https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33956

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Support committee is the first point of contact for users of the Archive of Our Own (AO3) when they encounter issues, have questions, or want to submit feedback or feature requests. Internally at the OTW, Support collaborates with other committees frequently, forwarding relevant questions and information to them, or consulting them on specific topics. Besides answering tickets, they also handle several other tasks, like maintaining the AO3 Known Issues page or assisting with testing bug fixes and new features on AO3.

We asked the Support committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Support Committee Specific Question

How is Fannish Next of Kin enacted after one of the parties involved in the agreement passes away?

Committee answer:
After a creator with a Fannish Next-of-Kin passes away, the FNOK can contact us and the fannish next-of-kin agreement is activated. We will update the email associated with the account to match the address provided by your next-of-kin. Your next-of-kin will then be able to reset the password through the normal "Forgot password" process. Control will then be fully transferred to your FNOK. Please see our Fannish Next-of-Kin FAQ for more information.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• I try to focus more on meeting the expected number of tickets over how many hours I spend working in a week but I think I do hit the ten hours per week that I signed up for. (Louie)
• Not super sure, but definitely a lot! I should probably try and time it at some point to check. I'd say over 15 hours, and that's me low-balling it. (Mille K)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• First, I catch up on our internal chat tool; then I work on any of my Support tickets that need something done; and then I beta tickets from other Support volunteers, interspersing it with a few tickets of my own. If there is something specific that needs to be done by a Chair Assistant or I'm working on a project, then that comes before betas. (Jennifer)
• Chaos! It really depends on the rest of my schedule for the day, and my energy levels. I prioritize urgent tasks as much as possible. (Kyrie)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• It sounds cliche I know, but helping others. And the volunteering environment is great, everyone's just so nice! :D (Wtchmn23)
• Answering user's tickets and mentoring saltlings (new Support volunteers) (Jennifer)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• Just that the number of tickets compared to the number of people (and the time they are able to spend on it) means that some tickets either slip through the cracks or have other reasons they're not responded to in a "timely" manner (PK)
• That despite the fact that we all lead busy lives, the amount of passion people put into doing all they reasonably can for the OTW, our projects, our users, and our fellow volunteers is staggering. Oh and looking at other Support volunteers answers... that we are not paid xD This is not our only job and we're definitely not available 24/7! (Kyrie)
• That unlike many other Support forms out there on the internet, there are real humans on the other side. I love helping people, but it’s hard to keep your spirits up when the folks you volunteer for just swear at you. (Paula)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• My standard daily routine is: check our ticketing system to see if any tickets have been proofread (betaed) by another volunteer, then check our internal chat tool for key messages and replies. After that, I'll go back to our ticketing system to work on open tickets and find some new ones. Before logging off, I ask senior salts to look up user information I need for my tickets on our internal chat tool for the next day. Newer folks don’t get access to that information right away. (ZZ)
• First, I do some backreading of the messages in channels, check out the odd tickets that were mentioned or documents (like the opportunity to submit answers for this Q&A). Then, I will do some tickets. I start by sending out all my tickets that have been betaed, and then I get my hands on new ones. I'd like to start from later tickets and there's usually a date of where I am now and I start from there. At last I try to do some betas. (Wtchmn23)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• Today, the ADHD says dragonflies. Butterflies and moths also commonly come up. (Sam)
• I like finches and birds in general though they also scare me a lot. (ChangYan)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• Very much so, although I'd have trouble picking one single "favorite". The one I've probably recommended the most is "Don't Go", which is in the She-Ra fandom, and was actually written by the creator under an alias. (PK)
• I think my fave is a work called Love Is (Not) A Battlefield, Or: Gay Panic! At the BB Lounge, which is a fantastic Ya Boy Kongming! work. It's just extremely cute and sweet, and funny! And very true to canon. (Mille K)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• Yes. I enjoy being creative and hearing from my readers that my work brings them joy (or sadness, sometimes you've got to write the angst) (Anren)
• I do dabble in writing, but translation is my true love and calling. Ann Goldstein says "translating can be like lining up unruly toddlers who have their own sense of order," and nothing excites me more than an intellectual puzzle of trying to pin down the exact right word. (Liv)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• Batman! It's funny cause I don't really know much about canon I just piece together canon from what I read. (killiane)
• Woo, I am in a lot now. Mainly F1 RPF, sometimes code geass, or quanzhigaoshou (Sorry I don't know the exact english name) My bookmarks show that I was really into Star Trek a couple years ago. (Ziting)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• This question is more challenging than the rest for me, because I have very complicated feelings about Vietnamese fandom on AO3 lol. I rarely read Vietnamese fic on AO3, but in 2024 while I was hyperactive in a Vietnamese survival show fandom, during the period of three months I:
  1. translated around 600-800 Vietnamese tags,
  2. published multiple fanworks in Vietnamese and English,
  3. created a whole fanblog (it now has more than 2 thousands followers lmao) to promote AO3 to Vietnamese fans,
  4. indirectly (allegedly) skyrocketed the amount of Vietnamese Support tickets as a result, oops 😂
  One year later, looking at the current Vietnamese fanworks stat on AO3, I'm quite fond of the whole journey despite the occasional hiccups I encountered. (Anh Pham)
• Years ago when I first discovered fandom, the English community was way bigger than the Chinese one, at least for my ship. So I hung out on Tumblr and AO3, read a lot of amazing and frankly life-changing fics, commented and made rec lists and made friends with people from all over the world. It was one of the best things that happened to me and I wouldn't change it for anything. In 2021, however, we had a renaissance in Chinese fandom. And let me tell you, being able to read and write and participate in fests in your native language is like an epiphany. Is this something y'all have been able to enjoy all the time? Jealousy does not begin to describe how I feel. No more fumbling, no more worrying, I can be as unhinged as I want. Eventually we became good friends in real life, too. We call each other nicknames and meet up several times a year. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare to this. (Liv)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Support volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll collect additional replies to each question!)

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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33956