Recently I delved into the interesting world of crowdsourced translations, learning about the myths, the facts, and the different tools to better effectively manage a crowdsourced project. And if there’s one thing I walked away from this deepdive, it is that crowdsourcing tools need work.
This isn’t to say that crowdsourcing is ineffective, but that the tools currently used for it are limited, and many companies end up having to create their own method for handling crowdsourced projects. As a testament to this, I worked on a crowdsourced proposal of my own.
This proposal is focused on rallying a crowdsourced translation force for translating the website Archive of our Own (Archiveofourown.org, alternatively Ao3). A non-profit fanfiction website created by the fans, for the fans in 2008. This was after fanfiction.net, another fanfiction website, had a drastic decline in popularity due to its over-regulation of adult-related content – a story that is similar to the more famous case of Tumblr.
What is fanfiction, you ask? Fanfiction is fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.. A single fanfiction can be as short as a few words and as long as a few million. The longest fic to date is “At the Edge of Lasg’len”, which was started in 2016 and is still being updated. It has recently passed 6 million words.
As a comparison, Harry Potter’s entire 8 novels combined is 1,084,170 words long.
You can check out my entire proposal in the attached file:
Or check out my video for a quick rundown of the whole idea:
You can also check out my quantity and quality infographics below: