April 2026 Membership Drive: Behind the Scenes of AO3
Apr. 24th, 2026 12:02 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
ao3_news_feed
In case you missed it, earlier this month AO3 exited open beta! Earlier this year, we also reached 10 million users and 17 million fanworks. We’re awed by all these milestones we’ve reached as a community, and, as always, are very grateful for all your support.
These milestones would not be possible without the hard work of the volunteers who are part of the Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee (AD&T). AD&T is the team behind developing, updating, and maintaining the AO3’s software and infrastructure, whose work you can keep up with by reading the release notes posts with the list of code updates and fixes. Recently, our AD&T volunteers and contributors moved collections to Elasticsearch as well as made improvements to bookmark filtering and sorting.
If you're familiar with coding and would like to help, we welcome contributions from anyone! Check out our Contributing Guidelines and other documentation on our GitHub repository. All contributors are credited in our release notes.
If you're interested in helping AO3 but don't have any coding experience, consider contributing to AO3 in some other way, such as by donating!
We’ve prepared new donation gifts for this Drive as well, such as the US$350 Fix-It Kit, for when you need to do a little fix-it for canon; and the US$100 tech travel bag for all your fic reading and fanwork creation needs!
As per usual, we have a sticker set at the US$45 level, with a theme in celebration of the inherently human and collaborative nature of fannish culture and fandom, as well as encouragement of new beginnings.
Fiber Art Weavers, who generously donated OTW-themed recycled cotton blankets previously have kindly donated some more this Drive! We’re very excited to add them to our donation gifts at the US$600 level, but please note that these are limited in number and cannot be saved up for with a recurring donation unlike the other gifts. Once again, thank you so much to Fiber Art Weavers for their donation!
If you want a gift but don’t want to donate all at once, you can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Simply select a thank-you gift that your recurring donation will be adding up to, and once you’ve “saved” enough to get your item, you will get an email from Development & Membership to confirm your shipping address. You must respond to this email for the donation gift to be sent to you. 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. For more information regarding donating, refer to the Donations and Membership FAQ.
A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members have the right to vote for the Board of Directors—the OTW’s governing board. You have until June 30, 2026 to become a member if you would like to vote in this year’s election, which will be held in August. For more information about OTW elections, refer to our elections website.
While we hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and join the OTW, we're grateful for the support of all members of this community, in all its many forms! Whether you create, share, comment on or kudos fanworks on AO3; edit Fanlore; read Transformative Works and Cultures; or spread information from OTW Legal, you all help shape the OTW and its projects every day. We are grateful for your time, energy, and engagement!
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.
Update April 24 13:27 UTC: We are grateful for all your enthusiasm for the OTW-themed blankets! Unfortunately, our limited supply has now run out and it is no longer available as a donation gift. All other items are still available.
April 2026 Membership Drive: Behind the Scenes of AO3
Apr. 24th, 2026 12:00 amotw_news_feedIn case you missed it, earlier this month AO3 exited open beta! Earlier this year, we also reached 10 million users and 17 million fanworks. We’re awed by all these milestones we’ve reached as a community, and, as always, are very grateful for all your support.
These milestones would not be possible without the hard work of the volunteers who are part of the Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee (AD&T). AD&T is the team behind developing, updating, and maintaining the AO3’s software and infrastructure, whose work you can keep up with by reading the release notes posts with the list of code updates and fixes. Recently, our AD&T volunteers and contributors moved collections to Elasticsearch as well as made improvements to bookmark filtering and sorting.
If you’re familiar with coding and would like to help, we welcome contributions from anyone! Check out our Contributing Guidelines and other documentation on our GitHub repository. All contributors are credited in our release notes.
If you’re interested in helping AO3 but don’t have any coding experience, consider contributing to AO3 in some other way, such as by donating!
We’ve prepared new donation gifts for this Drive as well, such as the US$350 Fix-It Kit, for when you need to do a little fix-it for canon; and the US$100 tech travel bag for all your fic reading and fanwork creation needs!
As per usual, we have a sticker set at the US$45 level, with a theme in celebration of the inherently human and collaborative nature of fannish culture and fandom, as well as encouragement of new beginnings.
Fiber Art Weavers, who generously donated OTW-themed recycled cotton blankets previously have kindly donated some more this Drive! We’re very excited to add them to our donation gifts at the US$600 level, but please note that these are limited in number and cannot be saved up for with a recurring donation unlike the other gifts. Once again, thank you so much to Fiber Art Weavers for their donation!
If you want a gift but don’t want to donate all at once, you can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Simply select a thank-you gift that your recurring donation will be adding up to, and once you’ve “saved” enough to get your item, you will get an email from Development & Membership to confirm your shipping address. You must respond to this email for the donation gift to be sent to you. 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. For more information regarding donating, refer to the Donations and Membership FAQ.
A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members have the right to vote for the Board of Directors—the OTW’s governing board. You have until June 30, 2026 to become a member if you would like to vote in this year’s election, which will be held in August. For more information about OTW elections, refer to our elections website.
While we hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and join the OTW, we’re grateful for the support of all members of this community, in all its many forms! Whether you create, share, comment on or kudos fanworks on AO3; edit Fanlore; read Transformative Works and Cultures; or spread information from OTW Legal, you all help shape the OTW and its projects every day. We are grateful for your time, energy, and engagement!
Update April 24 13:27 UTC: We are grateful for all your enthusiasm for the OTW-themed blankets! Unfortunately, our limited supply has now run out and it is no longer available as a donation gift. All other items are still available.
OTW Finance: 2026 Budget
Apr. 23rd, 2026 11:14 pmao3_news_feed
Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2025 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!
The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2026 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2026 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):
2026 Expenses
Archive of Our Own (AO3)
- US$58,283.93 spent so far out of US$850,040.85 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- 71.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
- This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$500,000 to purchase new database servers, as well as US$60,000 for new firewalls and routers and US$35,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.
Open Doors
- US$1,957.84 spent so far out of US$8,731.05 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Transformative Works and Cultures
- US$317.00 spent so far out of US$6,512.63 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
- Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. One prize was awarded in 2025.
Fanlore
- US$2,228.24 spent so far out of US$46,688.30 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Legal Advocacy
- US$0 spent so far out of US$2,927.92 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Fundraising and Development
- US$22,123.05 spent so far out of US$136,004.81 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).
Administration
- US$32,837.40 spent so far out of US$144,203.13 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).
2026 Revenue
- The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
- We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 36.2% of our income in 2026. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
- Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of AO3's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of AO3 and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$375,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
- US$147,393.22 received so far (as of March 31, 2026) and US$830,450.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.
Got questions?
If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!
To download the OTW's 2026 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.
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.
OTW Finance: 2026 Budget
Apr. 23rd, 2026 11:13 pmotw_news_feedThrough the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization’s bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2025 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!
The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW’s 2026 needs, and is proud to present to you this year’s budget (access the 2026 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):
2026 Expenses
Archive of Our Own (AO3)
- US$58,283.93 spent so far out of US$850,040.85 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- 71.2% of the OTW’s expenses go towards maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
- This year’s projected AO3 expenses also include US$500,000 to purchase new database servers, as well as US$60,000 for new firewalls and routers and US$35,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.
Open Doors
- US$1,957.84 spent so far out of US$8,731.05 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Open Doors’ expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Transformative Works and Cultures
- US$317.00 spent so far out of US$6,512.63 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Transformative Works and Cultures‘ expenses are the journal’s website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
- Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. One prize was awarded in 2025.
Fanlore
- US$2,228.24 spent so far out of US$46,688.30 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Fanlore’s expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Legal Advocacy
- US$0 spent so far out of US$2,927.92 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Legal’s expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
Fundraising and Development
- US$22,123.05 spent so far out of US$136,004.81 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).
Administration
- US$32,837.40 spent so far out of US$144,203.13 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
- The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).
2026 Revenue
- The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
- We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 36.2% of our income in 2026. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you’d like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
- Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of AO3’s servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of AO3 and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$375,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
- US$147,393.22 received so far (as of March 31, 2026) and US$830,450.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.
Got questions?
If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW’s finances, please contact the Finance committee. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
To download the OTW’s 2026 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.
Search maintenance
Apr. 22nd, 2026 09:19 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceHappy Wednesday!
I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!
Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!
Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.
relatable explanations
Apr. 20th, 2026 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starandreaapod_feed) is delightful for many reasons, one being their lovely astronomy pictures and another being their brief explanations of those pictures. The explanations include a bunch of links for people who want to learn more, and often a random funny link to make people like me click all of them in order to find it. (A little practice can make you very good at guessing which one is the funny link.)
For example, yesterday's picture was Eye on the Milky Way by Miguel Claro. The explanation acknowledged the "unusual vertical horizon," and unusual vertical was a clickable link. I clicked it and laughed out loud.
Another great one from last year was Little Red Dots in the Early Universe, which concluded: "...searches are underway in our nearby universe to try to find whatever previous LRDs might have become today." The phrase searches are underway linked to a paper in The Astrophysical Journal, but the phrase become today was the one I was looking for.
like you do
Apr. 19th, 2026 02:18 amstarandreaThis is what happens when I have space for more plants. And also when I don't.
tomorrow, compost for the fence gardens. or groceries. both would be good.
Apr. 18th, 2026 12:40 amstarandreaI took before and after pictures but it took all day, so the after picture is literally the patio in the dark.
"when I think about angels, I think about you" (jamie o'neal)
Apr. 16th, 2026 10:06 pmstarandreaDaphne's DNA test results came back just a day shy of two weeks after the swab went in the mail. Embark was able to identify DNA from 8 specific breeds (very auspicious), with five of them being at least 10% and the greatest being 40%.
(The remaining three were grouped into "15% supermutt" and included GERMAN SHEPHERD, so fair, the only thing funnier would have been husky.)
So according to Embark, Daphne is about 40% chihuahua. No cairn genes detected, nor border terrier nor brussels griffon. In fact the single terrier-type gene they identified was 15% yorkie (second largest gene contribution after chihuahua), although the distinction seems to be partly one of size. (Her genes are almost entirely from toy breeds, even though her size tips her out of the toy category.)
40% chihuahua
15% yorkie
15% supermutt (mini poodle, german shepherd, lhasa apso)
10% pomeranian
10% pekingese
10% shih tzu
Plausible ♥
"keep your face to the sunshine and you'll never see the shadows"
Apr. 16th, 2026 05:14 pmstarandrea( spring bulbs and treathounds )
So I was going to do some stuff for the plants today, and I did move the dahlias and receive the greenhouses, which are in boxes on the living room floor. I even put together my new rake and opened the box that has the replacement tire for the garden cart in it. And I watered. Some things. But mostly I was tired and decided, maybe tomorrow.
There's a reason I have flowers instead of children.
"if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk"
Apr. 16th, 2026 01:00 amstarandreaIt's a bit warm and only flirting with freezing next Sunday and Monday nights, so I kicked out the two least fragile plants (agapanthus and some kind of dracaena, I forget but it's definitely survived being snowed on before) plus the two biggest geraniums and lo, there is space again.
So then Marci was like why don't you move the dahlias there, and I was all, oh and put them on a tray so they could be carried in and out to harden off ahead off frost free?? I love it. But the schefflera trees by the back door have scale, which doesn't kill them but could do in tender dahlia babies, so I pushed the littler trees outside too even though I'm pretty sure they're the ones I accused of being overly dramatic about temps below 50F last fall. We'll see in the morning, because even though I ordered them their own mini greenhouse for tomorrow I didn't bring them back in tonight.
And Marci was like what if you got a popup canopy, would that keep things warm, and I was like I don't know but I could put the big tree in it and attack the scale with mint while also keeping the dahlias away from it. But I don't want to move the big tree out until I put the fake grass on the patio for the summer, and that means moving everything already on the patio, plus sweeping, and also hauling rolls of artificial turf from the garage. Sounds hard.
So maybe that will be tomorrow's project, or not. Meanwhile there's a big empty space near the back door with a dahlia table built out of partially assembled wire crates and a boot tray. The dahlias are still in the utility closet.
But the lungwort is blooming in the front garden next to the bridge and its little pink and purple flowers are delightful.
ao3_news_feed
Are you a paralegal interested in helping the Legal Committee carry out its legal advocacy mission? Do you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU and US? Would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Legal Committee Paralegal - closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
- Legal Committee Trademark Specialist - closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
- Policy & Abuse Volunteer - closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Legal Committee Paralegal
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW's legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization. We provide confidential legal advice to every part of the OTW organization, respond to fans' requests for general assistance and information, and create educational materials. We also file briefs in lawsuits and advise lawmakers about how to take fans’ needs and interests into account in creating and interpreting the law. And we're looking for a few new members!
We are looking for a paralegal to assist with managing standard questions, tracking issues, and ensuring we adhere to deadlines. If this describes you, please click through to the application form. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Paralegal at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Legal Committee Trademark Specialist
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization.
We are currently looking for a Trademark Specialist, who will be responsible for trademark registration applications and maintenance and trademark enforcement, generally dealing with platforms and attempts to monetize AO3 via apps or merchandise.
If you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU or US, and can effectively communicate legal issues to non lawyers, click through for the job description and to apply. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Trademark Specialist at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Policy & Abuse Volunteer
The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.
Our main goals as a committee are:
- to adhere to the AO3 Terms of Service
- to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible
- to handle all user reports consistently, no matter which volunteer is doing the work
- to keep every case we work on completely confidential
We are seeking people who can:
- Commit to working on cases regularly
- Be patient with rephrasing explanations
- Ask for help when needed
- Collaborate both inside the team and with other committees
- Act in accordance with established rules, policies, and procedures
- Treat confidentiality and user privacy as a priority
You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Chinese (中文), French (Français), Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Japanese (日本語), Polish (Polski), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська).
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Policy & Abuse Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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.
otw_news_feedAre you a paralegal interested in helping the Legal Committee carry out its legal advocacy mission? Do you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU and US? Would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We’re excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Legal Committee Paralegal – closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
- Legal Committee Trademark Specialist – closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
- Policy & Abuse Volunteer – closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don’t see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Legal Committee Paralegal
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization. We provide confidential legal advice to every part of the OTW organization, respond to fans’ requests for general assistance and information, and create educational materials. We also file briefs in lawsuits and advise lawmakers about how to take fans’ needs and interests into account in creating and interpreting the law. And we’re looking for a few new members!
We are looking for a paralegal to assist with managing standard questions, tracking issues, and ensuring we adhere to deadlines. If this describes you, please click through to the application form. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Paralegal at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Legal Committee Trademark Specialist
The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization.
We are currently looking for a Trademark Specialist, who will be responsible for trademark registration applications and maintenance and trademark enforcement, generally dealing with platforms and attempts to monetize AO3 via apps or merchandise.
If you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU or US, and can effectively communicate legal issues to non lawyers, click through for the job description and to apply. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Legal Committee Trademark Specialist at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Policy & Abuse Volunteer
ThePolicy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.
Our main goals as a committee are:
- to adhere to the AO3 Terms of Service
- to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible
- to handle all user reports consistently, no matter which volunteer is doing the work
- to keep every case we work on completely confidential
We are seeking people who can:
- Commit to working on cases regularly
- Be patient with rephrasing explanations
- Ask for help when needed
- Collaborate both inside the team and with other committees
- Act in accordance with established rules, policies, and procedures
- Treat confidentiality and user privacy as a priority
You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Chinese (中文), French (Français), Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Japanese (日本語), Polish (Polski), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська).
Applications are due 22 April 2026
Apply to be a Policy & Abuse Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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.
"no matter what, her smile came shining through" (meredith edwards)
Apr. 13th, 2026 10:53 pmstarandreajust an adorable german shepherd befriending some kittens with a little help from mom