OTW Fannews: Collective action
May. 22nd, 2013 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
otw_staff posting in ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
otw_news- Fans and the general public are becoming less tolerant of corporate overreaches in copyright claims. A crackdown on Etsy vendors marketing Firefly-related hats caused sufficient outrage that one outlet selling the licensed hats decided to donate its profits to a Firefly charity. Yet as The Mary Sue pointed out, at least part of the anger was because now that "Fox has actually decided to license merchandise based on the ten year old television series" they're "taking shots at the smaller, unlicensed retailers that have been serving the market niche they’ve been ignoring." ( Read more... )
Volunteer Recruiting: Testing Volunteers & Web Developer Staff
May. 20th, 2013 11:58 amotw_staff posting in otw_newsWe would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Support Staff. The chairs are reviewing applications and should be contacting people within the next two weeks.
Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. 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 volunteers@transformativeworks.org 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.
Note: We are continuing to work on a set of Volunteering Frequently Asked Questions that we hope to have posted within the next few weeks. If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know.
( Read more... )
Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Testing Volunteer - Closes May 27th
- Web Developer Staff - Closes May 27th
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. 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 volunteers@transformativeworks.org 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.
Note: We are continuing to work on a set of Volunteering Frequently Asked Questions that we hope to have posted within the next few weeks. If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know.
( Read more... )
OTW Fannews: Collaborative playgrounds
May. 18th, 2013 10:44 amotw_staff posting in otw_news- It's not only communication between entertainment creators and fans that's becoming common, but also a creative dialogue. Anna Pinkert at Spinoff Online wrote about the benefits of embracing slash and other fan creations. "At a recent event, a reporter showed The Avengers star Mark Ruffalo a series of drawings of his character snuggling with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. He began giggling, and then even made up captions for one of the cartoons, “Would you like a gummy worm?” Better yet, he told the reporter, “I endorse [this art] 100 percent. You know what it is? It’s open-source creativity.” She suggests that "[h]omoerotic fan art might be a new signal that you’ve arrived in Hollywood. People know your face (and your abs) well enough to do 30 sketches of you embracing another star." At least some actors are ready to invite fans to play. ( Read more... )
Downtime this morning
May. 18th, 2013 07:51 am![[staff profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenance(For some California local definition of 'morning'!)
About 30 minutes ago one of our databases (sb-db03) locked up and stopped serving traffic. This was an active database, so the site quickly stopped when it could no longer serve requests. Alas.
I have failed us over to a backup database and now everything should be working again.
I'm not sure yet what happened to db03, but am currently investigating and will update this post if I come up with a root cause for the problem. Edit: It's back up and doesn't have any visible problems. Disks are fine, data's intact, etc. The graphs and logs show nothing. We'll have to keep an eye on it and see if it manifests further issues.
Sorry for the trouble, please let me know if you still see any problems!
An Open Letter to Myself
May. 17th, 2013 07:03 pmwritestuff posting in poetryI didn't mean
for it to happen
like this
(my life that is)
I don't want it
remembered
that welfare
bought us things
we didn't want
And my brother
joined the army
to get away from the government
I don't want it
written
that I packed my bags
left them at a friend's
and slept
on the D train
for a month
until I lived
under my friend's bed
I don't want it
mentioned
that I slept
on a floor
in my office
before I moved
to Bensonhurst
ate spaghetti
and ketchup
and slept next to
twelve cats
that lay across
the place
where my spirit
should have been
I don't want it
noted
that I was running
from the mafia
chasing off the ghosts
and hiding from
the landlord
I don't want it said
but I'm telling you
because if it must be told
the D train
really fucked up
my lower back
and if it must be told
make sure the
Library of Congress
is notified
This has been
a brief moment
in Black History
-Nicole Breedlove
from ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café. Miguel Algarìn and Bob Holman, eds. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1994.
for it to happen
like this
(my life that is)
I don't want it
remembered
that welfare
bought us things
we didn't want
And my brother
joined the army
to get away from the government
I don't want it
written
that I packed my bags
left them at a friend's
and slept
on the D train
for a month
until I lived
under my friend's bed
I don't want it
mentioned
that I slept
on a floor
in my office
before I moved
to Bensonhurst
ate spaghetti
and ketchup
and slept next to
twelve cats
that lay across
the place
where my spirit
should have been
I don't want it
noted
that I was running
from the mafia
chasing off the ghosts
and hiding from
the landlord
I don't want it said
but I'm telling you
because if it must be told
the D train
really fucked up
my lower back
and if it must be told
make sure the
Library of Congress
is notified
This has been
a brief moment
in Black History
-Nicole Breedlove
from ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café. Miguel Algarìn and Bob Holman, eds. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1994.
Friday glee is pining for the fjords
May. 17th, 2013 02:13 pmrydra_wong posting in disobey_gravityThe Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.
It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.
N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.
To enhance this week's glee: Angie Payne in Greenland.
It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.
N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.
To enhance this week's glee: Angie Payne in Greenland.
Strategic Planning Update #9
May. 16th, 2013 03:32 pmotw_staff posting in otw_newsStatement of Purpose
The Strategic Planning Committee is continuing to work on helping the OTW develop a strategic plan for the next 3 - 5 years. As a quick refresher, the first stage of this plan is to survey internal stakeholders. We are in the process of interviewing all committees in turn and creating a report on each committee. The reports only include information that is gathered from the committees themselves, and all the conclusions and recommendations come from aggregating the data of those surveyed. ( Read more... )
The Strategic Planning Committee is continuing to work on helping the OTW develop a strategic plan for the next 3 - 5 years. As a quick refresher, the first stage of this plan is to survey internal stakeholders. We are in the process of interviewing all committees in turn and creating a report on each committee. The reports only include information that is gathered from the committees themselves, and all the conclusions and recommendations come from aggregating the data of those surveyed. ( Read more... )
Final Notations
May. 16th, 2013 12:49 pmwritestuff posting in poetryit will not be simple, it will not be long
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple
it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart
it will not be long, it will occupy your thought
as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied
it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple
You are coming into us who cannot withstand you
you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you
you are taking parts of us into places never planned
you are going far away with pieces of our lives
it will be short, it will take all your breath
it will not be simple, it will become your will
-Adrienne Rich
from No more Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets. Florence Howe, ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple
it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart
it will not be long, it will occupy your thought
as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied
it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple
You are coming into us who cannot withstand you
you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you
you are taking parts of us into places never planned
you are going far away with pieces of our lives
it will be short, it will take all your breath
it will not be simple, it will become your will
-Adrienne Rich
from No more Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets. Florence Howe, ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.
Two poems by Izumi Shikibu
May. 15th, 2013 09:52 amwritestuff posting in poetryNo different, really—
a summer moth’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things I Want Decided
Which shouldn’t exist
in this world,
the one who forgets
or the one
who is forgotten?
Which is better,
to love
one who has died
or not to see
each other when you’re alive?
Which is better,
the distant lover
you long for
or the one you see daily
without desire?
Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things—
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world?
~from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan. Translated by Jane Hirshcfield with Mariko Aratani. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
a summer moth’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things I Want Decided
Which shouldn’t exist
in this world,
the one who forgets
or the one
who is forgotten?
Which is better,
to love
one who has died
or not to see
each other when you’re alive?
Which is better,
the distant lover
you long for
or the one you see daily
without desire?
Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things—
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world?
~from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan. Translated by Jane Hirshcfield with Mariko Aratani. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
OTW Fannews: Separate by intention?
May. 14th, 2013 11:56 amotw_staff posting in otw_news- Given media representations apparently a lot of people continue to think that female fandom projects are rare, although this may have to do with how gender segregated fandom projects often are. In a feature on the "Hello Sweetie" podcast, its founder discusses why it came into being. "She and others were listening...to 'Geek Show Podcast,' the popular online show started by X96’s 'Radio From Hell' host Kerry Jackson, local movie critics Jeff Vice and Jimmy Martin, and Tribune TV critic Scott D. Pierce. "'They never have any female panelists, rarely had female guests, and a lot of people were complaining about that,'"...On one episode of 'Geek Show Podcast,' one of the hosts said, 'If you [women] want to have a podcast, you should start one.'" ( Read more... )
The Problem
May. 14th, 2013 11:46 amwritestuff posting in poetryClose to the top
Of an encrusted dark
Converted brownstone West of Central Park
(For this was 1961)
In his room that,
a narrow hutch,
Was sliced from some once-cavernous flat,
Where now a window took a whole wall up
And tints were bleached-out by the sun
Of many a summer day,
We lay
upon his hard thin bed.
He seemed all body, such
As normally you couldn’t touch,
Reckless and rough,
One of Boss Cupid’s red-
Who couldn’t get there fast enough.
Almost like fighting . . .
We forgot about the noise,
But feeling turned so self-delighting
That hurry soon gave way
To give-and-take,
Till each contested, for the other’s sake,
To end up not in winning and defeat
But in a draw.
A scrap of blackboard with its groove for chalk,
Nailed to a strip of lath
That had half-broken through,
The problem drafted there
still incomplete.
After, I found out in the talk
Companion to a cigarette,
That he, turning the problem over yet
In his disorderly and ordered head,
Attended graduate school to teach
And study math,
his true
Passion cyphered in chalk beyond my reach.
-Thom Gunn
from Boss Cupid, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Of an encrusted dark
Converted brownstone West of Central Park
(For this was 1961)
In his room that,
a narrow hutch,
Was sliced from some once-cavernous flat,
Where now a window took a whole wall up
And tints were bleached-out by the sun
Of many a summer day,
We lay
upon his hard thin bed.
He seemed all body, such
As normally you couldn’t touch,
Reckless and rough,
One of Boss Cupid’s red-
Who couldn’t get there fast enough.
Almost like fighting . . .
We forgot about the noise,
But feeling turned so self-delighting
That hurry soon gave way
To give-and-take,
Till each contested, for the other’s sake,
To end up not in winning and defeat
But in a draw.
A scrap of blackboard with its groove for chalk,
Nailed to a strip of lath
That had half-broken through,
The problem drafted there
still incomplete.
After, I found out in the talk
Companion to a cigarette,
That he, turning the problem over yet
In his disorderly and ordered head,
Attended graduate school to teach
And study math,
his true
Passion cyphered in chalk beyond my reach.
-Thom Gunn
from Boss Cupid, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
North
May. 13th, 2013 10:10 amwritestuff posting in poetryI returned to a long strand
the hammered shod of a bay,
and found only the secular
powers of the Atlantic thundering.
I faced the unmagical
invitations of Iceland,
the pathetic colonies
of Greenland, and suddenly
those fabulous raiders,
those lying in Orkney and Dublin
measured against
their long swords rusting,
those in the solid
belly of stone ships,
those hacked and glinting
in the gravel of thawed streams
were ocean-deafened voices
warning me, lifted again
in violence and epiphany.
The longship's swimming tongue
was buoyant with hindsight--
it said Thor's hammer swung
to geography and trade,
thick-witted couplings and revenges,
the hatreds and behindbacks
of the althing, lies and women,
exhaustions nominated peace,
memory incubating the spilled blood.
It said, 'Lie down
in the word-hoard, burrow
the coil and gleam
of your furrowed brain.
Compose in darkness.
Expect aurora borealis
in the long foray
but no cascade of light.
Keep your eye clear
as the bleb of the icicle,
trust the feel of what nubbed treasure
your hands have known.'
-from North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
Seamus Heaney. Poems 1965-1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out, North. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.
the hammered shod of a bay,
and found only the secular
powers of the Atlantic thundering.
I faced the unmagical
invitations of Iceland,
the pathetic colonies
of Greenland, and suddenly
those fabulous raiders,
those lying in Orkney and Dublin
measured against
their long swords rusting,
those in the solid
belly of stone ships,
those hacked and glinting
in the gravel of thawed streams
were ocean-deafened voices
warning me, lifted again
in violence and epiphany.
The longship's swimming tongue
was buoyant with hindsight--
it said Thor's hammer swung
to geography and trade,
thick-witted couplings and revenges,
the hatreds and behindbacks
of the althing, lies and women,
exhaustions nominated peace,
memory incubating the spilled blood.
It said, 'Lie down
in the word-hoard, burrow
the coil and gleam
of your furrowed brain.
Compose in darkness.
Expect aurora borealis
in the long foray
but no cascade of light.
Keep your eye clear
as the bleb of the icicle,
trust the feel of what nubbed treasure
your hands have known.'
-from North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
Seamus Heaney. Poems 1965-1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out, North. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.
852 Prospect - AO3 Supports our Sentinel*
May. 12th, 2013 03:23 pmotw_staff posting in otw_newsThe OTW is delighted to welcome 852 Prospect -- the Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive -- to its new home within the Archive of Our Own. The Archivists of 852 Prospect (most recently alicettlg) have worked hard in conjunction with ADT and Open Doors to make this move a reality.
There's some special history associated with this move. 852 Prospect was the first automated fiction archive on the web. Back in 1997, astolat wrote the first version of the Automated Archive software for 852 Prospect, which made it possible for authors to post their stories simultaneously to a mailing list and to an archive, and which also made it possible for archivists to maintain fic archives without hand-coding every post. The automated archive software is now old and creaky and no longer maintained; we're delighted to be able to offer 852 Prospect a new home as an integrated collection within the AO3.
( Read more... )
There's some special history associated with this move. 852 Prospect was the first automated fiction archive on the web. Back in 1997, astolat wrote the first version of the Automated Archive software for 852 Prospect, which made it possible for authors to post their stories simultaneously to a mailing list and to an archive, and which also made it possible for archivists to maintain fic archives without hand-coding every post. The automated archive software is now old and creaky and no longer maintained; we're delighted to be able to offer 852 Prospect a new home as an integrated collection within the AO3.
( Read more... )
OTW Fannews: Cultural Triggers
May. 11th, 2013 08:21 pmotw_staff posting in otw_news- While in some places fanfic writers are getting arrested, in others the concern is instead about how fans could be ruining pop culture. "Mr. Rushfield laments that fan culture is set in its ways and does not want to be challenged. I think this is an oversimplification...Yes of course, some fans will never be happy. Some fans say and do things I find shocking and disrespectful, but I think that this is a very small minority...To think that this subset of fans is the driving force behind any artistic decisions, is not giving enough credit to writers and producers in entertainment."
Friday glee is climbing back
May. 10th, 2013 10:09 amrydra_wong posting in disobey_gravityThe Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.
It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.
N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.
To enhance this week's glee: Beth Rodden talks about getting back to climbing after years of injury.
It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.
N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.
To enhance this week's glee: Beth Rodden talks about getting back to climbing after years of injury.