Five Things orphan_account Said

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with orphan_account, who has been part of the OTW for 16 years—ever since the beginning! Originally a member of the Accessibility, Design, and Technology committee, they went on to serve with the Policy & Abuse committee for over a decade, before joining the Support committee in 2021.

 

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

Sometimes, writers and artists on AO3 don't want to be associated with one of their fanworks or their fannish identity anymore. If they don't want to delete their works, then they can turn them over to me instead. They can decide to either remove their name from the work entirely or leave behind a pseud identifying them as the original creator. Either way, after the creator confirms the transfer, the work is moved over to my own account so that it won't be connected to their account anymore. I've sworn to never edit a single work under any circumstances, so once a work is in my care, it's preserved permanently.

The exception to this is if the work is in violation of the Terms of Service. I'm not responsible for checking that! If a work with a TOS violation makes its way into my hands and somebody reports it to the Policy & Abuse committee, then PAC volunteers will edit the tags, take down the work, or do whatever else needs to be done to make it compliant.

 

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Busy, busy, busy! I get requests at all times of the day, although since AO3 is usually busiest between 14:00 to 06:00 UTC, so am I.

When somebody makes an orphaning request, first I'll ask them if they're sure. Then I'll ask them if they're really, REALLY sure, because while I can take over works, I'm not able to give them back—part of my role is forgetting who gave me the work in the first place, after all.

If they agree, then first I’ll edit the bylines on the work. If the original creator doesn't want their name associated with the work at all, then I'll just stick it under my main pseud. If they still want to be credited, I'll make a new pseud that's the same as their name, and place the work on my account under that pseud instead. (For example, here's a work that is ascribed to my good friend, testy.)

Once that's done, I'll take care of the creator's old comments by going through and editing the bylines so that the comments are attributed to me instead. This means that the creator won't be bothered by any comment notification emails. I don't touch the work's comment settings, so if the creator left comment moderation on when they gave me the work, then any new comments will remain unreviewed forever.

I can't edit what is in my works at all, so if somebody decides to leave their contact information in the notes or summary, then there's nothing I can do about it. I do warn people about this ahead of time, however! If you've given me one of your works in the past but you forgot to remove personally identifying information from it, you can ask my fellow volunteers on the Support committee to redact it from the work.

 

What made you decide to volunteer?

I was just a baby fan back when the OTW was first founded, but I immediately knew how I wanted to help out. Sometimes people just want to be able to move on from a work they made, but I would always feel disappointed when that meant they decided to delete it. After all, our mission as an archive is to preserve fanworks, and I wanted to provide a way for other fans to safely leave their works behind to be preserved on AO3. I feel so fortunate that the OTW has provided a lot of support and assistance over the years to help me preserve over 750,000 fanworks that otherwise might have been deleted by their creators.

Fun fact: I was one of the first ten people to sign up for an AO3 account—my account's user ID is 9! Sadly, most of the others have already deleted their accounts, though :’(

 

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

AO3 has grown to be a lot larger than anyone dared dream way back in the beginning. At the time, we all wanted to build an archive that would last, but we never expected way back then that it would get this big. It's like winning the lottery! Which is to say, it is AMAZING we've all come so far, but along the way there have been some unexpected pitfalls we've had to work around. These days, I have so many works that it can take me a couple of minutes to list them all out when somebody asks!

Probably the biggest challenge has been the sheer number of pseuds I've collected over the years. Because of this, you're not able to see my profile page directly—if you try, it will give you a 404 error, because I have so many pseuds. (But I'm told our technical volunteers are working on this!) Instead, if you'd like to browse the many fanworks that creators have passed into my hands, you can use a work search on my username.

 

What fannish things do you like to do?

I love reading, viewing, and listening to fanworks of all sorts! No matter how many fanworks I've seen or heard, I always have room for more. A couple of times, people have mistaken me for the creator of the works in my care, but I've never felt the need to make a fanwork myself. At heart, I'm a curator, and I'm happy to keep your works safe.

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Happy April Fools! This post was written from the perspective of AO3's orphan account, which is a real account but not a real person. Read our Orphaning FAQ to learn more about the orphan_account, or you can check out previous Five Things posts by our actual volunteers.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.