Archive of Our Own

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 Ellipsis, who volunteers as a Tag Wrangler and also a Technical Assistant for the Communications Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I currently hold two roles with the OTW.

I wrangle tags on AO3 for a couple of smallish fandoms with lots of characters. So I’m frequently digging through wiki pages and scrubbing through episodes to figure out if the character someone tagged is from canon or an OC. It's always very satisfying to provide new canonical character tags.

I am also the "Technical Assistant" for Communications. My primary responsibility there is managing the "OTW News By Email" automations. I set up all the automations and keep an eye out for and troubleshoot any issues; this occasionally involves reaching out to Systems or the newsletter service’s support team. I also help out if any subscribers reach out for help with their subscriptions. Beyond the "News By Email" stuff, I also help with investigating or suggesting other tech solutions for the Communications committee and occasionally help to write/research some of the more technical news posts.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
I do most of my focused volunteer work on the weekends, since I’ve got a full-time job during the week (and by the time I’m done work for the day and figure out food and whatnot I don’t have much time or energy left).

Every Saturday evening I work on Comms tasks. Exactly what I’m doing depends on what I’ve got on my plate. One thing I frequently work on is writing documentation about how the News By Email automation works. (Right now I manage everything myself but it's important to make sure there is good documentation in case someone else has to hop in and do something.) I also researched and drafted a news post recently, which involved a lot of rounds of feedback from different committees since it was inspired by a request from Support and relates to AD&T. Other common tasks include helping answer support queries about the email subscription, adding new functionality (the ability to subscribe just to recruitment posts went live recently), and cleaning up unsubscribed users.

If something breaks or otherwise goes weird I’ll jump in outside of my standard hours, but most of the time things can wait.

Every other weekend I tend to do wrangling work sometime during the day on Saturday or Sunday. Often I’ll host or attend a "wrangling party" (set times when lots of folks wrangle and cheer each other on). During that time I’ll check through whatever new tags have come in for my fandoms and sort them accordingly. I’ve got a few fandoms with lots of characters, so there are almost always some new characters or relationships to make canonicals for. I’ll also occasionally dig through the additional tags to check if anything has gained enough usages to get a canonical.

What made you decide to volunteer?
I initially joined as a tag wrangler. As an avid reader of fic, a programmer, and someone who finds categorization interesting, I find the tag system on AO3 really awesome. So when I found out how it worked and that you could volunteer to wrangle tags, I started eagerly watching for recruitment posts. It took a couple rounds before there was a post that was recruiting for wranglers for a fandom I had experience with.

A couple of years ago (once I’d been a wrangler for a while), Communications was looking into sending out news posts by email. They asked for volunteers who were willing to be test subjects and report back on receiving emails. However, the services they were testing weren’t a good fit and they were running into a lot of issues. I got curious and fell down a research rabbit hole and suggested another service. The service was one that required a bit more technical knowhow, though, and the volunteers running the test weren’t comfortable setting it up, so I offered to test it out and report back. They ended up going with the service I suggested and asked me to help set it up for real. Then eventually Communications asked me if I was interested in officially joining the committee as a "Technical Assistant."

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
Executive functioning. I’ve got ADHD (and Autism) so I struggle with intrinsic motivation and easily lose track of time, especially when I’ve got a full-time job eating all my spoons (energy). When I first started volunteering, I had been laid off and was unemployed so I had a lot of spare time and energy. So finding the balance once I was back to working full time was tricky.

In the last year or so I’ve started being firmer on scheduling specific times to do my volunteer work to help avoid losing track completely. For Comms work, I have a scheduled time set up each week that I work. And at that time another Comms volunteer will poke me on the volunteer messaging service to check in and ask about what I’m doing that evening; having that sort of external check in is massively helpful for me. Signing up to host wrangling parties serves a similar purpose in giving me external accountability about being present at a specific time to wrangle.

What fannish things do you like to do?
Mostly reading so much fic. I started reading fanfiction when I was a kid, probably around 8 or 9 years old. One of my real-life friends introduced me to it and in their words they "created a monster." (I don’t know exactly when I started reading because I no longer have the email I used at that time and my autistic kid brain was hung up on "you aren't supposed to have an account if you aren’t 13" so I read for quite a while before getting my FFN account). I occasionally count up how many words I’m reading per week and I’m frequently somewhere around 200k words per week. (It varies a bit depending on the density of the fic and how much else I’ve got going on. When I’m unemployed, it goes way up.)

I try to leave lots of comments as my way of giving back to all the authors who provide all the wonderful fics I get to read for free. (I’ve recently started using the sticky note app on my phone to compose comments with blockquotes while I’m reading so I can call out favorite bits or “live react” a bit.)

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.