The Ink-Pot and the Palette

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35166

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 Whatsit, who volunteers as a Chair in training for the Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) and a tag wrangler.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
As a tag wrangler, I make sure that the fandoms I wrangle have properly canonized tags, which helps users find works that have the characters, relationships, tropes, and themes they're looking for. I fully and completely believe that the tagging system on AO3 is practically one of the modern wonders of the world, and I'm really pleased to be able to do my small part in contributing to it.

My other role is working for the Policy & Abuse committee, where we respond to reports of Terms of Service violations. Anyone who's ever spent time on an unmoderated comments section somewhere knows the importance of moderation in keeping a site usable and enjoyable, and PAC works (mostly) behind the scenes to make sure that's the case for AO3.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
I try to spend at least an hour or so per day on PAC work, since some of it is time-sensitive and has deadlines attached. This often involves working with tickets that have been sent in about violations, but sometimes it means working on documentation updates or helping to train new volunteers on the committee.

I usually also do at least one big tag wrangling session per week, during which I get caught up with wrangling the tags in my fandoms. I really like putting music on and settling in for a few hours (or more) of wrangling, so this setup works really well for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?
I have a background in book indexing and a particular interest in categorization and taxonomy, so as soon as I found out that tag wranglers were a thing on AO3, I definitely wanted to be one! It sounded like the kind of thing that would be right up my alley (and it was). On a broader level, I think AO3 is one of the best things going on the Internet, in terms of creating a space where people can freely share their fanworks without fear of the content purges that have plagued many other sites. With censorship encroaching on so many other spaces, I think what AO3 stands for is more important than ever. I really believe in the philosophy of the site and I'm glad to be a part of it.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
Time management! I'm on two separate committees and I also have a day job and a fairly active family life, which is a lot to juggle. But I've had success setting boundaries for myself that keep me from over-committing or burning out. I find that setting specific times during which I'll do specific tasks not only keeps that task from eating up my entire day (which either wrangling or PAC work could otherwise easily do) but also allows me to really focus on that task during the allotted time.

What fannish things do you like to do?
I'm an active fic writer and I participate in quite a few multi-fandom fic exchanges. I find that having an external deadline is great for motivating me to actually finish a fic, something I was historically not great at before doing exchanges. I also hang out on a couple of fandom discords and have been known to go to the occasional convention. And, of course, I spend entirely too much of my free time reading vast amounts of fic.

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 previous 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, 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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35166

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35161

I. APRIL'S MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

April's Membership Drive ran from April 24-27 and raised $362,171.85 USD across 9,702 people in 87 countries, with 8,035 donors choosing to become OTW members. Thank you so much for your support!

This year, the April Drive spotlighted Accessibility, Design, & Technology (AD&T) and their behind-the-scenes work in developing, updating, and maintaining the AO3’s software and infrastructure. If you're familiar with coding and would like to help improve AO3, contributions from the community are welcome; for details, check out AO3's Software Contributing Guidelines and other documentation at our GitHub repository. All contributors are credited in AO3's release notes which detail recent code updates and fixes.

Development & Membership worked with Communications on drafting and publishing Drive-related news posts, which Translation made available in 23 languages. Finance posted an update on the 2026 budget prior to the Drive.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In April, AD&T worked on security updates, quality-of-life bug fixes, and making more parts of AO3 translatable. They also welcomed their first long-term contractor who has already begun submitting pull requests and reviewing code. AD&T previously engaged with contractors for specific projects, but this is their first time hiring someone to work on the AO3 code with a broader scope.

AO3 Documentation completed their biannual review of user-facing documentation.

Open Doors announced the import of SlasHeaven and received enormous support from the Spanish-speaking community on AO3. They also began importing the works from the Watchmen Kinkmeme to AO3, which has been in progress for several years due to pre-import complications.

Policy & Abuse continued work on some major updates to the Terms of Service FAQ and coordinated with Communications on a news post about spambots. Going forward, this post will be updated as new spam behaviors get reported. In March, Policy & Abuse received 4,560 tickets, while Support received 3,466 tickets. User Response Translation completed 71 translation and beta tasks for Policy & Abuse and Support.

Tag Wrangling wrangled over 613,000 tags, or approximately 1,400 tags per volunteer. They also announced 27 new "No Fandom" tags.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications started the month with a lighthearted April Fool's post spotlighting omegas and coordinated with AD&T for the site's temporary logo change. This was then followed by a more serious announcement about AO3 exiting beta. Across both posts, Communications' News Post Moderation subcommittee helped moderate over 5,600 comments, most of which were positive and joining the celebration.

Communications also coordinated the OTW's attendance at Supanova, a fan convention in Melbourne, Australia. Thank you to everyone who came to see us! Fanwork recommendations from those who attended have been collected in the Supanova 2026 AO3 Collection.

Fanlore prepared a public domain-themed month for May. Check out their Bluesky, Tumblr, and Twitter/X for featured articles, and join their Discord server for a themed editing chat!

Legal continues to answer questions from fans and internally, especially around new laws restricting internet freedom.

In March, TWC released their special issue on Gaming Fandom and are currently in production for their June special issue on Disability and Fandom. Their editorial sections are working on the general issue for September and the 2027 special issues on Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections is preparing for this year's election, which will fill four seats on the Board: three full-term seats (3 years) and one partial term seat (1 year). The election will open on August 14, and members need to make a donation of at least $10 USD before July 1 if they'd like to vote.

Organizational Culture Roadmap's Code of Conduct draft has been reviewed for legal compliance, clarity, and other factors by an external nonprofit HR firm they partnered with on this project. They have incorporated their feedback and the updated draft will soon be available for review by all volunteers.

Board collaborated with Board Assistants Team to hold the second-quarter public Board meeting with 51 attendees. Thank you to everyone who attended! Meeting minutes are available on the OTW website. Board Assistants Team also continued progress on ongoing projects, including investigating mental health resources for volunteers, investigating volunteer retention within the committee, and supporting AD&T with documentation work.

In April, Board consulted with Legal and Volunteers & Recruiting to approve changes to the OTW's recruitment policies. The OTW will now require all applicants confirm they're 18 years old or older when applying for positions. Previously, some positions were open to volunteers aged 16 or 17. This change will only affect applicants moving forward and will not impact current volunteers.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In April, Volunteers & Recruiting opened recruitment for three roles for Legal and Policy & Abuse.

From March 23 to April 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 201 new requests, and completed 295, leaving them with 45 open requests. As of April 22, 2026, the OTW has 1,051 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Rhine (Translation Chair)
New Communications Volunteers: Jo Foderingham Brown (Social Media Moderator)
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: anzie, Cocoa, GGLadybug, and 1 other News Post Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: Orla Maeve, Bre Hartfiel, and 3 other Volunteers
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: AAAthea, Agata, AlexTheTwin12, Amalaa, Aza, BerryBlue, Cait B, CherryAmaretto, Chien, Cid, Elistanel, Em L, Fujirope, hen, Hershel, inezblue, Insidia, Izhi, Kirave, Kvalli, Lacosta Seren, Liz27, Lua, Marieta, Marilianne, Milo, mina, moonjelly, Nootmeg, Novace, Pingj, Pinkie, Potato, principalityofmusicalchairs, PurplePurl003, rexmachina, Sachet, Sambuca, sequencefairy, Shira, Snowy, SophiaSun, Stephenie, Tets, Toni, ValerieM00ny, Vandali, vinnawis, Wesley, Winnie, Xiaohe, and 3 other Volunteers
New User Response Translation Volunteers: AifasInTheSky, Cadira, Lacuna, ­Matilda, mocong, shilight, and 6 other Translators

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Fiona M (AO3 Documentation Chair)
Departing AD&T Volunteers: Bilka (QA Supervisor)
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: Deniz (Volunteer)
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Chair Track Volunteer and 1 Social Media & Outreach Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Ember J, Lost_for_good, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Shubhi Tandon and 2 other Translators

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages 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, 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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35161