Archive of Our Own ^beta

AO3 Support staffers are the people who receive your tickets through the Support and Feedback form and try to respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do their best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.

So Support will be holding an Open Chat session in our public chat room. They'll be available on Sunday, June 29, 13:00 UTC to June 30, 01:00 UTC (what time is that in my timezone?). Volunteers will be available to answer inquiries in Chinese, English, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. If you can't make it to this chat, keep an eye out for the next as Support will be doing other chats later this year.

If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines from Support, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature.

For example, you might have been wondering:

• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?
• I want to add a lot of my older works to the AO3 -- what would be the easiest way to do that?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

Edited to add: The Support chat has ended, but if you still have questions click on the Support link at the bottom of all AO3 pages.

If you've been enjoying The Future of Fanworks chat series, we hope you'll be reading the Q&A posts coming this weekend with our legal panel. However, if you're all set for a live chat, we'll be having one of those too!

AO3 Support staffers are the people who receive your tickets through the Support and Feedback form and try to respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do their best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.

They'll be available on Saturday, March 22, 2014 from 1600-2200 UTC (what time is that in my timezone?. If you can't make it to this one, keep an eye out for the next as Support will be doing other chats later this year.

If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines from Support, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature.

For example, you might have been wondering:

• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?
• I want to add a lot of my older works to the AO3 -- what would be the easiest way to do that?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

Note: The post originally listed a date from last year. Our apologies for any confusion!

Support chat is now over!

Hi! Support here, again! In fact, Support is always here--when you submit a ticket through the Support and Feedback form we'll respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do our best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.

After receiving positive reviews of our previous chats in November and February, we're continuing on with Open Chat sessions with the Support Staff in our public chat room (the link will be made available on the day of the chat). We will be there this coming Saturday, May 04, 2013 at 16:00:00 UTC lasting through this Sunday, May 05, 2013 at 04:00:00 UTC. Members of Support will be available to interact with you one-on-one in live chat. See what time that is where you live. We are going to try to have future sessions at different times to make sure we eventually cover all time zones. If you can't make it to this one, keep an eye out for the next!

If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature.

For example, you might have been wondering:

• How do I use the new search and browse system to find a certain type of work?
• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

Hi! Support here, again! In fact, Support is always here--when you submit a ticket through the Support and Feedback form we'll respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do our best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.

After receiving positive reviews of our last chat in November, we're going to regularly have Open Chat sessions with the Support Staff in our public chat room (the link will be made available on the day of the chat). The first of these will be this coming Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 16:00:00 UTC lasting through this Sunday, February 24, 2013 at 04:00:00 UTC. Members of Support will be available to interact with you one-on-one in live chat. See what time that is where you live. We are going to try to have future sessions at different times to make sure we eventually cover all time zones. If you can't make it to this one, keep an eye out for the next!

EDIT: We're closed, for this month. A hearty thanks to everyone who came! We will be doing this again!

If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature.

For example, you might have been wondering:

• How do I use the new search and browse system to find a certain type of work?
• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

Hi! Support here! In fact, Support is always here--when you submit a ticket through the Support and Feedback form we'll respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do our best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal. So, we've decided to try an experiment!

Starting this coming Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 11:00:00 UTC lasting through this Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 11:00:00 UTC, members of Support will be available to interact with you one-on-one in live chat. See what time that is where you live. If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature.

For example, you might have been wondering:

• How do I use the new search and browse system to find a certain type of work?
• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

In conclusion....

This is a test run of this service, and while we have great hopes for it, we can't guarantee when it'll happen again. Please drop by with your questions and help make it a success!

ETA: Support Live Chat is now over - thanks all!

This is going to be a very boring post. It's going to be full of numbers, and graphs, those things that I may or may not have spent many years at school colouring in with lovely coloured pencil without understanding them much (because I was apparently too much of an innocent mind to turn them into rude, crude approximations of things not related to mathematics except in the most abstract sense), and yet, these will be very easy to understand numbers. I am not a statistician, nor are the levels of data I have access to very deep. What I am is a member of the Support Committee with a curiosity about the numbers and types of tickets that pass through our hands, and who decided to add up the numbers one day and turn them into graphs. That was last year, and somehow the lure of the bar chart means that I have continued to collate information through to where we are right now, having just finished the second quarter of 2012.

In this post, I'm going to summarise the types of tickets received, what categories they fall under, and the general trends we witness. But first, some explanation of the process.

Collecting The Numbers

I'm sure that the method I have used is going to come under some degree of criticism for being inefficient; however, our Support software, provided by 16bugs (see Sam's spotlight post for more information) was not designed for data export. This means that the only way to extract numbers of tickets is to do it manually. And by manually, I mean I go through the email duplicates of each ticket one by one, assigning them a category, then add up the numbers for each month and enter them into an Excel spreadsheet.

What this method is, for all its faults, is quick, which means that I can rapidly pull up a given time period to see what sort of tickets were received between those dates. These graphs were originally created as an informal overview of ticket stats (which is a position they remain in – production of these stats is not an official Support Committee duty). They are simply counts of the original tickets, what they are about, and when they were received. They are not a count of how quickly they were responded to, who responded to what, or what follow ups were conducted with the users.

Categories

I'm going to leave direct explanations of the categories until the sections for the respective quarters, as these change on a quarter-by-quarter basis. This is due to the simple fact that new features are added, which generates new issues, and old issues are resolved. For example, squid caching was not implemented until June of this year, so prior to that, it was not shown in the graphs because issues relating to it did not occur. Here I'll instead explain the process by which tickets are categorised.

If you've ever submitted a comment or query to Support you will notice that on our form is a drop down menu.

These categories are not the ones I have used to sort tickets. Since the categories in the menu are so few and so broad, I felt it necessary to granulate them further, and count tickets as they related to specific archive functions and features.

If a new category is created in my sorting, it's because an issue got a large number of tickets and wasn't a transient bug. For example, if a ticket is related to subscription emails, it is categorised under "Subscriptions", not "Email" because it is related to a specific Archive function (in this case subscriptions) that has an existing category. If it were related to invitation emails, it would go under "Accounts/Invitations/Login". However, if it's related to kudos batching, it goes under general "Emails", because there is no category for kudos.

The Stats

2011, In Brief

I won't linger on 2011 too much (see Q1 2012 for an explanation of categories), since this information was a little more awkwardly hacked together than for 2012 – by which time I had sorted out my process for quickly organising tickets.

Prior to August, tickets were collated by the Support Chair, using slightly different categories than I did. I attempted to meld the two sets of information as best I could to produce the above year overview.

What is easily and clearly visible is the spike in tickets in November, resulting from a change to the front-end presentation of the AO3. The biggest spike is split between Interface/CSS tickets and Feedback. While many of the tickets sorted under Feedback were directly related to the changes to the AO3's interface, they did not contain bug reports or requests for information, and therefore fell under the heading of Feedback.

Q1 2012

Categories for Q1 2012:

• Error 502 - the 'server busy' messages
• 1000 Works - queries related to why we have a 1000 work limit on the fandom landing pages
• Activation/Invitation/Login - problems activating accounts, getting invitations, or logging in
• Admin/Abuse - issues that need to be examined by Admin or Abuse teams
• Bug Report - Reports of transient bugs that aren't separately categorised
• Collection/Challenges/Prompts - any problems/queries about these
• Downloads - errors, bugs, queries related to downloading
• Feature Request - any 'can I have/I would like/will you implement' queries
• Feedback - any complaints, or any positive feedback (alone with no other feature-related issue)
• Help/Information - any questions about AO3/OTW in general, or how to use specific features
• Interface/CSS/Display - problems/queries relating to how the archive appears on screen, i.e. interface
• Imports - issues with importing from LiveJournal/Fanfiction.net/other
• Open Doors - questions related to fics imported through OD
• Search/Browse/Filter - Problem or queries about sorting through archive contents
• Tag Wrangling - any tag related questions

Possibly due to the fact that the holidays are still going on at the beginning of January (and thus, people have more time to spend on fandom sites) we saw more tickets in general than during the following two months.

Q2 2012

Categories added for Q2 2012:

• Embedding – queries/problems with embedding media (images/audio/video) into Works pages
• Bookmarks – queries/problems involving bookmarking
• Caching – bug reports that are actually caching issues (e.g., reporting 0 works in a fandom as a bug – this is a caching issue, or appearing as logged in as another user). The kind of caching which causes these particular bugs was only implemented in June.
• Email – email issues unrelated to other categories (e.g., kudos email batching)
• Subscriptions – issues/queries to do with the subscribe feature

To break down the invitations emails, in June we received 140 tickets related to Invitations.

• How Do I Use This Invite: 22
• Did Not Receive Invitation Email: 31
• Fell Off Invite List (unaware of security changes): 41
• (of those, who admitted to re-adding themselves: 6)
• General Invite Queue Unhappiness: 10
• Can I have An Invite?: 9
• I Requested Invites, Where Are They?: 12
• Paid Accounts: 3
• My friend on FF.net needs an invite: 12
• Need Invites for a Challenge: 5
• Please Remove Me From Queue: 1

The remaining 37 tickets in that category were related to account activation or login issues.

This graph shows how the tickets were distributed during the weeks that span the month of June. In week 23 (commencing 4th June) we received the greatest number of queries regarding invites, as this was the point at which the invitations queue started growing at the rate of nearly 1000 new additions per day (a rate since slowed to around 300-odd per day). This coincided with the point at which the AO3 servers started creaking under the strain of lots more visitors and a filtering system that was originally designed with a smaller user base in mind.

When squid caching was implemented to help ease the strain (around week 24) we saw an increased number of tickets related to this change. In week 25, when filtering was disabled, we began to see an increased number of tickets related to that. (Originally, the message was ill-worded, appearing to be an error message, rather than an admin message – this has since been altered, and tickets regarding the filtering being 'down' have disappeared.)

And This All Means...

I always have fun posting these stats to the support committee. Everyone already knows more-or-less how things have gone, but sometimes looking at the numbers surprises us. When I originally created them, one frequent question was "what's the most common ticket you get" to which we would generally reply "queries regarding the 1000 work limit". I was curious as to whether this was actually the case. As it turned out, Feature Requests came in more often. Questions about the 1000 Works came lower down the list.

If you are wondering how many tickets we answer altogether, I can tell you that at the time of writing there are no unanswered tickets in our support software (except for one bugged ticket, which we are attempting to resolve with 16 Bugs). Every single ticket we receive is read and personally answered by a member of our staff, usually within a day or two. So, the answer is: we answer all of them.

This post by Support staffer Yshyn. If you find a bug, have a question about the site, or want to request a feature, you can submit a Support request.

As part of our series giving an insight into what goes on behind the scenes at the Archive of Our Own, Support staffer Sam has written up a day in the life of an AO3 Support staffer! Sam started out volunteering with the AO3 as a tag wrangler, and joined the Support team at the beginning of the July Ticket Blitz. He has degrees in journalism, English literature, and cognitive and discourse linguistics. He's taught skills-based computer classes for near a decade, so Support was a natural fit. Sam tends to jump on tickets involving CSS code and the skins; downloads, especially ePUBs; and all things Tag, as he's currently the liaison (read: troublemaker) between Support and Tag Wrangling.

By and large, Support is all about answering all the tickets that come in. To do this involves a whole lot of trying to break the Archive in new and creative ways, keeping a light eye on what the Coders are up to under the hood, and generally trying to divine what the users need and want.

There are a whole bunch of resources we use to do so (some of these resources are only accessible to staffers - we've linked the public ones):

• 16bugs - This is our main ticket tracker where we keep information on each ticket that comes in, and any communication with the user or other committees. This will soon (hopefully) be replaced with the Support Board.


• Campfire - The chat interface all AO3 committees use. Support has its own room where we'll request betas and comment on tickets, life, and fic; and we're often lurking in the Coders room, checking for surprise!bugs and fixes.
• Both the "Beta" Archive (the real one) and the Test Archive (where we test new code) - Sometimes we have to track down to see what a reported bug is doing and possibly see if it's already been fixed on the next release.
• The wiki "Knowledge Base" - One of our Support reps has been collating the answers to commonly answered questions into a massive internal reference source. This is awesome, because it helps ensure that knowledge gets passed on and we don't have to duplicate work.
• Google code otwarchive issues - The list of things-to-do for the Coders, to see if a bug is known or a feature planned (and occasionally provide all the information).
• Squee! - This internal squee page is where we keep all records that we're doing something right (700+ and counting). It helps us track what's working and also provides a nice place for people to go when they need a boost!

I pop open my email to see if anyone sent beta requests to the list or if any tickets have come in. (Most responses to users are beta-read by a second support member, for accuracy, clarity, and something resembling UK/US/CA/AU English.) I'll also log into Campfire and check the Support room, since several staff will leave their beta requests in there.

Both 16bugs and the Support form send an email to each Support staff when a ticket comes in. I tend to not read the emails themselves, but use them as a sign to go check 16bugs and see what new tickets are there.

Certain tickets we immediately assign to another committee (Legal, Abuse, Tag Wranglers) and wait for a response from that committee before contacting the user. Some committees will contact the user directly, some don't.

Since every ticket is different, I'm going to give examples of two recent tickets. (All confidential details are removed, but hi, users, if you recognize your questions!)

A ticket comes in from a user asking about a problem logging in with hir OpenID. I open the ticket in 16Bugs, and in the ticket set my name for "Assigned to" and "Status" to "Solving".

I've heard some talk about the discontinuance of OpenID, so I poke my head into the Coders chatroom in Campfire and ask if anyone has more specific information. I luck out and one of our Coders knows of two open code tickets regarding OpenID, which saves me the time. I open the tickets in GCode and skim them, seeing the current development status for OpenID (we're planning to phase it out).

To make sure the code is still working as intended, I use my own account as a guinea pig, setting up my own OpenID login, logging out and testing it. It all works, so I assume that the problem comes from improper configuration. I step back through the process involved and make detailed notes to set up OpenID. I add those to our Knowledge Base on the wiki so next time we have a question like this, the info is easy to find.

I then compose a reply to the user as a comment to the ticket in 16bugs. I also copy in the links to the GCode tickets into 16bugs for reference. After coming up with the response, I poke my head into Support chat in Campfire. Fortunately, one of the other Support staffers is on, so I ask hir to beta my response. Sie reads it over, we discuss and revise a few lines, and sie comments in the thread that it looks good. I copy the response from 16bugs.

In my email, already set to forward through the official email, I search and find the ticket email that came in and reply to it, using the copied text from 16bugs.

After sending the email, in 16bugs I set the status to "Solved". If the user responds, I can find the ticket in 16Bugs and reopen it as needed. When the user responds that sie doesn't actually have an account, I send back a betaed response on how to get an invite, either through the queue or through a friend.

Another ticket has come in regarding a tag that's misfiled - in this case, a fictional football team that has somehow been wrangled into the "Football RPF" fandom. Since this relates to wrangling policy, I'll mark the ticket to watch it and assign it to the "Tag Wranglers" and wait for a response from one of the Wrangling committee members before I send a response to the user. In this case, it's an easy fix by the wranglers, and I'm able to quickly notify the user that the tag has been re-wrangled.

There. My two tickets for the day - with the new influx of staff we've had, and a fairly slow inflow of tickets lately, sometimes I don't even get the option to do that many! (However, different times of year or new lots of code can produce a sudden uptick, so we take the rest while we can!)

Sometimes tickets aren't nearly as straightforward. Sometimes it takes time to track down the bug - while I'm doing so, I'll set the status to "Testing". If the response requests additional information from the user, I'll leave it as "Solving" until I can get a response from the user. If I find other bugs in 16Bugs or code issues in GCode, I'll leave links in the comment leading to them, as well as leave links to the active ticket elsewhere. If the ticket contains a feature request, I'll make a note on our wiki's Feature Requests page and if it continues praise, I make a note on the Squee page.

Let it be said: us Support minions are human. There are tickets that have us staring at our monitors in awe, wondering "how did they do that?" There are tickets where we realize we've answered the same thing frequently, and therefore need better documentation and/or to prioritize a bug fix. There are times that we look at a ticket and mentally draw straws about who gets to tell the Coders that the recently-fixed feature isn't so fixed.

All that said? It's all worth it. It's worth it, helping the users better interact with the Archive. It's worth it, seeing the feature requests and ideas. It's worth it, feeling like I'm contributing to the development of the Archive. It's worth it.

I've now knocked out a couple tickets, updated a page on the wiki, updated a bug on GCode, and tripped over a work I want to read. Never let it be said I can't take a sign! Off to read!

When you fill in the AO3 support form and press 'Send feedback', your message wends its way to our trusty Support team, who answer questions from users of the Archive of Our Own. They provide help and support on all aspects of using the Archive, and provide a bridge between Archive users and our coders so that bugs get fixed and new features get coded! They are an awesome and dedicated team who love making sure that users have a good experience on the AO3.

What questions do Support answer?

All kinds of things relating to the AO3! If users discover that something is broken, or they want help figuring out how something works, or they'd like to ask for a new feature, all those questions come to Support. Sometimes users will send in broader questions about the OTW as a whole, or about fannish issues in general, and Support will also answer those or pass them on to someone who can (if you have questions that are not AO3-specific, you can also ask those via the OTW Communications webform).

What do Support do when they get a ticket?

The first thing a Support member does when a ticket arrives is to take a look and figure out what kind of question it is. Some kinds of questions are common - for example, we are often asked why they can only view 1000 works in a fandom (answer: to save our servers, but we're working on a better solution that will make it unnecessary) - and in these cases Support can quickly send out a reply. If it's not such a common question, the Support member might do a bit of testing to see if they can reproduce a bug, or consult with other teams: for example, they work with Coders and Accessibility, Design and Technology for technical bugs and feature requests, Tag Wrangling for tag questions, Content for issues about what kind of things can be posted on the Archive, and Legal for questions relating to the legality of fanworks.

This sounds like a lot! Do Support members have some kind of special skills?

They have the skill of beng awesome! But other than that, there are not too many specific qualifications for being a Support staffer. Most importantly, Support need to enjoy problem-solving and be able to communicate clearly and effectively. At present, we only do Support in English (this is something we hope to expand as the Archive grows), but you don't need to be a native English speaker, as long as you are fluent in English - one of our most longstanding and dedicated staffers, Anne-Li, is a native Swedish speaker. Support staffers also need to know the Archive pretty well, although they tend to pick up some of the nitty-gritty as they gain experience. Several Support staffers also serve on other committees, so they can contribute additional knowledge to the team, and thanks to the efforts of staffer Yshyn, Support are also building up an awesome knowledge base on our internal wiki.

What does the future hold for Support?

This is an exciting time for Support - they've just taken on some new staff members and are now working and planning for the transition to a Support Board integrated into the Archive. This will be a public-facing board where users as well as staffers can offer advice (along the lines of LJ or DW) - we think this will be great for transparency and for helping more people get involved in a more informal manner. However, it will be quite a radical change, so Support are now beginning work on some of the policies and strategies which will be needed to make that a success.

This all sounds awesome - can I join?!

Yes! If you're interested please fill out our Volunteers Form.