Archive of Our Own ^beta

In the last year, AO3 has seen a rise in "art commission" spambot comments. The bots leaving these comments pretend to be artists who want to make comics or illustrations for a fan's fic. After convincing their targets to contact them off AO3, they scam their targets into paying for that art. Fans have reported that after sending payment, they either received AI-generated art or nothing at all.

AO3 has been working on various methods that we hope will reduce the spam. However, these scammers are persistent and creative about circumventing our protections.

To avoid falling victim to one of these scams, the Policy & Abuse committee recommends:

1. Do not commission art from someone who solicits you by commenting on your work on AO3. Commercial activity is prohibited on AO3. If someone is encouraging behavior that violates our Terms of Service, it’s a good idea to be cautious. They likely do not have your best interests in mind.
2. Do not provide your email or social media contact information to a commenter who asks for it, even if they say they'd just like to discuss your work further. Scammers try to get you to talk to them privately, because it is often easier to deceive or manipulate people in a one-on-one conversation.

Example of this type of scam

This is just one example of how a scammer tries to lure the work creator onto a different platform where they can pressure the creator into commissioning art. These scammers use AI to generate realistic-sounding comments. The comments often contain generic praise or statements that could apply to any work, but sometimes they are extremely lengthy and/or specific. If the creator is suspicious and asks why the scammer wants to move the conversation off-site, they will typically claim that they aren't a scammer and/or that they can explain things better in private.

However, unlike a regular user, a scammer will always do at least one of two things:

1. They will ask you to commission art from them, or
2. They will share their contact information and/or ask for your information (such as an email address or username on a site that supports private messaging, like Instagram or Discord)

If you suspect that you've received a spam comment on your work, don't reply and especially do not provide them with your contact information. Just report the comment to Policy & Abuse so that we can take care of it.

What to do if you encounter this scam

If you receive a scam comment from a guest, you can press the "Spam" button on the comment. This helps train our automated spam-checker to better detect this type of behavior.

If you encounter a scammer that has a registered account, or if you encounter a guest posting scam comments on someone else's work, please report them to the Policy & Abuse committee. To do so:

1. Select the "Thread" button on the scammer's comment. This will take you to the specific comment page.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Policy Questions & Abuse Reports.
3. In the "Brief summary of Terms of Service violation" field, enter "Spambot".
4. In the "Description of the content you are reporting" field, enter "This is a spambot, their username is USERNAME."

Reporting in this fashion helps us auto-sort your report so that it can be handled as soon as a Policy & Abuse volunteer is available. To help us address reports about these types of bots as fast as possible, please only submit one report per account, and don't include multiple accounts in the same report.

If you encounter a scam commenter on someone else's work, you can let the work creator know the commenter is likely a bot and link them to this news post.

We also encourage you to share this post on social media and help spread the word about how to protect yourself from scammers and reduce spam on AO3.

The Pinky and the Brain Page, a Pinky and the Brain fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on The Pinky and the Brain Page
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

James, the archivist, used to run and maintain a Pinky and the Brain fandom site from around 1995 to 2000. When he recently found some of the stories in an old hard drive he searched the Internet for some of them, but his searches came up empty. Rather than letting those stories sit unread he thought he would rather they be shared on the AO3 for people to enjoy and remember.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with James to import The Pinky and the Brain Page into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfics and fanart currently in the The Pinky and the Brain Page will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from The Pinky and the Brain Page to the AO3 after September 2025. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on The Pinky and the Brain Page?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your The Pinky and the Brain Page pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your The Pinky and the Brain Page account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the The Pinky and the Brain Page mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Pinky and the Brain Page

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Pinky and the Brain Page on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve The Pinky and the Brain Page!

- The Open Doors team and James

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

Do you have experience copyediting or proofreading academic journals? Would you like to wrangle AO3 tags? Can you read and translate from Chinese to English? Can you read and translate from Italian to English? Do you have experience in managing or leading people?

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• TWC Committee Copyeditor - closing 24 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer - closing 24 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 125 applications
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Chinese) - closing 24 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 45 applications
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Italian) - closing 24 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications
• Fanlore Chair Track Volunteer - closing 24 September 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications

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 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.

TWC Committee Copyeditor

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international peer-reviewed Diamond Open Access online publication about fan-related topics that seeks to promote dialogue between the academic community and fan communities. Copyeditors professionally copyedit submissions for TWC according to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 18, Merriam-Webster online, and the TWC style guide. Editorial standards are those of a university press.

The copyeditor's main responsibility will be to carefully copyedit word-processed manuscripts to correct errors of grammar, usage, style; normalize presentation of information; check the literature; and ensure consistency of usage of, e.g., presentation, capitalization, italic, and numbers.

Applicants are required to pass a brief copyediting test that will be drawn from live copy (a not yet published article that is currently in production). All returned tests will be assessed and the applicant provided with feedback.

Applications are due 24 September 2025

Apply for TWC Committee Copyeditor 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 will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are in need.

Wranglers need to be fluent in English but we welcome applicants who are also fluent in other languages, especially Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), Čeština (Czech), Español (Spanish), isiZulu (Zulu), Polski (Polish), Português brasileiro (Brazilian Portuguese), Suomi (Finnish), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), Türkçe (Turkish), Українська (Ukrainian), ไทย (Thai), Русский (Russian), беларуская (Belarusian) and 한국어 (Korean) — but help with other languages would be much appreciated!

Applications are due 24 September 2025 or after 125 applications

Apply for 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 applicants who are fluent in both English and Chinese.We welcome all Chinese dialects! The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Chinese into English.

Applications are due 24 September 2025 or after 45 applications

Apply for Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Chinese) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Italian)

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 applicants who are fluent in both English and Italian. The work will involve both regular Tag Wrangling work and translating tags from Italian into English.

Applications are due 24 September 2025 or after 30 applications

Apply for Tag Wrangling Volunteer (Italian) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Fanlore Chair Track Volunteer

Do you have experience in managing or leading people? Are you an organizational wizard? Do you have an interest in preserving fannish history or experience in wiki editing? The Fanlore committee is looking for new Chair Track Volunteers to join our team!

Fanlore is the committee responsible for maintaining and promoting the Fanlore wiki. We promote Fanlore on social media, run Fanlore editing challenges, support Fanlore editors, write the wiki's policy and help pages, and respond to emails from editors and readers. The Chair Track Volunteer position is for people who have the time and dedication to learn all about our operations so that they can be considered for the role of committee Chair.

We're looking for someone who has experience in wiki editing and an understanding of social media, who is comfortable with personnel management and training new recruits, and who is experienced in leadership or management whether in a business or nonprofit environment. Candidates also need strong time management skills and the ability to work on and track multiple tasks at a time. If that's you, please apply!

For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task within one week of submitting your application.

Applications are due 24 September 2025 or after 40 applications.

Apply for Fanlore Chair Track Volunteer 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, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post will provide an overview of some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued a method which streamlines creation of new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.

None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.

In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• Abandonment Issues
• Childhood Friends to Lovers
• Friends with Benefits to Lovers
• Enemy to Caretaker
• Enemies with Benefits
• Father/Daughter Incest
• Mother/Son Incest
• Roommates to Lovers
• Clit Play
• Cosmic Horror
• Eldritch Horror
• Cottagecore
• Crying During Sex
• Cryptids
• Defecation
• Diarrhea
• Messing | Soiling
• Dominant Character
• Feather Preening
• Field Medicine
• Humans are Space Orcs
• Humiliation Kink
• Love Languages
• Not Edited
• Past Trauma
• Pussy Spanking
• Self-Deprecation
• Self-Sabotage
• Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
• Sugar Baby
• Sugar Mommy
• Wound Care

In Conclusion

While all these new tags have already been made canonical, we are still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant tags, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. We thank you in advance for your patience!

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future on the tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:

• Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates & 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
• Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts & Announcements

Got Questions?

For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.

In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected.​ If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

Lastly, as mentioned above, we're still working on connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Forging Ghost, a Spike/Angel fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on Forging Ghost
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Forging Ghost was a Yahoo! Group dedicated to fanfiction for Spike/Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. Ghostsforge, the moderator, preserved Forging Ghost when Yahoo! Groups was shut down in 2019 and asked Open Doors for assistance in importing its works to AO3.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Ghostsforge to import Forging Ghost into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanart currently in Forging Ghost will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Forging Ghost to the AO3 after September. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Forging Ghost?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your Forging Ghost pseud and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Forging Ghost account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Forging Ghost mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Forging Ghost

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Forging Ghost on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve Forging Ghost!

- The Open Doors team and Ghostsforge

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Over the past month, we rolled out behind-the-scenes upgrades and quality-of-life improvements across the site, including the addition of username links and chapter numbers to kudos and comment emails, respectively. We also made some major privacy and security enhancements, such as removing the email, birthday, and location fields from profiles and checking new passwords against known data breaches.

Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors anna, Liz Watkins, Riya K, and theamandawang!

Credits

• Coders: Abhinav Gupta, anna, Amy Lee, Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, Connie Feng, Domenic Denicola, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, kitbur, Liz Watkins, marcus8448, Riya K, sarken, Scott, slavalamp, talvalin, theamandawang, weeklies
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, HamHam6, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, Scott, weeklies
• Testers: Allonautilus, ana, Anh P, Aster, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Dre, Keladry, Lute, lydia-theda, Pent, redsummernight, Runt, Sanity, sarken, Teyris, therealmorticia, weeklies, wichard

Details

0.9.420

On July 15, we massively improved the user search used by admins.

• [AO3-6565] - We've improved the user search feature available to admins by moving it to Elasticsearch and adding the ability to search by past email addresses and usernames.
• [AO3-7042] - Instead of redirecting to the main Collections page, we now give a 404 error if you try to access the collections page for a nonexistent user, work, or collection.
• [AO3-7004] - We've added a database index to make it faster for database admins to search for comments using a specific guest name.

0.9.421

Following some email-related changes in our July 24 deploy, embedded images are now always stripped from comment emails, and usernames in kudos emails now link to the users' dashboards.

• [AO3-3154] - When you receive a kudos notification email, the names of users who have left kudos now link to the users' dashboards.
• [AO3-6060] - Even though they no longer had access to tag comment pages, former tag wranglers would still receive email and inbox notifications of replies to their old tag comments. This was both annoying and confusing, so we've stopped it from happening.
• [AO3-6746] - If you changed your username or pseud name and you had some chapters that you co-created with another user, the chapter bylines would not always get updated with your new name. We've changed this so the cache is refreshed more reliably.
• [AO3-6929] - The list of gift exchange sign-ups visible to collection maintainers now includes the pseud and username of signed-up users, instead of just their pseud.
• [AO3-7011] - Using the Tab key to navigate in desktop Safari used to select hidden inputs, causing the focus indicator to temporarily disappear. We've fixed it so only visible links and inputs receive focus.
• [AO3-7032] - If you tried to add your email to the invitation queue when it was already part of the queue, you would see two copies of the same error message. Now it only shows the error once.
• [AO3-7065] - We fixed some intermittent failures in the automated tests for the bookmark importing tool used by Open Doors.
• [AO3-7052] - We did a schema dump to capture what the current data structure looks like before we upgrade to Rails 7.2.
• [AO3-7053], [AO3-7054], [AO3-7067], [AO3-7068] - We updated a whole bunch of gems and GitHub actions: reviewdog/action-rubocop, awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action, nokogiri, and thor.
• [AO3-5352] - We prepared the preface of work downloads that are attached to work deletion emails for translation.
• [AO3-7001] - As an anti-abuse measure, we now strip embedded images from comment notification emails even when image embeds are enabled on the site itself.

0.9.422 & 0.9.423

On July 28, we made a number of small improvements all around the site. There were some issues while deploying these changes, so we did another release to fix it all up on the same day.

• [AO3-5609] - We stopped sending subscription notifications for works hidden by admins, since hidden works are inaccessible to other users.
• [AO3-7006] - When a comment contains an HTML list, the list numbers or bullet points no longer overlap with the commenter's icon.
• [AO3-7024] - You'll no longer get an incorrect success message if you mark items in your inbox as read without selecting any comments.
• [AO3-5476] - We cleaned up some unused code in the works controller.
• [AO3-7064] - We updated the gems we use for automated testing.
• [AO3-7072] - We updated the unicode gem to solve some issues with developing the AO3 software on Macs with Apple Silicon chips.
• [AO3-5346] - Collection maintainers get an email notification when matches in a gift exchange have finished generating. We've improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
• [AO3-6484] - We made a small change to the code that generates the HTML class names we use for hiding work blurbs by muted users. We were hoping this tweak would improve performance, but unfortunately it had no effect, so we'll have to try again.
• [AO3-6997] - If an Open Doors archivist tries to leave kudos while logged in to an archivist account, they'll get an error message telling them to log in with their personal account instead.
• [AO3-7015] - Work blurbs now contain an invisible code comment with the work's update date, to make it easier for developers of third-party tools to automate downloads from index pages like tags, bookmarks, and search result listings.
• [AO3-7021] - To make it easier to filter or search using work languages, we've added the language codes on the Languages page.
• [AO3-7057] - We now provide any applicable error messages when an admin attempts to send an invitation directly to an email and something goes wrong.

0.9.424

On August 5, we deployed another batch of miscellaneous fixes.

• [AO3-5025] - The Tag Wrangling committee can now use the Rich Text editor to edit the Wrangling Guidelines pages.
• [AO3-7076] - We fixed some unwanted shadows that Chrome was adding to radio buttons and checkboxes.
• [AO3-7088] - We fixed some flaky automated tests related to importing works from LiveJournal.
• [AO3-7074] - We removed some unused CSS from our default site skin.
• [AO3-6580] - We updated the account creation confirmation page's title from "Create Registration" to "Account Created" so that it's clearer you've successfully made an account.
• [AO3-6818] - When an admin bans an email from being used for guest comments, that email is now also banned from requesting invitations.
• [AO3-7026] - When we run a spam check on edited comments by new users, we now tell the spam checker that it's an edit.
• [AO3-7046] - We migrated the subscriptions table so it can hold more rows and we won't run out of room in the future.

0.9.425

On August 19, we deployed an important change to account security that checks new AO3 passwords to see if they've been part of a known data breach. We also began allowing CSS variables in site skins.

• [AO3-7073] - To better protect users' privacy, we've removed the preferences and fields to display emails, birthdays, and locations on user profiles.
• [AO3-7091] - We stopped using fixtures in our integration tests.
• [AO3-7098] - We updated cache-apt-pkgs-action again.
• [AO3-7099] - We bumped the version of actions/checkout – a utility that helps run automated tests on our code – from version 4 to version 5.
• [AO3-3071] - Comment emails now include the chapter number, so you don't have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
• [AO3-7087] - To improve account security, we updated our password change process to prevent users from choosing passwords that are known to be compromised on other sites. (If you missed our post back on World Password Day, we also have some tips for keeping your AO3 account secure!)
• [AO3-7090] - We changed links in emails to be HTTPS instead of HTTP.
• [AO3-7093] - We added an automated test to make sure the fixtures used for seeding development databases result in valid records.
• [AO3-7094] - We now allow limited use of CSS custom properties in site skins! You can find more information in the skins help text.

0.9.426

We upgraded to Rails 7.2 on August 26.

• [AO3-7058] - We updated our version of Rails from 7.1 to 7.2.
• [AO3-7095] - We added more example admin and user accounts with a greater variety of roles to our basic development dataset, which will make it easier for coders to work on things that require specific access levels.

September 5 is the OTW's birthday and this year, we are turning 18 years old! To celebrate this event, let's look back at some of the milestones the OTW's projects - AO3, TWC, Open Doors, Fanlore, and Legal Advocacy - have achieved over the years:

• As the first OTW Project, Legal Advocacy was launched in 2007, the same year as the organization itself.
• In February of 2008, TWC released its first call for papers! Shortly after, in June, Fanlore was launched.
• In late 2009, AO3 first went live. Roughly one year later, AO3 reached 10,000 users, with growth of the community accelerating ever since.
• In 2011, Open Doors was launched, and began importing archives in 2012.
• In 2015, the first ever International Fanworks Day was observed.

Since then, our projects have only continued to flourish and grow. AO3 has more than 9 million users and 15,730,000 works. Fanlore has nearly 80,000 pages and has seen over 1,657,000 edits. TWC is on its 45th issue. Open Doors has imported more than 100 archives, containing over 164,000 fanworks. Legal Advocacy fights hard for the rights of fans each and every day, responding to dozens of questions every year, filing Amicus Curiae briefs, joining coalitions, and more. All this and more is thanks to the support of fans worldwide; it wouldn't be possible without you!

If you're interested in how you can help, there are many ways for you to support us and our fannish community, and you can learn about some of them today by participating in our 18th Anniversary Bingo! On the card below you can see sixteen ways to contribute to the OTW or one of its projects. Some of these you might already have done, or are doing. You can cross those off!

Once you have a Bingo, we'd love for you to tell us what you did to get it! Tag us on social media using #18YearsOTW or comment below, and let us know. We're excited to hear from you!

If you're looking for other ways you can support the OTW, check out How You Can Help for more ideas!

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

I. 2025 BOARD ELECTION

Elections successfully closed the 2025 OTW Board Director election. Congratulations to the OTW's new Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg! Elizabeth and Harlan will be replacing the seats of outgoing Board members Jennifer Haynes and Zixin Zhang.

Many committees collaborated on Board Election work, with Communications helping distribute announcements, Development & Membership coordinating with OTW members, and Translation making Elections material available in multiple languages.

Elections would like to thank all the candidates who ran, the volunteers from across the OTW who assisted Elections in their work, and everyone who engaged with the election by asking questions or turning out to vote.

Statistics from this year’s election were made available on September 1: out of 15,138 eligible voters, 2,197 cast a ballot, representing 14.5% of potential voters.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In August, AO3 celebrated both one million Mandarin Chinese works and nine million users. Thank you to everyone who's helped us reach these milestones!

Also in August, Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) deployed a couple releases that included bug fixes and security improvements, and Systems continued their routine tasks, such as improving performance and auditing Archive traffic for malicious bots. User Response Translation began completing ticket translation requests, and Open Doors announced the import of Faerie, a Tolkien fanfiction archive.

In July, Policy & Abuse received 3,570 tickets, while Support received 3,999 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled just over 636,000 tags, or over 1,400 per wrangling volunteer!

Elsewhere, Tag Wrangling coordinated with AD&T and announced changes to fandom tag policies for fangames and fanmade web series in a series of three posts on the @ao3org Tumblr. The first post outlined the general policy, while the second post focused on Undertale and the third post focused on Fangans from Dangan Ronpa. Lastly, Tag Wrangling also coordinated with Communications to announce 20 new "No Fandom" canonical tags on AO3 News.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Legal is continuing to answer user queries and monitor legal developments. Although there are many concerning legal developments around freedom of speech and expression online, they are not directly affecting AO3. Legal also dealt with some unauthorized app who’ve used OTW and AO3 trademarks in confusing ways.

Transformative Works and Cultures has two active calls for papers, both due by January 1, 2026. The first is a special issue on Latin American Fandoms, and the next is a special issue on Music Fandom.

Communications' Con Outreach division wrapped up Worldcon 2025 in Seattle, Washington, USA - thank you to everyone who tabled and who said hi to us! You can check out con goers' recommendations in the con's AO3 collection.

Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge, Stub September will run from September 14-28, and graphics will have an animals with swords theme. Check their Bluesky, Twitter/X and Tumblr for announcements.

IV. GOVERNANCE

In August, Board, Board Assistants Team (BAT), Organizational Culture Roadmap, and Volunteers & Recruiting began a cross-committee review of the OTW's Code of Conduct. This review aims to ensure the Code of Conduct still serves both the OTW as an organization as well as its many volunteers.

Elsewhere, Board collaborated with other committees on Crisis Communication Guidelines, began their biennial review of the Board Confidentiality Policy, had their quarterly check-in with Legal, and approved the 2024 Annual Report. Minutes from July's public Board meeting are now available on the OTW website. Board also started preparations for the upcoming Board turnover after receiving the 2025 OTW Board election results.

BAT continued work on several projects, including collaborations with the Organizational Culture Roadmap and a report on nonprofit training. Lastly, Strategic Planning continued work on their two-year progress report on the implementation of the current strategic plan.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In addition to the aforementioned Code of Conduct Review, Volunteers & Recruiting also began a project focused on workgroups, aiming to increase the OTW’s ability to support projects that might not fit within the purview of a single committee.

This month, Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees: BAT and Development & Membership.

From July 23 to August 20, Volunteers & Recruiting received 203 new requests, and completed 252, leaving them with 51 open requests. As of August 20, 2025, the OTW has 982 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: GrayIsNotEmo, KW Ukuku, Magda19, and 1 other TikTok Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: Becca Bun, Jules Moon, Tiff, Zoe Bird, and 2 other Social Media & Outreach Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Ain, embobem, Gail, Rissi, and 2 other Policy & Abuse Volunteers
New Support Volunteers: ChangYan, Clarice Strand, Jennifer Elliott, llianne, John Pork, Louie, Maycix, melon8, Mily, nayogn, Stevie, TinaOe, viewofsilence, Wtchmn23, Ziting, and 8 other Support Volunteers
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: amphob, Bec, Berix, Bettelort, bingus, Bismuth, bluejello, Clarissa, Daisya, dila, Draconic, Drakoshig, firstestly, genitus6, grexigone, Hazelwyrm, heliolatry, Jas, KD, Lace, Lau, Leo M, Leuconoen, Maris, Mary, Nerva, nekojoo, null_ice, Nyxia, Pandasaurio, pickledragon, radiance, Ravenna, rikka, RJ, Sabrina_Tangerina, sarkastic, Sayornis, SCEnt Hope, shrikes, Soyash, Talixa, Tea Huimyni, Thunder, twistingsands, Zee, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Ana Niccals, Bekyro, PerpetuallyPurple, and 2 other Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Communications Chair
Departing BAT Volunteers: 2 Board Assistant Team Volunteers
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Event Coordinator, 1 Media Outreach Volunteer, 1 Report Writer, and 2 TikTok Moderators
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Social Media & Outreach Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Esin and 9 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Janka (Translator)

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.