For the record, here is who I'm voting for in the OTW elections starting today/tomorrow:

Julia Beck
Nikisha Sanders
Jenny Scott-Thompson
Betsy Rosenblatt

As well as being involved in the OTW since its beginning (I served as a committee chair in the organisation's first term, and have since been a user, member and casual volunteer) and forming my own opinions on the candidates and who I believe to be best for the future of the organisation, I have been reading a lot of writing by others who are invested. Because I don't have the time/energy to write up a great manifesto myself, if you want to hear about more of my reasoning, go and read bookshop's recent post on hir endorsements and the latest issues.

But I will summarise why I am not voting for Naomi Novik:

• Having worked under her (when she was board president), I had a terrible experience as a staffer which I believe stemmed from very poor board management of the huge range of skilled volunteers (there are many, many elections posts out there that prove I'm not alone in feeling under-valued, ignored, thwarted and burnt out).


• NN is an amazing, creative, dynamic coder, yes. The Archive can still benefit from her brilliant coding skills and work ethic when she's not on the board. In fact, it would probably utilise her skills better to have her on the ADT committee coding all the time, instead of spreading out her time/energy on board things as well.


• In addition to the point above, yes, she is a great coder. Yes, she has done fantastic work on the Archive. I do not believe that these are reasons she should be elected to the board. I am voting for who I believe will provide the organisation with excellent governance, not who should be rewarded for being good at something else entirely. I can't reiterate this enough: the board elections are not a reward, fandom awards, popularity contest or personality test. They are an opportunity to elect suitable representatives of the membership to govern the organisation and guide it into a better future.


• Both in terms of managing human resources and managing the code itself, the OTW is deeply flawed. I don't believe this is intentional, or that the staffers working in the OTW haven't poured their hearts and souls into its projects. But I am deeply invested in this organisation, and believe that these two things especially are in desperate need of review and change, if the organisation is to grow in a positive direction and not leave the very people it's supposed to be caring for (fans!) miserable and exhausted. From reading what NN has said during the campaign, and from my own personal experience of her governance, I do not believe she is committed to acknowledging and rectifying these issues.

Happy voting!

I've just created ao3_collections, a comm on LJ for Archive of Our Own users to promote their new Collections.

*snips from mod post*

The purpose of this community is to provide:

a) a place for Collection owners to promote their new collections to potential contributors and readers,

b) a way for writers to keep up with Collections they may want to contribute to, and

c) a way for readers to keep abreast of the Collections being formed.

There's a feed for it on Dreamwidth, too: ao3_collections_feed.

Please spread the word to anyone other AO3 users you know!

I have ongoing soap operas of story archiving. I archive stories on my site because there are more readers than commenters always, so I like to see the stats of how many hits it gets and where they're linked from. And I post stories on LJ because stories actually archived on LJ are more likely to have readers comment on them. And then I archive stories on the AOOO because it'll be there forever.

And so right now I try to archive in all three places. Well, I'm gradually moving stories from hopeful_fiction to the AOOO, and am thinking of moving fics posted on LJ to the website solely. Well, not solely; after I put them on my website I use the vacuum importer to put them on the Archive as well.

BUT. I post all kinds of scribbles and timestamps and ficlets on my LJ that I don't particularly want to archive on my website - the website is for completed, polished stories.

BUT I don't want to lose all those scribbles and ficlets either, so the Archive seems the best place to collect all of this in some sense-making way. A set of scribbles for the same theme or set of prompts; or collecting together all the material from the same 'verse - timestamps, outtakes, etc.

But I'm not sure how to collate these on my Archive account - for the outtakes and things, these aren't complete stories (most of the time) that I want to list as separate stories. For example: Not with a bang or a whimper - a single story, with an outtake, and a timestamp. The outtake and timestamp I don't consider stand-alone stories on their own, even amidst a series.

So I don't want to create a "Not with a bang or a whimper" series, because I'm not certain I want each of those fragments of that 'verse given story status. At the moment, as you can see, I've posted them as chapters subsequent to the actual story, but that doesn't quite work either. In part because they're not chapters at all, therefore the "Chapter X" title at the top of each just doesn't work. In part because the way it always displays either as one long, linear piece (chapter 1 then chapter 2 then chapter 3 displayed down the page) or as a serial - read chapter 1 first then click the "next chapter" button.

Basically, the chaptering option is ideal for stories that are actually multi-parted.

And the series option is ideal for collections of stories.

But I'm still unsure of which one, if either, I want to use to collate these bits of material that belong to a 'verse.

*thinks*

I suppose practically speaking, what I want is something that lists as one story (perhaps with a mark to indicate 'additional material'?) on my list of works, but when I click on it displays more like a series, with a linked list of what material is contained there.

So, do I wrangle the existing options at the AOOO to get what I want? Or poke to request more flexibility in the chaptering options? like - a "list titles/links of all chapters" page? (totally makes sense!) The ability to classify something as "chaptered/multi-part" or "verse"? The ability to remove the "Chapter X" added to each part's title?

Or to request a way to collapse the 'series' thing into a 'verse' thing?

PONDERATION.

Just renewed my membership for 2009. *beams*

lololol. Apparently I am one of the cool mean smart? er... [something] kids. Though I don't have a PhD, MA, or... what's a JD, anyway? (Aside from a whiny relationship!fail guy on Scrubs?)



ETA: unrelated, but instead of making yet another post today - apologies to anyone on my delicious network; I like to proudly bookmark recs I get (sort of like a scrapbook!), and while I've been storing them in Memories, that's obv not the best solution, so I've been transferring them to delicious. The process for which is not that convoluted, thanks to my Firefox delicious addon, but it'll take a while to get through them, sigh.

So, um, apologies in advance.

If you are a crazy productivity junkie like me (don't judge us, it *is* actually fun), allow me to tempt you with a couple of tasty morsels:


1. black_samvara has been bookmarking and tagging every story ever listed in spnnewsletter over at supernatural_fic on delicious. She no longer has time to run that herself, so has put out a call to anyone (or anyones) interested in taking it over. It's a totally awesome resource, SOMEONE PLEASE DO IT! Go and comment on this post if you're interested.


2. The OTW is coming up to its first birthday, which means to keep things exciting, they're giving everyone a poke again to see if anyone wants to work on any of the projects as a committee member.

They call the whole volunteer recruitment drive "willing to serve" (which makes me think of joining a socialist army or something, but really, it's not all as bureaucratic or militant as that sounds). Basically, anyone can volunteer to be on a committee, but you'll need to be able to commit to attending regular meetings, replying to emails and you know, actually doing a bit of work and thinking on the project you're working on *g*

Having run a year already, the project descriptions are a bit more useful this time around for knowing what you're getting into (you can find them all here, not all of them are 'public', a few have to do just with the internal running of the organisation). I'm copying & pasting the wiki one here; if your interest is piqued then by all means ask me more questions about what's involved, what it's like to be on an OTW committee, etc etc. ( What'll be involved in being on the OTW Wiki Committee next year )

There are also many opportunities to volunteer with the OTW without being on a committee, be it in an area of expertise you have or in general you can indicate your interest/availability.


Also in OTW news, recently the IRS (USA's tax office) approved OTW's tax-exempt/nonprofit status, which means that if you're in the USA then donations over $10 are tax deductible now. There's currently a donation drive going on, so if you feel like donating to keep the servers that host the Archive, the Wiki and other great projects alive, you can do so here. And if you want more info on just how much money comes in and where it goes, you can read the annual report.



Right! So anyway. For your info, flist in general etc, I am going to be AFK for most of this week, so any emails/comments will be caught up with at a later date. Laterz!

Archive of Our Own now open in read-only mode.

Clearly, the months of dedicated committee work I've put in have paid off in that as a staffer, I got to sign up for an account. Hah! I am yet to port all my stories over, though. There are only about 60ish of mine there (only!).

Although, my crowning moment, I did manage to take a screencap of the front page when it said, "There are currently 666 stories uploaded!"

ETA: *immortalises*

We've made our first public announcement about the OTW Wiki - namely, that we're going to be calling it "Fanlore". Woot!

Might not seem like a big announcement, but it comes after months of building policy foundations for it, so I'm v tickled to share :)

We're also looking for volunteers to come and help us populate and beta test the policies, you can find more information about what we're after here. If you have any spare time, please consider it, and feel free to poke me if you want to chat more about what kind of stuff is involved etc before you decide :) Or, of course, follow the procedures on the job listing to ask more Qs , it'll get to us and we'll respond either way.

Yaaaay Wiki!

Via ithiliana: Disney is buying Fanlib.

The LJ Advisory board elections are happening right now. I don't know much about it, and tend to think that SUP will just go about ignoring them as per usual, but I still twitch when I think about douches being elected instead of the excellent fandom people running. bookshop has an excellent run-down of the fannish credentials (or anti-credentials) of candidates here, as well as some more info about voting. If you haven't voted, then please take a look at that post and consider it. (Links to the poll itself from there too.)

ETA: fandom_votes has lots of excellent information and advice on how to make your fannish vote count. Voting closes: The poll will close: 9:00 p.m. PDT Thursday, May 29, 2008. Don't know if that's happened yet or what.


Secondly, OTW just had its first anniversary! To celebrate, otw_onlinecon is happening, with nifty fic challenges and chats and panels. So go and have fun with it :D

Whee! Membership of the Organiszation for Transformative Works is open!

I was going to talk about what membership means & entails, but you know? the Membership Committee have been working on getting those words right for MONTHS, so I will just copy & paste:

The OTW is based on the model of public broadcasting. All of our projects and services are free and open to the fan community, and we will never charge for them. For example, we will not require a donation to read or house fanfiction in the archive, nor will we sell advertising to support the archive, the journal, the wiki, or any other of the OTW’s projects.

However, creating and providing these services does cost money, and so the OTW needs some financial support. In return for a minimum annual donation of $10 USD, you can become a voting member of the OTW. (We happily accept larger donations, too!) Your membership fee allows us to support our projects without selling ad space. And since each membership is assigned a unique ID number, this membership process will help us ensure fair elections. Members elect the board of directors, who in turn shape the work the organization takes on.

There are also translations about membership there on otw_news for 35 different countries. THAT is pretty cool. bwee!

Even though the Archive isn't up and running yet (though you can totally see the awesome roadmap at www.transformativeworks.org), I'm very a-squee to be an early adopter :D

otw_news have just posted their latest fortnightly newsletter, if you're interested in getting a brief overview of what is currently going on inside the very busy hive that is the Organisation for Transformative Works.

There may not be much to show for it in terms of Archive stuff yet, but believe me, a huge amount of important work is going on right now to ensure its stable infrastructure. If you can't wait, consider signing up to be a "Quality Assurance Volunteer" - i.e. someone who goes in and tests out the Archive before it's ready to go live, giving the developers feedback on how they can make it better for you :)

Also, there's another OTW chat happening this Saturday, this time in an Aussie-friendly timezone. So if this timing is more convenient for you, go and leave a comment here - the chat won't go ahead without at least 10 people. *big gleaming eyes*

It's a great opportunity to directly ask any questions you might have about what's happening in the org; I find reading the transcripts alone really insightful.

Well. Personally, I’ve enjoyed reading all the “Why I joined the OTW” posts this week, though I sympathise with those feeling spammed, at this point *g*

I guess that up until now, the most vocal people thus far on the topic of OTW have been its critics, which can be hard to bear when you’re pouring so much into it personally (I speak from experience!). It’s also hard to speak up yourself when you feel like the situation is a somewhat fragile one (as the org is still in its gestation stages) and you don’t want to say anything that can be pounced on or misinterpreted by nay-sayers.

So, yes. Glad to have the opportunity to talk about it, and glad to feel the community of people around me likewise enthusiastic about it. It makes it easier for me to put myself out there in the same manner.

If you want to read other posts from OTW committee & board members on why they decided to join up, there's a complete listing of them here.

There's also a del.icio.us tag that will continue to be used - otwsupport.

And if you missed it/want to read it, my post for last week is here.

If you’re reading this on my flist and you’re completely unfamiliar with the acronym “OTW”, here’s a tiny introduction you can skim through then scroll past if you’re not interested:

OTW stands for “Organization for Transformative Works”. It’s a nonprofit organisation, set up by a bunch of fans, which will essentially function as an umbrella/support organisation for a multi-fandom fanfiction archive (with other types of fanworks to be eventually hosted there too) and a few other fandom projects. ( want more summed-up info? Click away. )

To find out more, the OTW website is its main PR tool – for those outside of the fandom community wanting to know what it’s about – and otw_news is currently where OTW & fandom interact (you can find out more & sign up as a volunteer from there, if you wish!).

[Requisite disclaimer: I’m not speaking in an official capacity, this is my understanding of how OTW works. YMMV, but I believe this is correct on all the important points!]


Now, onto the good stuff.

I am currently involved in the OTW; I chair the committee for the fandom wiki that will be hosted by OTW. In a nutshell, ( here’s why I decided to join the OTW )


This post is part of Why I Joined OTW Week.

Well! Now that the new committee list has been posted in otw_news, I suppose it's worth me "announcing" it here: I'll be chairing the Organization for Transformative Works' Wiki Committee.

I'm aware that this project of the OTW's is one that has the potential to spark a lot of heated discussion, so I would like to say at this juncture that anything I post about the project here in angstslashhope (comments from me included) is representative of my views and beliefs only, and do not represent those of the OTW as an organisation.

Right. There is some official-ness out of the way :)

When OTW first started up I was pretty excited about it - I work in the nonprofit sector, so I'm very much pro the establishment of nonprofit support organisations for communities. After dipping my toes in fandom academia, too, I'm aware of the other side of things: the way fans are represented to (various) other parts of society.

The mission & vision of OTW excited me from the get-go, as it articulated a lot of my own feelings about fandom, but I was somewhat starstruck to begin with with regards to getting involved.

Obviously I managed to get over that, though, mainly because I wanted to practice what I preach: I believe that OTW is, fundamentally, a support organisation, not a dominating or controlling one. The way it's structured (and the fact that it is structured, even!) means that it'll continue on in perpetuity as it's shaped by a constant flow of fans both working within it and making use of what comes under its umbrella - not just the board and committees, but the volunteers who work on it and the fans that use it every day (contributing to the wiki, uploading their work to the archive).

In other words, I don't word-for-word agree with everything the mission/values/vision says, and I am coming from a different stance than several of those governing it. But because I think the organisation itself has great potential (and I want to reap its benefits, as a fan first and foremost), I wanted to get involved to help shape it into something that can serve me, as a fan. Because I make up part of that "myriad" that is fandom, and want to ensure that OTW effectively supports me by representing myself as part of it. Which OTW is built to do :)

So, yay. I'm really looking forward to working on this project.

Another thing I'm glad of is the administrative support structure of working within an organisation, which gives me more discipline and of course, safety nets (in terms of burning out or struggling with commitments or just dealing with the huge volume of work to be done) which are so valuable when working on such a major project.

Before I agreed to take on the position I evaluated my time & energy commitments (as well as working 4 days a week doing nonprofit web work, I occassionally do pro bono or freelance web work for smaller nonprofit groups, as well as all my fandom shenanigans). I've decided to better manage my time and will be prioritising this project; which means that it pretty much takes over that parcel of time I have for freelance & pro bono work, and I will most likely be doing less personal fandom stuff also (writing, podcasting, vidding, websiting).

The Supernatural Wiki, however, will remain close to the top of the priority list itself, with the aid of my awesome admin team :)

So! Hopefully, by the first half of 2008 there'll be more visibly exciting things happening. Stay tuned!