.
In July, Policy & Abuse received 2,411 tickets, while Support received 2,171 tickets. They continue to work on keeping up with responding to users’ questions and reports!
In August, Tag Wrangling welcomed their newest group of volunteers. Tag wranglers continue to work hard to keep up with the growth of the archive – in July, they wrangled more than 460,000 tags or over 1,100 tags per wrangler!
IV. ELSEWHERE AT OTW
Communications and Legal have been collaborating on News Posts regarding upcoming legislative proposals in the US and Canada. While these bills don't directly affect AO3, they would change online fandom experiences if passed, and the OTW is committed to keeping fans informed about legislative developments.
Translation has been busy translating Elections and Open Doors announcements. Recruitment for new translators has just started, and the committee hopes to welcome new translators soon!
Development and Membership arranged for the OTW's attendance at DEFCON in Las Vegas, Nevada (August 8-11) and FanExpo Chicago (August 16-18).
V. GOVERNANCE
Board and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) participated in various projects and worked on several different policies. They are in the process of preparing for Board turnover as the 2024 Election results were released, and they are planning for their next public meeting on the Board Discord in late September/early October.
Board and BAT, in collaboration with Finance, Legal, and the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee, have finalized the OTW Whistleblower Protection Policy and are now working on developing FAQs for the policy. They also are working on Procurement Policy related documents, such as a Request for Proposal template. Moreover, Board started initial steps toward Paid Staff Transition Lead Strategic Planning goal -- further updates will be shared later.
BAT has also focused on continuing their current projects, such as helping oversee the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap, CSAM Protection Policy, working on OTW website updates, and helping Board with several other projects.
Strategic Planning finished drafts of the 1-year assessment of the Strategic Plan to review with the Board for OTW and public-facing announcements. They also began compiling internal sustainability plans from all committees as part of the internal sustainability goal.
VI. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees in August: Translation and Fanlore.
From July 23 to August 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 162 new requests, and completed 152, leaving them with 71 open requests. As of August 23, 2024, the OTW has 930 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Alicia Zhao, Anastasija Vasilevska, Antoinette, Blue Shadow, Carrot, CorgiBlu, Crepe, CuriousDuck, cutesytootsie, Echo H, Eirvyan, Emmy, Erica L., Eve T., Hayden, Hokori, Jayzee, Jessio, Kitchel, Koschei, laleia, LezSTH, Linwelin, Lizyrd, lostdandelion, LPCollins, Lysippe, mwritesff, Oona, pawzzles, Pipdip, redpanda, Rian, ryuuseirune, Saint Corvus, Sanity, Sel, sewichii, starpoked, Stars, Tamyra, tilly, Umdlye, viol, and 1 other Tag Wrangler
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Production Manager
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Mitzi, Ducky, Ankita, Anishi, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: Amy Lowell
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Administrative Volunteer and 1 Import Assistant
Departing Support Volunteers: Karlo (Support Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: ElleC, Kaesa, marie belle, MickyRC, Mossflower, Nexidava, and 13 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: nire, Decembre, and 6 other Translators
For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.
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.