Archive of Our Own

Mediafans, a multifandom fanfiction archive, and Futures Without End, a Duncan/Methos zine it hosted, are being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on Mediafans or in Futures Without End
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Mediafans was a personal fanworks archive for creators Rachael Sabotini and Melina, as well as several other creators. It also hosted the Highlander zine Futures Without End, which was started by Melina and Maygra de Rhema and ran for four issues. Mediafans went offline in 2013, taking digital access to Futures Without End with it.

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 Melina to import Mediafans and Futures Without End into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archives in their entirety, all fanfiction and fanart currently in the archive and zine will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Mediafans and Futures Without End to AO3 after May. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Mediafans or in Futures Without End?

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 Mediafans or Futures Without End pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

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

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with Mediafans or Futures Without End, 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 Melina 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 Mediafans or Futures Without End

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 Mediafans and Futures Without End 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 Mediafans and Futures Without End!

- The Open Doors team and Melina

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.

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:

• Accidental Confessions
• Accidental Love Confessions
• College | University Students
• Corruption Kink
• Coworkers to Lovers
• Lovers
• Teammates to Lovers
• Dark Academia
• Date Nights
• Drooling
• Fingers in Mouth
• Spitting in Mouth
• First Time Being in Heat
• First Time Being in Rut
• Hard Vore
• Soft Vore
• Hyper Penises
• Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts
• Passive Suicidality
• Suicidal Behavior
• Suicidal Characters
• Medical Malpractice
• Marijuana | Weed Edibles
• Musk Scent
• Political Intrigue
• Slick | Self-Lubricant
• Soft Smut

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.

• Cat/Human Hybrids is now a subtag of Hybrids
• Blood and Gore is now a subtag of Gore
• Non-Consensual Oral Sex is now a subtag of Oral Sex
• Trans Female Character is now a subtag of Female Characters
• Canon LGBTQ Character has been removed as a subtag from Canon Sexuality

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:

• Alpha/Beta/Omega Mating Cycles
• College AU
• Dark Academia
• Love Confession
• Smut
• Suicide in Fanworks
• Vore

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.

The Organization for Transformative Works's April Membership Drive is over and we are delighted to say that we are finishing with a total of $362,171.85 raised, far exceeding our goal of US$150,000. These donations came from 9,702 people in 87 countries: thank you to every single one of them, as well as to all of you who posted and shared the news about the drive!

We are particularly pleased that 8,035 donors chose to take up or renew an OTW membership with their donation. The OTW would not exist without its users all around the world, and your continued support for us is our absolute pride and joy! We are so glad to know that our ongoing mission to support, protect, and provide access to the history of fanworks and fan culture continues to resonate with the people that matter most of all: the fans themselves.

If you were intending to donate or join and haven't yet done so, don't worry! The OTW accepts donations all year and you can always choose to become a member with a donation of US$10 or more. Memberships run for one calendar year from the date of your donation, so if you donate now you'll be able to vote in the 2026 OTW Board elections, which will take place in August. And our exclusive thank-you gifts are available whenever you donate!

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 case you missed it, earlier this month AO3 exited open beta! Earlier this year, we also reached 10 million users and 17 million fanworks. We’re awed by all these milestones we’ve reached as a community, and, as always, are very grateful for all your support.

These milestones would not be possible without the hard work of the volunteers who are part of the Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee (AD&T). AD&T is the team behind developing, updating, and maintaining the AO3’s software and infrastructure, whose work you can keep up with by reading the release notes posts with the list of code updates and fixes. Recently, our AD&T volunteers and contributors moved collections to Elasticsearch as well as made improvements to bookmark filtering and sorting.

If you're familiar with coding and would like to help, we welcome contributions from anyone! Check out our Contributing Guidelines and other documentation on our GitHub repository. All contributors are credited in our release notes.

If you're interested in helping AO3 but don't have any coding experience, consider contributing to AO3 in some other way, such as by donating!

We’ve prepared new donation gifts for this Drive as well, such as the US$350 Fix-It Kit, for when you need to do a little fix-it for canon; and the US$100 tech travel bag for all your fic reading and fanwork creation needs!

As per usual, we have a sticker set at the US$45 level, with a theme in celebration of the inherently human and collaborative nature of fannish culture and fandom, as well as encouragement of new beginnings.

Fiber Art Weavers, who generously donated OTW-themed recycled cotton blankets previously have kindly donated some more this Drive! We’re very excited to add them to our donation gifts at the US$600 level, but please note that these are limited in number and cannot be saved up for with a recurring donation unlike the other gifts. Once again, thank you so much to Fiber Art Weavers for their donation!

If you want a gift but don’t want to donate all at once, you can also set up a recurring donation and save towards 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, 2026 to become a member if you would like to vote in this year’s election, which will be held in August. 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.

Update April 24 13:27 UTC: We are grateful for all your enthusiasm for the OTW-themed blankets! Unfortunately, our limited supply has now run out and it is no longer available as a donation gift. All other items are still available.

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2025 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2026 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2026 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2026 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$58,283.93 spent so far out of US$850,040.85 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• 71.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$500,000 to purchase new database servers, as well as US$60,000 for new firewalls and routers and US$35,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$1,957.84 spent so far out of US$8,731.05 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$317.00 spent so far out of US$6,512.63 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. One prize was awarded in 2025.

Fanlore

• US$2,228.24 spent so far out of US$46,688.30 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0 spent so far out of US$2,927.92 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$22,123.05 spent so far out of US$136,004.81 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$32,837.40 spent so far out of US$144,203.13 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2026 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 36.2% of our income in 2026. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of AO3's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of AO3 and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$375,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$147,393.22 received so far (as of March 31, 2026) and US$830,450.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2026 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

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 a paralegal interested in helping the Legal Committee carry out its legal advocacy mission? Do you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU and US? Would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

• Legal Committee Paralegal - closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
• Legal Committee Trademark Specialist - closing 22 April 2026 at 23:59 UTC
• Policy & Abuse Volunteer - closing 22 April 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. 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.

Legal Committee Paralegal

The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW's legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization. We provide confidential legal advice to every part of the OTW organization, respond to fans' requests for general assistance and information, and create educational materials. We also file briefs in lawsuits and advise lawmakers about how to take fans’ needs and interests into account in creating and interpreting the law. And we're looking for a few new members!

We are looking for a paralegal to assist with managing standard questions, tracking issues, and ensuring we adhere to deadlines. If this describes you, please click through to the application form. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.

Applications are due 22 April 2026

Apply to be a Legal Committee Paralegal at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Legal Committee Trademark Specialist

The Legal committee is responsible for carrying out the OTW’s legal advocacy mission and providing internal legal support and guidance to the OTW as an organization.

We are currently looking for a Trademark Specialist, who will be responsible for trademark registration applications and maintenance and trademark enforcement, generally dealing with platforms and attempts to monetize AO3 via apps or merchandise.

If you have legal experience, preferably trademark-specific, especially in the EU or US, and can effectively communicate legal issues to non lawyers, click through for the job description and to apply. Please note that you must be over 18 years of age to apply for this role. All applicants will be asked to upload their resume.

Applications are due 22 April 2026

Apply to be a Legal Committee Trademark Specialist at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Policy & Abuse Volunteer

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.

Our main goals as a committee are:

• to adhere to the AO3 Terms of Service
• to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible
• to handle all user reports consistently, no matter which volunteer is doing the work
• to keep every case we work on completely confidential

We are seeking people who can:

• Commit to working on cases regularly
• Be patient with rephrasing explanations
• Ask for help when needed
• Collaborate both inside the team and with other committees
• Act in accordance with established rules, policies, and procedures
• Treat confidentiality and user privacy as a priority

You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Chinese (中文), French (Français), Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Japanese (日本語), Polish (Polski), Russian (Русский), Spanish (Español), Turkish (Türkçe), or Ukrainian (Українська).

Applications are due 22 April 2026

Apply to be a Policy & Abuse 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.

Our February releases included new admin tools for our Support and Policy & Abuse teams, as well as a bunch of challenge and collection fixes and a host of small updates and improvements. We also upgraded to Rails 8 and Elasticsearch 9!

Many thanks to first-time contributor Shel!

Credits

• Coders: Bilka, Brian Austin, Danaël/Rever, FlyingFalcon, Hunter Ada Smith, james_, Jennifer He (DisappearEagle 无鸢), marcus8448, Richard Hajek, Scott, slavalamp, varram
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, sarken
• Testers: ana, Bilka, choux, hvalrann, Lute, mumble, ömer faruk, pk2317, therealmorticia, Yuca

Details

0.9.457

On February 2, we deployed a major Rails update.

• [AO3-7231] - Updated the framework the Archive runs on to Rails 8.0.

0.9.458

On February 9, we introduced a way for our Support team to add information to the support form without disabling the form, and deployed a bunch of miscellaneous fixes and improvements.

• [AO3-6983] - It was already possible for our Support team to temporarily close the support form and replace it with a message to users, e.g. about a known site-wide issue the development team was already working to solve. Additionally, they can now add a temporary message to the form without disabling the form entirely.
• [AO3-3245] - Trying to open the posting form to add a work to a closed collection (only possible by manually typing in the appropriate URL) would lead to an error message that looked like the form had already been submitted. The URL now redirects to the collection with a more helpful error message.
• [AO3-7246] - We added a "Parent" link to comments, so you can quickly jump to the specific comment that is being replied to.
• [AO3-7260] - Passwords must now be between 8 and 72 characters long. (The previous minimum was 6 characters.)
• [AO3-7274] - Comment previews for Policy & Abuse admins were previously truncated after the first 100 characters, and admins had to click on the preview to access the full comment. Now the preview includes the first 1,000 characters, which is much more useful.
• [AO3-7279] - When a collection is set to "revealed" or "non-anonymous", the collection is placed in a queue that runs when resources are available to change the status of potentially thousands of works. This means the moderator often has enough time to quickly change the setting back if a checkbox was ticked in error. We now make sure the process really only runs if the revealed or non-anonymous option is still wanted when the servers are ready to work through the queue.
• [AO3-7240] - In our ongoing internationalization efforts, we prepared the text in the help pop-ups for Rating, Warning, and Fandom tags for translation.
• [AO3-7047], [AO3-7281], [AO3-7287], [AO3-7288] - Code clean-up, database performance improvements, and system updates.

0.9.459

Our February 17 deploy included various small fixes and updates.

• [AO3-4031] - Draft works include a message at the top, warning the creator that unposted drafts will be automatically deleted after a certain time. If you had a draft with multiple chapters, this message would not be displayed! Now it appears everywhere it should.
• [AO3-5367] - If someone bookmarked a mystery work, i.e. a work in an unrevealed collection, the bookmark would show up in bookmark searches that matched elements of the mystery work. Since we don't want information about a mystery work to be guessable in this manner, we now make sure searching bookmarks doesn't give away information about unrevealed works.
• [AO3-5870] - A blockquote in a comment would awkwardly overlap with the commenter's user icon, so we've taken steps to make sure it stays within its own boundaries.
• [AO3-5963] - You can't request an invite with an email address that is already used by an existing account. If an existing account updates their email address to one that's waiting in the request queue, we now make sure that request is deleted.
• [AO3-7206] - Downloads of a work in progress with only one chapter posted were missing that chapter's title, summary, and notes, displaying only the information entered for the work as a whole. Now all data is present and accounted for!
• [AO3-7254] - We've added a limit to how many times a specific comment can be reported to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
• [AO3-7263] - Under certain circumstances, an admin would get a 500 error trying to access a user's preferences page. Now they can access it even under those circumstances.
• [AO3-7289] - When a user tried to create a skin with faulty CSS, the parser would just throw an error 500 instead of telling the user which part was stressing it out. It now helpfully points to the problem in the CSS code.
• [AO3-7210] - The help pop-up that provides information about creating skins is now prepared for translation.
• [AO3-6853], [AO3-7048] - Code clean-up and database performance improvements.

0.9.460

A bunch of gem updates went out on February 21.

• [AO3-7036] - When reviewing comments held in moderation, to either approve or reject, there was no "Thread" link to get the URL for a specific comment, e.g. to report it to the Policy & Abuse team. Now there is!
• [AO3-7278] - AO3 admins from the Open Doors team can now track invitations in the admin area.
• [AO3-7236] - Prepared the text in a couple of skins-related help pop-ups for translation.
• [AO3-7265], [AO3-7297], [AO3-7298], [AO3-7299], [AO3-7300] - Code clean-up and database performance improvements.

0.9.461

On February 28, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 9.

• [AO3-7282] - Upgraded the search engine that powers, among other things, work searches and filtering from version 8 to 9.

I. AO3 IS EXITING OPEN BETA

In early April, we announced that AO3 is exiting open beta!

AO3 has grown and changed a lot since open beta launched in 2009! We've gone from 347 users to over 10 million and from 6,598 works to over 17 million. We've also introduced many features in that time, including the tag system and tag wrangling, additional privacy settings that allow creators to restrict their works or comments to logged-in users, downloads for offline access to fanworks, and more.

Since AO3's software has been stable for a long time, this change is mostly cosmetic and doesn't indicate everything is finalized or perfectly working. Our volunteer coders and community contributors will still be adding to and improving post-beta AO3 every day.

For more information on AO3 exiting open beta, check out the announcement for details.

II. ELSEWHERE AT AO3

In March, we celebrated AO3 reaching 17 million works! \o/

Beyond exiting beta, Accessibility, Design & Technology also performed two important upgrades in March: updating Elasticsearch to version 9 and Ruby on Rails to version 8.1. With these two upgrades, AO3 is on the latest version for two of its most important pieces of software. They also published January’s release notes.

Systems published a postmortem on early March's AO3 downtime.

Open Doors announced the import of SlasHeaven, a Spanish-language slash fanfiction and fanart archive, as part of their Online Archive Rescue Project.

In February, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 5,674 tickets, which is over 2,000 fewer tickets than the previous month and marks the first decrease in PAC's backlog since 2024. PAC also coordinated with Communications on a news post describing various spambots seen on AO3 and how we're combating them. Also in February, Support received 3,031 tickets, and User Response Translation completed 42 requests from PAC and Support.

Tag Wrangling announced 31 new "No Fandom" canonical tags in their March round-up. On the @ao3org Tumblr, they announced changes to Critical Role fandom tags, creating an overarching fandom metatag for the Exandrian Universe and having specific campaigns or other media split into subtags. They hope these changes will help users better tag and filter for the works they want to see.

In February, Tag Wrangling wrangled over 543,000 tags or approximately 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications has updated the OTW News by Email service! You can now subscribe specifically to recruitment posts. If you're already subscribed to OTW News by Email and would like to change what emails you receive, please contact Communications via their contact form.

In March, Fanlore ran a monthly editing challenge inviting users to ​​archive external links on a page.

Legal answered a number of questions about pending and newly enacted laws around the world, as well as dealing with internal requests from OTW committees.

TWC released No. 47 of Transformative Works and Cultures, a special issue on Gaming Fandom edited by coeditors Hayley McCullough and Ashley P. Jones.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board and Board Assistants Team continued work on ongoing and newer projects, including making progress on the OTW website project with Communications, supporting Accessibility, Design & Technology with their documentation, and supporting Finance with streamlining messaging policies. They also began preparing for the next public Board meeting scheduled for April 18.

In March, Development & Membership caught up on their recurring donation gifts and put in more regular procedures for them going forward. In conjunction with Communications and Translation, they're now preparing for April's Membership Drive by getting graphics and new gifts ready.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for three committees this month: Communications (News Post Moderation), Translation, and User Response Translation.

From February 21 to March 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 160 new requests and completed 159, leaving them with 66 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of March 22, 2026, the OTW has 992 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Becca Bun and Jules Moon (Fanlore), Rebecca Tushnet and Stacey Lantagne (Legal)
New Communications Volunteers: LinnK, Jahnavi, and 3 other Social Media Moderators
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin and 1 Social Media & Outreach
New Open Doors Volunteers: Andrea T and 4 other Import Assistants; Kathy and 1 other Technical Volunteer; adyn, Seren, Claire M, and 2 other Administrative Volunteers; and 1 Liaison
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Symposium Editor
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: miffmiff, PippaLane, and 2 other volunteers

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Open Doors Chair, 2 Fanlore Chairs, and 1 Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead
Departing AD&T Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 1 Liaison
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Social Media & Outreach
Departing Finance Volunteers: 1 Bookkeeper
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 4 Tag Wranglers and Soppon (Tag Wrangling Supervisor)
Departing Translation Volunteers: Ito, Polyxeni Foutsitsi, and 3 other Translators; 1 Chair Trainee; and 1 Volunteer Manager
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 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.