Archive of Our Own

The Elections Committee would like to thank all of our candidates for their hard work in this year's election. We would also like to thank our departing Board Directors, Anh Pham and Qiao Chu, for all their work during their Board terms. As previously advised, the Board of Directors is sorry to inform the membership that director’s Erica Frank, elected in 2024, and Kathryn Soderholm, elected in 2023, stepped down from their positions on the Board prior to the 2026 election. We are grateful for their service and thank them for their hard work and dedication.

With that, we are pleased to present the results of the 2026 Election. As this year’s election was uncontested, there was no voting.

The following candidates (in alphabetical order) have been officially appointed to the Board of Directors:

• Jennifer Howard
• Rebecca C. Moritz
• Theodore Bloyd

Board turnover will formally begin on October 1. We wish the new members of the Board well with their terms.

With that, the election season comes to a close. Thank you to everyone who got involved by spreading the word and asking the candidates questions! We look forward to seeing all of you again next year.

Best Wishes,
OTW Elections Committee

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.

In June and early July, we updated the AO3 Terms of Service FAQ and made improvements all around prompt memes and gift exchanges. We also improved skin previews and the AO3 admin area, along with a few other small fixes.

Special thanks to the first-time contributors charliewhiskee, Gardin233, gemmie, lynn, Naomi Liu, sagittaerys (Olamilekan Aremu), Smaran Jawalkar, Soaphbar, and varram. Thank you also to notpies for alerting us to a security issue!

Credits

• Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, bre-nana, caitlin, charliewhiskee, Danaël / Rever, David Bilsky/Ironskink, Gardin233, gemmie, KooShnoo, Ling-Yi, Luis Pabon, lydia-theda, lynn, Naomi Liu, nicolacleary, Pablo Monfort (VAIRIX), reader-dev-2026, sagittaerys (Olamilekan Aremu), Sarken, slavalamp, Smaran Jawalkar, Soaphbar
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, redsummernight, Sarken, slavalamp
• Testers: Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Cocoa, Lute, lydia-theda, marcus8448, megidola, ömer-faruk, pk2317, Runt, slavalamp, therealmorticia

Details

0.9.482

Our June 8 deploy was themed around improvements to prompt memes and gift exchanges.

• [AO3-5713] - There was a tag set option that would prevent participants in a challenge from offering or requesting characters outside the tag set. However, this would only apply to the autocomplete suggestions, and not actually prevent someone from entering a tag manually and submitting that sign-up. Now the sign-up is actually checked against the allowed tags!
• [AO3-6084] - We now make sure no input is lost if you try and fail to submit prompts for a prompt challenge with a noncanonical tag. We also greatly improved the error message, so you can fix your prompts and try again!
• [AO3-6876] - Some special characters wouldn't be displayed correctly in prompt titles; now everything is tidy again.
• [AO3-7182] - If a prompt had fills that were restricted to logged-in AO3 users only, guests could still see the blurb containing information about the work, even if they couldn't access the work itself. Now everything is hidden from guests, as it should be.
• [AO3-7243] - We prepared three help pop-ups related to creating a work for translation.
• [AO3-7261] - It was previously possible to create a challenge with zero allowed fields for requests or offers, which would indeed make for quite a challenging sign-up process. If you try to do that now, we return an error message to ask for at least one allowed field.
• [AO3-7379] - There were no delimiters in the stats listed in collection blurbs (e.g., the number of works or bookmarks in said collection). You now get more readable numbers such as 11,111 instead of 11111.
• [AO3-7398], [AO3-7399] - The Challenge Sign-ups and Challenge Assignments pages now include your username in the browser page title.
• [AO3-7406] - Moved the gift exchange mailers to a separate file.
• [AO3-7407] - Added an anonymous CSS class to work, series, and bookmark blurbs of currently anonymous works and series.
• [AO3-7494] - Work skins are only meant to apply to the section of the page containing a work, its title, and its notes, but certain combinations of styles sometimes allowed skins to break free of that area. We've made some adjustments to keep them contained.

0.9.483

On June 17, we deployed a Terms of Service FAQ update and made some improvements to skin previews as well as pages used by admins.

• [AO3-4274] - If your work is a remix or translation of another work, and that work is deleted, the Notes section will now say, "Inspired by a deleted work." (You can edit your work to remove the association, if you want.)
• [AO3-6218] - To help troubleshoot problems with challenges or assist in cases of abuse, AO3 admins from our Support and Policy & Abuse committees can now access pages in a collection that are usually only accessible to owners or mods of that collection.
• [AO3-6765] - Made some changes to the message you get when previewing a site skin to make it more helpful!
• [AO3-7397] - You used to be redirected to a random tag page to preview a skin. We've now designated a specific page for this preview, since redirecting to a random page can be unreliable.
• [AO3-7366] - Changed which page AO3 admins use to edit work tags and language.
• [AO3-7413] - The browser page title and the page heading for external bookmark creation now match.
• [AO3-7456] - Updated the Terms of Service FAQ. You can view the differences here.
• [AO3-7447] - We improved the wording of the Content Policy notice on the work posting form.
• [AO3-7453], [AO3-7454], [AO3-7450] - Updated the Policy & Abuse Confidentiality Policy link in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and added a link to the Fannish Next of Kin FAQ item to the Terms of Service.
• [AO3-7474] - Updated the faraday gem to address a security issue.
• [AO3-7476] - We fixed that text-only bylines sometimes contained raw HTML.
• [AO3-7488] - We no longer submit comments that are already deleted or considered spam to the spamchecker when manually marking comments as spam from the console.
• [AO3-7478] - We made it impossible for admins to enable a language for our future translated interface if we don't already have some emails available in that language (since translated emails will come first).

0.9.484

The July 6 release included more improvements for AO3 admins, most notably the ability to preview and save drafts of news posts such as this one!

• [AO3-2782] - We now make sure tag wranglers can't assign themselves non-canonical tags.
• [AO3-4989] - Deleting a bookmark would redirect you to the first page of bookmarks, even when the deleted bookmark was on a different page, or you had applied filters to your bookmark listing. We now make sure you'll stay right where you are.
• [AO3-5696] - We added another check before we send out subscription emails, which means people who are subscribed to the orphan_account will not receive a notification if a user adds a chapter to a work previously co-created with the orphan account.
• [AO3-6779] - If a Policy & Abuse admin previously corrected the language on a work, that change would be recorded as tag edit in the admin area's activity logs. Now it is correctly considered a language edit!
• [AO3-7250] - Conversely, an admin's cancelled or invalid attempt at editing a work's tags (such as trying to perform an operation that results in an error message) would be logged, even though the work remained unchanged. That's also fixed now.
• [AO3-6960] - Admins with posting privileges can now preview a news post or save a draft, like it's long been possible for creative works on the Archive. Yay!
• [AO3-7242] - We prepared four more work creation related help pop-ups for translation.
• [AO3-7421] - We fixed that the CSV export of gift exchange sign-ups could contain unescaped special characters in the sign-up titles.
• [AO3-7493] - In addition to checking an account's age (i.e. how long ago it was created) to determine how many comments that account can be allowed to leave in quick succession, we now also consider how many comments that user has left previously.
• [AO3-7496] - We updated the net-imap gem to address some security advisories.
• [AO3-7498] - We made sure that one of the dependencies of our automated tests can't update without our approval.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with megidola, who volunteers as an Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head, Policy & Abuse Volunteer & Supurrvisor, and Tag Wrangling Volunteer & Supervisor.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I juggle a bunch of different things within the org, because I like variety!

I started out as a tag wrangler, so I am part of the team of people who look at the tags you all add to your works on Archive of Our Own (AO3) and decide how to connect them on AO3's backend to help users filter things properly. I've since also become a Tag Wrangling supervisor. This means that I am responsible for all kinds of administrative tasks within the committee, helping train and graduate new wranglers, and answering questions or concerns any wranglers might have.

I am also part of the Policy & Abuse committee (PAC), or a PAC cat, as we are also called. (Meow.) We investigate user reports about content that violates AO3's Terms of Service (TOS), as well as make decisions about how the TOS should be enforced. I am a supervisor (or supurrvisor; we commit to the cat theme) for that committee as well, which comes with similar duties around dealing with admin, documentation, and enquiries from other PAC cats.

Last but certainly not least, I am head of the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup (OCR). We are responsible for implementing the goals on the OTW Culture Roadmap, which are all themed around making the OTW a more accessible, equitable, and welcoming place to volunteer.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Because I am juggling so many different roles, my weeks also look pretty different depending on what's needed.

Generally, I'll start by logging into our org chat tool and checking what I've missed since I was last online and whether anything is urgent or needs my immediate attention. Then I'll start working down my reminder list of tasks to do. I try to keep a pretty in-depth to-do list, because my memory is Swiss cheese and things will fall through the cracks otherwise. (Thanks, ADHD.)

Which tasks are on said to-do list varies from week to week. The things I do consistently are leading OCR meetings and contributing to various project work, checking my wrangling page to make sure my fandoms are taken care of, and logging into our PAC ticket programme to take care of tasks there. This involves drafting tickets, sending tickets which have been beta'd and therefore signed off on, betaing other peoples' tickets, or responding to user replies. PAC work also often requires me to discuss our policies and guidelines with other cats to make sure we enforce the TOS fairly for all users.

Supervisor work for both PAC and Tag Wrangling depends on which tasks need doing, which rotates based on a lot of factors, including time of year. Usually it will involve a lot of writing documentation, database admin, record keeping, and various emails though. (ᵕ,—ᴗ—,)

OCR project work is really dependent on the specific project. Because so much of the culture roadmap centres around creating new processes or guidelines, a lot of our work by necessity involves writing and editing various documents. We also often find ourselves analysing and summarising survey results or facilitating communication between lots of different OTW committees. The last part especially is something I find quite fun, as it gives me cause to talk to committees and people I wouldn't normally get the chance to interact with in my other roles!

What made you decide to volunteer?

I really care about the mission of the OTW and wanted to contribute. I was around when fandom was much more decentralised than it is these days, and it makes me quite sad to think about how many of these independent fan spaces we lost when the internet became more expensive and more corporate. I am therefore really grateful to the OTW for helping archive fandom history, including through the wonderful Open Doors project. It's also important to me to have a place where we don't have to fear the censorship that permeates so many other online spaces. Being able to enforce the AO3 TOS that cares about protecting the rights of creators is a big reason why I volunteer for PAC.

By nature of being a global, entirely online volunteer organization which has grown tremendously since the OTW was first founded, there are certain challenges the OTW has to deal with as a result when it comes to managing its volunteers. I love this community, and if there is a way for me to help make our volunteers feel as safe and supported as possible, then I would like to do everything I can to ensure that. Hence why I lead OCR.

Finally, I just find categorising things really satisfying, so obviously Tag Wrangling called to me immediately. ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

I have to be pretty careful to balance my time properly and assess my commitments to make sure I'm not taking on too much and therefore stressing myself out. When you really care about the work you do and some of it is legitimately fun, it's sometimes easy to forget that it's nonetheless work. Saying yes to too many things or forgetting to take regular breaks can lead to pretty spectacular burnout.

I track the time I spend on volunteering every month to make sure I'm not overdoing it. I also make sure to carve out regular time for my other hobbies, such as the tabletop roleplaying campaigns I am a player in, or going to gigs, museums, plays, and the cinema with my friends.

What fannish things do you like to do?

One of my favourite things is in-depth meta or analysis of my favourite characters or my favourite fandoms' narratives! I adore connecting dots on our little conspiracy boards with my friends and getting pretentious about themes. I studied film theory at university, and now there is no one to stop me from using this knowledge for evil.

I also really like writing and reading fanfic, though as someone who chronically gets invested in vanishingly tiny fandoms and ships, there is unfortunately not a lot for me to read… (◞‸◟；)

I am super grateful to the authors who have written for my tiny fandoms, and thrilled I can contribute to the org that enabled them to share their work with me. I also try my best to contribute fanfic for these fandoms myself in the hopes that someone who may become invested in my niche blorbos in the future will be just as excited to find my works as I was to find works by other authors.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.

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.

In May, updates to AO3 focused on improving skins, collections, and gift exchanges, boosting performance across AO3, and addressing several security issues. The Collections page now has options to sort by number of works and bookmarks, and we've added some improvements to tag set nominations and the matching process for gift exchanges. The month also included multiple security fixes for permission issues, strengthened URL import protections, and updated dependencies.

Shoutout to this month's first-time contributors gemmie and Mane Muradyan, and special thanks to notpies and Taxen99 who alerted us to security issues.

Credits

• Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, cayugulan, Céline Bertau, gemmie, Hunter Ada Smith, Jesse Malark, Julian Saxl, kiyazz, Lara Rodrigues, Ling-Yi, Luis Pabon, Mane Muradyan, marcus8448, mjec, Nate Berkopec, nicolacleary, Noah Bravo, Pablo Monfort (VAIRIX), Pearl, Respheal, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, slavalamp, wAO3rker, Yang, zrei
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, Ling-Yi, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, slavalamp
• Testers: Bilka, Berix, Brian Austin, choux, Claire P. Baker, LilyP, lydia-theda, marcus8448, Nary, ömer faruk, pk2317, sarken, slavalamp, therealmorticia

Details

0.9.474

On May 1, we released a bunch of miscellaneous bug fixes and updated the text on several pages.

• [AO3-3601] - Deleting a pseud and choosing "Transfer these bookmarks to the default pseud" wouldn't reliably update the default pseud's bookmark index, so the bookmarks appeared to be gone. But they weren't! And now they should show up under the default pseud without a big delay.
• [AO3-4693] - It was previously impossible to delete a collection that contained a challenge (such as a gift exchange or a prompt meme). Now you can delete your collection no matter what.
• [AO3-6348] - In the tag autocomplete, a stray semicolon would sneak into tags with ampersands (&) if those tags also contained a pipe (|). That's fixed now!
• [AO3-7267] - We now serve 404 Not Found errors to users and site admins if they try to access a preferences page for a user that doesn't exist.
• [AO3-7316] - Shuffled some CSS around in the code for site banners. Neater now!
• [AO3-7320] - We now make sure a comment won't be sent to our spam checker for evaluation if it's already considered spam.
• [AO3-7331] - A user's Marked for Later page now displays their username in the browser page title.
• [AO3-7337] - The "Sign-up closes:" time in a collection's blurb now adjusts to the timezone selected by a user in their preferences.
• [AO3-7353] - When you're on your Refused Gifts page, the navigation buttons now indicate that this is indeed the page you're on, and Accepted Gifts are just a click away.
• [AO3-7362] - Updated our takedown policy to add guidance related to requests made under the Take It Down Act (TIDA).
• [AO3-7375] - JavaScript would break in browsers with localStorage disabled or not supported. Now it shouldn't throw up errors anymore!
• [AO3-7376] - We now display a helpful message when you try to delete a pseud you have already deleted (e.g. in another tab), instead of throwing an Error 500.
• [AO3-7405] - We improved the performance of generating the RSS feeds for tags.

0.9.475

Our May 12 deploy focused on collection and challenge improvements. On our Collections page, you can now sort all collections by the number of works or bookmarks they contain. \o/

• [AO3-3764] - It was previously impossible to see all tag set nominations awaiting review. If there were too many to fit on one page, you'd have to review some first to make room. We have now added pagination buttons, so you can access all nominated tags!
• [AO3-6068] - Some code cleanup.
• [AO3-5764] - The notifications we send when someone submits a prompt fill contained very little information about the submitted work. We now include the same information as in subscription emails, so the prompter can review tags and warnings before opening the work.
• [AO3-6106] - Checking the "Approve" ticky for a filled assignment in a moderated gift exchange will now correctly let the submitted work into the collection and mark the assignment as completed.
• [AO3-6277] - If you run matching on gift exchange sign-ups and get no potential matches back, the notification email and matching page will now contain helpful information about the status of your matches, and what to do about it.
• [AO3-6978] - In an effort to speed up a background process during work imports, we created a new table to store the original URLs of imported works. Making sure we aren't adding duplicates to AO3 should be much faster in the future!
• [AO3-7012] - Gift works locked to registered users were hidden from site admins (such as Policy & Abuse volunteers) on gift pages or in gift searches. Now they show up.
• [AO3-7179] - The success message you get when updating someone's membership status in a collection (such as making them an owner, or removing them as a member) now contains their pseud and username, as it should.
• [AO3-7188] - You can now sort collections by the number of collected works or bookmarks!
• [AO3-7239], [AO3-7392] - We prepared several help popups related to posting a work, as well as a line in work-related email notifications, for translation.
• [AO3-7356] - We improved the performance and reduced the load on our database servers when displaying a series.
• [AO3-7400] - The browser page title for a user's Gifts page is now correctly formatted.
• [AO3-7411] - The browser page title for a work now lists both fandoms if the work contains two, and says "Multifandom" for works with three or more fandom tags.
• [AO3-7415] - In a user's Preferences, the site skin options included skins that were just created as a parent for other skins and weren't actually supposed to be used by themselves. That's fixed now.
• [AO3-7422] - We updated the erb gem update to address a security issue.

0.9.476

Our May 15 release focused on security issues.

• [AO3-7385] - Under certain circumstances, it was possible to use the parent skin option to access the title and CSS of a site skin belonging to another user. It was not possible to look for skins belonging to a specific user. If a user included a name in skin titles or CSS (e.g., Darth Vader skin), that name would be visible, but it would not be possible to confirm whether that skin was created by a specific user. We are unable to verify that all or any skins were accessed in that manner.
• [AO3-7420] - We fixed an issue that made it possible to use a POST request to reorder works in series you didn't own.
• [AO3-7443] - We have removed Google from our list of permitted audio embed sources as they discontinued their audio player a long time ago.
• [AO3-7433], [AO3-7438], [AO3-7439] - We updated some gems to address some security issues.

0.9.477

We deployed multiple improvements to skins, including allowing some new properties, on May 20.

• [AO3-6390] - It's now only possible to change the default look of AO3 if you have database access (and not if you're merely logged in as a site admin).
• [AO3-7160] - The username autocomplete when trying to assign a pinch hitter to an assignment will no longer be cut off after the first username.
• [AO3-7189] - If a user applies a site skin containing broken code that renders the site unusable (and prevents them from accessing the option to revert to a different skin), a Support admin can now reset the skin in the user's Preferences.
• [AO3-7345] - We have made the success message for temporarily setting a new site skin more informative.
• [AO3-7388] - Since it's impossible to use a skin that's set to be a "Parent Only", it's also impossible to generate a preview of what AO3 would look like with that skin. We now display an error message if you try.
• [AO3-7390] - We now allow the fill, stroke, and stroke-width CSS properties in work and site skins.
• [AO3-6198], [AO3-6454] - We switched the code library for talking to our spamchecker to our own code, because the library was no longer maintained.
• [AO3-7391] - We fixed some incorrect selectors in some rarely used CSS.
• [AO3-7427] - We changed how we define some config variables to make things easier when using the Rails console.

0.9.478

On May 27, we turned on a setting to hopefully improve overall website performance.

• [AO3-7465] - We enabled a Ruby setting which aims to improve performance of the whole site.
• [AO3-7475] - We switched away from a GitHub Actions dependency that wasn't maintained.

0.9.479 & 0.9.481

On May 28 and May 31, we deployed security fixes for the work import form.

• [AO3-7483], [AO3-7484] - When importing a work from a URL, some URL imports could bypass our proxy and access URLs within the internal AO3 network. We made sure they can't do that anymore.

I. AO3 SECURITY & PHISHING COMMENTS

In late July, Policy & Abuse (PAC) coordinated with Accessibility, Design & Technology and Systems to increase AO3 account security measures against logins with insecure passwords in response to an active phishing comment scam targeting thousands of users. PAC also worked with Communications and Support to publish several social media posts to help users secure their accounts and keep them informed.

We'd like to remind you that AO3 volunteers will never communicate with you about the status of your account through comments on your works. We will also never require payment from users to make an account or to "unlock" features. AO3 is and will always be free to use.

We recommend you verify that the email on your account is one that you have access to and that it is up to date. Please also make sure that your password is secure and unique to AO3. Read our update on insecure passwords for more information.

For general advice on how to keep your AO3 account secure, refer to World Password Day: Keeping Your Account Secure. If you need help changing your email or password, refer to our Archive FAQ questions on: How can I change the email associated with my account? and How do I change my password?

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In July, AO3 surpassed 80,000 canonical fandoms! \o/

As of July 10, AO3 is officially on version 1.0. Accessibility, Design & Technology's releases have included internationalization work, documentation tweaks, gem updates, bug fixes, improvements to admin tools, and filters for user collection pages.

AO3 Documentation updated the Statistics FAQ and Your Account FAQ.

Open Doors announced that the Mass Effect Kink Meme will be imported to AO3, and they began importing the unfilled prompt challenges from Forging Ghost.

In June, Support received 3,556 tickets, while PAC received 4,254 tickets. As of July 31, PAC has consistently reduced their ticket backlog for the past six months in a row, and all PAC tickets submitted prior to January 2025 have been closed. User Response Translation received and completed 78 requests from PAC and Support.

Tag Wrangling published a July update on "No Fandom" tags. In June, they wrangled over 595,000 tags, or approximately 1,300 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications published an overview behind why AO3 doesn't have an official app and provided some alternatives for specific functionalities. They also formally said goodbye to the OTW's LiveJournal account as the automated cross-posting used for OTW News there is no longer supported.

Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge is Stub September—keep an eye on their social media (Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr) for announcements about the challenge!

TWC's production team is preparing the 49th issue of Transformative Works and Cultures which will be published September 15, 2026. Their editorial team continued work on the two special issues slated for 2027—Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms—and their editorial board jury is finalizing the reviews for the 2026 Fans of Color Research Prize.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections announced the publication of the first batch of Q&As from candidates, focusing on the future direction of the OTW. They also shared that this year's synchronous candidate chat will be on August 8 at 4pm UTC (what time is that for me?). It will be held in the Elections Discord server.

Board spent July primarily focusing on internal projects and preparing for the public Board meeting which took place on August 1; minutes will be uploaded to the website soon.

Board Assistants Team completed the project to update the static content on the OTW website that they've been working on with Communications since 2024. All pages have been reviewed to ensure that they are up to date, clear, and consistent.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting continued work on rolling out the updated Code of Conduct and conducted recruitment for five roles across Open Doors, Tag Wrangling, and Translation.

From June 23 to July 25, Volunteers & Recruiting received 321 new requests, and completed 294, leaving them with 55 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of July 25, 2026, the OTW has 1,044 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Lulu S (AO3 Documentation Chair)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 Chair Assistant and Aquilas (Social Media Moderator)
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener
New Legal Volunteers: Amy R (Trademark Specialist)
New Open Doors Volunteers: ahcandy, Faye Wright, Gina-Nicole, GineSage87, Invariance, limethymes, Ro Koseki, and 6 other Import Assistants; Fly-dot-net, navy-yard-elle, TC, and 1 other Administrative Volunteer; and 1 Documentation Specialist
New Support Volunteers: 2 Support Volunteers

Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Fly-dot-net and 1 other Import Assistant, and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Iolanthe and 2 other Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Bette, lovemelikesunday, OldScoil, Paula, Potato, and 2 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Copyeditor, 1 Outreach and Communications Editor, and 1 Symposium Editor
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 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, 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.

Are you detail-oriented and passionate about supporting meaningful work behind the scenes? Do you have an interest in preserving fannish history, wiki editing, or writing help documentation? Do you know your way around the platforms where fan studies conversations happen? Are you a senior PhD student (ABD) or an early career scholar? Would you like to help your fellow fans use AO3? Are you fluent in Spanish? Do you have experience with mediation, arbitration, or conflict resolution? Are you good at administrative tasks and working with people? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

• Board Assistants Team Volunteer - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 60 applications
• Fanlore Committee Policy & Admin Volunteer - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications
• TWC Outreach and Communications Editor - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC
• TWC Assistant Editor - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC
• Support Volunteer - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications
• Support Volunteer (Spanish) - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications
• Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC
• Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteer - closing 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications

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.

Board Assistants Team Volunteers

Are you detail-oriented, highly organized, and passionate about supporting meaningful work behind the scenes? The Board Assistants Team (BAT) is looking for volunteers to assist the OTW Board of Directors and the OTW-at-large with essential administrative and project management tasks.

As a BAT Volunteer, you’ll play a key role in ensuring smooth operations by:

• Supporting and completing special projects, both for Board and at the request of other committees
• Moderating Board meetings on Discord
• Drafting and editing communications, documentation, and statements
• Offering feedback to improve workflows and communications

We're looking for volunteers who are proactive, driven, and committed to the OTW's long-term success.

You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. In addition to the initial application, you will be emailed part two to help us understand how well you understand and can complete the committee's tasks. You must complete both parts to be considered for the role.

Applications are due Wednesday, 12 August or after 60 applications.

Apply to be a Board Assistants Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Fanlore Committee Policy & Admin Volunteers

Do you have an interest in preserving fannish history? Do you have an interest in wiki editing, or writing help documentation? Fanlore is recruiting for Policy & Admin volunteers!

Fanlore's Policy & Admin volunteers are responsible for dealing with the behind-the-scenes support and administrative tasks that ensure that Fanlore runs smoothly. We respond to questions and complaints; shape Fanlore's policies, tutorials, and guidelines; and assist Fanlore gardeners and other editors. No extensive experience is required—just a strong interest in documenting and preserving fandom, good communication skills, and a willingness to work with a team and further Fanlore's mission. Join us!

Applications are due Wednesday, 12 August or after 40 applications.

Apply to be a Fanlore Committee Policy & Admin Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

TWC Outreach and Communications Editor

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. TWC is looking for an Outreach and Communications Editor to help connect our scholarship with the communities who need it. In this role, you'll announce new issues and calls for papers across the fan studies landscape: Bluesky, Tumblr, Discord, Facebook groups, and academic listservs. You'll spotlight individual articles, resurface work from the journal's archive, contribute monthly updates to the OTW newsletter, and help improve the journal's visibility through promotion and indexing. If you enjoy finding the right audience for good scholarship, and you already know your way around the platforms where fan studies conversations happen, this might be the role for you. We're looking for two people for this role (who can apply separately or as a team) who are organized, comfortable with public-facing writing, responsive communicators, and genuinely interested in fan studies and open-access publishing. Familiarity with Bluesky and Tumblr is a real asset; familiarity with the field's scholarly communities is even better.

Applications are due Wednesday, 12 August

Apply to be a TWC Outreach and Communications Editor at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

TWC Assistant Editor

Transformative Works and Cultures seeks an assistant editor as part of building a leadership pipeline for the journal and in the field more broadly. TWC is an international peer-reviewed Diamond Open Access online publication about fan-related topics, promoting dialogue between the academic community and fan communities. Assistant editors work closely with the editor to perform editorial manuscript review, email authors, and research and correspond with peer reviewers.

Under the supervision of the editors, the assistant editors will assist with editorial review of new submissions, managing the peer review process, and communicating with authors. Estimated time commitment is approximately 2-3 hours per week.

Applications are due Wednesday, 12 August

Apply to be a TWC Assistant Editor at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Support Volunteer

The Support team is responsible for handling the feedback and requests for assistance we receive from users of the Archive of Our Own. We answer users’ questions, help to resolve problems they’re experiencing, and pass on information to and from coders, testers, tag wranglers and other teams involved with the AO3. If you enjoy helping others to learn how to use the Archive and figuring out solutions to problems, you might enjoy being a Support volunteer!

Applications are due 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications

Apply to be a Support Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Support Volunteer (Spanish)

The Support team is responsible for handling the feedback and requests for assistance we receive from users of the Archive. We answer users’ questions, help to resolve problems they’re experiencing, and pass on information to and from coders, testers, tag wranglers and other teams involved with the Archive.

We’re currently recruiting for applicants who are fluent in both English and Spanish (we welcome all dialects!). If you are a fluent Spanish speaker who enjoys helping others to learn how to use the Archive and figuring out solutions to problems, you might enjoy being a Support volunteer!

Our Spanish volunteers will be focusing primarily on tickets from Spanish-speaking users, providing answers directly in Spanish, assisting other volunteers with translation of tickets and answers to and from Spanish, as well as creating and translating documentation when needed.

Applications are due 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications

Apply to be a Support Volunteer (Spanish) at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer

Do you have experience with mediation, arbitration, or conflict resolution? Are you passionate about fostering a safer and more supportive volunteering environment within the OTW?

As an Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution ("ICCR") volunteer, you will play a key role in maintaining fair and respectful interactions across the Organization. Your work will include reviewing, investigating, and adjudicating complaints, and mediating conflicts. Our team is also in the process of refining the OTW's policies to create a more effective and inclusive volunteer experience. Our goal is to serve as an objective, neutral party for personnel-related issues to help resolve situations with compassion and equity.

Please note that due to the nature of the work, current OTW volunteers who apply for the role will have to resign from all other roles within the OTW to serve on this subcommittee.

Applications are due Wednesday, 12 August

Apply to be a Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteer

Are you great at admin and enjoy the satisfaction of completing short tasks and ticking them off to-do lists? Or do you have experience in CRM or database software, data privacy, managing software access, or other related areas? Volunteers & Recruiting is looking for additional volunteers to help our busy team!

Volunteers & Recruiting supports the Organization for Transformative Works as a volunteer-driven organization by ensuring that volunteers are in the right roles, at the right time, with the right tools.

We recruit and manage incoming volunteers, handle exiting volunteers, handle all committee set up as well as chair and board turnover. We help answer volunteers’ questions about the OTW or the tools we use, or direct volunteers to the right places. We set up tools for committees and subcommittees, mentor volunteers in their work, and track the service of each and every volunteer throughout their time with the organization. We ensure that every volunteer in the organization has the resources they need to complete their work efficiently and effectively.

This recruitment round we’d especially love hearing from applicants who, in addition to helping out with our day-to-day case work, are interested in developing and maintaining documentation (including tool tutorials, committee policies, and our volunteer handbook) and collaborating on committee projects. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a live text-based chat interview.

Applications are due Wednesday,12 August or after 30 applications.

Apply to be a Volunteers & Recruiting 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, 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.

The election season is in full swing! As part of the election season, we have a chat with our candidates coming up soon. You can also find links to the candidates' answers to your questions at the bottom of this post.

Chats

There will be one public chat with all three candidates that will last 90 minutes. Chats will take place in our public chatroom (Discord).

It is scheduled for:

• Saturday, August 8, from 4pm UTC to 5.30pm UTC – Live chat with all candidates (What time is the Candidate Chat where I live?)

During this chat, chat attendees will have the opportunity to ask the candidates questions not already covered in their platforms, bios, and Q&A, as well as to ask individual questions of specific candidates. New questions will only be accepted for the first hour of the scheduled chat time to make sure candidates have time to finish them all.

We hope that you can join us for this chat!

Please note that though the link to the public chatroom is already active, chatting capabilities will not be enabled until approximately half an hour before the chat begins.

Read on to learn more about using Discord.

• On the login page, you'll need to provide a screen name.
• Once you enter the server, you'll find a list of users on the right and a list of chat rooms on the left. Settings are available via the gear icon on the lower left, near your screen name; there you can choose, among other options, whether you prefer a dark or light chat room appearance.
• There are three rooms available to chat attendees who are not candidates or Elections Committee volunteers: general, candidate_chats, and open_chat.
  • General is where you'll find a list of rules for the chats. Please read through these carefully before entering the other two rooms.
  • Candidate_chats is where the candidates will answer questions and debate amongst themselves. Only the candidates and moderator will be able to chat in this room.
  • Open_chat is where all attendees can participate and talk to each other. We ask that you try to stay on topics related to the election. A moderator will be in the room, so if you have a question for the candidates, you can signal the moderator with o/, the candidate's name, and the question. Use o// if it's a follow-up question to the current discussion.

Q&A

When we posted the Board candidates' bios and platforms, we asked the public to submit additional questions for them. Once again, our sincere thanks to everyone who did so! We will be posting groups of questions as the candidates finish their responses, and one has already been posted. The second group of Q&A questions will be posted on August 7th.

To navigate answers by individual candidate, please use the links below:

• Jennifer H.
• Rebecca C. M.
• Theodore B.

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.

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 overviews some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued to adjust existing canonical "No Fandom" tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating 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:

• 4+1 Things
• Aquarium Dates
• Coffee Dates
• Dinner Dates
• Movie Dates
• Picnic Dates
• Anger Issues
• ASMR | Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
• Author is Projecting
• Canon - Book & TV Combination
• Complicated Feelings
• Concubines
• Courtesans
• Depersonalization
• Derealization
• Droit du Seigneur | Jus Primae Noctis | Lord's Right of the First Night
• Emotional Breakdowns
• Emotional Vulnerability
• Falling Out of Love
• Fibromyalgia
• Glasses Kink
• Medieval Fantasy
• No Mpreg | Male Pregnancy
• New Game Plus
• Piss Kink
• POTS | Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome
• Reassurance
• Self-Care
• Sex as a Coping Mechanism
• Sex as Self-Harm
• Sleep Paralysis
• Stimming
• Tattoo Artists

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Falling In Love is now a subtag of Love
• Uniform Kink has been removed as a metatag of Clothing Kink and is now a subtag instead
• Uniform Kink has been removed as a metatag of Uniforms and is now a subtag instead

In Conclusion

While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:

• Coffee in Fanworks
• Stimming
• Yuri Aquarium Date

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about 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 and 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
• Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts

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.

Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven't gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

We're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it'll be some time before these updates are complete. 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 three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.

Lastly, we'd also like to celebrate a major milestone this month with the creation of our 80,000th canonical fandom on AO3, The Grand Deception of Benedict Blackmoor - Gaia Tate. To give a brief overview of the growth of fandoms on AO3, there were 5,000 fandoms canonized around New Year's Day 2010, around 20,000 fandoms around December 2015, and about 40,000 fandoms canonized in November 2020. We look forward to continuing to share and celebrate future tagging milestones with all of you in the months and years to come. \o/

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.

We're excited to announce that we've crossed another milestone: AO3 now has more than 18 million fanworks! A big Thank You to everyone who contributed to that success, whether you're a fanwork creator yourself, or cheering on your favorite creators with kudos and comments.

Of those 18 million fanworks, a lot live in collections. A collection is a group of works and/or bookmarks compiled together under one theme. You can, for example, group together works for a specific trope or relationship. Prompt Meme and Gift Exchange challenges for specific events are also hosted within collections!

Did you know we recently rolled out some changes adding new features to collections (fairly) recently? Our Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee published a post on it last September, if you want to check it out!

Some of the most important updates were:

• giving collection owners the ability to add up to 10 tags to the collection that show up in the collection blurb
• a "Multifandom" filter for collections containing works from more than one fandom
• the automatic addition of fandom tags to collections as the feature went live (or the "Multifandom" tag for collections with works/bookmarks from many fandoms)

Some additional changes that were rolled out with the tag-feature as well: for example, the Open Challenges page (including the Open Gift Exchange and Open Prompt Memes pages) now shows collections that are closing soonest at the top of the page!

To try out the new features for yourself, you can head on over to the Collections page by selecting "Browse → Collections". Once there you can filter collections either by a specific tag, or include or exclude collections with the "Multifandom" tag. By selecting "Open Challenges" on the top right, you can browse currently open challenges. And if you want to learn more about how to navigate, create, or administrate collections, check out our Collections FAQ!

Thanks again for your continued support, time, and passion for fandom! We hope to celebrate many more milestones with you in the future.

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.

Users often ask us to create a mobile app and wonder why we haven't done so already. We've spotlighted this before and even included it in our FAQs, but it comes up often enough that we wanted to provide an updated explanation of why we don't have –⁠ and don't plan to make –⁠ an app.

Third-Party Apps

There is no official AO3 app. If you have come across or are using an app that looks like AO3, it is not official and is not owned by the OTW. These apps are made by third parties and are normally just specialized web browsers that change the way AO3 looks when you access it.

These apps may have ads or request payment from users, neither of which AO3 will ever do. AO3 does not allow ads and will always be free to use. Anyone charging you for access to AO3 in any way – whether by forcing you to view ads, pay to access works, or subscribe to enable additional features –⁠ is violating the AO3 Terms of Service.

As these third-party apps aren't controlled by us, if you log in to AO3 on these apps, the apps' developers may gain access to your username and password. You're trusting both that the developer is not malicious and that they have taken all proper precautions to keep your login information safe. If your login information is exposed to someone with malicious intent, they could log into your account to post Terms of Service-violating content, delete your works, change your account's credentials so you can't log in, or even delete your account.

App Store Restrictions

If we did develop an official app, it is unlikely we could distribute it via the Apple App or Google Play stores. Both have rules against "objectionable" or sexual content which would require us to go against AO3's policy of maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content.

Apple's App Store developer guidelines state that "apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy", while Google's content standards "don't allow apps that contain or promote sexual content or profanity, including pornography, or any content or services intended to be sexually gratifying". While both app stores give slightly more leeway for user-generated content, they still only permit "incidental" sexual content and warn that apps that heavily feature, actively promote, or have a reputation for sexual content are subject to removal. Both app stores also generally require app makers to prescreen or remove "objectionable" content promptly when it is reported.

To have an app in either app store would require us to dramatically change what content we allow on AO3, which we are unwilling to do.

While it's possible to distribute apps outside of the Apple App or Google Play stores, it's a much more complicated process with a much smaller audience. We prefer to focus our efforts on improving the site itself, which benefits all of our users – regardless of which devices they use to access AO3.

App Alternatives

When people reach out asking about an AO3 app, they usually have a specific functionality they would like out of an app. Many quality-of-life features often associated with apps (such as mobile layouts, saving your spot when you tab away, etc.) don't actually require an app.

This means our developers could implement some of these app-like features as part of their normal efforts to improve the site, without devoting additional time to make a separate app. Incrementally adding app-like feature options to the existing site is much more feasible for us than creating a standalone app.

In fact, some of these functions are already available. We've collected some of the most common requests and their existing solutions below.

Customize AO3

If you want to change how AO3 looks, for example by changing the colors or making it more mobile friendly, you can create a site skin. Skins allow anyone to change the way AO3 displays for them. There are several publicly available skins which can be accessed via the footer at the bottom of every page, including Reversi which is AO3's default "dark mode".

If you don't like any of our default skins, you can also make your own. Check out our Skins and Archive Interface FAQ or Site Skin video tutorial for more information.

If you don't want to make your own site skin from scratch, you can find a number of users sharing their own custom skins under the AO3 Site Skin tag.

Homescreen Shortcut

If you want easier access to AO3 from your device's homescreen, you can add a shortcut to make AO3 appear alongside your other apps. Follow these instructions for iOS or Android devices.

Read Offline

If you want to access works offline, you can download works from AO3 directly onto your mobile device. We offer a variety of download formats to fit a range of programs and devices. For help downloading works, check out our Downloading Fanworks FAQ.

Remember Where You Left Off

If you frequently have trouble remembering where you were in a fic, you can use the notes section of a private bookmark to keep track of the chapter or paragraph you stopped at. Or, if you download a work to read offline, many e-reader apps will save your spot automatically.

Listen to Fics

If you want to listen to fics instead of reading them, there are a few options. You can check out the Podfic tag to find audio created by other users.

If there isn't a podfic for the story you are looking for, you can use Text-to-Speech (TTS) software to listen to a fic. Most mobile devices will have some form of TTS built in for accessibility purposes if you search through the settings. Some desktop browsers also have a built-in TTS function, often as part of a "reading mode". There are many solutions depending on your specific use case, but here are some how-to articles to get you started:

• Have your iPhone read the screen aloud
• Android: Use Select to Speak
• How to use Reader View in Firefox
• Use Reading mode in Chrome (Desktop)
• Have your Mac speak text that's on the screen
• Use Immersive Reader in Microsoft Edge

If you have further questions about AO3 site functionality or about a specific "AO3 app", contact Support for assistance. They handle technical support, requests for new site features, and reports about unofficial AO3 apps.

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.

American Horror Fic Exchange, an American Horror Story fanfiction exchange 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 have work(s) on American Horror Fic Exchange
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The exchange’s owner, jandjsalmon, decided to import the works from LiveJournal in order to safeguard the history of fandom and prevent meaningful works from potentially vanishing. By moving these stories to Archive of Our Own, where a large and active fanfiction community exists, the archivist wants to ensure the works remain accessible, organized, and protected.

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 jandjsalmon to import American Horror Fic Exchange into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own.

We will begin importing works from American Horror Fic Exchange to AO3 in August 2026. 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 have work(s) on American Horror Fic Exchange?

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 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. We will then permanently close down the site.

Please contact Open Doors with your American Horror Fic Exchange pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

• 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.
• You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
• You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
• You would NOT like your works moved to AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
• You are happy for us to preserve your works on AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
• 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 LiveJournal 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 American Horror Fic Exchange mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to AO3
• adding your works to the new collection American Horror Fic Exchange

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 American Horror Fic Exchange 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 American Horror Fic Exchange!

- The Open Doors team, jandjsalmon

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, 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.

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.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Elin, who volunteers as a Communications Event Coordinator and Translation Volunteer Manager.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I currently hold two different positions at the OTW.

For one, I'm part of the Communication committee's Events Coordination team. As an example for what we do, whenever you see a post on the AO3 homepage celebrating a milestone, or on the OTW website commemorating one of our anniversaries, I might have had a hand in it! We also organize special activities to go with some events, such as a a themed bingo we did recently, the special anniversary skin we released for AO3's 15th anniversary, or even our annual International Fanworks Day (IFD).

As for my second role, I'm also a volunteer manager in our Translation committee. It's a very varied position, as volunteer managers pull the strings behind the scenes necessary to keep a 200+ people strong committee running smoothly. That encompasses a lot of different day-to-day tasks. Some of those tasks include: preparing documents for translation, and assigning them to translators, helping translate news posts and posts concerning larger events, such as the OTW's Membership Drive, and are generally being the first point of contact for any problems a translator might run into. And that's just a small part of our work!

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Honestly it varies a lot! Like most OTW volunteers, I have a day job that takes up a lot of my time and energy during the week, so I'll typically do small, quick tasks on weeknights, if possible. Those tasks that require a sustained amount of focus and effort I try to save for the weekend. It also varies by time of year how much work I do for each of my roles! For example, when IFD rolls around in February (and during the months leading up to it), my workload during the week might increase for a time.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Story old as time, I suppose, but I've been reading fanfic on AO3 for a long time (since I was 14 or 15, I believe) without getting into fan communities much. I really wanted to return something to fandom space at large, and AO3 in particular. When I saw that the OTW was recruiting for German translators, I applied, and was accepted!

During my time as an active translator (volunteer managers usually mostly step back from that) my work included translating all these amazing news posts other volunteers had written. I wanted to try my hand at coming up with posts myself, which was one of my motivations to apply as an Event Coordinator. And then I realized that as a volunteer manager I'd have even more varied tasks I could tackle, so I switched roles inside the Translation committee last year!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Probably figuring out how to balance my day job/hobbies/relationships with OTW volunteering! For me personally it's very easy to head straight into burnout, as I'm very enthusiastic about any new tasks I've taken on. However, there are always more things to do, and I've had to learn to occasionally take a step back and take a break, the better to sustain my enjoyment of the work I do!

What fannish things do you like to do?

Reading fanfic, primarily! In a variety of fandoms, for a variety of ships (or platonic relationships). More recently, I've also started taking more of an interest in other online fan spaces, though I tend to lurk more than actively involve myself. Otherwise, I like creating my own AO3 site skins – ⁠I find it quite meditative – ⁠and I swear one of these days I'll actually commit to finishing a story myself and posting it.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.

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.

The Mass Effect Kink Meme a prompt meme for the Mass Effect games, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have works on The Mass Effect Kink Meme
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The archive is being imported to AO3 to preserve the works and make them available to a wider audience.

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 Liara!Mod to import The Mass Effect Kink Meme into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own.

We will begin importing works from The Mass Effect Kink Meme to AO3 no sooner than August 2026. 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 have work on The Mass Effect Kink Meme?

Most fanwork fills on The Mass Effect Kink Meme were posted anonymously. All the anonymous fills will be imported to AO3 using the collection's archivist account. If the creator of a fill chose not to post anonymously, however, and if they have an email address listed on their Dreamwidth or LiveJournal profile, we will send an import notification to that email address.

We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All fanworks archived on behalf of a self-identified 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. If 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 LiveJournal or Dreamwidth pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

• 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.
• You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
• You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
• You would NOT like your works moved to AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
• You are happy for us to preserve your works on AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
• 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 LiveJournal or Dreamwidth 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 Mass Effect Kink Meme mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Mass Effect Kink Meme

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 Mass Effect Kink Meme 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 Mass Effect Kink Meme!

- The Open Doors team and Liara!Mod

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, 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.

I. OTW CODE OF CONDUCT

On June 7, 2026, Board approved a new OTW Code of Conduct. This policy comes as the result of months of collaboration between Board Assistants Team, Organizational Culture Roadmap, and Volunteers & Recruiting (including their Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee).

This policy update was a goal on the internal culture roadmap created and announced in 2024. As part of the update process, the policy underwent several rounds of review, including one by all OTW volunteers. Thank you to all OTW volunteers who provided feedback!

Volunteers & Recruiting is now at work rolling out the updated policy and getting agreements from all OTW volunteers.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In June, we celebrated AO3 reaching 11 million registered users. \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) deployed several bug fixes, including quality-of-life and security improvements. They've also continued to make progress on their ongoing work to internationalize AO3.

Open Doors announced that Kraith Collected, a collection of Star Trek zines set in the Kraith universe, will be added to AO3. This month, their import assistants also finished importing all unfilled prompts from the Library of Moria!

In May, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 4,814 tickets; Support received 4,125 tickets; and User Response Translation completed 77 requests from PAC and Support.

In June, Policy & Abuse worked with AD&T to publish updates to the Terms of Service FAQ, which includes new answers to common questions like how to find out what's allowed on AO3. You can view the differences here! We hope you find it helpful!

Tag Wrangling wrangled over 650,000 tags in May, or approximately 1,400 tags per wrangling volunteer. They also collaborated with Communications to publish a Tumblr post about updates to the Assassin's Creed fandom tree and a news post announcement of "No Fandom" changes, including 23 new canonicals.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications also established an OTW RedNote (小红书) account in June. This will be a second platform for us to connect with Chinese-speaking fandom (along with our existing Weibo account). If you use RedNote or know anyone who'd be interested in OTW announcements in Chinese on the platform, pass it along!

At the end of May, Fanlore wrapped up their Public Do-May, a public domain fandoms-themed month. They also ran their annual Bingo Challenge with tasty pastry-themed badges for editors to collect.

On June 15, 2026, TWC released Issue 48, a special issue on "Disability and Fandom" guest edited by Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse. The essays in this issue focus on disability both as a marginalized identity and as a critical scholarly approach to fandom and fan studies.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections announced candidates for the 2026 OTW Board. This year's election will be uncontested, as there are three candidates running for four open seats. Platforms for each candidate can be viewed on the Elections website. They also provided the public an opportunity to submit questions to the candidates which will be published soon, refer to the Elections Timeline page for specific dates. Translation is working alongside Elections to make election-⁠related content available in as many languages as possible.

Meanwhile, Development & Membership has begun working on premiums for the October Membership Drive.

Board, Board Assistants Team, and Organizational Culture Roadmap also continued to collaborate on developing procedures to handle compromised volunteer accounts and other situations that necessitate urgent access removal.

Board also approved signing-on to a letter opposing the overbroad NO FAKES Act, which could negatively impact fan art and artists.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

From May 24 to June 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 204 new requests and completed 189, leaving them with 87 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of June 22, 2026, the OTW has 1,037 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New AD&T Volunteers: marcus8448 (Senior Software Developer)
New Communications Volunteers: Caitlynne, callmeri, and 4 other Posting Volunteers, belana, Bianca Sevidal, and Xiao Yi (Social Media Moderators)
New Elections Volunteers: Jahnavi and 1 other Communications Specialist, 1 Candidate Liaison, and 1 Chair Track Volunteer
New Fanlore Volunteers: Hobgirl, Minty, and 2 other Chair Track Volunteers
New Legal Volunteers: asatistic (Paralegal) and Kat M (Trademark Specialist)
New Open Doors Volunteers: elusivefalsehoods (Import Assistant)
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Anam (Volunteer)
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Beth B, Lululu, and tomurai (Supervisors)
New Translation Volunteers: artemissmythe, Karasu, madinator, and 3 other Volunteer Managers, and 1 Translator

Departing AD&T Volunteers: marcus8448 (Software Developer)
Departing Communications Volunteers: Aditi Paul, Caitlynne, callmeri, and 2 other Media Outreach Volunteers, 1 Chair Assistant, 1 Posting Specialist, 1 Report Writer, and 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Technical Volunteers and 3 Import Assistants
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Chair Assistant
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Erica L., Wond3rland, and 4 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Translation Volunteer Manager, Alisé, and 3 other Translators
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: Kseniia and 1 other Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 2 Volunteers

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, 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.

In April, we deployed improvements to tag search and several security fixes. We also made some progress on making more parts of AO3 translatable. And of course, AO3 officially exited open beta in April as well!

In addition to the milestones above, we also had several new contributors to the AO3 codebase this month. Thanks and welcome to Aya Sayadi, bre-nana, Jesse Malark, kinnerapriyap, Kylie, and Ling-Yi!

Credits

• Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, bre-nana, Brian Austin, caitlin, Danaël / Rever, EchoEkhi, Jesse Malark, kinnerapriyap, Kylie, Ling-Yi, marcus8448, not-varram, ömer faruk, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, Tom Milligan, Xiang Rassul Li
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, marcus8448, redsummernight
• Testers: Berix, Bilka, Brian Austin, C. Ryan Smith, calamario, choux, Dre, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, megidola, mumble, ömer faruk, pk2317, Tal, therealmorticia, TinaOe

Details

0.9.469

On April 2, we removed the "beta" note from our site header! End of an era.

• [AO3-7364] - Removal of references to the AO3 being in beta.
• [AO3-7361], [AO3-7365] - Gem updates.

0.9.470

On April 3, we deployed a quick security fix.

• [AO3-7372] - We made sure that when removing images from comments we didn't leave potentially dangerous HTML in their placeholders.

0.9.471

We deployed a couple more fixes related to image embeds on April 4.

• [AO3-7373], [AO3-7374] - We made sure that when we disable embedded images in comments, the restrictions can't be bypassed with creative HTML.

0.9.472

Our April 13 deploy included an improvement to our tag search and a bunch of other miscellaneous fixes.

• [AO3-7244] - We prepared the help pop-ups about our rich text editor and HTML mode for translation.
• [AO3-7283] - We added a configuration option for the number of shards that Elasticsearch data for pseuds and tags is stored in.
• [AO3-7293] - We added two more options to the Wrangling Status section of our Tag Search.
• [AO3-7326], [AO3-7327] - Your statistics page and your preferences page now have your username in the browser's page title!
• [AO3-7339] - The way we'd structured the translatable portions of our password reset emails wasn't compatible with future translation work, so we made sure the wording will work in different languages.
• [AO3-7348] - We removed the word "Archive" from the success message "You are now using the default Archive skin again!"
• [AO3-7355] - To build the dropdown menu for each user, we now only query the database once if the user has special permissions that require another menu item, and then save that information. Much nicer to the database servers!
• [AO3-7359] - When a site admin is viewing their two-step verification backup codes, there is now a button at the bottom of the page to copy the codes to the clipboard.
• [AO3-7360] - Updated a link on our Privacy Policy page.
• [AO3-7368], [AO3-7369] - The browser page title now reflects whether you're on the page listing our public site skins or public work skins.
• [AO3-7370], [AO3-7371] - Gem updates.

0.9.473

Another grab bag of fixes and improvements went out on April 24.

• [AO3-6229] - We now make sure the 404 Page Not Found error always looks like it's part of AO3, and not just a blank white page.
• [AO3-6281] - On pages listing gifts for recipients without an AO3 account, apostrophes in a recipient's name wouldn't be properly displayed. Now it all looks tidy.
• [AO3-6531] - On some works, if there were replies to a now-deleted comment, the whole comment section wouldn't load. We fixed the way we handle deleted comments in a thread, so everything should display as expected.
• [AO3-6604] - Admins can create banners (the informative blue, red, or yellow text boxes at the top of all pages) and save them for later, or delete outdated ones. It's now impossible to accidentally delete the banner currently in use.
• [AO3-7080] - If an account was suspended, we now make sure the email address associated with that account can't be used to leave guest comments.
• [AO3-7140] - When creating a draft work to eventually fulfill an assignment, the page listing your assignments would display some contradictory information about the status of your work. (Is it a draft? Was it accidentally posted?) The work title now contains the word "(Draft)" and we display the date it was created.
• [AO3-7165] - We now make sure you can pick a different site skin from the list of options in the footer even if you have disabled JavaScript.
• [AO3-7295] - We cleaned up some old code that would be unsafe to rerun now.
• [AO3-7322] - When a tag wrangler visits the tag wrangling assignment page, the filter selection now defaults to their name.
• [AO3-7333] - The page listing your challenge claims now has your username in the browser's page title!
• [AO3-7351] - If a character or relationship tag belonged to several fandoms (such as the book and the movie version of a franchise), and you entered all the applicable fandoms when posting your work, the character or relationship would show up several times in the autocomplete suggestions. The autocomplete has now calmed down a bit and won't show you duplicates of the same tag anymore.
• [AO3-7377], [AO3-7381] - Gem updates.

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 overviews some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued to adjust existing canonical "No Fandom" tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating 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:

• Academic Rivalry
• AO3 Skins
• AO3 Site Skins
• AO3 Work Skins
• Birth Control Tampering
• Brat Taming
• Burping Kink
• Off-Screen Character Death
• Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
• Non-Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
• Implied/Referenced Childbirth
• Cover Art Welcome
• Fanart Welcome
• Podfic Cover Art Welcome
• Translations Welcome
• Dark Fluff
• Past Dubious Consent
• Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders
• Groveling
• Hypnosis Kink
• Graphic Depiction of Injuries
• Non-Graphic Depiction of Injuries
• Guided Masturbation | Masturbation Instructions
• Male Characters Masturbating
• Female Characters Receiving Oral Sex
• Male Characters Receiving Oral Sex
• Pregnancy Reveal
• Polycules
• Porn With Some Plot
• Canon-Typical Racism
• Reproductive Coercion
• Locker Room Sex
• Masked Sex
• Stealthing | Non-Consensual Condom Removal
• Stressed Characters
• Malesub | Male Submissive Characters
• Submissive Top Characters
• Title from a Song

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Angst and Drama is now a subtag of both Angst and Drama
• Family Drama is now a subtag of Drama
• Not Wearing Underwear has been removed as a subtag from Underwear
• Painful Sex is now a subtag of Pain

In Conclusion

While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:

• AO3 Skins
• Cover Art
• Fanart
• Masturbation
• Oral Sex
• Polyamory
• Pregnancy

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about 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 and 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
• Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts

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.

Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven't gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it'll be some time before these updates are complete. 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 three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.

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.

Candidates Announcement

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2026 Election (in alphabetical order by given name):

• Jennifer H.
• Rebecca C. M.
• Theodore B.

As previously announced, Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm stepped down from their positions on the Board. Anh Pham and Qiao Chu are also stepping down from the Board as they have reached the end of their terms. There are seven Directors on the OTW's Board and this year there are four open seats; three full-term seats lasting 3 years and one partial term seat lasting 1 year.

Because we have four seats to be filled and three candidates, the 2026 election will be uncontested – that is, the members of the OTW will not vote on which candidates fill the seats.

The Elections Committee is excited to introduce the candidates to all of the members of the OTW! Included in this post are links to short Bios and Platforms written by the candidates. This post also marks the beginning of our Q&A period, during which we invite the public to submit questions for the candidates. Additionally, we will be holding a live chat – date and time to be announced based on candidate availability.
In the meantime, there is a timeline of Elections events available here for your reference. Read on to learn more about our candidates and how you can submit questions for them!

Platforms and Bios

We asked each candidate to provide us with a Bio that sums up their professional and fannish experience, as well as to write a Platform about their goals for their term on the Board by answering the following questions:

• Why did you decide to run for election to the Board?
• What skills and/or experience would you bring to the Board?
• Choose one or two goals for the OTW that are important to you and that you would be interested in working on during your term. Why do you value these goals? How would you work with others to achieve them?
• What is your experience with the OTW's projects and how would you collaborate with the relevant committees to support and strengthen them? Try to include a range of projects, though feel free to emphasize particular ones you have experience with.
• How would you balance your Board work with other roles in the OTW, or how do you plan to hand over your current roles to focus on Board work?

You can read both the candidates' answers to these questions and their bios by following the links below.

• Jennifer H.
• Rebecca C. M.
• Theodore B.

Question & Answer (Q&A)

To better accommodate the time constraints of the election and the workload for candidates, we are asking members of the public to limit their submissions to one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded. There is a limit of three questions per person.

Anyone may submit questions via the Elections form. Please submit all questions by 11:59pm UTC on June 28 (what time is that where I live?). All candidates will answer each question submitted, subject to the following restrictions:

• Questions must be a maximum of 50 words long.
• Any submitted questions repeating what is already addressed on Platforms will be ignored. This is to allow candidates to dedicate more time to answering new questions.
• Similar questions will be grouped together to avoid candidates giving repetitive answers. Elections volunteers will decide which questions are similar enough to group.
• If you have a follow-up to a Platform question, please specifically mention it is a follow-up so Elections volunteers know not to treat it as a repeat.
• Submit only one question per message. Additional questions in the same message will be discarded.
• There is a limit of three questions per person.

The posting date for answers will be chosen depending on the number of questions received. Posts will be spread out, arranged by topic, to make it easier for members to read all the answers.

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.

Did someone make a wish for more Archive of Our Own (AO3) users at 11:11? Because that wish has come true and we are proud to share that just four months after we celebrated 10 million registered users, AO3 now has 11 million registered users! This means an average of around 250,000 people have made an AO3 account every month since then.

In honor of getting what we wished for, we're spotlighting the Gift feature on AO3! Gifts are works that are dedicated by the creators. For example, a work may have been written for a friend's birthday, created for a Gift Exchange, or simply something you made while thinking of someone else. Is there anyone you've created fanworks for that you'd like to spotlight? You can gift something to someone even if they don't have an AO3 account!

If you'd like to gift a work to someone else, refer to How do I gift a work to someone? or refer to our general Gifts FAQ for more information.

Thank you for being a part of this milestone with us and we look forward to celebrating many more achievements with you in the future (18 million works is right around the corner)!

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.

Kraith Collected, a collection of Star Trek zines set in the Kraith universe, is importing a copy of the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

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

Background explanation

Kraith Collected is a series of works in the Kraith universe, a series of Star Trek: The Original Series fanfictions, many originally published in other zines. Each volume contains works by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and other writers whose works went through several rounds of edits to be given a number in the Kraith chronology and become part of the official Kraith universe. There are also two pieces of meta, Kraith Creator's Manual and Understanding Kraith, which describe the Kraith universe.

The fanzines to be imported are:

• Kraith Collected: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Kraith Creator's Manual: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Understanding Kraith: Fanlore page and AO3 collection

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Kraith Collected to import a copy of the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW's servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Kraith Collected to AO3 after July 2026. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Kraith Collected?

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 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 creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

• You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publisher has a record of.
• You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
• You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
• You would NOT like your works copied to AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
• You are happy for us to preserve your works on AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
• You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, 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 Kraith Collected to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:

• importing your works to AO3
• adding your works to the new collections listed above

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 Kraith Collected, Kraith Creator’s Manual, and Understanding Kraith 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 Kraith Collected!

- The Open Doors team and Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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, 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.