Archive of Our Own ^beta

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Mille K, who volunteers in the Support Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

So, as the blurb said, I'm a volunteer for the OTW’s Support branch, which I've been doing since May 2024! I'm sure other Support volunteers have explained this far more eloquently in the past, but we basically help users with a wide variety of things. If you want to ask how to change your password, we're the people to ask. If you run into some kind of error, shoot us a message. If a work has been tagged with the wrong language, that's also us! Basically, we help the OTW-machine run smoothly.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
Personally, that depends from week to week! We don't send out responses to users until another volunteer has read it over and given it the go-ahead (known as betaing), so some weeks I get a lot of my own tickets done, other weeks I prefer focusing on betaing for others! I like to work while I'm drinking something and listening to music, just to make it a bit more cozy. (My music of choice is Citypop and soundtracks to anime and games!)

What made you decide to volunteer?
To put it very simply, AO3/the OTW has done so much for me, and I wanted to give back. It's been amazing for my personal growth to have a place to meet like-minded people, to post my works to, to read works that have moved me in some form… and then to get to help it run is an amazing experience!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
Probably having to learn so many new things, like how to use all of our tools, or all of the internal phrasing. It's definitely been challenging to pick all of that up, but it's also been super fun, and everyone else has been incredible so far!

What fannish things do you like to do?
I mainly read and write fanfic! I also enjoy art immensely, although I can't for the life of me make it myself. I also participate in online events from time to time, such as bangs, fests, exchanges, and online cons!

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Jennifer D2, who volunteers on our Support committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I have two volunteer hats at OTW! I am a Support Volunteer for AO3, and I also spend a little time as an Import Assistant for Open Doors. I’ll be talking about my Support role, because that’s where I spend most of my volunteer time.

As you probably know, AO3, or Archive of Our Own, is the fanwork Archive that OTW runs. Sometimes, when you’re using AO3, you might run into a problem! That’s where Support comes in. You can contact us using the link at the bottom of any AO3 page. No question too small! Users write in with questions about getting accounts or even just getting access to the Archive, or maybe a creator is struggling with posting their work. Or a dreaded error message comes up. We get all kinds of questions.

I love doing Support work. I mean I really love it. I get to talk to people about AO3, and hopefully I get to help people! What’s not to love? I work with a fantastic team and two really great Chairs (and one great retired Chair). I’m blown away by the professionalism, enthusiasm, and deep knowledge of the Archive that my teammates bring to their work. We do all this in our free time, so we must love it!

If you are having problems with your experience at the Archive, we want you to write in; we’d like to try to help. The flip side of that is that we are a mighty but rather small team, so if you write to us, please have patience. We will get to your ticket; it just might take a little while.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

I work 2-3 hours on Support every day (because it’s just so much fun I don’t want to take any time off!). First I catch up on our group chat, to see what issues might be happening or what new things people might have solved. Then I check out my “current claimed tickets” pile to see if anyone has responded to me. Then I alternate between taking new tickets and “beta”ing, or editing, tickets other Support volunteers have answered. That’s right—almost none of our answers go out without a second set of eyes looking them over! We want to be really sure we got it right.

My personal favorite is answering non-English tickets. We work closely with the fabulous Translation committee to craft the right answers in users’ first languages. Sometimes I also spend a little time working on some of the computer software tools we use in Support.

One thing that I have to mention, that I love, about working at OTW is how willing people are to teach each other how to do things without mocking them for not already knowing. It’s a continuation of AO3’s origins, where people taught themselves how to build an archive in response to LiveJournal’s strikethrough and other fanwork losses.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I’d been a devout reader on AO3 for years, and I had some free time, so when the call went out for Support volunteers I thought, hey, let’s see if I get in! One of the best decisions I ever made. I’m so grateful to the leaders for taking a chance on me.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

It’s a technical challenge: I still don’t have the hang of challenges and prompt memes! I’m learning, but when those tickets come up, I confess I often leave them to others who are much better versed in those useful but tricky features that the Archive provides. Give me another five years, and I’ll be an expert!

What fannish things do you like to do?

I haven’t been that active in fandom since the pandemic hit. I used to go to science fiction conventions fairly often, and once I got to go to a local slash con, which was a revelation!

I play on Tumblr every day where I get to see others in my fandoms. I have, in the past, written for my fandoms, but the writing bug has eluded me for a few years. Never say never, though! I’m sure I’ll get back into writing (almost exclusively slash—does that term date me? I’m fandom old!) sooner or later.

I can’t draw worth a hoot, but I really enjoy others’ art. I’ve also been known to record a podfic here or there. And of course I read AO3 every day.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with petricores, who works as a Support volunteer.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I volunteer with the AO3 Support Committee, which is the team responsible for handling feedback and requests for technical assistance from AO3 users. In a nutshell, we answer a lot of questions and requests sent by users from all over the world.

Support work is highly collaborative work; we don’t have all the answers all the time, so we regularly rely on the expertise and information supplied by our coders, sysadmins, tag wranglers, and translators, to name a few.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Out of an abundance of superstitious caution, I will refrain from characterizing a “typical” week – you just never know! Our queue of Support inquiries can go from perfectly ordinary with your run-of-the-mill “I can’t log in” tickets, to a hundred reports of the same error flooding in at once (like the DDoS attack from July). Waking up and checking our volunteering tools to find such incidents is like running towards the tree on Christmas morning to check your presents, but a bit less joyous.

Special occasions aside, I typically spend a few hours per week, usually on evenings or weekends, claiming Support requests and drafting replies to them. I also beta and provide feedback on email replies drafted by other Support volunteers, and help the Accessibility, Design & Technology Committee (AD&T) with testing fixes or improvements to the Archive’s features.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I applied for the role and had my interview in spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had shut everything down overnight. I was very lucky that the pandemic lockdown led to me having a lot of leisurely time on my hands, and as a result I was spending more time on reading/writing fics. When I saw the volunteer position posting, I figured why not apply and try it out? It’s funny, even though I created my AO3 account in 2013, I did not learn what the Statistics page is until I started training as a Support volunteer.

As luck would have it, I absolutely love what I do in Support. It has been a very rewarding experience. I could not have anticipated the increased amount of traffic and popularity that the Archive experienced from 2020 onwards, particularly among users from non-Anglophone countries. Even after 3 years I still think it’s so exciting and cool that I can help both English-speaking users and users who share my mother tongue to gain more out of their experience using the Archive as a bilingual person.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Due to the nature of the Archive and OTW’s operations, most of our activities must take place via text-based communications. I find the constraints of text-based communication to be the biggest challenge both when troubleshooting issues with AO3 users and when collaborating with other OTW volunteers.

I lean on my fellow Support volunteers heavily for beta reading and/or giving me suggestions on making my drafted reply easier to read and follow (especially if I need to give instructions to the user on what troubleshooting steps to try), especially since they are likely confused or frustrated already.

In a similar vein, learning people’s different communication styles within the OTW is also a key part of learning how to do this job well. As I said earlier, there is a lot of collaboration that goes into what Support does; as a volunteer, I’ve definitely had to train myself to get better at observing other volunteers’ communication style and adapting my own communication, and I do my best to communicate effectively to the specific audience via text.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I read, I write, I browse, I kudos, I squee, I comment, I re-read. I re-read stuff a lot.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Sammie Louise, who volunteers as an AO3 Documentation chair and Support volunteer.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

My current volunteer roles are chair of the AO3 Documentation Committee and AO3 Support Committee volunteer. So what I do primarily is help people understand how to use the AO3 site and its features directly through my support work and indirectly through writing and editing our FAQs and help documentation.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

As a committee chair, a lot of what I do on a weekly basis is background admin type work. I meet with the other chairs every week where we discuss any short or long term projects and what we need to be doing to move those forward. I also review the documents that our volunteer editors have been working on and sometimes meet with the editors directly to address any questions. Occasionally, I have the time to work on a document myself. ;)

In AO3 Support, I unfortunately rarely have the time to take user enquiries directly, but I do spend some time helping to troubleshoot an issue or check responses other Support staff have drafted. It's important we do these checks to make sure the answers we're sending are accurate, and fully answer the person's questions.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I've been a volunteer with the OTW since April 2014. I honestly can't remember what prompted me to volunteer. I think I was invested in a particular fandom at the time, and that led me to AO3. I had spare time on my hands and wanted to help out. I joined AO3 Documentation then, and have since also worked with OTW Translation, AO3 Policy and Abuse, and now AO3 Support.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Hmmmmm. That's a difficult question. I guess, over such a long period of time, maintaining my motivation can sometimes be a challenge. There are a number of things that remind me why I'm here though—sometimes we'll get a message through Support that lets us know our FAQs and Tutorials have been helpful to someone, and that's motivating. (Seriously, let us know what's helped you out, you can contact us via the Technical Support and Feedback form in the footer.) Also, I'm working with a phenomenal group of people who I genuinely like, so that also helps keep me on track.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I read on AO3 a LOT. Like, an unreasonable amount of fan fiction reading is going on in my life LOL. I dabbled in writing many years ago, and that was fun and felt like a huge accomplishment. But I seem to have run out of stories to tell, so I mostly enjoy the stories others have shared. There's so much writing talent in fandom, it's inspiring.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

As we continue to work on better balancing the responsibilities of our Support and Policy & Abuse committees, we are shifting two further types of issues from Policy & Abuse to Support's mandate:

Fannish Next-of-Kin

This is an option we offer that allows a designated person to manage your account if you die or become incapacitated. To learn more about the Fannish Next-of-Kin program, you can read our TOS FAQ on the subject. Please note that if you have a currently-in-process Fannish Next-of-Kin request, our Policy & Abuse team will complete the ones that they have already received.

Going forward, if you wish to set up a Fannish Next-of-Kin, or need to change or activate one currently in place, please contact Support.

Duplicate works

Sometimes, due to a glitch or error, a work may be posted multiple times. This can be reported to our Support team, who will investigate and take down exact duplicates. Please note that works that contain different content (such as a work that is an edited or rewritten version of another work) will not be considered exact duplicates.

If you wish to report works that are exact duplicates of one another, please include links to both or all of the works in question in your report to our Support team. We hope these changes will be helpful by allowing our Policy and Abuse team members to devote more of their time and energy to other issues!

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with V Snow, who volunteers on our Support Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I volunteer for AO3 Support. We are the team users can contact if they are having technical issues with the Archive. We deal with a very wide range of issues, but a lot of it is helping users when they are having a hard time activating accounts, changing passwords, etc. Our work helps users get back to using the site when they have a problem. This fits in with the OTW’s goals because, well, without Support a lot of users wouldn’t be able to access the Archive at all.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

We have no set schedule or required workload in Support so it varies. Mostly it's keeping an eye on the reports coming in and grabbing ones I can answer. When I have some spare minutes I will write responses and approve others' responses so they can be sent.

One of the things I appreciate about Support is that there is a lot of flexibility in the workload. If I’m feeling especially motivated I can grab a more complicated ticket, which may require internal consultation and multiple back and forths with the user. But if I am not up to a lot of work, I can pick out some easier tickets and/or beta other responses.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I was trying and failing to find work at the time and people kept telling me to volunteer to add to my resume. Nowhere in person worked for my situation or wanted my help. I'd been a fan and user of the Archive for years and the work Support does interested me. So when Support applications opened up, I figured why not!

Of course, I ended up getting a job before I even settled in with Support or had a chance to put this on my resume. But it wasn’t even a question of continuing to volunteer because I realised how much I enjoyed it.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Probably the technical aspects. Because Support deals with bug reports we often work with the Accessibility, Design & Technology Committee (AD&T) to discuss reports. My coding knowledge is minimal and a lot of the technical details go over my head, but just through osmosis I have learned a whole bunch about how the site works from a technical perspective.

The other main challenge was the sheer amount of knowledge. Knowledge of how the site works (and the issues people encounter) was one thing, but also learning how the organization works and who to ask for what was also a challenge. The OTW is a huge and complicated place with a long history. It took a bit to figure it all out and start to feel like I belong.

With all these challenges I am glad I took the time to get through them, as the work is all the more rewarding now.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I would say my main fannish activity is beta reading/editing for various fandoms. I do also do some writing myself, but betaing is what I love. I participate in and help run a variety of Big Bangs. This brings me a lot of joy, to get to plan and organize things and watch the fandom come together to create content. Of course, I also read fic and spend inordinate amounts of time discussing headcanons with my friends.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.

In order to better balance the workloads of our Support and Policy & Abuse committees, we are making some changes to who is responsible for which kinds of requests.

Policy & Abuse will continue to address Terms of Service violations, and Support will continue to answer questions on how to use the site and address bug reports, as always. But there are some cases which Policy & Abuse have previously been handling, and which will now be handled by Support. These are:

• Loss of access to an account (for example, if you no longer remember or have access to the email address you used to set up your account in order to receive a password reset)
• Questions and problems concerning orphaned works
• Works labeled with an incorrect language

If you need to report one of these issues, please contact Support. If you direct a report of any kind to the wrong department, it's okay! We'll either transfer the report directly, or ask you to resubmit it to the correct team.

We hope these changes will be helpful by allowing our Policy & Abuse team members to devote more of their time and energy to other issues!

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.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Paula, who volunteers as a staffer in AO3's Support Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I’m Support Staff and a tag wrangler. As a Tag Wrangler, I wrangle tags. I make sure you can find your MPREG and Fluff. We’ve had plenty of awesome tag wranglers explain it better than I ever could so, I’ll skip to my other role. As Support staff, I help people who use the site to…well...use the site LOL. When you contact Support about not being able to get your account set up, that’s me. When your work doesn’t post with the correct date or is acting otherwise wonky? I’m your girl.

We also do quite a bit of bug hunting. When someone reports a weird site behavior we’re on the job. We help our Accessibility, Design, & Technology Committee figure out if it’s a problem with the site, a browser issue, or just a one-time gremlin we can’t track down. We also look for trends in what’s being reported so that we can let the people who need to know that there’s a problem, know that, well, there’s a problem.

I’ve volunteered with the Support Committee for two years now. It’s fascinating to see the issues and feedback ebb and flow over time. What was once an immediate "in your face" issue two years ago isn’t anymore, and new issues pop up that we never could have dreamed of then. We also work with the Translation Committee to translate incoming tickets and translate our response. They’ve often been able to add a cultural context to a ticket that helps immensely in answering the question or figuring out what’s going on. (Love my translation peeps!)

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

The nice thing about Support is that while it is a decent chunk of work, it’s the kind of work you can do in between other things. I usually wake up in the morning and briefly browse the mobile app for the ticket tracking program we use. (Rather than, you know, rolling out of bed to get ready for work… this is more fun.) Sometimes I’ll claim tickets right there, especially if it’s something for which I can tell right away what the issue is.

When I have time at work or grad school, I’ll check again and see what’s coming in (or maybe tag wrangle a bit on my phone). The Support staff also works quite collaboratively on tickets. Sometimes I’ll assist another Support staffer to troubleshoot a quirky issue. I’ll also "beta" a few tickets during the day as well. (That’s exactly what it sounds like -- proofreading and double-checking the solutions on another staffer’s tickets).

Later in the evening, or even the next day, I’ll go through the tickets I’ve assigned myself and write responses. I’ll send tickets to the Translation Committee to check for meaning, or translate an answer into a user's language. I’ll talk to the appropriate committee to get the information I need to solve a problem. Sometimes I’ll edit our internal documentation to account for things like Gmail updating their interface or a new iOS upgrade. That way we can make sure we’re giving people the correct instructions to fix things like caching issues or email being sent to spam.

There are days when real life is just too busy, so at most I can help other Staffers with solutions or check in with another committee.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I see volunteering for the OTW as my contribution to fandom. I’ve never been much of a writer. I’m more a voracious fic reader and fandom nerd. I used to roleplay on Livejournal and Dreamwidth back in the day. I started as a Tag Wrangler. I don’t know why that role appealed to me but it just seemed like FUN.

Later, as I got to know the people involved and just what happens behind the scenes, I realized I’d really like Support. I’ve always been a tech nerd. I work at a computer lab for my day job. Even before I was Support, I found myself helping other volunteers with their tech issues. I liked the people involved and it seemed like a natural fit.

What's the most fun thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?

There are two things I really love about volunteering for the OTW. The first is the community. This is an amazing group of people. I’ve made real-life friends and had meetups with volunteers offline. I took an international study trip for grad school and there were OTW people half a world away to meet with! We joke that you can go anywhere in the world and find a person from the OTW that you’d be able to have coffee with (if not crash on their floor).

Because we’re so international I’ve learned so much about other cultures and countries just by hanging around and squeeing about Robert Downey Jr. or Assassins Creed or even sharing pictures of our cats because cats are liquid and adorable and bleps and mlems!!! The support the OTW volunteer community gives each other through thick and thin is nothing short of amazing...especially lately.

The other thing is the feeling you get from being a part of something bigger than yourself. I’m continually amazed that we do what we do. It’s incredible to see something you’ve worked so hard on flourish. To see that fix for a bug you discovered, and helped test, go live. To know that your work (even when it drives you absolutely insane) is helping fannish communities all over the world…it’s a bit of a rush.

What fannish things do you like to do?

This is where I confess I’m a huge Robert Downey Jr. fangirl. So, stare lovingly into his eyes? Read Endgame fix-it fics?

Ok, I’m mostly joking there. As I’m not much of a writer I read a ton of fic. I joined fandom way back in the day on Usenet! I’ll skim Tumblr or go to my favorite fic finder community and see if I like something. Why a fic finding community? My theory on that is, if it was good enough to stick in someone’s mind so that they want to read it again? Chances are it’s a good fic!

Lately, my fandom has mostly been existing with other fans! Doing meetups or talking meta...once conventions resume I’m looking forward to getting into that aspect of fandom!

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in comments although, if it's a question about AO3 you need help with, please use the Support form so that our volunteers can work together in addressing your problem. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

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.