June 2023 Newsletter, Volume 179

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Published:

2023-07-07 14:21:13 UTC

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Banner of a paper airplane emerging from an envelope with the words 'OTW Newsletter: Organization for Transformative Works

I. BOARD OF DIRECTORS UPDATE

Board held a public meeting on 2 July; they’ve heard the feedback about needing to improve for the next meeting, and they are exploring options. Thanks to everyone who offered up ideas for making Board meetings run better in the future - they fully intend to make changes for next time and beyond.

During the meeting, they shared updates on diversity, including their recent post, and they also shared an update to our Code of Conduct to include caste as a protected class. Board hopes to have more updates, including additional progress in their search for a DEI consultant, by its next meeting.

As part of the diversity consultant process, Board asked their Diversity Consultant Research Officer (DCRO) to help with requirements gathering and to survey volunteers for high-priority topics. The DCRO has finished this feedback period and are hoping to begin entering negotiations with specific consultants by September; they’ll be reaching out to consultants early in July.

II. AT THE AO3

Open Doors announced the import of Stayka’s Saint Seiya Archive, an archive dedicated to fanworks inspired by the manga Saint Seiya, and Smoochies, a multi-fandom fanfiction and fanart archive. Meanwhile, Support was on track to receive 1,600 tickets again in June at the time of this writing.

Accessibility, Design & Technology has been working with Policy & Abuse, Support, and the wonderful team at the OTW’s spam detection service to stay on top of some gnarly spam issues.

Finally, Tag Wrangling took some actions this month to update several canonical freeform tags related to the alpha/beta/omega-verse trope across a number of fandoms in order to remove an acronym that they learned was also an offensive slur. It would like to thank the volunteers and users who took the time to alert the committee to this issue. In May, wranglers handled more than 420,000 tags across more than 58,200 fandoms—more than 950 tags per wrangler!

III. FANLORE OUTREACH

Fanlore Bingo was a big success this year with 37 participants who completed at least one bingo and 26 who got a total blackout! Fanlore’s graphic designers created some lovely fruit and vegetable themed graphics while other volunteers pitched in to award badges.

Fanlore also geared up for its next themed month, Fandom in Color, running throughout July—so be sure to follow its social media (Twitter and Tumblr) for some awesome page spotlights!

IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Development & Membership’s table at Euro-Con in Sweden was a huge success! Its volunteers are continuing to work on updating their convention outreach materials and have been applying to table at more conventions this year.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since the last one, but Legal is preparing its submission to the U.S. Copyright Office seeking renewal of the legal exemption that allows makers of vids and fan edits the ability to use material from DVDs, Blu-Rays, and streams. Legal also responded to a number of user queries about intellectual property law and proposed U.S. legislation and worked with a few other committees to write a post responding to user questions regarding AO3’s policies regarding, among other things, CSEM response and data retention. The committee is also thrilled to extend a huge welcome to two new interns.

Systems kept busy in June auditing the OS versions of its systems in preparation for upgrades to the recently released version of Debian.

Communications has been reviewing its news distribution practices to social media outlets which affects both our future staffing and training plans. We have dropped manual posting to two little-used accounts—LiveJournal and Dreamwidth—in favor of automated feeds available at those sites. You can find out where to receive OTW News by visiting our Where to Find Us page on our website.

V. GOVERNANCE

Election season is upon us! The candidates’ platforms and bios are on Elections’ website. (Sadly, one candidate has withdrawn—we wish them the best!) The election will take place August 11 – 14, and Development & Membership worked with Elections to hold a mini-drive at the end of June to register voters.

Looking ahead, Finance has been focused on prepping for the 2022 audit by making year end adjustments, reconciling accounts, and updating audit schedules, and Strategic Planning has been reviewing and incorporating final suggestions to the upcoming 2023-2026 Strategic Plan in preparation to post the complete version.

VI. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

From 25 May to 24 June, Volunteers & Recruiting received 110 new requests, and completed 107, leaving us with 40 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of 24 June 2023, the OTW has 934 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: Claudia Rebaza (Media Outreach Lead), 1 Site Moderator, and 2 Chair Assistants
New Development & Membership Volunteers: dearjenna, 2 Graphic Designers, 4 Volunteers
New Elections Volunteers: Dae
New Legal Volunteers: Kate H. and 1 other Intern
New Support Volunteers: Apollo Cowan, Calliope, Conroy, CrypticKatt, DeeDee, Ekevka, Flocotillo, Hugh, Karlo, Kasi, katdusk, Marta Cardoso, Neutrino, theFleaDane, and 14 other Volunteers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Chrome, Madi, Vio, and WhitedSepu (all Supervisors)
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator and 3 News Translators
New TWC Volunteers: M. Lisa, Robin F. (both Copyeditors)

Departing Directors: Heather McGuire
Departing Committee Chairs: Heleen (Translation)
Departing Communications Volunteers: Claudia Rebaza (Media Outreach Volunteer role only)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Import Assistants
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Re_Tails and 4 other Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 9 Tag Wranglers, Christina L Simpson, Petrichorrr (Supervisor role only)
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager, Emyn Nefydd, Panwonderland, siobhrag and 3 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Volunteer

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.

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delta_altair Fri 07 Jul 2023 04:00PM UTC

Thanks for the updates!

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LadyShelley Fri 07 Jul 2023 05:24PM UTC

Curious what's going to happen now that the twitter feed can't be ported to the archive website for easy viewing. Since that is the main way the OTW communicates outages, meeting dates, and problems, how will that work moving forward? Threads is a privacy nightmare and not available in the EU as a result.
Any information would be great!

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1. Muccamukk Fri 07 Jul 2023 07:54PM UTC
  
  I'd really appreciate knowing about this as well. I don't have a twitter account, and therefore can't see the feed at all.
  
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2. 1. FireForEffect Sat 08 Jul 2023 02:56AM UTC
    
    This problem is unfortunately a big one across the internet, and I don't think it's going to be solved until Twitter stops changing day to day.
    
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  2. 1. Muccamukk Sat 08 Jul 2023 03:01AM UTC
      
      The solution is not using twitter, which it sounds like they're working on.
      
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    2. 1. stormyseasons Sat 08 Jul 2023 12:14PM UTC
        
        I hope they find a good and stable alternative soon. [Preferably not anything owned by Meta, either, privacy nightmare that those tend to be.]
        Although it's strange that they're pulling back on some of the other communications platforms lately, given how unstable twitter is and has been for months now.
        
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3. OTW_Communications (Official) Fri 07 Jul 2023 09:34PM UTC
  
  Hello LadyShelley
  We have been looking into alternatives for the Twitter feed that is available on AO3's front page as well as additional options for news delivery generally. We are not ready to announce anything yet but it is a concern, since Twitter is used by a number of OTW committees, and our news posts get the majority of our readership from that platform. When we are ready to implement alternatives you'll see it announced, either in the OTW Newsletter or in another post in coming months.
  In the immediate future, should AO3 have sudden technical issues we will continue to use the AO3 Tumblr account (and banners, and Twitter for as long as it is functional/widely used by fandom) as well as for announcing planned downtime.
  --
  Claudia Rebaza
  OTW Communications
  
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4. 1. LadyShelley Fri 07 Jul 2023 09:44PM UTC
    
    Cheers!
    
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  2. Phlebas Fri 07 Jul 2023 10:57PM UTC
    
    That's great to hear! Many thanks!
    
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  3. astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:12PM UTC
    
    Hi! I'd like to suggest a method!
    To appeal to the young generation of fanfic readers/writers, why don't you use Instagram? You can automate Instagram easily.
    
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  4. 1. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:22AM UTC
      
      Instagram is owned by Facebook and has many of the same problems as Threads.
      
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    2. 1. astralagooon Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:30PM UTC
        
        Ah, I didn't know that Facebook owned Instagram. But I see the point there.
        
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  5. delta_altair Sun 09 Jul 2023 05:20PM UTC
    
    This might be a little bit old-school, but an opt-in mailing list may be another way to alert people of sudden technical issues. In my field (astronomy) we use mailing lists for announcements in cross-university journal clubs and interest groups, and it works quite well compared to FB groups or twitter!
    
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  6. 1. Fictitious Tue 11 Jul 2023 10:55PM UTC
      
      I would love this. I have twice missed out on a volunteer opportunity because I missed the announcements by one day. While I use several media platforms, email is the only one I reliably check daily.
      
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  7. Medrya Tue 11 Jul 2023 05:15PM UTC
    
    Have you considered Mastadon?
    
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readerMan Fri 07 Jul 2023 10:15PM UTC

Y

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Phlebas Fri 07 Jul 2023 10:58PM UTC

Thanks for the update and it's good to hear that feedback on the board meeting was read and changes will be implemented!

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QuinLova Sat 08 Jul 2023 04:41AM UTC

Good to hear about the updates!

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ulsterbus Sat 08 Jul 2023 07:21AM UTC

Characterising the OTW News dreamwidth account as "little-used" implies a worrying misunderstanding of how dreamwidth functions in comparison with corporate social media sites. Announcement posts on dreamwidth receive little obvious engagement because dreamwidth doesn't operate in the same way as corporate social media – it doesn't have functionality for meaningless "likes" and reposts because it's not driven by capitalist metrics, unlike the other platforms that you claim are more widely used. An OTW announcement on Twitter gets x likes and y retweets and perhaps one or two replies, which (based on looking at recent examples) seem to mostly consist of users raising concerns about the organisation's operations rather than actual responses to the content of the post. But the number of likes and retweets can't be compared with dreamwidth because dreamwidth deliberately avoids these metrics-driven functionalities and encourages responses in the form of meaningful interaction. Closing an announcement community because it doesn't get enough comments is like shutting down a newspaper because its readers aren't writing enough letters to the editor.
In my younger and more vulnerable years (a month or so ago) when I naively believed the OTW was truly committed to promoting fanworks as an anti-capitalist act of self-expression and community building, I thought dreamwidth was the platform it was ideologically closest to. I really thought the fact that the OTW maintains a presence on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. was an attempt to reach participants in transformative fandom who haven't yet realised that fandom is incompatible with the sort of capitalism that drives much of the internet these days. OTW understands, I thought, that relying on these profit- and advertising-driven platforms as primary communication methods is unsustainable. I mean, they're so proud of owning their own servers to avoid legal issues with hosting "problematic"/derivative material! There's no AO3 app because app stores would impose restrictions on adult content! There's a subscription model instead of advertising! And yet the dreamwidth comm is the news outlet you choose to close, even while the structural and moral issues twitter has been experiencing show no sign of abating.
How long does it take to summarise an OTW News post as a Facebook post and a tweet and whatever else? Surely longer than it would take to syndicate those posts to dreamwidth, which has always supported posting by email. From my experience using dreamwidth I am confident that Comms would be able to set up a way of syndicating posts that would require no more than the press of a button (and perhaps even run automatically when posts are sent to the OTW news blog).
I know I look like a rabid dreamwidth evangelist here (and to be fair, I am), but I remain absolutely baffled by the fact that the OTW would cut its ties with one of the few online platforms that share similar values. It really makes me think the OTW itself no longer holds those values, and damages my trust in the organisation.

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1. Believerindaydreams (deepandlovelydark) Sat 08 Jul 2023 09:11AM UTC
  
  I mean, I would assume it also has something to do with the head of Dreamwidth calling for the entire A03 senior staff to be kicked out.
  Regardless of whether those complaints are valid (I'm still trying to figure that much out) it is hardly surprising that A03 staff would pull back from any interaction with Dreamwidth after that.
  
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2. 1. switchwitchbitch Sat 08 Jul 2023 01:58PM UTC
    
    I disagree; that would seem unfair to the community on DW who doesn't have anything to do with the founder's criticisms. They aren't pulling back from any interaction, either, just switching to an automated feed. If founders of social media sites are objectionable then surely they'd have pulled out of twitter, haha.
    I do think it's a mistake to shut down the LJ and DW communities but clearly the decision has been made already
    
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  2. 1. jaclynhyde Sat 08 Jul 2023 02:21PM UTC
      
      Agreed. The timing makes it seem a whole lot like retaliation to valid, reasoned criticism.
      
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    2. 1. Sheliak Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:34AM UTC
        
        Yeah.
        
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      2. switchwitchbitch Thu 13 Jul 2023 05:41PM UTC
        
        Even if it's not, someone has to know the timing makes it LOOK bad. They couldn't hold off on announcing the decision for like, another couple months?
        I also think it's an issue where transparency about the strain of the workload could have helped. "This is too much of a pain to keep up with, so we will close it unless we get more volunteers" could have turned up some people interested in helping out or, as one user offered, paying for a paid DW account. Idk
        
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  3. AllaganConspiracy Sat 08 Jul 2023 03:15PM UTC
    
    The CEO of Twitter posts hate speech against trans people, but the OTW isn't cutting ties with him. So if you're right, that means the OTW is more upset by valid criticism of their own operations than by hate speech.
    
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  4. 1. astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:04PM UTC
      
      Did you not read the post? Twitter's how a large amount of the announcements get through to everyone. That has nothing to do with Space Karen.
      
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    2. 1. NeoQwerty Sun 09 Jul 2023 09:46PM UTC
        
        I just choked on a potato chip reading "Space Karen".
        
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      2. astralagooon Mon 10 Jul 2023 07:23PM UTC
        
        NO, I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO! D:
        SOMEONE SAID IT AT A PROTEST, AND IT WAS TRENDING FOR A BIT 💀
        
        Last Edited Mon 10 Jul 2023 08:27PM UTC
        
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  5. Sylvesha Sat 08 Jul 2023 07:23PM UTC
    
    Then that's what they should have said and done. A polite "we find we cannot in good conscious continue using... we apologize for the inconvenience, but..." note would caused some derision, but this stupid wide-eyed butter wouldn't melt in their mouth look is terrible.
    
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  6. 1. astralagooon Mon 10 Jul 2023 08:28PM UTC
      
      That last bit didn't make ANY sense to me 😕
      
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    2. 1. switchwitchbitch Wed 12 Jul 2023 03:54AM UTC
        
        "acting like butter wouldn't melt in their mouth" is an expression, usually meaning someone has the appearance of being sincere and innocent but is actually being insincere and dishonest.
        I think this comment refers to the way OTW acted like "hey we want feedback on whether or not to keep DW community open or go to feeds" and when the response was overwhelmingly people saying they wanted the comm to stay open and explaining some issues with feeds, they went "thanks for your feedback, we choose to ignore it (because you didn't meet a requirement we never specified we were looking for)" and then when people predictably got mad about that, went "well change is hard here's some instructions on using feeds," as though they didnt know exactly why people were mad. If they had just been upfront and said, "We want to shut this down to reduce workload," or even "We want to distance ourselves from DW after recent events," instead of pretending to care about audience feedback and then playing innocent about why DW users were upset, they would have avoided all of this disgruntlement over it
        
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      2. astralagooon Wed 12 Jul 2023 11:20AM UTC
        
        Ah, ok! I don't understand idioms/expressions very well (autism), so you helped me with this a lot! TYSM 💕
        
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        switchwitchbitch Wed 12 Jul 2023 10:11PM UTC
        
        No problem! :)
        
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  7. astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:00PM UTC
    
    Hm. Fair point there.
    
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3. acidbirth Sat 08 Jul 2023 10:03AM UTC
  
  You can just say you're upset that they closed their Dreamwidth account without waxing about how they've betrayed the global socialist movement.
  
  Last Edited Sat 08 Jul 2023 10:03AM UTC
  
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4. 1. Semyazza Sat 08 Jul 2023 10:22AM UTC
    
    But that would stop the OP from the fantastic example of virtue signaling they've gifted us with, which would be very regrettable
    
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5. LadyShelley Sat 08 Jul 2023 03:10PM UTC
  
  Dreamwidth is still a thing? Seriously, I thought that platform shut down around 2005.
  
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6. 1. AllaganConspiracy Sat 08 Jul 2023 03:16PM UTC
    
    You thought Dreamwidth shut down before it opened? What magic time-traveling internet powers are you blessed with?
    
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  2. astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:02PM UTC
    
    I didn't even know that it existed, lol. I thought that it was a custom bit.ly link to the Fanlore page 😅
    
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  3. NeoQwerty Sun 09 Jul 2023 09:49PM UTC
    
    are. Are you thinking of Geocities? Cause Dreamwidth was made as an LJ clone in the wake of Strikethrough or Boldthrough,
    
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7. vegetablearian Sat 08 Jul 2023 04:37PM UTC
  
  I agree. I understand that they want to save time but this doesn't seem like the right way.
  
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8. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:23AM UTC
  
  With the way the OTW has been going, I’m not the least surprised they made this decision.
  
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9. aAnOo3n Sat 15 Jul 2023 10:11AM UTC
  
  I'm assuming the "little-used" has at least partially do with the fact that Dreamwidth is not a widely used website. While I've heard of it in passing, I decided to check it out after you impassioned argument painting it as something like a Utopia of all things fandom. It took a bit to find the page where they talk about who runs the thing, but the page is filled with only white people. Any website that has only white people as paid employees is not worth my time.
  
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Black_midi Sat 08 Jul 2023 04:21PM UTC

Thank you for the updates! Will there ever be a feature on ao3 to add covers for fanfiction?

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1. astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:10PM UTC
  
  To me, that would just give people an excuse to steal people's fanart.
  
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2. 1. slhisenbrower Sun 09 Jul 2023 03:54AM UTC
    
    Agree, just look at wattpad (or at least how it was circa 2018, last time I was there i guess)!
    
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  2. Black_midi Sun 09 Jul 2023 10:23AM UTC
    
    There should be maybe some policy around it, but I think it would be more visually appealing for stories
    
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  3. 1. EmilyKaldwen Sun 09 Jul 2023 03:19PM UTC
      
      Covers seem more appropriate to post on your personal blogs/SM than as something added on the archive. I see that covers are a wattpad and ff.net thing. If a cover is important to you, you can embed a cover into the start of your chapter one! But I would hate to feel obligated to add covers to my fic when I’m not a graphic artist. Just another thing to stress about getting perfect 😂
      
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    2. 1. Black_midi Sun 09 Jul 2023 11:14PM UTC
        
        True, true, Covers are also a big problem for me, especially on wattpad where I feel everybody has a better one than me
        
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    3. NeoQwerty Sun 09 Jul 2023 09:58PM UTC
      
      I do covers (and learned that AO3 really doesn't like adding a new first chapter, I had to edit 6 times and it ate a whole chapter I had a backup of, thankfully).
      But I just put them in as the first chapter along with the real first chapter after as a sort of visual teaser.
      We really don't need covers in the summaries, those are for persuading someone that the fic is what they want to click on.
      Could you imagine the amounts of MS Paint masterpieces and Facebook stock clipart backgrounds we'd get?
      Like, if this protects us all from Snapewives-style shoops of Alan Rickman's head on random buff underwear models and art stolen from Pixiv that makes Japanese artists angry at English speakers again, let's not have covers in summaries.
      Just put them on your first chapter and use one of the image hosts that are teeming around.
      
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    4. 1. Black_midi Sun 09 Jul 2023 11:13PM UTC
        
        I recently watched strangeaeons video about snapewives so all the horrors came back to me :) but yeah you have a good point
        
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      2. NeoQwerty Mon 10 Jul 2023 12:23AM UTC
        
        I am so sorry that you had to be reminded of that.
        If it makes it better, I was one of the people watching in fascinated horror as Fandom Wank reported on them way back then, before the original... gosh, was it 7? I want to say 7 or 8.... wives started fighting each other and their schism in leadership happened.
        I remember yelling at the one who got doxxed later to take her IRL info out ASAP before someone pizza-bombed her, but apart from that I was just staring at the trainwrecks and their quaint shooped up website shrines to Snape.
        Did you know that there's an academic paper on them as a religion BTW?
        
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        Black_midi Mon 10 Jul 2023 12:32AM UTC
        
        I just have to read it, it is so fascinating that a bunch of women started loving a fictional character more than their own husbands, some even lived in full celibacy. I mean there are probably some people out there who do the same thing but in different fandoms. Thank you again for sending me that article :)
        
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      3. OdeziaAtrata Wed 12 Jul 2023 02:04AM UTC
        
        Every time I come close to blessedly forgetting about the Snapewives thing, someone reminds me. One day, I will be free from this curse.
        
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  4. astralagooon Mon 10 Jul 2023 07:27PM UTC
    
    I DIDN'T MEAN TO START A WHOLE SUB-THREAD 💀
    
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yuraksu Sat 08 Jul 2023 05:07PM UTC

I'm not invested in the DW community existing, but the sheer disregard and miscommunication from the OTW comms team is stunning in these posts. Just a complete lack of understanding a) how DW works, b) how metrics on DW works, c) and what they are actually asking for. These series of posts are disrespectful on so many levels, condescending, and changes the goalposts in every single post.
The comment sections are a delight, LOL.
"Today begins a 2 week feedback period from readers regarding this change, letting us know how many people are still reading, and what reasons those readers might have as to why the feeds would not serve the same function.
If you do comment, please let us know how long you have been reading this account and how often you click through to the website to read the full news posts. On June 24, we will post again with a decision."
https://otw-news.dreamwidth.org/1080331.html
"Why is engagement important?
The short answer is that it's not. We don't expect anyone reading to feel the need to comment, and as some people have pointed out, they prefer to do so at the OTW website instead once they've read the entire post."
https://otw-news.dreamwidth.org/1081424.html
"Although it wasn't expected that the majority of people would respond, this amounts to less than 5% of subscribers."
https://otw-news.dreamwidth.org/1082477.html

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Account Deleted Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:02PM UTC

are you going to do another actual board meeting and not only a live posting of what felt were basically only prepared statements?
also, are you actually going to answer all the questions from the meeting, considering the meeting had little time (both for asking questions and actually replying with your answers)?

Last Edited Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:03PM UTC

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1. Account Deleted Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:08PM UTC
  
  also, when are those two things gonna happen?:
  "June 30
  Deadline to become a member in order to vote in the upcoming election.
  Anyone who becomes a member between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, inclusive of both dates UTC, will be eligible to vote in this election. Please note that your donation receipt will be dated in US Eastern Time, so if your donation is listed after 19:59 on June 30, 2023 on the receipt, you won’t be eligible to vote. If you are unsure whether your donation was made before the deadline, please contact our Development and Membership Committee by using the contact form on our website and selecting “Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?”.
  
  July ?
  Q&A answers posted.
  July ?
  Candidate Chat
  
  July 22
  Voter instructions sent by email to eligible voters.
  "
  
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2. 1. stormyseasons Sun 09 Jul 2023 01:04PM UTC
    
    The Q and A answers are up, but they're over on the OTW site.
    https://elections.transformativeworks.org/category/2023-en/2023-qa/
    Happy reading.
    No idea about candidate chat, though.
    
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  2. 1. Account Deleted Wed 12 Jul 2023 05:21AM UTC
      
      thank you ^^
      
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  3. Marion (OTW_Elections) (Official) Sun 09 Jul 2023 03:54PM UTC
    
    Hi Numeri,
    Thanks for asking! The Elections Timeline has been updated with the dates Q&A answers will be posted, and the dates and times of Candidate Chats.
    The candidates' answers to Q&A 1 are already on our website, at this link.
    --
    Marion
    Elections Committee
    
    Last Edited Sun 09 Jul 2023 03:54PM UTC
    
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  4. 1. Account Deleted Wed 12 Jul 2023 05:21AM UTC
      
      Thank you!
      
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astralagooon Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:09PM UTC

Good to hear that everything went well in the meeting! 😁

Last Edited Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:20PM UTC

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EnigmaticSoul Sat 08 Jul 2023 08:39PM UTC

Thank you.

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dontneedaclassroom Sat 08 Jul 2023 11:21PM UTC

Hey could you add a link to the 'post responding to user questions regarding AO3’s policies regarding, among other things, CSEM response and data retention' please? Thanks!

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1. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:25AM UTC
  
  Agreed. I haven’t seen any such thing, just the blocking of comments on posts.
  
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2. 1. switchwitchbitch Sat 15 Jul 2023 05:42PM UTC
    
    It's this post:
    https://www.transformativeworks.org/the-otws-commitment-to-safety-responding-to-recent-concerns-about-ao3/
    Idk why they haven't added it, whether it was overlooked at first or what, but since a couple people mentioned it and they didn't cross-post it to ao3 then I figured I'd drop a link in comments for interested parties. It's definitely an interesting post lol. Also idk why its creation is included under Legal and not any of the other committees, especially since so many of the objections they were responding to related to Legal overreach into the domain of T&S. But I can't speculate on their decision-making process there.
    
    Last Edited Sat 15 Jul 2023 05:44PM UTC
    
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  2. 1. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sat 15 Jul 2023 08:12PM UTC
      
      Oh. I read this. The one that’s basically just calling Rahaeli a liar when anyone who knows her knows they’re full of shit.
      
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    2. 1. switchwitchbitch Sun 16 Jul 2023 05:13PM UTC
        
        Yeah that's the one they're talking about
        
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thewonderofpandora Sun 09 Jul 2023 01:19AM UTC

Still determined to waste money on a diversity consultant? Unfortunate.
If you need to be told how to treat people equally it would be better to just resign and let someone smarter sit on the board.

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Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sun 09 Jul 2023 02:26AM UTC

So: retraction of your libel of Azarias when?

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1. switchwitchbitch Sun 09 Jul 2023 03:39AM UTC
  
  They did finally, explained here: https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/600639.html?thread=3681984831#cmt3681984831
  I'm not sure whether this is something they'd want to acknowledge in a newsletter or not but I'll leave the link, which contains a copy of the apology and retraction posted to the volunteer message board, for anyone interested in reading. I'm sure many have been following the situation with concern.
  
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2. 1. Prismatic Bell (PrismaticBell) Sun 09 Jul 2023 07:30AM UTC
    
    Much appreciated.
    Okay, OTW Board and Legal, time to stand behind your fucking words. POST IT PUBLICLY.
    
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  2. 1. switchwitchbitch Sun 09 Jul 2023 10:52AM UTC
      
      I do wish they would have *at least* mentioned it. Clearly the original allegations spread beyond the volunteer chat where it was posted and they're aware of that. However, if Azarias hasn't called for the posting of the retraction here then I don't know if I'm comfortable doing so. I would personally want to be sure that that is something she actually wants and which would help her right now. The last thing I'd want would be to cause more grief to the person harmed by all of this
      
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    2. 1. azarias Sun 09 Jul 2023 06:28PM UTC
        
        I'm not averse to it being posted here, but I'm also not demanding it. The Board/Legal did what I needed them to do to repair the damage they had caused me, and I'm not going to engage with them further about it or complain about it. We're square. Anything they want to do to repair their own reputation now is up to them.
        Thank you for caring. It made a huge difference in the last month.
        
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      2. zz9pzza Sun 09 Jul 2023 06:53PM UTC
        
        Thank you.
        
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        Gauvain Sun 09 Jul 2023 07:57PM UTC
        
        Hi, I just wanted to say that if myself and my friends are anything to judge by, you've had a whole lot of people silently rooting for you over the past month who are very happy you've gotten some measure of justice. We probably should have said something, *I* probably should have said something, but the habit of never commenting publicly on tense situations is a hard one to break, so I'd like to say now that I think you have a huge number of people like myself who have never said it but are wishing you the absolute best. I hope you are able to have a much better second half of your summer than the first half probably was. :)
        
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        switchwitchbitch Fri 14 Jul 2023 05:07AM UTC
        
        Ok 💙 I hope you get to rest and repair some of the stress damage, now that they've done what they needed to do. You didn't deserve any of that bullshit, I'm sorry you had to deal with it, and I'm thankful for the way you talked about it (and helped shine a light on other structural issues) despite the fact that it couldn't have been easy to do. Lots of people cared and were backing you up, even people who didn't comment as it was going down, and I'm glad to hear that that helped. Best wishes 💙
        
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Unicron Sun 09 Jul 2023 05:21AM UTC

I feel like it is beyond important that the AO3 news and announcement section expanda to include the news and announcements of other OTW projects as welk at this point.
I used to see updates with the twitter feed on the home page of AO3, but now that is nuked I miss anything not directly posted to this section. And bluntly I have avoided twitter this long, I refuse to make an account on it just to follow non-AO3 OTW posts and updates

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1. Kunenk Fri 14 Jul 2023 10:34AM UTC
  
  Yeah, I feel a consolidation of all the OTW newsposts would have made the most sense. Maybe people would see some things they didn't know about but would find interesting!
  
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Slybrarian Sun 09 Jul 2023 07:52PM UTC

Are there any statistics to show that Dreamwidth was "little used" compared to to other sites? All of the feedback you received on Dreamwidth indicated that many people did use it and you didn't actually say that you were considering lack of response a reason to drop Dreamwidth until after you made the decision, which naturally means you got much less response than you would have if you'd just been truthful about the questions you were asking.

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AllaganConspiracy Tue 11 Jul 2023 04:11PM UTC

Sure would have been nice if you'd had some place to announce yesterday's downtime that people could actually view without having an account. Too bad there's nowhere you could have done that.
Actually, you know what? Screw it, you don't even need a Dreamwidth account for that. You can have a static page hosted on a different server, give it a subdomain like status dot archiveofourown dot org or whatever, and put your downtime notices there instead of making people sign up for a walled garden run by a fascist. This is such an obvious solution that it makes perfect sense why the OTW has never considered it, tbh.

Last Edited Tue 11 Jul 2023 04:12PM UTC

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1. OTW_Communications (Official) Tue 11 Jul 2023 04:43PM UTC
  
  Hello AllaganConspiracy
  AO3 also utilizes its Tumblr account, which has provided updates on the downtime situation.
  --
  Claudia Rebaza
  OTW Communications
  
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2. 1. AllaganConspiracy Tue 11 Jul 2023 07:24PM UTC
    
    The new Tumblr layout also login-gates you after scrolling enough, and whoever runs the Ao3 Tumblr account hasn't taken the five seconds needed to unselect that option.
    Why has the OTW seemingly forgotten about the of our own part of "archive of our own"?
    
    Last Edited Tue 11 Jul 2023 07:25PM UTC
    
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thelisteners Tue 11 Jul 2023 04:31PM UTC

Glad to be back!

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Liebekatze Tue 11 Jul 2023 05:33PM UTC

I don't know where else to write this. Cloudflare doesn't seem to be supported by my Amazon Fire Table (HD 7 +, latest gen). The browser attempts to verify the device's connection security and gets stuck on that page. The verify you are a human check box never pops up and the page gets stuck- never lets you click to verify and mever progresses. It began doing it this year, about 4 months ago, with fanfiction.net and their Cloudflare verification. I've written Amazon and fanfiction.net on this, but have not gotten a reply.
I am able to access the sites on the C hrome browser on my android phone, using the same wifi network that the Fire tablet is on.

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1. jewelyx Tue 11 Jul 2023 11:07PM UTC
  
  Omg, I've been having this problem with my Kindle Oasis: theres only a white screen and on the History, it says its stuck on the "Just a moment..." page, no way back or foward. I want to know if they will tunr off Cloudfare at some poiny cause I really want to read :(
  
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2. 1. Liebekatze Wed 12 Jul 2023 04:58AM UTC
    
    In theory you can get another browser on the kindle, but it takes like 4 downloaded apps before you can even attempt to download the browser.
    I've tried writing amazon help desk to no reply
    
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  2. Liebekatze Wed 12 Jul 2023 02:48PM UTC
    
    Ooooh!! Today it worked!
    
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  3. 1. jewelyx Wed 12 Jul 2023 11:46PM UTC
      
      YESSS, im currently typing with my kindle in fact. im so happy i could cry thank you ao3
      
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switchwitchbitch Wed 12 Jul 2023 02:11PM UTC

Hello, for archival purposes can you please add a link to the relevant post for "and worked with a few other committees to write a post responding to user questions regarding AO3’s policies regarding, among other things, CSEM response and data retention"? There are links to other relevant posts like the diversity update and the candidate platforms and bios, but none to the data retention and CSEM post -- looks like that was missed. Thanks!
(Edit: it's this post that I was talking about. Found it! I know they're too busy dealing with DDOS attacks to monitor these posts too closely. Best of luck ao3 volunteers! You've got this! https://www.transformativeworks.org/the-otws-commitment-to-safety-responding-to-recent-concerns-about-ao3/ )

Last Edited Sat 15 Jul 2023 05:47PM UTC

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