Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2025: Week 4
In early 2011, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a nonprofit organization run by fans, acquired five new servers and held a Server Naming Contest to name all seven of their servers. This event was also called the Server Naming Festival.
Despite initial encouragement for the outcome to reflect the diversity of fandom, the votes which were cast yielded results which were not as diverse as many had hoped. After a heated and passionate debate among the OTW Board, in conversation with others within the organization who had helped to run the contest, the decision was made to stick with the names which received the most votes, and all the servers were given Western fandom names. The results were announced to a mixed reaction.
The event has been referred to as Server Naming Fail, and has been cited as an example of the OTW's problems with being inclusive, diverse, or outreaching to non-Western fandoms.