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Do you know SQL and Python or other programming languages and want to rescue at-risk fan archives? Would you like to wrangle AO3 tags? Can you read and translate from Chinese to English? Would you like to translate AO3 tags from another language to English? Are you fluent in a language other than English? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Open Doors Technical Volunteer - closing 22 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications
- Tag Wrangling Volunteer - closing 22 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 110 applications
- Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Chinese) - closing 22 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 45 applications
- Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Specified Languages) - closing 22 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 50 applications
- Translation Translator - closing 22 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. We only accept volunteers who are 18 years of age or older. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Open Doors Technical Volunteer
Do you know SQL and Python or other programming languages and want to rescue at-risk fan archives?
The Open Doors project receives many requests to rescue fan sites which are at risk of disappearing because their owners can no longer maintain them. The sites we import to the Archive Of Our Own range from database-driven archives based on common software packages like eFiction and Automated Archive to hand-coded HTML sites that are over twenty years old!
As a technical volunteer for Open Doors, you will process the contents of legacy sites to do the following:
- analyse the original data to find all the content and metadata needed for the import
- remove spam, legacy navigation and personal information such as email addresses from HTML files
- convert tags to official AO3 tags as specified by the Tag Wrangling team
- ensure no text exceeds AO3's character limits, splitting summaries, notes or chapters as needed
- detect and fix any garbled text resulting from encoding errors
- detect and fix any invalid author emails and empty chapters
- convert the cleaned data to MySQL tables in a standard format that can be ingested automatically into the Archive
As the person responsible for ensuring that all the content from the original site is correctly imported to the AO3, you will have an excellent eye for detail and an ability to work independently within the rules of Open Doors. You will also liaise regularly in chat with other Open Doors volunteers, keeping them up to date with your progress on your assigned tasks.
To apply for this role, you must be at least 18 years old and legally of age to open explicit fanworks in your local jurisdiction.
Please note that you will be asked to complete a short coding test (to be returned in 1 week) as part of your application. You are not expected to spend more than an hour on this coding test, though you are welcome to do so if you have time. We do not permit the use of AI tools during the selection process for this position.
Applications are due 22 July 2026 or after 30 applications
Apply to be an Open Doors Technical Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Tag Wrangling Volunteer
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive.
If you're an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we're currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which fandoms are eligible will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are currently in need.
Wranglers need to be fluent in English but we welcome applicants who are also fluent in other languages, especially Čeština (Czech), isiZulu (Zulu), Français (French), Polski (Polish), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), ไทย (Thai), and 日本語 (Japanese), but knowledge of additional languages is always appreciated!
If you are fluent in 中文 (Chinese), we strongly encourage you to apply for our Chinese Tag Wrangling role, which is specifically designed to support our growing Chinese community. We welcome all dialects!
We also have a separate Specified Languages role, intended to provide additional opportunities for applicants fluent in the following languages: Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), Español (Spanish), Filipino, Italiano (Italian), Português (Portuguese), Türkçe (Turkish), Українська (Ukrainian), Русский (Russian), and 한국어 (Korean). If you speak one of these languages, we encourage you to consider applying for that role, as space in the general role can fill quickly.
Applications are due 22 July 2026 or after 110 applications
Apply to be a Tag Wrangling Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Chinese)
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the Archive.
If you're an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we're currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which fandoms are eligible will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are currently in need.
Additionally, for this role, applicants will also need to be fluent in English and any dialect of Chinese (中文). We welcome applicants fluent in any Chinese dialect! The work of those in this role will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and, in addition, will also involve translating tags from Chinese into English.
Applications are due 22 July 2026 or after 45 applications
Apply to be a Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Chinese) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Specified Languages)
The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to connect and sort the tags on AO3! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. This makes it easier to browse and search on the Archive.
If you're an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or having excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and fill in our application form. There will also be a short questionnaire that will help us assess whether you have the skills and attributes that will lead to your success in this role.
Please note: you must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. For this role, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which fandoms are eligible will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are currently in need.
For this role, wranglers need to be fluent in English and any dialect of one of the following languages: Filipino, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Italian (Italiano), Korean (한국어), Portuguese (Português), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська). This role is designed to help provide additional opportunities in languages in which we see a continuous need while having resources to support the volunteers in those languages.
If you are fluent in 中文 (Chinese), we strongly encourage you to apply for our Chinese Tag Wrangling role, which is specifically designed to support our growing Chinese community. We welcome all dialects!
If you are fluent in languages other than mentioned on the above list, including English, we welcome you to apply for our general wrangling role.
Applications are due 22 July 2026 or after 50 applications
Apply to be a Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Specified Languages) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Translation Translator
If you enjoy working collaboratively, if you're fluent in a language other than English, if you're passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help us reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!
Translation volunteers help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider global audience. We work on translating content by the OTW and its projects from English to other languages, such as site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs and AO3 Support emails. (However, we do not translate fanworks.)
We really need volunteers who speak Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Galician, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, European Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Welsh—but help with other languages would be much appreciated. If you're interested in starting a team for a language we don't have yet, you're very welcome to!
(Please note that our Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, Filipino, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese teams are not accepting new members at this time.)
Applicants will be asked to translate and correct short text samples and will be invited to a chatroom interview as part of the selection process. More information about us can be found on the Translation committee page.
Applications are due 22 July 2026
Apply to be a Translation Translator at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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.