Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

Posted by Aditi Paul

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-translation-spotlight/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=274409

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 Translation committee‘s main responsibility is making content from the OTW and its various projects accessible to fans who don’t speak English. This includes content for the organization’s main site, FAQs on AO3, Open Doors import announcements, and AO3 news posts, among other things. They also collaborate with other OTW committees, for example to help them communicate with non-English speaking fans and users.

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

Translation Committee Specific Question

Question: Is there a software required if one wanted to volunteer? Also, are there any specific devices required?

Committee answer:
While we have no specific software requirements for volunteering, we definitely recommend using a device with a bigger screen in general, like a desktop or a laptop, or at least a tablet, as that makes it easier to keep everything you need for your work on your screen. One of our requirements for any software we use is that it can run in a common internet browser on a computer, without any local installs, though they may require an app on mobile devices.

General Questions

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

• It varies a lot week to week! Some weeks are very quiet and there’s not a lot to work on, but when I do get an assignment, I tend to spend about a couple of hours on it, and that will usually be it for the week unless we’re working on time sensitive tasks or projects, when things can get more hectic! Translation in particular sets generous deadlines to complete our assignments (5 or 7 days depending on what we’re working on), which gives us plenty of time to work on it even after RL work hours and factoring in other real life things. I also sometimes help the Tag Wrangling team with their Spanish tags, but that accounts for a couple of minutes of quick work overall, I’d say. So… tl;dr, about 2-3 hours, give or take, depending on what we have to do for the week! (Saku)
• It depends on the task, but an average of 2-3 hours per week suffices. (Nameless_ghoul_7)

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

• I usually find time for this during the weekend, considering my day job, so it’s more of a weekend activity for me. And I prefer to do my translation in one go, and then go through it again afterwards in my free time post weekday work.
  It’s definitely taught me to be good at time management, because you can’t predict how your week is going to go at any point. (Ana)
• I use a time tracker to help me track the time I spend on OTW volunteer tasks, though that usually ends up working more in retrospective, where towards the end of each week I look at the hours I did to evaluate whether my current workload is adequate or whether I should delegate some of my work to other people (or if that’s not an option, what I can deprioritise and put off until a bit later). I usually try to pick up some volunteer manager or chair trainee work every other day or so (unless I’m working on something that requires daily attention), just to avoid driving myself insane, because at the end of the day there’s always more work I could be picking up still. (Rhine)

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

• My favourite part of volunteering at the OTW has been meeting several new people from around the world and seeing how our different POVs and experiences help with different understandings of life in different spaces and how independently of our differences, cultures and upbringing we’re united by pure passion for what we do in and for fandom. Passion and compassion is often hidden or missing in “work spaces” and the OTW has been a positive space filled with positive learning experiences for me since the moment I started volunteering. It’s an ever evolving space that takes every instance to be better. (CottonDuck)
• I was going to say “the people!” and that is mostly true (I’ve met some wonderful folks as part of Translation, and it’s been a great time overall!), but if I sit down to really think about it, I think my favorite part is that it feels very gratifying to be giving back to a community that has done so much for fandom and fan spaces. I don’t read a lot of fanfiction myself anymore, much as I do occasionally write it, but fandom is still very important to me and I’ve made a lot of good friends thanks to it, so it feels good to be able to contribute my time and skills and do something for a space that has done so much for me in turn. It’s good work and good people all around, and it feels good to be part of it through my work for the OTW and AO3. (Saku)

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

• How chill the Translation volunteer managers are! If we need something, be it a hiatus, more time on a task, or clarification on some part of the text, we’re pretty much always granted them! And having a full week to do the task is very nice too, I originally thought it was going to be much more hectic. (kati)
• The sheer scope of work that is involved! There are so many volunteers, like, seriously, *so many*, and each of us have our own little roles to perform, thus helping everything run like clockwork. Having said all that, it’s all strictly on a volunteer basis, which makes it probably the only “work place” I’ve seen where we all actually enjoy doing what we do. (Ana)

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

• Mostly the same as any normal day. Only that I set apart one or two hours most days to translate what’s been assigned to me. (ttom)
• It varies a lot! As Translation volunteer managers, we handle several different tasks, depending on the time of year, and what projects are currently going on. For example, if I’m on duty for managing our email inbox and handing out tasks for the week—we alternate regularly—I’ll set aside around 2-3 hours a day after work for that. When we are recruiting for new translators, I’ll spend a chunk of time in a week holding interviews. There are also routine tasks that each of us rotates through, like preparing meetings or coordinating the upload of translated content to the OTW and AO3 websites. Independent of the task, I usually work through shorter items on my to-do list on weekday nights, and leave bigger tasks for the weekend. (Elin)

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

• Cats… I love cats and I have one. (Nameless_ghoul_7)
• Cats, giraffes, turtles, butterflies, and I can go on. As for cats, I love the Egyptian Maus that I currently have. (AnneHelena)
• My favourite animal is the betta! I loved aquaculture a lot!! My favourite breed of dog is the Indian Pariah Dog. (Aditi Mandavgane)

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

• I love reading fanfics and it’s difficult to choose a favourite one. But among the recent fics I am reading, Bifurcation Sandbox by Gardenersnake8822 is a favourite. (Gloriosa)
• I love reading fanfic! It’s definitely become a hobby, and has been the brunt of my reading as of late (because books are expensive </3). It's really difficult to pick a favorite work, since I've read so many amazing fics, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick "The Lowlander" by user foxymoxy! It's a BTS-Dragon Age crossover fic that takes the captor/prisoner trope and really dissects and does something interesting with it. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I re-read it all the time. (Somber)

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

• Yes! I have a writing account on some platforms like AO3 (ofc, duh), Twitter, Wattpad, and Medium. There are so many things I love about writing. But, I’m going to list 3 of them here:
  1. I can finally read my ship in tropes that I really wanted to read.
  2. The research process. I gained knowledge while doing my hobby. I learn how to write better, to portray the emotion better, to explore and experiment with my characters’ personality, discover interesting information, and so on.
  3. It helps me clear my mind. (Keane)
• I used to write original stories that never went anywhere and only started writing and publishing fanfiction in order to learn about AO3’s user interface so that I could translate the tutorials more accurately. I like how freeing it feels not to have to worry too much about writing well enough for the general audience – it’s just me and the five people (at most) who will ever see my silly little stories! (Slovenian Translation volunteer)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• I’m currently obsessed with F1: The Movie and Ocean’s Eleven Trilogy. (Cassie)
• I’ve been in the Star Wars fandom for more than 20 years at this point, mostly on the Rogue One / Andor side nowadays. (Auré)

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

• My answer is yes, absolutely! Especially on AO3 in particular, because Mandarin Chinese authors have been facing immense opposition in the form of censorship and takedowns of both digital and physical publications of our works. The 227 incident that resulted in AO3 being banned in Mainland China was a major turning point in the involvement of AO3 within Chinese fandom communities, so every time I see a new Mandarin Chinese work on AO3 I’m always grateful that one more author has found a safe avenue to share their creations with the rest of fandom. (Chinese Translation volunteer)
• Absolutely! My first language is Portuguese and I always find it surprising when I see works on some fandoms that are definitely not popular in my country. It’s like an invisible thread suddenly connects me to someone I don’t know but share two things in common: a language and a love for a fandom that makes us want to spend time and effort creating something to share with that community. Funny enough, I usually like to read fanfics in the language my brain associates them with. For example, I don’t speak Korean, and I usually watch K-dramas with English subtitles to continue learning English, so that’s the language my brain associates that series with. When I see a work in Portuguese for that fandom, it’s like my horizons have suddenly been broadened. And if I get a chance to make an online friend because of it? Even better! (Amanda)
• I translate English to Marathi, and I don’t see a lot of Marathi fanfic on the site, but when I stumble upon one, my heart soars and I feel on top of the world! (Aditi Mandavgane)

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

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

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-translation-spotlight/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=274409