2024 October Membership Drive: Preserving fan history

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2024-10-18 00:05:50 UTC

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OTW membership drive, October 18–20

Do you remember that one fanfic that kept you reading until dawn for the very first time? Or the fan art or video that led you to dig out all the works its creator shared? Have you ever tried to look into the stories of the authors who wrote fics before you were even born? You can find all this and more on Fanlore - the wiki for fanworks, fan creators, and fannish history!

Fanlore is a project run by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) with the goal of providing fans a place to record and share their histories, experiences and traditions. Fanlore records both the history and current state of our fan communities – fan works, fan activities, fan terminology, individual fans and fannish-related events. You can read about what fandoms were like in the olden days and document memorable events in your own fandoms, all on Fanlore! Check out the wiki’s New User Portal or join the Fanlore Discord server to connect with other editors and users.

We would not be able to preserve these cherished pieces of fandom history without the generous donations of our fellow fans and volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to keep all our projects running. As always, we have some shiny new donation gifts!

You can choose to display your love for fandom with some of our new thank-you gifts. For a US$40 donation, we have a new sticker set featuring popular AO3 tags. You can show off a bumper sticker saying "my other car is a ship" for a donation of US$50. For a donation of US$75 or more, you could carry home your groceries with a white and red shopping bag or you can announce your love for AO3 with our rainbow kudos pin.

a pin with AO3 logo with rainbow coloured hearts

bumper sticker with the words: my other car is a ship

grocery bag with OTW logo and TWC & Legal & Fanlore & Fanhackers & Open Doors & Archive Of Our Own on the bottom left of the logo

You can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Select the gift you want, and if the total for that donation doesn't reach the amount needed for the gift you selected, future donations will be applied to the gift you’re saving for. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members can vote for the Board of Directors – the OTW’s governing board. Donating now and checking the “I wish to be a member” box will make you eligible to vote in the 2025 OTW Board Election.

We hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and become a member to support projects like Fanlore, Open Doors, Legal Advocacy, Transformative Works and Cultures, and the Archive of Our Own. Your contributions help keep our projects successful for new and long-time fans alike!

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PenelopeOfIthaca Sat 19 Oct 2024 10:47PM UTC

nice. but i live in ENGLAND!!! WHERE WE CAN SPEND A TENNER ON YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS BUT NOT *THISSSSS*

Last Edited Sat 19 Oct 2024 10:48PM UTC

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1. facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf) Mon 21 Oct 2024 03:28AM UTC
  
  You can select your currency on the donation page! The amounts also change with the currency -- for example, it looks like £8 will get you membership, since the pound is worth more than USD. The gifts dropdown is only in USD, but I'm sure you can contact DevMem and ask for the conversion!
  
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A_Smile_Unsuspecting Sun 20 Oct 2024 12:47AM UTC

Fuggin 'eel, I want that kudos pin, but my bank account is dryer then my butthole when I'm in the Sahara .

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Fiidget Sun 20 Oct 2024 03:26AM UTC

I get it's a donation, but like wtf??? For 75$ we'll give you this 2$ shopping bag

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Jureumyhearts Sun 20 Oct 2024 05:11AM UTC

Desde el fondo de mi alma les digo esto: si no viviera en Argentina, donaría mensualmente. Ao3 es mi refugio.

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NonymeSwan Sun 20 Oct 2024 05:15AM UTC

I'd like to offer some constructive criticism about Fanlore.
One of the things that Fanlore does is put together "profiles" on fans, and this includes connecting identities -- various pseuds and/or real names. In my case, my real-world legal identity (with a very, very distinctive name) was connected to my fanfic handle against my wishes by an admin on Fanlore, who did so deliberately and while fully aware that I didn't wish to be doxxed. In a wiki post they literally quoted me on believing fans shouldn't be doxxed. Then, after directly quoting me, they went on to do the thing I said 'do not do:'
They doxxed me in my Fanlore profile.
The Fanlore admin (NOT a random editor) who did this has been with Fanlore for 15 years. They are STILL THERE. Any other site I've ever been involved with (and I've been around fandom for a long, long, time) would have instantly and permanently banned anyone who did anything even close to this, even if it was simply done carelessly, much less deliberately and knowingly. (This is also likely a violation of privacy law in some countries, see GDPR, so it should be taken extra seriously.)
Fandom privacy should be sacred. Full stop. End of story. It's not even a "is this legal or not" question. It's a "is this right" question and it is not RIGHT to doxx fans. The law's the lowest common denominator of acceptable behavior. I'd like to think OTW holds itself to a higher standard than that.
If Fanlore's about preserving fandom history, a very top priority should also be to preserve fan privacy. Right now, Fanlore is set up perfectly for doxxing -- connecting identities is literally a function of the "Profiles" because they allow multiple pseuds in the identity field. When it happened to me, the site's search rank was strong enough that a search for my legal identity brought the Fanlore page up (with my fandom pseuds on it) as the first or second search result on every site I checked. It was #1 on Google. As I experienced, there's at least one admin who doesn't believe in fan privacy, but it's also a good setup for bad actors in general, because anyone can create an account and edit a profile with doxxing information.
When fans are doxxed, we go dark. We delete our social media, our stories, and our meta. We become far more cautious about posting anything publicly. That behavior is directly harmful to preserving fan history.
In my case, I deleted or hid three million words worth of fic from A03, fanfiction.net, and several other archives. I had over three million views between all of them. That fanfic spanned over a dozen fandoms and 22 years of my life. One of those stories was in the top ten for both comments and kudos in a category on A03 with 60K+ stories... and that loss happened directly BECAUSE of Fanlore.
I also deleted multiple social media accounts with my fandom handle, went private on my "real name" accounts, and DMCA'd millions of words of fanfic. meta, and social media posts from the Wayback Machine.
I am slowly deciding which stories I want to put back online, assuming they'll forever be able to be connected to the "real me" and which will forever remain gone.
Unfortunately, for me, once Fanlore posted the page with the doxxing information on it, that page was then saved to multiple search engine caches. (Fanlore's staff said they'd try to get the caches cleaned up but it's been six months and nothing has happened there.) That resulted in two different Reddit posts of people looking for my fanfic and being directed to my real-world identity to ask me about the stories based on the Yahoo cache of the Fanlore page (with a screenshot of the cache).
Bottom line:Fanlore is supposed to be about "preserving fandom history" but the way the site is structured encourages fandom privacy to be violated - which can, and will, continue to lead to reactions such as mine, and the actual LOSS of fan history. It's also just a general icky privacy violate.
I'd personally like to see the profiles updated to prevent multiple pseuds or names from ever being entered in them -- I don't think curiosity about what someone may have done under another name is worth the risk of continued doxxings and continued loss of fic and fan history as a result. If there's a strong argument about continuing to connect identities (and I cannot think of one; if anyone wants to connect their identities, they can do so themselves on their own social media), there should be a hard requirement that the fan should be asked to give specific, unambiguous permission to Fanlore to do so. No clear, specific permission? No connection on the site.
(This is not the pseud that was doxxed.)

Last Edited Sun 20 Oct 2024 05:21AM UTC

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1. Smaelstrom Sun 20 Oct 2024 05:35AM UTC
  
  Can I just say, I deeply apologize that that happened to you. It’s awful, and should not have happened!
  Perhaps the admin had a personal vendetta against you? I’m not sure why though . . . I’m still very sorry that happened to you. You had such high stats, too!
  I hope you one day can return to how you once were, and that the admin will hopefully get in trouble for doxxing, which is never, ever okay.
  
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2. 1. NonymeSwan Sun 20 Oct 2024 01:42PM UTC
    
    Based on the editorial tone they took in the Wiki articles about meta I wrote in the mid-2000s (meta was deleted over a decade ago), they may not have liked what I wrote. That content was about a few mildly controversial subjects back then, including some directly pertaining to fandom privacy.. So I think it may have been a "haha gotcha" moment. But ultimately, who knows.
    It was done in March and I caught it in April, and the admin is still there. At the time, I messaged Fanlore's staff, OTW's legal team, and OTW's board of directors about it. Despite the gravity of what they did, and me trying to make sure that this wasn't swept under the rug, they're still there. (Which is why I'm going public with this now.)
    I really do not think Fanlore should be connecting identities at all. They should remove including aliases as an option on the site. Literally, right now, profiles have "name" and "alias" and that's the perfect setup for doxxing.
    The odds any fan wants to be outed are ridiculously low. "Hi, would you like your fanfic handle connected to your name on a public site with huge search rank?"... I expect the usual response would be "NO!" +/- some profanity. We use pseuds/aliases for a reason, and if a pseud was used, that should be all that matters -- nobody should be doing detective work to try to ID connect one identity to another because the risk of doxxing a fan is far too high.
    
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  2. 1. taichara Sun 20 Oct 2024 03:29PM UTC
      
      While by no means close to comparable to the fuckery that's been pulled on you by Fanlore, I can guarantee you from personal experience that the OTW has sad little creatures in its AO3 apparatus all~ too happy to use their position to pull shit on someone; so I absolutely believe it's the same in the Fanlore branch.
      
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    2. 1. NonymeSwan Sun 20 Oct 2024 06:31PM UTC
        
        The funny thing is, I think the original thing that prompted the Fanlore editor to create a profile for me was a conversation I had on Livejournal with astolat when she was thinking of founding OTW, where I warned of the possibility of toxic volunteer behavior, and the need to build safeguards in from the beginning. It wasn't a "don't build A03" post, it was a "hey, I've been involved in lots of volunteer projects; this needs to be considered" post.
        I'd say the vast majority of volunteers on most any fandom project are well intentioned and honest people who mean well, but in ANY group of fan volunteers there will also be a few people who are a problem. (Source: Lots and lots of volunteering over the years, including building and running big websites.) It's not a "maybe" it's a "this will happen sometimes." For the good of the organization, and the people it's serving, there HAS to be a really strong culture of ethics, backed up by structural safeguards and limits. Site design can help with this, as an additional layer to discourage problematic behavior.
        Specific to Fanlore, people who work on wikis tend to have a special interest in compiling information, sometimes to a very problematic degree. The "name" and "alias" fields on Fanlore would seem to imply to site users that its okay to put somebody's name in a profile and then add other pseuds to connect the dots. It's a function of the site, right? And there's a subset of users on any wiki site (... having volunteered for a few) who will try to fill in any "hole" in information they find, and that includes a blank "pseud" field. They may not even think about the implications or have read the site rules -- or even if they know the rules, they may dismiss them or find a tiny loophole where they think the rule doesn't apply in [specific circumstance] because the data's all-important. They'll fill in the blanks with no care about the harm they may be causing or the person's preferences.
        Every wiki or other data-compiling project I've worked on has attracted this type of personality. You see it everywhere from census workers to wiki editors to academia.
        And that's before you even factor in any toxic behavior. I don't know for certain that the admin who doxxed me even really thought it through. Were they being malicious because they disliked my stance on fandom privacy? Or, did they stumble across the connection between my legal name <> fandom pseud, and go, "Ahah! I can fill in the blank!" and just... fill in the blank, without considering that they'd JUST quoted me saying I felt outing fans was wrong, don't do it, even if you stumble across that information?
        Damned if I know. They've never explained themselves.
        (There was an email they had access to that they shouldn't have. I'd accidentally outed myself in an email to like five or six people in a tiny group, and that email was automatically saved to a *private* archive around 2005ish. All I did was post "here's my social media: [fandom pseud]" rather than "here's my social media: [legal name!]" I had some significant vision issues at the time and didn't catch it the copy pasta error because I couldn't see well, so for almost two decades I didn't even know about it -- though the very next email to the group was me bowing out due to health issues, so 100% I know that was a factor. I even remember struggling my way through that email because I couldn't see. Then sometime in the last twenty years, the privacy setting on the archive was changed from "private, adult content" to "publicly available." I suspect that's how the admin made the connection between my identities, because they also included that private email in one of the wiki posts. So, it was a literal "gotcha" -- I had never deliberately made any sort of "public" post identifying myself. This is the kind of "gotcha" that could happen to anyone, too. Just... copy/paste the wrong social media handle into an email that is later made public, and somebody finds it and posts that information in a Fanlore profile, and whoops, you're doxxed.)
        Removing that "pseud" field below the "name" field would be a start to discouraging both malicious doxxing ("haha, I don't like you, so I'm going to doxx you!") or just clueless fill-in-the-blank behavior. It wouldn't stop it entirely (someone could still doxx someone in the text of a wiki article) but it would discourage it by lessening the appearance that Fanlore sanctions that behavior by providing an actual field for it.
        And ultimately, I really don't think connecting pseuds is that important to fan history. It doesn't outweigh the fan right to privacy -- both legal (see again, GDRP laws) and moral. People use pseuds specifically because they want anonymity, and that anonymity needs to be protected, ESPECIALLY by OTW, given they're running, like, this whole giant archive of fanfic largely created by users who'd rather their legal names not be associated with said fanfic, and who can be harmed by doing so.
        There's no real public interest served by making it an easy function of the site, it just satisfies mild curiosity.
        And -- if a fan does want their pseuds connected, they can do so themselves, on their own social media/websites/A03 profile/etc -- they can do it in spaces under their direct control, by their own choice, not by a third party that may not be acting in their best interest. Because, ultimately, there's always going to be site editors who are problematic, that's just part of relying on unpaid volunteers, and there will always, inevitably, be admins who have ethical issues and who may also break the rules, or not enforce them.
        You have to control for human factor in a site design if you're really, truly, acting in the best interest of fandom.
        Edits: Words are hard.
        
        Last Edited Sun 20 Oct 2024 06:36PM UTC
        
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      2. quothhh Sun 20 Oct 2024 10:43PM UTC
        
        Is this something you would be comfortable with people bringing up at the next board meeting?
        
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    3. Smaelstrom Sun 20 Oct 2024 06:16PM UTC
      
      I can totally see someone being upset with your OWN opinions and try to dox and ruin your life because of it. That’s awful, and super fucking shitty. That admin should have just left you alone and ignored you.
      I’m glad you caught it relatively quickly, even thought it took a month. I can’t believe they’re doing nothing to help. If it’s actually taking a long time, then that tells me this isn’t top priority. Which really sucks.
      Absolutely not, I think any fan would never want to get outed. I know I wouldn’t. We do, it should be all that matters. That’s terrifying, and if it’s that high, who’s to say you’re not the only one who got doxxed because someone didn’t agree with your viewpoints?
      
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    4. 1. NonymeSwan Sun 20 Oct 2024 07:38PM UTC
        
        I suspect it's happened to others. They have a process for removal of doxxing information, so it probably comes up. I'm louder than most people, though; this isn't the first windmill I've tilted at on the internet, when I think there's a risk of genuine harm to fans. I have no idea if OTW is monitoring these comments or will take action, but it's worth a try, because I certainly haven't been able to get their attention any other way.
        I'm at the point where I know I'll never have that firewall between my real ID and fandom pseuds again. It's in the search engine archives. Fans have contacted me on Facebook under my real name, looking for the deleted fanfic (which was how I found out about the Reddit posts), and it's just out there, forever. I never wanted this to happen and had taken fairly stringent steps to avoid it (I'd knowingly shared my pseud with four people, all of whom I deeply trust and who I know IRL), but one slip where I accidentally outed myself (then didn't realize it for almost twenty years) was all it took. The email archive where I suspect they found the data didn't even come up in any search engine, because I search my online handles/email addresses/etc regularly to check for issues and it never once came up up in a search result on any engine. I have no idea how they found the email where I accidentally doxxed myself to a tiny group of a handful of people.
        At this point, I'm rolling my eyes and owning it, to a degree. It is what it is. I'll need to decide what fanfic I want to repost with the awareness that it can forever be linked to my real name, and what I want to keep gone.
        I don't WANT my pseuds connected to my legal name, even now, but I'm not sure fully preventing that is going to be possible going forward, if I'm being realistic.
        I'd love to prevent this sort of nightmare for other people, though. OTW REALLY needs to think hard about the goals for the site, the design for the site (that "alias" field should be removed) and if it's actually serving the needs of fandom to run a site structured in a way that encourages doxxing by having a "name" and "alias" fields right there for people to use.
        Edits: Clarity of meaning, typos.
        
        Last Edited Sun 20 Oct 2024 07:45PM UTC
        
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      2. Smaelstrom Sun 20 Oct 2024 07:58PM UTC
        
        It probably does, if there’s a process for it. It’s a good thing to be loud, spread the awareness! I’m so sorry this has come to be a last resort, it’s awful. This shouldn’t be.
        That’s awful, I’m so sorry you got outed, and that people have come out to you for stuff about fanfics, but at least it helped you become aware of it! I can’t believe- one teeny slip? That tells you how badly they wanted to dox you, if it was tiny, and didn’t come up regularly.
        Well, that’s good at least. But I do feel really bad, that you have to be extra careful now.
        I understand that. I don’t want my real name connected, I can only imagine how you feel that it got connected.
        I thank you for trying to prevent it, thousands of people will appreciate it, I know I do. They really do, (I agree, it should!) I don’t think it’s serving anything. That’s way too much power, being able to dox someone immediately for having different opinions. I’d probably get doxxed immediately, if I’m thinking about it.
        
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3. DistantManiacalLaughter Sun 20 Oct 2024 06:12AM UTC
  
  Oh! Oh fuck! I’m so, so sorry, that sounds horrible!
  
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DistantManiacalLaughter Sun 20 Oct 2024 06:00AM UTC

Me contacting my hr: Helen I need a fucking tote bag

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Celeste_Morrigan Sun 20 Oct 2024 07:25PM UTC

Setting up a recurring donation and selecting a gift is confusing in the donations page. The fact that it has the gift amount besides the gift makes me understand that I cannot select that gift even if I am setting up a recurring donation if the donation does not match that value. I wish it had been more clear there that I can select any gift but will only receive that when I get to the recurring donation to that value. Also, there is no way to track how far you are from reaching the donation goal or how much you've already given is there?

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1. OTW_News_Post_Moderation (Official) Sun 27 Oct 2024 05:49PM UTC
  
  Hi Celeste_Morrigan,
  We've passed your feedback about the donation page and selecting a gift for a recurring donation onto our Development & Membership committee.
  If you'd like to know how much you've donated and/or how close you are to reaching a donor gift goal, you can always reach out to them using their contact form.
  We hope this helps!
  Best,
  Marty
  OTW News Post Moderator
  
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B_feral Sun 20 Oct 2024 10:33PM UTC

Great choices of merch!
Thank you everyone for your contributions of all kinds to this community that significantly contributes to meeting my needs for joy, truth, companionship, and communion <3<3<3

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akhooshu Tue 22 Oct 2024 11:09PM UTC

imagine ao3 car stickers i need that

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1. Smaelstrom Tue 22 Oct 2024 11:52PM UTC
  
  Imagine getting hit by a car, and the last thing you see is an AO3 symbol.
  Or, a trope happens, and you get saved by your enemy. Then a slow burn happens. You can’t hate them because they saved you, which makes you hate them more. . . Or is it really hate you’re feeling?
  Anyways, just some food for thought/what my brain instantly thought up.
  
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2. 1. captainjaneway23 Wed 23 Oct 2024 02:10AM UTC
    
    Lol!
    
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