Here at the OTW, preserving fannish history is a central part of our mission! We're proud to be able to offer fans a place to archive their works on the Archive of Our Own, and tell their own fannish histories on Fanlore. As of March 29, 2013, Fanlore has 24,423 articles which have undergone 439,529 edits, while the Archive of Our Own recently passed 143,000 users, and more than 640,100 works have been posted on the AO3, across over 11,600 fandoms!

We're really pleased and proud to see so much fannish representation. However, we know that there are many, many wonderful fanworks out in the world which haven't found their way to the AO3 - for example the classic television show M*A*S*H has only 264 works on the AO3 while Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman sits at 83. There are even more fannish stories left untold on Fanlore - we'd love to see the fannish activity over the Veronica Mars movie documented as it unfolds! Last year, we welcomed in lots more edits to Fanlore and works to the AO3 with our April Showers promotion. This year, we're hoping to do the same! This month, bring us fannish April showers by digging out those old zines, memories of past cons, archived personal webpages, tales of shipwars and fannish events, works on slowly-decaying archives, new works you've been putting off creating, and more! Upload your old (and new) works to the AO3 and tell your tales on Fanlore.

We'll be highlighting a different fandom for each day of the month on our Tumblr ao3org, to help jog your memories about fannish loves of the past and highlight some currently active fandom activity. When uploading to the AO3, you can tag your uploaded works April Showers 2013 - at the end of the month we'll round up all the works with this tag and post stats on how many were uploaded for each fandom. However, don't feel you have to stick to these fandoms - we hope people will reach into their personal fannish histories to preserve what's important to them!

We kick off today by hearing the people sing with the 2012 film version of Les Misérables. Bring your works beyond the barricade into the AO3 and share all of the dreams you dreamed on Fanlore!

A quick search for the term "love" on Fanlore brings up nearly 7,000 results. In comparison, the term "write" brings up just under 5,000 results, there are just over 2,000 uses of "vid," and "art" is mentioned roughly 6,500 times. This seems appropriate, as the heart of fandom is about loving something. We are fans because we pour our passion into something we love, whether it be a band, a video game, or a novel.

In the age of the internet, one great way to say you love something — aside from 'i <3 u,' that is — is to create a wiki about it. Fanlore, OTW's wiki, is a living record of all things fannish, dynamic and regularly changing. The "stories" that reside on Fanlore are ones told by fans whose love for a genre, work, fandom activity, or moment in fan history led them to create an entry and tell the story in their own words. Fanlore itself is the story beneath the story: it is the fan-run support structure that allows these stories to be stored and accessed by other fans.

The fan community deserves to see our tale told and to have somewhere we can use our own voice to tell the tale. Fanlore provides a place to do so, one cared for and maintained by fans themselves in yet another show of — you guessed it — love.

Help keep Fanlore growing and thriving — please donate today.

The OTW is pleased to announce that its fandom wiki project, Fanlore, will be passing a new milestone in the next few weeks. Launched on September 29, 2008, the site, which is open to contributions by all fans, will be reaching 25,000 articles. To celebrate, we are planning a trivia contest and are inviting everyone to participate!

Starting on June 16th and ending on the 18th we will be posting 10 questions a day, at the Fanlore Dreamwidth community, whose answers can be found on Fanlore. All comments to these posts will be screened and you do not need an account to post comments at the site. The first individual to submit correct answers to all questions at that post will win an OTW magnet, usually available only to those making donations. (This offer is void where prohibited.)

There will be a total of three winners, one for each post. The posts will be made at different times each day to allow participants in different timezones plenty of time to respond.

If you have any questions please leave them here. If you'd like to contribute your own content to Fanlore, take a look at their tutorial to get you started. And even if you aren't planning to take part in the contest, we invite you to stop by Fanlore and check out the great content that's been assembled there in the last five years.

The OTW would like to remind everyone that its fandom wiki project, Fanlore, will be passing a new milestone in the next week. To celebrate, we will be holding a trivia contest that begins in 48 hours and are inviting everyone to participate!

Starting on June 16th at 1800 UTC (what time is that in my timezone) and ending on June 20th at 0200 UTC, we will be posting 10 questions each day at our Fanlore Dreamwidth community, whose answers can be found on Fanlore. All comments to these posts will be screened and you do not need an account to post comments at the site. If you are posting anonymously, however, you will need to include a name in your comment so that we can identify you if you are a winner.

The first individual to submit correct answers to all questions at that post will win an OTW magnet, usually available only to those making donations. (This offer is void where prohibited.) There will be a total of three winners, one for each post. The posts will be made at different times each day to allow participants in different timezones plenty of time to respond.

You may want to subscribe to Fanlore's twitter account for updates during the event.

If you have any questions please leave them here!

The Fanlore celebration trivia contest has now closed and we have winners! They are:

fuurou for Post 1
sungabraverday for Post 2
kylara for Post 3

Congratulations to them and thank you to everyone who took part. We hope you had a good time hunting through Fanlore entries. If you've come across entries you'd like to expand or new ones you'd like to start, take a look at Fanlore's tutorial if you're new to editing there.

Fanlore appears to have passed its 25,000 entry on June 18 with the Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss article created by PhoenixFalls.

Many thanks to all the fans, gardeners, editors, and Wiki Committee staffers who have developed Fanlore over the years, and who have given the rest of us this great resource to enjoy and check. We look forward to celebrating more milestones in the future!

Mirrored from an original post at the Fanlore community on Dreamwidth. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

Fanlore, the wiki project maintained by the Organization for Transformative Works, is a living record of all things fannish. The wiki has recently passed the milestone of 25,000 articles and has received over 19 million views!

Documenting our history, communities, events, practices, and works in a wiki is invaluable in welcoming new members into fandom, and in preserving our events and traditions for future generations of fans. Just a few of the contributions Fanlore welcomes include:

* Memories
* Definitions and trivia
* Discussions
* Memes
* Links to fandom resources
* Overviews of fandom history
* Examples of fanworks, fansites, fan gatherings, and groups

We're always looking for content from every fandom, everywhere: there is no limit to the creativity of fans throughout the world, and we would all be thrilled to read about the fan history you've experienced.

For those wanting to discover the site, you can look over the sitemap, choose a random page, or sign up to its "new page" feed. At Fanlore, the possibilities are endless and community is key!

If you want to help edit Fanlore, create an account today. If you're already familiar with Fanlore and want to take your passion and commitment to fan history to the next level, you could consider becoming a Fanlore Gardener.

Like all of the OTW's projects, Fanlore relies on financial support from fans. If you enjoy using Fanlore, please consider making a donation.

Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Abuse Committee Staff
• Wiki Committee Staff
• Wiki Committee Design Specialist
• Translation volunteers

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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

Abuse Committee Staff
The Abuse Committee is dedicated to helping users deal with the various situations that may arise. We also handle any complaints that come in about content uploaded to the Archive of Our Own. The team determines if complaints are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are; our major goals are to adhere to the TOS, to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible, and to keep every individual case completely confidential. We work closely with other AO3 related committees such as Support and Content.

We are seeking people who can keep in close contact, be patient in rephrasing explanations, translate from fan-speak to English, make and document decisions, cooperate within and outside of their team, and ask for help when it's needed. Staffers need to be able to handle complex and sometimes-disturbing content, and must be able to commit a sufficient amount of time to the team on a regular basis.

Applications are due 4th of November 2013.

Wiki Committee Staff
The Wiki Committee supervises Fanlore: we provide direction, write policies and help documents, promote the wiki, organise and support Gardeners, communicate with users, and keep the site running. We handle requests for support and complaints from users and do our best to help the Fanlore community grow.

If you like Fanlore and are interested in helping the site improve, you could consider joining the Wiki committee.

Applications are due 4th of November 2013.

Wiki Committee Design Specialist
The current design and skin for the fannish wiki Fanlore is partly a byproduct of other processes and considerations and we'd like to improve it. Our main concerns are usability and accessibility, but ideally it should be pretty, too. If you have experience with front-end web development and Web design and are interested in Fanlore, we'd be happy to have your help with this project.

Applications are due 4th of November 2013.

Translation volunteers
Translators and translation betas help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider international audience. We work on translating all sorts of content throughout the OTW and its projects: site pages, news posts, Archive FAQs, AO3 Support tickets, and any inquiry that reaches a committee or volunteer group in languages they can’t translate themselves. Most of our work consists of translations from English to another language, though we also need to do the reverse on some occasions.

If you are proficient in one language (or more!) other than English, if you enjoy working collaboratively, if you like having flexible deadlines that you set yourself, if you’re passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help it reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!

Applications are due 4th of November 2013.

The Strategic Planning Committee is pleased to announce that we are releasing our reports on the Wiki Committee/Fanlore team, the Systems Committee, and the Grants Committee.

You can download the reports as PDFs:
Wiki Committee/Fanlore report
Systems Committee report
Grants Committee report

About these reports

To write these reports, we surveyed the current staff and volunteers, and the retired staff and volunteers, interviewed the chairs, and conducted follow-up interviews with any staff and volunteers (current or retired) who wished to speak with us further.

Everything in the reports is based on the data we collected. The responses we collected were synthesized into these reports, which summarize the strengths and challenges that staff and volunteers (both current and retired) noted in their responses, and makes recommendations for change based on their suggestions. More information about our process is included in the reports themselves.

Before coming to you, the reports have been reviewed by the respective committee chairs and the Board, and copyedited by the Communications Committee. The purpose of this was to correct any factual errors we might have made and to solicit feedback before the wider release. No data collected from any surveys or interviews were changed or removed from the report as a result of these reviews.

Feedback

We hope that you find the reports interesting, and very much welcome your feedback! If you have any questions or wish to contact the committee, get in touch with us through our contact form.

Please note that these reports incorporate internal stakeholders only, so while public comments on this post will be read and discussed (and possibly taken into account for future reports, as well as the next round of strategic planning), external stakeholder opinion will not be incorporated into future revisions of these reports.

All contact we receive is kept to a high standard of confidentiality, and we’d be happy to discuss that with you if you have any concerns.

Upcoming reports

Over the next several months, we will continue to survey committees and release reports. The next scheduled report will be on the Support Committee. Ultimately, we will release a final report that synthesizes all of the data we received across the entire organization.

Yesterday the AO3 reached its one million milestone and here are some things that have been taking place since.

ao3million posts

Since our milestone 354 new works have been posted to AO3 using the AO3 1 Million tag. \o/ for new fanworks!

There have also been a lot of fic recs flying around on Twitter and Tumblr under the #ao3million tag. So if you're looking for something new, check those out and remember to add your own!

It's been very moving to the staff and volunteers to read the many personal messages of how much AO3 has meant to people. Thank you for sharing those with us and also to the new donors who have stepped forward to help us keep things running!

Parties!

The organizers of Nine World's fanfic programming last year are hosting a party in London to celebrate AO3's milestone. It will be held on March 8 from 5-11 pm at The Blue Lion. Let them know you'll be there.

If you are planning parties or events yourself, let us know here in comments and we'll keep updating this post with information.

Another milestone!

The AO3's sister project, Fanlore, has also zoomed past a milestone. Last year it was passing 25,000 articles. Now it's passed its 500,000th edit on the same day that AO3 hit 1 million! Please join us in congratulating all the editors, gardeners, and staffers who have worked on those many entries

Yet to come

We plan to keep celebrating through March, so stay tuned for our announcement next weekend with details of upcoming events. We'll be counting on your input! And in another few days we'll be letting you know about something we're planning for coming years. So keep an eye on OTW News.

In the meantime, let us know what you've been seeing, planning, and doing!

Fanlore editing party!

Keen to add your fannish memories to Fanlore but not sure where to start? Need your hand held as you make your first wiki edits? Or keen to share your skillz as an experienced Fanlore editor? Join Fanlore staff in the Fanlore chatroom for an editing party! You'll be able to get help making your first forays into editing Fanlore, toss around ideas for new pages, and ask questions. Everyone is welcome!

Join them on Saturday, 19 April, from 20:00 to 22:30 UTC. (What's the start time in my timezone?)

Here at the OTW, preserving fannish history is a central part of our mission! We're proud to be able to offer fans a place to archive their works on the Archive of Our Own, and tell their own fannish histories on Fanlore. Both of these sites passed major milestones in February and represent works and stories about many thousands of fandoms.

However, we know that there are a lot more histories and fanworks out in the world which haven't found their way to the AO3 or Fanlore. So this month, we invite you to bring us fannish April showers by digging out those old zines, memories of past cons, archived personal webpages, tales of shipwars and fannish events, works on slowly-decaying archives, new works you've been putting off creating, and more! Help us celebrate fandom's history and diversity by uploading your old (and new) works to the AO3 and by telling your tales on Fanlore. When uploading to the AO3, you can tag your uploaded works April Showers 2014

Alternatively, celebrate your favorite fanworks on the Archive by sharing your recs with us. To do so, simply bookmark the fanwork in question and add it to our April Showers Recs collection.

To do this, either create a new bookmark of the work or edit an existing bookmark you'd like to highlight for this occasion. In the Bookmarking screen, scroll to the bottom, check the "Rec" box and add the name "April Showers Recs 2014" in the collection field. When sharing your recs, we encourage you to leave some comments about it in the Notes section, to help guide other fans.

For our part, we'll be highlighting a different fandom for each day of the month through our social media sites:

• AO3 Twitter at ao3org
• AO3 Tumblr at AO3 News
• Fanlore Twitter at fanlore_news

Check them for the hashtag #aprilshowers! We hope to jog your memories about fannish loves of the past and highlight some currently active fandom activity. However, don't feel you have to stick to the fandoms we highlight!

Now that April has left us for another year, we must also leave behind our April Showers fandom celebrations.

But that doesn't mean that the fun is over! Below, we've collected the links to every fandom post we made, along with links to each fandom's AO3 and Fanlore pages, so you can make sure you didn't miss any of them. And the April Showers Recs (2014) collection has been filled with recommended works in dozens of fandoms, perfect to browse through while waiting for those May Flowers to appear.

We'd love to thank each and every one of you who reblogged, retweeted, liked, and clicked on any of our tweets or Tumblr posts ... but that would take too long and would get in the way of your checking out all the great fandoms listed here!

So, without further ado, here are the celebrated fandoms of April Showers 2014.

Highest clickthroughs from ao3org

Young Wizards – Diane Duane -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
Labyrinth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
due south -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Highest clickthroughs from fanlore_news

Rooster Teeth
My Little Pony
Dangan Ronpa

Week One:

1. Warehouse 13 -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
2. Dangan Ronpa -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
3. Divergent Series – Veronica Roth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
4. "Get a Mac" Commercials -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
5. Labyrinth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Two:

6. Transformers: Prime -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
7. Dishonored (Video Game) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
8. No. 6 – Asano Atsuko -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
9. Rooster Teeth -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
10. My Little Pony -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
11. Pacific Rim -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
12. French Revolution RPF -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Three:

13. Discworld Series – Terry Pratchett -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
14. Hannibal (TV) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
15. Young Avengers -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
16. Tatort -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
17. Legend of Zelda -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
18. Cornetto Trilogy -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
19. Nancy Drew – Carolyn Keene -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Four:

20. Sandman (Comics) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
21. due south -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
22. Elder Scrolls -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
23. Arashi (Band) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
24. Frozen -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
25. Free! -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
26. Young Wizards – Diane Duane -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Five:

27. Bioshock -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
28. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
29. Power Rangers -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
30. Welcome to Night Vale -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Translation Staff and Communications Chair Track Staff. Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Wiki Committee Staff - Closing 30 June 2014 UTC
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer - Closing 30 June 2014 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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

Wiki Committee Staff The Wiki Committee supervises Fanlore: we provide direction, write policies and help documents, promote the wiki, organise and support Gardeners, communicate with users, and keep the site running. We handle requests for support and complaints from users and do our best to help the Fanlore community grow.

If you like Fanlore and are interested in helping the site improve, you could consider joining the Wiki committee. Applications are due 30 June 2014 UTC

Tag Wrangling Volunteers Tag Wrangling Volunteers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! Based on internal guidelines, we choose which form a tag takes in the filters and auto-complete, and we link tags together to make the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s Steve/Tony with tentacles or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff).

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and application form.

Please note: due to (amazing!) interest in wrangling, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only. See the application for which fandoms are in need. Applications are due 30 June UTC

While fans are welcome to edit Fanlore at any time of the year, next month the Wiki Committee is organizing a special event. Stub September is a challenge for anyone, newcomers and seasoned Fanlore editors alike, to pick a stub and expand on it. A stub is an article on Fanlore that is under-developed and missing important information. Right now, there are over 1600 existing pages on Fanlore that are already identified as stubs. You're invited to use the list to find a page where you know something about the topic, and edit the page to add your new information. It's as simple as that.

In addition to the identified stubs, there two other types of articles, pages that need expansion and examples wanted, that need more information.

Pages that need expansion are pages that are too long to be considered stubs, but are still missing crucial information; e.g., there may be some empty placeholder sections that need filling in. This category was created in response to user feedback during the first Stub September.

Examples wanted are pages that are missing specific examples to define or illustrate the page topic. This category is much shorter and needs more specific information. If you know any examples, please just add them to the page!

New this year

This year, we have chosen to focus on specific types of stubs during each week of the month. This is intended to make it easier to decide on a page to work on, but you are welcome to work on any stub (or any other article!) at any time. There will be new themes each week of September, so visit Fanlore's Dreamwidth account for more information.

Feel free to post links to the articles you work on and let others know about the project! If you haven't yet tried your hand at writing something for Fanlore, Stub September is a good month to add more information to existing Fanlore articles without having to start your own page from scratch. And you might also find out -- it's fun!

To help newcomers get started, the Wiki Committee will be organizing an editing party on Sunday, September 14th at 19:00 UTC (what time is that in my timezone?)in the Fanlore chat room where you can come and ask questions or just work on entries alongside other people.

If you're unable to attend the editing party but have questions about Fanlore or how to get started, you can contact the Wiki Committee or visit their Dreamwidth account.

Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of September! The Events Calendar can be found on the OTW website and is open to submissions by anyone with news of an event. These can be viewed by event-type, such as Academic Events, Fan Gatherings, Legal Events, OTW Events, or Technology Events taking place around the world.

• A Fantastic Legacy: Diana Wynne Jones Memorial Conference honors the life and work of the 20th century writer of British children's fantasy. The conference, for both scholars and fans, is hosted by Newcastle University and Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, and takes place September 5-6 in Newcastle, England.

• HawaiiCon bills itself as the "first sci-fi, science, and fantasy tropical vacation convention." This year's event is scheduled for September 12-14 on the Kohala Coast. Guests include Jane Espenson, Walter Koenig, and Cree Summer.

• Fanlore's Stub September encourages fans to contribute their expertise to the site. A stub is an article on Fanlore that is under-developed and missing important information. Right now, there are over 1,600 pages on Fanlore already identified as stubs. You’re invited to use the list to find a page where you know something about the topic, and edit the page to add your new information. Need help getting started? The Wiki Committee will host an editing party on Sunday, September 14, at 19:00 UTC.

• The Metafandom Unconference is being hosted by the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute and the IMMERSe Research Network September 18-19 in Ontario. Unconferences are "gatherings of interested scholars and experts, where they have informed conversations on a particular topic--fandom and fan studies, in this case!"

• Wolf Moon Con is the first unofficial Teen Wolf fan convention in Spain! Scheduled for September 19-21 in Madrid, the con will host actors of this series, including Tyler Hoechlin, Ian Bohen, and JR Bourne.

• Rose City Comic Con takes place September 20-21 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, and will be co-produced by both Emerald City Comicon and Rose City Comic Con, combining the talents and organizational efforts for one event. Celebrity guests include Michael Biehn, Ernie Hudson, Wil Wheaton, and Sean Astin.

Calls for Papers this month come from:

• The Cultural Transformations Research Group, Aarhus University, is hosting Otherness and Transgression in Celebrity and Fan Cultures in November and is soliciting papers by September 5. Topics may include "the Construction of Otherness in Fandom and Fan Works,""Monstrosity, the Abject, and Uncanny in Fan Fiction, Fandoms, and Celebrityhood," and "the (Im)Material Other Worlds of Fandoms and the Alternative Spaces of Fan Communities."

The OTW encourages anyone to submit an event that's not already listed, and to check out the calendar throughout the year!

Are you new to creating entries on Fanlore? Have you been editing for a while but would like to talk to other people working on Fanlore?

Whatever your connection to Fanlore, you are cordially invited to an editing chat for questions, discussions, or just to talk about Fanlore editing. The chat will be held on Saturday, October 11, 2014 from 6:30 to 8:30pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?), in the Fanlore chat room on Campfire.

Come join Wiki staffers, gardeners and fellow editors and find out more about how you can help develop the entries on Fanlore!

Thank you to those who responded to our most recent call for volunteers. Today, we have another group of committees looking for some additional help and are excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Abuse Committee Staff - closing 23 February UTC
• AO3 Documentation Volunteers - closing 23 February UTC
• Communications Chair Track Staff - closing 23 February UTC
• Wiki Staff - closing 23 February 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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

Abuse Committee Staff
The Abuse Committee is dedicated to helping users deal with the various situations that may arise. We also handle any complaints that come in about content uploaded to the Archive of Our Own. The team determines if complaints are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are; our major goals are to adhere to the TOS, to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible, and to keep every individual case completely confidential. We work closely with other AO3 related committees such as Support and Content.

We are seeking people who can keep in close contact, be patient in rephrasing explanations, make and document decisions, cooperate within and outside of their team, and ask for help when it's needed. Staffers need to be able to handle complex and sometimes-disturbing content, and must be able to commit a sufficient amount of time to the team on a regular basis.

Abuse staffers are required to spend at least five hours a week handling committee work, though it often tends to be more. Please be sure you can handle the workload before applying.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Ao3 Documentation Volunteer
AO3 Documentation is the workgroup that writes and updates AO3 FAQs and tutorials. We're looking for people who love the Archive of Our Own and who have experience with writing and proofreading user help documentation. If you enjoy helping your fellow fans learn how the AO3 works, please read the full details and apply to join the Docs team!

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Communications Chair Track Staff
The Communications Committee is the central information distributing arm of the OTW, responsible for the distribution of information internally to OTW personnel and externally to the general public, the media, fans, and other fannish organizations. Communications is also typically the first point of contact for someone interested in or wanting help from OTW, and serves all of the organization's committees and projects. The position of Chair Track Staffer is designed for individuals with ample time to learn all aspects of Communications' activities, and who would like to work toward being considered for the role of chair.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Wiki Staff
Wiki staff members are responsible for dealing with all the behind the scenes stuff to ensure that Fanlore runs smoothly. We respond to questions and complaints; shape Fanlore policies, categories, and tutorials; assist the gardeners; try to promote Fanlore; plan larger projects, and generally try to be as helpful as possible. No special experience is required, only reliability, the ability to work in a team, and an interest in fannish history and Fanlore in particular.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Thank you to those who responded to our most recent call for volunteers. Today, we have another group of committees looking for some additional help and are excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Abuse Committee Staff - closing 23 February UTC
• AO3 Documentation Volunteers - closing 23 February UTC
• Communications Chair Track Staff - closing 23 February UTC
• Wiki Staff - closing 23 February 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 volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org 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.

Abuse Committee Staff
The Abuse Committee is dedicated to helping users deal with the various situations that may arise. We also handle any complaints that come in about content uploaded to the Archive of Our Own. The team determines if complaints are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are; our major goals are to adhere to the TOS, to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible, and to keep every individual case completely confidential. We work closely with other AO3 related committees such as Support and Content.

We are seeking people who can keep in close contact, be patient in rephrasing explanations, make and document decisions, cooperate within and outside of their team, and ask for help when it's needed. Staffers need to be able to handle complex and sometimes-disturbing content, and must be able to commit a sufficient amount of time to the team on a regular basis.

Abuse staffers are required to spend at least five hours a week handling committee work, though it often tends to be more. Please be sure you can handle the workload before applying.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

AO3 Documentation Volunteer
AO3 Documentation is the workgroup that writes and updates AO3 FAQs and tutorials. We're looking for people who love the Archive of Our Own and who have experience with writing and proofreading user help documentation. If you enjoy helping your fellow fans learn how the AO3 works, please read the full details and apply to join the Docs team!

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Communications Chair Track Staff
The Communications Committee is the central information distributing arm of the OTW, responsible for the distribution of information internally to OTW personnel and externally to the general public, the media, fans, and other fannish organizations. Communications is also typically the first point of contact for someone interested in or wanting help from OTW, and serves all of the organization's committees and projects. The position of Chair Track Staffer is designed for individuals with ample time to learn all aspects of Communications' activities, and who would like to work toward being considered for the role of chair.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

Wiki Staff
Wiki staff members are responsible for dealing with all the behind the scenes stuff to ensure that Fanlore runs smoothly. We respond to questions and complaints; shape Fanlore policies, categories, and tutorials; assist the gardeners; try to promote Fanlore; plan larger projects, and generally try to be as helpful as possible. No special experience is required, only reliability, the ability to work in a team, and an interest in fannish history and Fanlore in particular.

Applications are due 12AM UTC on 23 February 2015.

AO3 and Fanlore users take note: both sites will be down for scheduled maintenance this Friday, 20th March. The maintenance will take place from 17:30 to approximately 20:45 UTC. What time is that for me?

Note that maintenance may also take slightly longer than expected, so there is no need to contact us if you cannot access the site at exactly 20:45 UTC.

For site status updates about the sites please follow @AO3_Status and @fanlore_news on Twitter.

In the month of April we hope you'll help us spruce up AO3 and Fanlore by posting forgotten works and dusting off neglected wiki entries.

We are proud to be able to offer an archive for fanworks at Archive of Our Own and we invite you to take the time to post both new works and old works that are languishing in ancient blogs or buried in your harddrive. Add them to AO3 so other fans can enjoy them! You can even backdate them to show their original creation date, and use our pseud system to preserve old fandom aliases.

If you're posting works, use the tag April Showers 2015 so that everyone can find them.

Or, if there's a fanwork already on the archive that you think more people should see, bookmark it and add it to our April Showers Recs collection.

We also recognise that fandom history is far more than just fanworks - Fanlore records decades of fannish activity, from the days before the internet all the way to current events shaping fandom. If you have old zines, or fond memories of a long-ago convention, write about them on Fanlore. If there's new drama in your fandom, or a new trend in fanart, write about those too! Fanlore is open to everyone, and we encourage everyone to edit it and add their own experiences. Fannish history is our history.

If you'd like to edit pages, but you aren't sure how, don't panic! There will be an editing party in the Fanlore chatroom on Saturday, April 4th at 16:00 UTC (when is that in my timezone?). Come and ask questions, familiarise yourself with Fanlore, or just chat with other editors.

There will be a second chat towards the end of the month - keep an eye on the Fanlore community on Dreamwidth for the exact date and time.

To help get you started, we're highlighting a different fandom every day via our twitter accounts; ao3org and fanlore_news. Follow us for a daily dose of fandom!

Now that our membership drive has wrapped up (thank you, everyone!) we also want to give you a wrap-up reminder of our April Showers fandom celebrations from this year.

Below, we've collected the links to every fandom post we made, along with links to each fandom's AO3 and Fanlore pages, so you can make sure you didn't miss any of them. And the April Showers Recs (2015) collection has recommended works in dozens of fandoms, so you can make spring last as long as you want!

We'd love to thank each and every one of you who reblogged, retweeted, liked, and clicked on any of our tweets or Tumblr posts... but that would take too long and would get in the way of your checking out all the great fandoms listed here. Enjoy!

Highest clickthroughs from the AO3 twitter:

Jupiter Ascending
Gravitation
Kingsman

Most notable posts from the AO3 tumblr:

Jupiter Ascending
Agent Carter
Orphan Black

Highest clickthroughs from the Fanlore twitter:

Redwall
Jupiter Ascending
Kingsman

Week One:

1. Dragon Ball -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
2. Jupiter Ascending -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
3. Redwall Series -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
4. Nabari no Ou -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
5. Snowpiercer -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Two:

6. Over The Garden Wall -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
7. Valdemar Series -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
8. Hellblazer/Constantine -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
9. Alex Rider -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
10. Black Books -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
11. Marble Hornets -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
12. Orphan Black -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Three:

13. Ib -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
14. Cobra Starship -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
15. RWBY -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
16. The Fault in Our Stars -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
17. Shadow Hearts -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
18. Le Petit Prince -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
19. Agent Carter -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Four:

20. Nochnoy Dozor -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
21. Kingsman -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
22. Cabin Pressure -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
23. Gravitation -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
24. The Last of Us -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
25. How to Get Away with Murder -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
26. Carmilla -- [AO3] [Fanlore]

Week Five:

27. Ouran High School Host Club -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
28. Minecraft -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
29. Wicked -- [AO3] [Fanlore]
30. Book of Life -- [AO3] [Fanlore]