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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 megidola, who volunteers as an Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head, Policy & Abuse Volunteer & Supurrvisor, and Tag Wrangling Volunteer & Supervisor.
How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I juggle a bunch of different things within the org, because I like variety!
I started out as a tag wrangler, so I am part of the team of people who look at the tags you all add to your works on Archive of Our Own (AO3) and decide how to connect them on AO3's backend to help users filter things properly. I've since also become a Tag Wrangling supervisor. This means that I am responsible for all kinds of administrative tasks within the committee, helping train and graduate new wranglers, and answering questions or concerns any wranglers might have.
I am also part of the Policy & Abuse committee (PAC), or a PAC cat, as we are also called. (Meow.) We investigate user reports about content that violates AO3's Terms of Service (TOS), as well as make decisions about how the TOS should be enforced. I am a supervisor (or supurrvisor; we commit to the cat theme) for that committee as well, which comes with similar duties around dealing with admin, documentation, and enquiries from other PAC cats.
Last but certainly not least, I am head of the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup (OCR). We are responsible for implementing the goals on the OTW Culture Roadmap, which are all themed around making the OTW a more accessible, equitable, and welcoming place to volunteer.
What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
Because I am juggling so many different roles, my weeks also look pretty different depending on what's needed.
Generally, I'll start by logging into our org chat tool and checking what I've missed since I was last online and whether anything is urgent or needs my immediate attention. Then I'll start working down my reminder list of tasks to do. I try to keep a pretty in-depth to-do list, because my memory is Swiss cheese and things will fall through the cracks otherwise. (Thanks, ADHD.)
Which tasks are on said to-do list varies from week to week. The things I do consistently are leading OCR meetings and contributing to various project work, checking my wrangling page to make sure my fandoms are taken care of, and logging into our PAC ticket programme to take care of tasks there. This involves drafting tickets, sending tickets which have been beta'd and therefore signed off on, betaing other peoples' tickets, or responding to user replies. PAC work also often requires me to discuss our policies and guidelines with other cats to make sure we enforce the TOS fairly for all users.
Supervisor work for both PAC and Tag Wrangling depends on which tasks need doing, which rotates based on a lot of factors, including time of year. Usually it will involve a lot of writing documentation, database admin, record keeping, and various emails though. (ᵕ,—ᴗ—,)
OCR project work is really dependent on the specific project. Because so much of the culture roadmap centres around creating new processes or guidelines, a lot of our work by necessity involves writing and editing various documents. We also often find ourselves analysing and summarising survey results or facilitating communication between lots of different OTW committees. The last part especially is something I find quite fun, as it gives me cause to talk to committees and people I wouldn't normally get the chance to interact with in my other roles!
What made you decide to volunteer?
I really care about the mission of the OTW and wanted to contribute. I was around when fandom was much more decentralised than it is these days, and it makes me quite sad to think about how many of these independent fan spaces we lost when the internet became more expensive and more corporate. I am therefore really grateful to the OTW for helping archive fandom history, including through the wonderful Open Doors project. It's also important to me to have a place where we don't have to fear the censorship that permeates so many other online spaces. Being able to enforce the AO3 TOS that cares about protecting the rights of creators is a big reason why I volunteer for PAC.
By nature of being a global, entirely online volunteer organization which has grown tremendously since the OTW was first founded, there are certain challenges the OTW has to deal with as a result when it comes to managing its volunteers. I love this community, and if there is a way for me to help make our volunteers feel as safe and supported as possible, then I would like to do everything I can to ensure that. Hence why I lead OCR.
Finally, I just find categorising things really satisfying, so obviously Tag Wrangling called to me immediately. ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-
What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
I have to be pretty careful to balance my time properly and assess my commitments to make sure I'm not taking on too much and therefore stressing myself out. When you really care about the work you do and some of it is legitimately fun, it's sometimes easy to forget that it's nonetheless work. Saying yes to too many things or forgetting to take regular breaks can lead to pretty spectacular burnout.
I track the time I spend on volunteering every month to make sure I'm not overdoing it. I also make sure to carve out regular time for my other hobbies, such as the tabletop roleplaying campaigns I am a player in, or going to gigs, museums, plays, and the cinema with my friends.
What fannish things do you like to do?
One of my favourite things is in-depth meta or analysis of my favourite characters or my favourite fandoms' narratives! I adore connecting dots on our little conspiracy boards with my friends and getting pretentious about themes. I studied film theory at university, and now there is no one to stop me from using this knowledge for evil.
I also really like writing and reading fanfic, though as someone who chronically gets invested in vanishingly tiny fandoms and ships, there is unfortunately not a lot for me to read… (◞‸◟；)
I am super grateful to the authors who have written for my tiny fandoms, and thrilled I can contribute to the org that enabled them to share their work with me. I also try my best to contribute fanfic for these fandoms myself in the hopes that someone who may become invested in my niche blorbos in the future will be just as excited to find my works as I was to find works by other authors.
Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.
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.