AO3 News

October 2026 Membership Drive: Connecting Your Tags

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Published:
Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:42:34 +0000
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Work blurb styled words reading 'Membership Drive by OTW' with the tags 'No Archive Warnings Apply, October 16-18 2026, Fundraising, AO3 Merch, Donations Gift, October Drive (freeform), We Did This Instead of Sleeping'

AO3 continues to grow and pass new milestones. As part of that, there are even more tags on AO3! Did you know that every tag on AO3 is reviewed by a person and not an algorithm or automatic process?

Volunteers called Tag Wranglers connect and sort the tags on AO3! Once users add tags to their works and bookmarks, they show up on the backend where Tag Wranglers can review them and connect them to canonicals, so that these tags appear in the autocomplete filters and link related works together.

Let's have a look at numbers: since AO3 was created in 2009, Tag Wranglers have wrangled over 32 million tags. As of 2026, AO3 has over 2.5 million canonical tags, and we recently passed 80,000 canonized fandoms!

A bar chart of ‘Tags Wrangled Per Year’, from 2017 to 2025. The chart shows a general upward trend beginning around two million in 2017, peaking over slightly over five million in 2023, and decreasing slightly since then.

The success of AO3 would not be possible without Tag Wranglers. If you want to learn more about their work, check out their committee page on the OTW website or the public wrangling guidelines which guide wranglers in handling tags. To read more about what they've been up to lately, take a look at their news announcements and Tumblr posts. They regularly share updates about "No Fandom" canonical tags, Q&As from wrangling volunteers, and announcements about fandom-specific tag changes.

We’ve prepared various donation gifts for this Drive as well! As part of spotlighting our Tag Wranglers, we created a new reusable spiral-bound calendar of AO3 tags for US$200, so you can be inspired by a new tag every day. We're also offering a new set of stickers that's tarot card-themed for US$45, a "You have already left kudos here. :)" pin for US$80, and a red cloth covered notebook for US$100!

Circular enamel pin that says 'You have already left kudos here. :)' around the edge with the AO3 logo in the centerRed cloth-covered notebook with the AO3 kudos logo

Spiral-bound reusable calendar of AO3 tagsFour stickers styled as tarot cards. The sticker for 'The Tag' shows two people reaching for each other across the card with an '&' and '/'. Next, 'The Archive' is a person looking into the clouds where there are a variety of books with symbols of different tropes (for example, rings, fire, or a sword). The third sticker is 'The Comment' with the image of a message box with smoke coming off of it. Four, 'The Kudos' with an image of a hand pushing a heart down toward a typewriter.

If you want a gift but don't want to donate all at once, you can also set up a recurring donation and save toward the gift of your choice. Simply select a thank-you gift that your recurring donation will be adding up to, and once you've "saved" enough to get your item, you will get an email from Development & Membership to confirm your shipping address. You must respond to this email for the donation gift to be sent to you. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you. For more information regarding donating, refer to the Donations and Membership FAQ.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members have the right to vote for the Board of Directors – the OTW's governing board. You have until June 30, 2027 to become a member if you would like to vote in the next election, which will be held in August of next year. For more information about OTW elections, refer to our elections website.

While we hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and join the OTW, we're grateful for the support of all members of this community, in all its many forms! Whether you create, share, comment on or kudos fanworks on AO3; edit Fanlore; read Transformative Works and Cultures; or spread information from OTW Legal, you all help shape the OTW and its projects every day. We are grateful for your time, energy, and engagement!

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.