Organization for Transformative Works News

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog

Welcome to the first October issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org.

–femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Edited Financial blurb at committee's request to correct accountant's name.

(mirrored from an original post on the OTW news blog)

We are working to address a problem some users have experienced with getting 404 errors to pages which clearly exist (like blog links from the RSS feed, or menu items.) The temporary solution is to choose a language from the language switcher (even if it's English) and reload the page.

We are testing a solution now, but please, feel free to report any errors you experience. It is particularly helpful if you let us know:

the page you were on before you got the 404 error

the page you were trying to access when you got the 404 error

whether you were logged in to the website or not

whether you had selected a language through the language switcher

whether you have set preferred languages in your browser, and, if so, which languages

your browser and operating system (including version numbers)

Want a first look at the Archive Of Our Own? Come browse!

While we're still very much a work in progress, with many of our most exciting features still in development, you can now go to http://archiveofourown.org and browse for stories!!

(Please note that this early version of the archive only works/looks right with the Firefox browser.)

Yay! How do I get an account?

Account creation is coming soon! We've started with OTW staffers and testers because they couldn't get too mad at us if everything broke. :D Now with this read-only launch, we are hopefully going to get some information about how the archive performs with lots of people reading. Once we see our performance results (and fix or speed up the slowest things), we will start up an invite system where archive admins and current users can send out a small number of invite codes.

(This invite system is not intended to exclude anyone, it's just to let us control how many new accounts we get during these early beta stages. Once the archive is out of beta, anyone will be able to create a new account at any time.)

Remember, we're totally still a work in progress, and things may break, change suddenly, or not perform as expected. Plus many of our coolest features--like subscriptions and communities--are yet to come! So when you get a beta account, please do be prepared for occasional bugs!

Oh my god, it looks totally broken on my screen!

Did we mention it was optimized for Firefox?? The Archive is currently optimized for FIREFOX USERS ONLY! Eventually, the Archive will work with most browsers, including the dreaded IE (boo, hiss!) but that's going to be some of the last coding we do; for now, it's Firefox only. However, Firefox is an awesome browser that you should totally be using anyway, and it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and can be downloaded here.

What features are currently available for users with accounts?

A user with an account can set up a profile, add different pseudonyms, upload new stories and port over stories from existing URLs. They can make some stories visible only to other users. They can bookmark stories and create rec lists.

Wait! Where is feature x? Where is feature y? You said--!

We're working on it, we swear! This Beta version is functional, but does not yet have all the features that the Archive will eventually have. In particular, the subscription feature (coming soon!) is likely to change how you use the archive; users will be able to subscribe to particular tags, meaning particular authors, fandoms, kinds of stories, etc. But for now, you can use full-text search or browse from our "people" page or our "works" page, you can browse and filter search results with tags, and sort by spiffy things like wordcount.

We will eventually also offer a more customizable experience vis a vis fonts and interface displays; for now, these things are standard. Icons will be coming too; for now, you'll see only placeholders.

That being said, we really want user feedback and opinions on what we've got in place so far. What works for you? What doesn’t work so well? Does everything work as expected? We can’t promise to change/fix everything immediately, and we won’t be able to please everyone, but as the coders keep coding, we want to get some feedback from real users. Please write to us and tell us about your experience searching, browsing, and reading.

There is a feedback form on the site linked on every page in the footer; please talk to us! Exact descriptions of problems are helpful; screenshots are awesome.

Hey, is there anything in particular I can help you with?

Glad you asked!

Giving us feedback and reporting the inevitable bugs will be a huge help all on its own. If you find yourself giving a lot, and you'd be interested in getting more involved, we can always use more volunteers for our awesome team of official testers, who go over user feedback and pass bugs up to the coding team, and who check to make sure the bugs are actually fixed.

And if you are a coder or play one on TV or even just would like to someday play one on TV, you can also contribute to the archive code! We are always looking for volunteers, so if you find a bug and feel like helping to fix it yourself, please get in touch with us through volunteers@transformativeworks.org.

If you are into web design or graphics, we're currently working on our browsing and searching interfaces extensively, trying to come up with the best way to cram in as much information as possible about a story or a user or a bookmark, while keeping results compact (so we can fit a lot on a screen), and making it all accessible for users with disabilities or limited computer setups. We would really really love any sketches and design proposals you might come up with -- please send them to us at feedback@archiveofourown.org!

And as our interfaces firm up, we will also be needing translation volunteers to help us actually put in the translations (we've got the infrastructure built for translation, as you'll see on the site, but haven't actually been adding translations yet while everything has been changing so fast). If you'd be able to help, please contact us through volunteers@transformativeworks.org and let us know what languages you can help with!

Thanks so much for checking out the archive, and in conclusion, YAY! \o/

-Brought to you by the Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee & all the fabulous OTW coders and testers! Contact us at adt@transformativeworks.org

The Webmasters are pleased to announce the launch of the new website and blog.

http://transformativeworks.org

In addition to a facelift, the website now has several spiffy new features that increase the ease-of-use of the site. The most important of these is the blog, which will be taking over from otw_news as our primary information service. It will also allow all comments to be centralized in one (non-LiveJournal) hosted by OTW itself.

Features

We’ve been working hard to introduce a number of new features for site visitors, including multilingual options (take a look at the language switcher on the left), a new site-based OTW news blog (you’re reading it), and the ability to comment on this blog, with or without creating a site account (or you can use an OpenID).

Feeds

There are several ways to track updates to the site and blog:

A feed for all blog posts is available.

The on-site Tracker is a way to find updates while using the website.

Finally, there is the Yahoo!Pipe feed, which combines both blog posts and all updates to the website.

How the blog works

The blog will post all the things you've seen in the past on otw_news, such as newsletters, calls for volunteers, spotlights on OTW committees, and updates on our projects. This information will be re-posted on our other news services:

LiveJournal mirror (otw_news)

InsaneJournal mirror

del.icio.us

Follow OTW on Twitter

OTW news Yahoo Group

RSS Feed

Atom Feed

You can leave comments on the blog much as you would on the journaling services, by creating your own account or using OpenID, or simply by providing a name and an email address. The blog operates under the Website Terms of Service, which includes this comment policy:

We may maintain one or more blogs on the site that accept comments. We strive for transparency and will generally post comments we receive, including critical comments. However, by submitting a blog comment, you agree that it is our decision whether or not to post it. If we decide, in our sole discretion, that a blog comment is spam or advertising; reveals the personal information of another person; or contains illegal content or hate speech, we may not post that comment, or we may remove it at any time.

What about otw_news?

Not a lot will change. The big difference is that otw_news will become a feed service for the blog – all the same content will be mirrored there, but commenting won’t be turned on. All comments will be centralized on the blog, which will allow fans from different communities who use different blogging or social networking services to engage on equal footing.

Basically, if you’re subscribed to the feed on LiveJournal or a clone, sorry, we don’t monitor any comments there! Come on over to the blog to reach us – the link to our comment page is given below.

Feedback on the new website

We are very excited to finally be sharing all these new features with you, and we hope you enjoy the added functionality the website and blog offer. We know everything may not be perfect yet – so take a look around and tell us what you think! We’d really love to know if you have ideas for improvements or can point out things that work differently than you expected.

--he Webmasters

If you have questions or feedback for the Webmasters, contact us at OTW Webmasters.

Tags: announcements, blog, website

(This is a mirror of the original LJ post)

EVERYONE STAY TUNED!

September is PROJECT ROLL OUT MONTH here at OTW!

The second half of September will be one of the most exciting times in OTW's history. The Archive of Our Own is in testing and will begin its very first public beta this week! Invites will have to be very limited for a while as we get our first real-world performance results, but all will be welcome to read stories, post comments, and explore the archive. (PS: giving us lots of feedback including those exciting bug reports will be a good way to get an invite. :D)

The first issue of our journal, Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) (http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc) is out as of today! (Read the full press release here: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement.) A new version of the OTW website at http://transformativeworks.org will be going live very soon (this new version contains a blog and rss feed that will allow us to move the OTW off Livejournal for good.) And the Fanlore wiki is finalizing its policies and will be ready for a soft launch and population of information.

October is our biannual MEMBERSHIP and VOLUNTEERS Drive!

With all our projects rolled out by October 1, we will then hold our second membership/donations drive. This is your chance to become a member if you aren't already (which will make you eligible to vote in the upcoming Board elections) or to donate money or time to support the OTW and its ongoing projects. We will also be having another volunteer drive, and we hope that you will declare yourself as "Willing To Serve" on one of our committees next year.

November is for ELECTIONS!

All members of the OTW will be able to vote in the Board Elections scheduled for November. After these elections, the OTW will take a brief hiatus to reconstitute itself, and the new Board will appoint or reappoint the next Committee Chairs who will rebuild committees to take us into our second awesome year of projects. Be a part of it!

(This is a mirror of the original LJ post)

The Elections Committee has been developing a set of guidelines for how we'll handle our annual OTW Board Elections: our goal is to create a process that is transparent and fair to all candidates. We've posted a bunch of material over on the OTW website, if you're interested in reading more about this.

The Election FAQ (FAQ link here) and the 2008 Election Timeline (Election Timeline link here) explain how the first set of Board elections will be handled.

The FAQ and Timeline answer important questions like:
-- Who is eligible to become a candidate? Why is committee service necessary?
-- Will candidates' real name and fannish identity be connected? (For a more extensive discussion on this issue, see our following post ETA See note below.)
-- When is the deadline to become a paying OTW member, in order to vote in this year's Election?
-- How will votes be counted? Why is the OTW using cumulative voting?

We're hoping this will all work well, but we will be watching to see how it goes and how we can improve these policies. If you have comments or suggestions for how we could make them better for next time, please share them with us. Representatives from the Elections committee (cordelia_v and eponis) are on hand to answer questions left as comments here; private questions may be e-mailed to elections-chair@transformativeworks.org

(Note: The temporarily deleted companion post to this entry discussed the OTW's Requirements for Candidates and the organization's privacy policy, both of which can be found in the FAQ.)

Mirrored from the otw_news LJ

Welcome to the first September issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org.

–femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

(Mirrored from the LJ newsletter post)

Welcome to the August issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org.

-femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

(Mirrored from the original LJ Post)

Welcome to the third July issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month (three times this month), Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org.

-femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Mirrored from the OTW News LJ

One of the five core projects of the OTW is to support the noncommercial sharing of fanworks within fan communities. The official OTW website says:

The OTW believes that fanworks are creative and transformative, core fair uses, and will therefore be proactive in protecting and defending fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. This help will not be limited to those fans or projects directly connected with OTW.

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I understand much about law -- in twenty-first century America, it seems a tool of the powerful and the rich. When I was younger, I saw the law as a way to facilitate social change, but not so much anymore.

However, even cynical me acknowledges a need for legal resources at times, and a special kind of legal resource for online services. The existence of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a "civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world," and the work it's doing is one indication of the need for legal analysis and protection.




( The other core projects of the OTW )

To keep up with Legal's activities, follow Killalla's updates in the OTW News bi-monthly newsletter.

Written by Mirabile Dictu, with help from the OTW Legal Committee, and with help and support from ComRel.

Just a quick note to anybody who's going to be attending Comic Con (July 24 -27) or any other upcoming fandom conventions and gatherings:

If any of you want to print and distribute materials about the OTW, .pdf files of full-sheet and half-sheet flyers can be found here.

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

From the OTW Content Policy committee:

Here are the draft Terms of Service for the Archive of Our Own, as well as some FAQs we've developed in internal discussion and with the assistance of valiant focus group members.

Some things to note:

1. All together, this is pretty long. We've split it up into two posts and hope that makes it easier to read. Readability feedback is appreciated.

2. This is a draft. We're posting it to get as much input as possible. Very little is set in stone, and many links have been left inactive pending decisions about the organization and layout of the Archive.

3. If there's something you don't understand, please ask. We will try to clarify, and possibly add to the FAQ.

4. If there's something you don't like, it would be really helpful if you'd suggest alternatives.

5. Members of the Content Policy committee will be available to answer questions. Please remember that anonymous comments must be signed in order to receive a response.

( Terms of Service: Sections I-III )

( Terms of Service FAQ (1-7) )

Note: The second half of the Terms of Service draft may be found here. Please feel free to leave feedback either on the LJ post or via email (content@transformativeworks.org).

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

Note: The first part of the Terms of Service draft, including introductory statements, may be found here. Please feel free to leave feedback either on the LJ post or via email (content@transformativeworks.org).

( Terms of Service: Section IV )

( Terms of Service FAQ (8-46) )

( Tags and Warnings )

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

Welcome to the second July issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

Mirrored from the OTW-News LJ

Job: Volunteer XHTML/CSS Coder

Works With: Naomi Novik -- Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee.

Description: Do you know HTML and CSS, either really well or want to learn more? Do you like building websites? The OTW is looking for more front end coders! Come and work with our irresistibly enthusiastic team as we bring the Archive of Our Own to life! You'll learn how to create accessible sites compliant with the latest Web standards and best practices, how to use the incredibly cool Scriptaculous Javascript tools and embedded Ruby in your webpages, and how to work with web application coders.

Skills Required: HTML and CSS knowledge and a deep-seated urge to write clean and readable web code. General comfort with software tools and picking up new things from tutorials.

Experience with accessibility and Web standards, and any experience with XHTML, Javascript, Ruby, PHP, or Perl is all a plus. No visual design skills or graphics tools necessary (though they certainly don't hurt), as our front end layout is being created by our user interface designers, so the job will primarily be to implement a design, given pictures of what it should look like.

Estimated Time Involved: 5 hours/week on average.Because of the investment in setup and training time, we ask that you be willing to give us a year if at all possible!

Other Information: Ideally you will be working with the same setup as the Volunteer Ruby Coders, in which case there will be a steep setup process just to get all the software tools installed on your system and working. However, unlike with the Ruby on Rails coders, this is not as critical, because if this setup isn't feasible for you, you can just create static html and CSS files and hand them over to the Ruby on Rails coders to be integrated into the application. Although that way you don't get the really great fun of seeing your webpages live and working with the database code instantaneously as you write them. *g*

How to Volunteer: Send an email to volunteers@transformativeworks.org or post a comment here. All comments on this post are screened in order to protect the privacy of volunteers providing personal information.

Please include the following information:

Your name (you may provide your real name--please consider what you feel comfortable using inside and outside the organization):

Your email address:

Relevant experience and credentials (fannish and/or real life):

Computer system (hardware -- CPU, RAM, disk space -- and operating system
with version):

Amount of time per week you can contribute:

Length of commitment you can make:

(Optional) What you are particularly interested in working on (if you have a preference):

Your time zone*:

Please put "XHTML/CSS Coder" in the subject line of your email or LJ comment!

Deadline for Application: Ongoing

*For chat scheduling purposes, so the committee can schedule online meetings at a time that's convenient for everyone. You can find your time zone here. Example: GMT -05:00

Anyone can contact the Volunteers & Recruiting committee at any time by commenting on this post (all comments are screened) or sending an email to volunteers@transformativeworks.org

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

Welcome to the first July issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org.

–femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

Job: Wiki Beta & Population

Works With: Wiki Committee

Description: The Wiki Committee is seeking volunteers to help with the exciting new Fanlore wiki! We need your help both to look over and beta-read our policies and guidelines, and to make sure they work in practice. We’re planning for Fanlore to hit the ground running when it soft launches, which means we’d like to fill it up with some tasty material before going live.

During this stage, you’ll be working closely with the Wiki Committee – helping us to polish up the policies, providing your feedback, helping the technical folks on the committee to build in features that will enable and support future contributors and readers alike to best make use of Fanlore.

You don’t need to have prior experience with wikis – after all, a variety of experiences in testers with result in better feedback! All you need is to be willing to learn, both by exploring on your own and by engaging in any training or instructions provided. We’re after folks who:

• Are excited to strenuously explore the Fanlore wiki and its policies
  
• Will give feedback on the way the policies, guidelines, structure and technology do or do not work for them
  
• Can participate in group discussion (via a chat room format) of their experiences and opinions
  
• Have time for this over the next couple months and are reliable about responding to email requests.

Estimated Time Involved: At least 5 hours per week for 1 month.

Other Information: If you’re interested, there will be opportunities to stay on the Fanlore wiki in an ongoing role, which will probably require approx 3 hours per week, depending on what you sign on for. Note that there will be more variety in the roles available in the future: you may wish to focus on outreach, on gardening, or only on adding more material from your own fannish community. If you’re interested in an ongoing involvement beyond the initial beta-testing, feel free to drop volunteers an email at any time. Otherwise, information about the different roles and positions available will come out as we get closer to the launch date.

How to Volunteer: Send an email to volunteers@transformativeworks.org or post a comment here. All comments on this post are screened in order to protect the privacy of volunteers providing personal information.

Please include the following information:

Your name (you may provide your real name or your fannish name--please consider what you feel comfortable using both inside and outside the organization):

Your email address:

Any prior experience working with fannish histories or wikis (of any topic)?

Any particular area of working on a wiki that you’re more interested in (be it technical, policy, content, or particular content)?

Please put "Wiki Volunteer" in the subject line of your email or LJ comment. Please do not include attachments or embedded links.

Send us your information by: 11:59PM GMT on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

All volunteers will receive an email confirming their information has been received. If you do not receive an email by 11:59PM GMT on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008, please contact us.

Anyone can contact the Volunteers & Recruiting committee at any time by commenting on the LJ post here (all comments are screened) or sending an email to volunteers@transformativeworks.org

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ

The Wiki Committee is posting to otw_news for a couple of exciting reasons:

Firstly, we've got around to properly naming this project! The OTW wiki will be known as Fanlore. Our future url will be fanlore.org, and we fully expect to be casually referred to as “the Fanlore wiki” or “Fanlore”. We're extremely happy with our name; it embodies some of the foundations of the policies we've been working on for the wiki over the past 6 months.

Speaking of policy: our second piece of news. We'd like to invite volunteers to help us beta test the Fanlore wiki policies by working with them first hand; helping us not only with the initial population of Fanlore prior to soft launch, but also to hone the admin side of things and shape the wiki's interface.

The job listing itself can be found on otw_news here. Follow the link to get more information about what this position involves and what we'd need from you, should you be interested. We're looking forward to working with you!

- The Wikimittee

Mirrored from otw_news on LJ.

Transformative Works and Cultures, the online academic journal associated with the Organization for Transformative Works, is looking for your meta.

The Symposium section of the journal is a section of concise, thematically contained essays. These short pieces provide insight into current developments and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative media and cultures. These essays will not go through academic peer review but will be reviewed by the editorial team. We're looking for 1500 to 2500-word essays on any aspect of fandom, transformative works, online culture.Images, music and video can be included.

Symposium pieces will be more polished than a meta post, less detailed than an academic paper: we're imagining them as an archive of fannish and academic meta debates of issues relating to fan cultures, saved for posterity. We hope to continue and expand the work of Lucy Cereta's Fanfic Symposium, which has been doing that for many years.

Here's the full Journal call for papers for your information. Please note that although TWC is a part of OTW's umbrella organization, we are not an organ of OTW. We have editorial independence and are happy to consider pieces that criticize the OTW organization. And we are very much looking for submissions from non-academics.

We are still accepting submissions for the September issue, and we need those by the end of the month. Our loose theme for this issue is online scholarship, the Organization for Transformative Works, and the relationship between criticism and theory from inside and outside the academy, but we're open to more or less anything.

Email us on symposium@transformativeworks.org if you'd like to talk about your ideas.

Alexis Lothian
Julie Levin Russo
Cole Banning
Symposium editors, Transformative Works and Cultures

Mirrored from the otw_news LJ

Welcome to the second June issue of the OTW Newsletter! We're constantly on the lookout for ways to keep fandom up-to-date and informed about what's going on behind the scenes here at OTW, so twice a month, Community Relations compiles updates about what the various committees are working on and we share them here.

All issues of the newsletter will be tagged accordingly, so you can follow our progress chronologically.

( Committee Updates! )

What details would you like to know? Please give ComRel a helping hand and let us know! Email us at comrel @ transformativeworks.org. –femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn Community Relations Committee