Timeline of the Organization for Transformative Works
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| Fandom: | Organization for Transformative Works |
| Dates: | 2007-present |
| See also: | Timeline of the Archive of Our Own |
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Below is a timeline of milestones and significant developments involving the Organization for Transformative Works.
This page is meant to highlight major events in OTW history, such as its origin, Board changes, project milestones, and major controversies. For a timeline of meta essays, see Timeline of Organization for Transformative Works Meta. For a timeline on the AO3 project specifically, see Timeline of the Archive of Our Own.
Some 2007 Context
Other major conversations and proposals were happening that spring regarding fanfiction and control. Some of them were:
- How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor (an April 26 post by cupidsbow which generated much response)
- FanLib (FanLib was a commercially-owned, for-profit multifandom fanfic archive which was open between May 18, 2007 and August 4, 2008... It was widely perceived as an attempt by outsiders to profit from the work of fans.)
- Strikethrough and Boldthrough was LiveJournal's attempts to control fannish journal content. (May 29, 2007) [1]
2007
- April 17: cesperanza posted about errors with the Fan History Wiki page for due South, and asked fans whether the errors were worth correcting. and whether they were worth correcting or not. Much discussion ensued. See: Arrrrgh: Things I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO THIS MONTH on LiveJournal
- May 17: Dear Fandom: Could You Please Stop Saying That?, post by cesperanza
- May 17: An Archive Of One's Own, post by astolat. A massive discussion ensued: see selected comments.
- May 20: Archive: update and first call for volunteers, Archived version, post by astolat
- May 30: the domain names transformativeworks.org and archiveofourown.com were registered by Rebecca Tushnet [2]
- June 1: Subject: posting guidelines and quick update: otw_news, Archived version, posted by bethbethbeth on behalf of astolat
- June 5: SUBJECT: Update for Those "Willing To Serve", Archived version, post by otw_news,
- June 14: an otw_news post (need link)
- August 4: brief update, Archived version, post by otw_news
- September 21: In case you were having a puzzled, but I don't remember joining a 'otw_news' moment...., Archived version, post by otw_news
- September 28: An Introduction to the Organization for Transformative Works (post), post by otw_news with 355 comments
- October 5: Off-LJ fannish communities survey, Archived version
- October 10: Clarifications and answers, page 1; archive link, page 1; page 2, archive link, page 2, post by otw_news, has 175 comments
- December 11: December 2007 Newsletter, vol. 1, Archived version, the first newsletter
- December 12: Organization for Transformative Works: defend fandom!; Archive, author Cory Doctorow stated that he wrote Naomi Novik a check for $500 on the spot after hearing about the organization at WorldCon, he was the first OTW donor [3]
- December 27: OTW Chat, Archived version, first OTW Group Chat via IRC; a transcript of the chat was posted to the otw_news community the following day
- fanarchive was created on LiveJournal for discussion of the project. (need date and link)
- for links to many fan comments, primarily in 2007 and 2008: see Beginnings of OTW: 2007-08 Comments
2008
- January 3: OTW Chat Transcript #2, Archived version, second OTW Group Chat via IRC; a transcript of the chat was posted to the otw_news community the same day
- August 4: the first article to be created on Fanlore was probably Die Hard.[4]
- September 15: The OTW's academic journal, Transformative Works and Cultures, publishes its first issue.
For links to many fan comments, primarily in 2007 and 2008: see Beginnings of OTW: 2007-08 Comments.
2009
- June 17: OTW announces the launch of the Fan Culture Preservation Project, where they would be involved in donating fanzines to the University of Iowa's Special Collections. The first major collection to be donated is Ming Wathne's Fanzine Archives, containing over 3,000 zines.[1]
- July 13: GeoCities Rescue Project, see Announcing: OTW's GeoCities Rescue Project
2010
- June 2010: Symposium Blog begins
- 2010 OTW Board Election
2011
- OTW Server Naming Contest (January-April)
- OTW 2011 Board Election
2012
- AO3 Tagging Policy Debate (focus 2012?)
- February 26: OTW's Open Doors committee announces that it will begin migrating at-risk fanfic archives to AO3 using its new mass archive importer. The first archive to be imported is Smallville Slash Archive.[2][3]
2013
2014
2015
- OTW 2015 Board Election
- November 22: In response to major outrage about a Board appointment[5], the entire Board resigned.
2016
2017
2018
2019
- 2019 OTW Board Election
- The Archive of Our Own is shortlisted for (April), and subsequently wins (August), a Hugo Award for Best Related Work.
- September 15: Transformative Works and Cultures publishes its 30th issue.[6]
- November 14: AO3 celebrates its 10th anniversary; the OTW marks the occasion with a series of posts from OTW volunteers with a particular involvement with AO3, published on the transformativeworks.org site and on AO3 itself.[7]
- November 24: Fanlore reaches 50,000 pages.[8]
2020
2021
2022
- May: 2022 CSAM Attacks against OTW volunteers
- 2022 OTW Board Election
2023
- May 17-31: End OTW Racism campaign
- 2023 OTW Management Controversy
- 2023 OTW Board Election
2024
References
- ^ "On the other hand, now that the pitchfork and torch waving mobs have gone after Six Apart, the "really cool" guys at FanLib must be breathing a sigh of relief. It's been a shitty couple of weeks for fandom.") -- May 30, 2007 comment at Metafilter: livejournal suspends hundreds of accounts, Archived version
- ^ Who Is, Who Is
- ^ "Bravo! I'd dearly love to see an end to the two-tier world we've been maintaining, where a book that's clearly fanfic about the March girls' father from Little Women can win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (March, by Geraldine Brooks), but transformative reworkings of movies, television shows, video games, commercials, and uncountable other sources are afforded neither respect, nor access to commerce, nor the protection of the law. It's the exact equivalent of the system whereby high-end "literary" publishers can publish books in which underage characters have sex, but cheap paperback publishers who do so risk prosecution. The functional status of fanfic right now is that it can be written, and posted to the internet, as long as the author is willing to give up all rights to her (or occasionally his) own work, and accepts that this irregular legal tolerance may be withdrawn in the future. This just isn't fair. Fanfic is a natural human impulse. As long as people care about literature, they'll write fanfic about it." posted by posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden/Moderator and "This is such a good idea. When Naomi described it at the WorldCon at a panel that we were on together, I wrote her a check on the spot for $500 to fund the org. I hope she cashes it now that they've formally announced." -- posted by Cory Doctrow) as a comment at Organization for Transformative Works: defend fandom!; Archive
- ^ 09:21, 4 August 2008 edit by user:Hope
- ^ explanation by the Elections committee
- ^ New general issue TWC 30 published, Transformative Works and Cultures. Published September 15, 2019 (Accessed March 15, 2020).
- ^ Celebrating 10 Years of Archive of Our Own, Transformative Works. Published November 10, 2019 (Accessed March 15, 2020).
- ^ Celebrating 50,000 pages! by fanlore_mod via Dreamwidth. Published November 24, 2019 (Accessed March 15, 2020).