Archive of Our Own ^beta

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 therealmorticia, who volunteers as Chair of the Board Assistants Team.

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

I've been lucky enough to have several roles in the OTW, but my main job that keeps me busy these days is serving as the chair of the Board Assistants Team (BAT). BAT helps the Board of Directors with the administrative aspects of leading the OTW: documentation, copyediting, project management, etc. We also collaborate with other committees to help coordinate and complete special projects that require extra support.

A lot of our tasks might not sound the most exciting on paper, if I'm being honest, but I genuinely enjoy the work—especially since it brings a lot of variety in the types of tasks I get to take on. The Board's work covers all corners of the OTW, so in supporting the Board, I get to see and work with many different areas. Many of my projects are cross-committee efforts and involve collaborating with people I may never have connected with before.

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

My week-to-week varies greatly depending on what's going on. If there's a public Board meeting coming up, I’m likely focused on its preparation and scheduling, and during the meeting I will help moderate the chat and pass questions on. If we’re working on a project with an approaching deadline, that will pull my focus. In a normal week, I am helping draft documentation for the Board, beta items drafted by the Board or other BATs, and make sure requests made to the Board don’t fall through the cracks. The vast majority of my work is asynchronous, so I tackle it in bits and pieces throughout the week as I have time. However, it’s not uncommon for me to have a synchronous meeting or two, whether with the Board, other BAT members, or a project team.

As a chair, I also spend a fair amount of time on more managerial tasks. This can include handling personnel duties (such as planning for recruitment or training new volunteers), writing documentation, overseeing projects, and the like.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I first signed up to be a volunteer in 2016 as a tag wrangler. At the time, I was spending a lot of time on AO3 reading and writing, and I felt that volunteering was a way I could give back to the site that had given me so much. Since then, I’ve held several other roles across a few committees, but my motivation has remained the same. I spend a lot of time enjoying the work done by the OTW's projects—whether it's fanworks on AO3 or interesting articles on Fanlore—and it's important to me that I can contribute in return.

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

Tough question. The main thing that comes to mind is the process for setting up BAT in the first place. It had been a long time since the last time a new committee was created, so lots of the documentation was outdated or lost to the sands of time. This meant the BAT proposal and setup process involved a lot of back-and-forth between various committees for guidance, answers, and feedback on the next steps.

Beyond that, being a brand-new committee meant that all of our documentation and processes had to largely be written from scratch, so there was a lot of setup work to do (and in fact it is still being done). In a way, this is an advantage to BAT, as it allows us to more easily adapt to current needs; but it's also a challenge, as it means a lot of work in establishing procedures, building up the volunteer pool, and so on.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I’m a big reader, first and foremost. I’m always on the hunt for new works to consume. I've returned to an old favorite and am currently back to obsessing about Star Trek. I’ve also really gotten into Hockey RPF lately, and I’m happy to take recommendations if you’ve got any!

I’ve done some writing in the past, but that’s not a major focus of my fannish time. The main fannish activity I focus on now, aside from reading, is volunteering; it’s both enjoyable and fulfilling, as it allows me to give back and help provide some of that enjoyment to others.

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 earlier 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, 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.

Time to celebrate another milestone, as the Archive of Our Own (AO3) passes eight million registered users. That means one million new members joined the site in less than a year's time; or, in other words, more than 3,000 people a day, 130 people an hour, or two people per minute!

Whether you already are a registered user or a guest, we want to thank every single one of you who contributes to AO3 by reading, commenting, sharing, posting, or by curating and moderating collections and challenges.

If you are not already a registered user, did you know there are benefits to becoming one? Here are some examples (of many more!):

• Post your own works, bookmark works for later, and subscribe to creators, series, and works to never miss a new chapter again.
• Customize AO3's appearance when you are logged in, either with our official site skins (like Reversi, our dark mode), or your own custom look.
• Gain access to locked works that are only visible to registered site users.

To register, simply click the "Get Invited!" button on the AO3 homepage, fill in your email address, and follow the instructions once you receive our follow-up email. If you are unsure about any step of the process, you can find more information here.

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.

Open Doors is pleased to announce the completion of 9 archive import projects in 2024, a total of over 13,000 works! We hope that you will find old and new favorites in the collections listed below.

The Common People Warehouse

Completed: February 2024

The Common People (TCP) was a genre of Marvel Comics fanfiction created by Kielle and Phil Foster and focusing on the ordinary people of the Marvel universe.

Find works at The Common People Warehouse AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the TCP Warehouse import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the TCP Warehouse Fanlore page.

The Disney Kink Meme

Completed: May 2024

The Disney Kink Meme was originally hosted on LiveJournal, and then moved to Dreamwidth. Participation on Dreamwidth, however, tapered off significantly, so the moderators wanted to move the prompt meme to a more active location with a long-term future.

Find works at The Disney Kink Meme AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see The Disney Kink Meme import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out The Disney Kink Meme Fanlore page.

The 9 Forum

Completed: September 2024

The close-knit microfandom for "9" began creating fanworks a few months before the film's release in September 2009. There is now over a decade of fanfiction and fanart posted to The 9 Forum, which we wanted to preserve, anticipating that the message board software will not last forever.

Find works at The 9 Forum AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see The 9 Forum import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the The 9 Forum Fanlore page.

West of the Moon

Completed: September 2024

West of the Moon is a Lord of the Rings archive with gen and slash fan fiction, poetry, and filk. The archive was “frozen in time” on February 18th, 2008 – almost 5 years to the day from its birth. The original site is no longer online, but its moderators wanted to preserve all of these amazing works!

Find works at the West of the Moon AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the West of the Moon import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the West of the Moon Fanlore page.

Elysejský klíč

Completed: December 2024

Elysejský klíč was a Czech-language Harry Potter fanfiction and fanart archive created in 2010 and maintained since then by Alice O’Really. Alice wanted to preserve her fanfiction of the same title and also the work of fans who created content inspired by Elysejský klíč.

Find works at the Elysejský klíč AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Elysejský klíč import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Elysejský klíč Fanlore page.

VinXperience

Completed: December 2024

For almost two decades, the VinXperience web site and message board provided a second home for fans of actor Vin Diesel. More than a thousand stories - fanfic, original fiction, group writing projects, and poetry - were housed at the VX message board. VinXperience officially closed its message board in 2017, but the many works of fiction will remain available through the AO3 archive.

Find works at the VinXperience AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the VinXperience import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the VinXperience Fanlore page.

Between the Lines

Completed: December 2024

Originally founded in 2002 by Lora_8664 as a home of JAG fanfiction, it was active for almost a decade before it went silent in 2008. In 2020, ivedonestranger resurrected it as the successor admin and has kept it preserved for future generations.

Find works at the Between the Lines AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Between the Lines import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Between the Lines Fanlore page.

Smoochies

Completed: December 2024

Smoochies was a site dedicated to bishounen, shounen-ai and yaoi fanworks. It ran from late 1997 to early 2003. During its life, it hosted some amazing works that its moderator, Melanie, didn’t want to see lost.

Find works at the Smoochies AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the Smoochies import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the Smoochies Fanlore page.

All About Spike

Completed: December 2024

All About Spike, a large selective Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel archive for fanfiction and essays about the character Spike, was founded in July 2002 by drinkthehalo. The archive focuses on fanfiction that explores the ambiguities of Spike's character with an eye toward his redemption.

Find works at the All About Spike AO3 collection.

For more information about the archive and its move to the AO3, see the All About Spike import announcement post. To learn the history of the archive or to share some stories of your own, check out the All About Spike Fanlore page.

We want to give a huge thank you to all of the archivists and volunteers who made these imports possible, as well as all the creators who have transferred or claimed their works! We look forward to importing more archives in 2025.

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

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

Do you have experience in public relations or social media? 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:

• Communications Media Outreach Volunteer - closing 29 January 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 40 applications]
• Communications Posting Specialist - closing 29 January 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 40 applications]
• Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers - closing 29 January 2025 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. 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.

Communications Media Outreach Volunteer

Communications volunteers are responsible for the distribution of information to the general public, the media, fans, and other fannish organizations. Communications is also typically the first point of contact for someone interested in or wanting help from OTW.

The Media Outreach group is responsible for various tasks and projects related to public relations and writing news posts. The position of Media Outreach Volunteer would be a good fit for someone with an interest in developing a deep knowledge of the OTW and in outreach to journalists and to the public about the OTW's activities. Experience with writing, editing, and similar communication-related tasks is required. Experience with analytics or public relations, particularly crisis communication, is preferred.

For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task within 3 days of submitting your application.

Applications are due 29 January 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications

Communications Posting Specialist

The Communications Committee is the central information distributing arm of the OTW, responsible for the distribution of information internally to OTW personnel and externally to the general public, the media, fans, and other fannish organizations. Communications is also typically the first point of contact for someone interested in or wanting help from OTW, and serves all of the organization's committees and projects.

The Posting Specialist is responsible for scheduling and overseeing the posting of content to the OTW's main website and social media outlets as well as content that is cross-posted from the OTW blog to the Archive of Our Own.

Applications are due 29 January 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications

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 are interested in regularly helping with our day-to-day work! This includes following checklists to answer tickets related to personnel changes, software access, recruitment setup, and general queries.

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a live text-based chat interview.

Applications are due 29 January 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications

Apply at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

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

AO3 Tag Wranglers are continuing to test processes for wrangling canonical tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete and the filters) that don't belong to any particular fandom (commonly known as No Fandom tags).

Previous Tag Wrangling updates are available on the ao3org Tumblr, and we're trialing a new system of posting some of these updates to AO3 News as well. While we plan to make No Fandom tag updates available on AO3 News going forward, this may not be true of all wrangling updates. It's likely some updates may remain solely distributed via the ao3org Tumblr, especially those that only affect one or two fandoms. In general, how we distribute updates may be subject to change as we test this new process.

We've made a number of decisions to create new canonical No Fandom tags for high-demand tags and to update the format of some of our older canonical tags. None of these updates will change the tags users have added to works; this will only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters, making it easier to search and filter for these concepts. You can and should continue to tag your works with any version of these tags you prefer to use.

This post will provide an overview of some of these upcoming changes.

New Canonicals

1. Degradation

We will canonize several new tags related to Degradation. These canonicals include:

• Degradation
• Degradation Kink
• Consensual Degradation
• Verbal Degradation
• Self-Degradation
• Non-Consensual Degradation

Degradation will be a metatag of the other tags—Degradation Kink, Consensual Degradation, Verbal Degradation, Self-Degradation, and Non-Consensual Degradation—so that filtering Degradation in or out will include or exclude all of the more specific concepts.

How to Use These To Filter For/Filter Out Works Tagged Relating to Degradation:

ⓧ Filtering Out:
Add Degradation to the "Other tags to exclude" field in the works filter. This will filter out all works tagged with Degradation; this will also exclude works tagged with the subtags Degradation Kink, Consensual Degradation, Verbal Degradation, Self-Degradation, and Non-Consensual Degradation. If you want to exclude any of the more specific types of degradation only, you can do so by excluding the specific subtags. For example, you could exclude only Verbal Degradation by adding it to the "Other tags to exclude" field; works tagged with other types of degradation would remain in your search.

☑ Filtering For:
Add Degradation to the "Other tags to include" field in the works filter. This will also automatically include works that have tagged any of the more specific subtags. If you wish to filter for only certain types of degradation, you can do so by including those tags only. For example, you could include only Self-Degradation by adding it to the "Other tags to include" field; works only tagged with other types of degradation would not show in your search.

2. Sensory Overload

We will create a new canonical for Sensory Overload, and all tags relating to sensory overstimulation will be made synonyms of the new canonical. This includes tags related to neurodivergent or autistic overstimulation.

To make the meaning of the current Overstimulation tag more clear, it will be decanonized and made a synonym of Sexual Overstimulation.

3. Medical Isolation and Quarantine

We will create a new canonical for Medical Isolation and Quarantine.

4. Autistic Characters

We will create a new canonical for Autistic Characters, which will be a subtag of the current canonical Autism tag.

5. Touch Aversion

We will create a new canonical tag for Touch Aversion. The existing canonical Haphephobia (i.e. fear of touch) will be made a subtag of Touch Aversion.

Renamed and Reevaluated Canonicals

When we refer to "renaming" tags in this section, this means decanonizing a previously canonical tag and making it a synonym of a new canonical tag. This means that the tags on works themselves will not change, but filters and searches for the new canonical tag will include works tagged with the former canonical. You can and should continue to tag your works with any version of these tags you prefer to use.

6. Mpreg

To improve clarity for those unfamiliar with the term, the tag Mpreg will be renamed to Mpreg | Male Pregnancy. The related tag Post Mpreg will renamed to Past Mpreg | Male Pregnancy to clarify the tag's meaning and match the format of the new tag.

We will also create a new canonical for Trans Mpreg | Trans Male Pregnancy, which will be subtagged to Mpreg | Male Pregnancy. Similarly, to allow users to tag and filter more granularly with regards to pregnancy, we will be creating a new canonical for Intersex Pregnancy, which will be a subtag of Pregnancy.

7. Found Family

The tag Families of Choice will be renamed to Found Family. We hope this new phrasing better reflects the language fans use and makes the tag easier to find.

8. Gender Themes

The tag Gender Related will be renamed to Gender Themes to clarify the meaning of the tag. We will also create a new canonical for Trans Themes, which will be subtagged to Gender Themes.

9. Nose Nuzzling Kisses

The tag Eskimo Kisses will be renamed to Nose Nuzzling Kisses.

We apologize for originally canonizing this tag with an offensive term. We are working hard to develop a robust and sustainable collaborative discussion format for No Fandom tags to continue to correct past mistakes and avoid making similar ones in the future.

10. Mother Complex

The tag Mother Complex will be decanonized and made a synonym of the existing canonical Mommy Issues. Tags that are currently synonyms of Mother Complex will be made synonyms of Mommy Issues or Mommy Kink where appropriate.

For many years, this tag has caused some confusion for users, because there was not a clear difference between Mother Complex and the more well-known Mommy Issues tag, and the tag Mommy Kink used to be a synonym of Mother Complex. We recently canonized the tag Mommy Kink, in part to address this issue.

Reorganization of Podfic-related Canonicals

We will be reorganizing several tags related to Podfics in the coming weeks. We hope these changes make it easier to tag for works and navigate AO3.

For ease of filtering, we will be making the existing Podfic tag a metatag for all canonical tags related to podfic length (such as tags like Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes and Podfic Length: 7-10 Hours). This means that filtering include or exclude on Podfic will automatically include or exclude works tagged with a podfic length tag, even if they aren't tagged with Podfic.

We also will be creating new canonicals and renaming some existing tags:

• A new canonical will be made called Podfic and Text in the Same Work
• Podfic Collaboration will be renamed to Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic, which we hope better reflects the language fans use and makes the tag easier to find
• Read by the Author will be renamed to Podfic Read by the Author to clarify the tag's meaning

Finally, we will merge some existing canonicals that were originally created separately but have very similar meanings. To make searching and filtering for these concepts easier, we have merged the following tags:

• Podfic Desired will be decanonized and made a synonym of the existing canonical Podfic Welcome
• Podfic Linked will be decanonized and made a synonym of the existing canonical Podfic Available
• Podfic & Podficced Works will be decanonized and made a synonym of the existing canonical Podfic

Reorganization and Additions to Gender Transition Canonicals

In our last Tumblr post, we announced the newly renamed canonical Changes to Gender or Sex. To make it easier for users to tag and filter works, we will also clarify related tags and create new canonical tags related to gender transition.

The current canonical Sex Change has been used for both medical gender transition and forced sex changes; this tag will be decanonized and made a synonym of Changes to Gender or Sex. To allow users to better tag and filter for these concepts separately, we will also be:

• Renaming the current canonical tag Transitioning to Gender Transition
• Creating a new canonical for Medical Gender Transition, which will be subtagged to both Gender Transition and Changes to Gender or Sex
• Creating a new canonical called Forced Gender Transition

We also plan to make the following new canonicals relating to medical transition:

• HRT | Hormone Replacement Therapy
• Gender-Affirming Surgery, which will be a subtag of both Surgery and Medical Gender Transition
• Top Surgery, which will be a subtag of Gender-Affirming Surgery
• Bottom Surgery, which will be a subtag of Gender-Affirming Surgery
• Top Surgery Scars

Finally, we will be creating the following new canonicals to help users better search and filter for whether characters have had gender-affirming surgeries:

• Character Has Had Top Surgery
• Character Has Not Had Top Surgery
• Character Has Had Bottom Surgery
• Character Has Not Had Bottom Surgery

In Conclusion

These are just some of the changes we are making to No Fandom canonical tags. Some of these changes have already been implemented, while others are currently underway. Creating and renaming tags requires a lot of work from wranglers to implement, so large changes will likely take some time to complete after this post has been published.

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future on the tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can follow AO3 on Twitter @ao3_wranglers or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on tags updated and created through this process: Update on "No Fandom" tags and Another Update Regarding "No Fandom" tags.

Learn more about how the AO3 tag system works in our Tags FAQ. ​​In addition to providing technical support, Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about tags not on this list, which were first used over a month ago, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

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.

Get ready for International Fanworks Day (IFD)! On February 15th, we will once again come together from all corners of fandom for the 11th annual IFD celebration. IFD was created in 2014 in honor of the one-millionth fanwork on AO3 to recognize and celebrate all forms of fanwork – fics, art, podfic, zines, and more – as vital parts of fandom.

This year's IFD theme Fan Communities are Ecosystems honors this idea of diversity in fandom and expands on it: not only are there many kinds of fanworks, there are also many ways people engage in fandom: reading, commenting, working on fan wikis, creating art, writing, and more! Diverse fans working together creates unique ecosystems of fandoms and we want to celebrate that with you this year. From now until IFD, we will be hosting several activities we encourage you to participate in:

• Take part in our Feedback Fest and rec your favorite work related to (fictional) communities and social dynamics. Or recommend something you believe has impacted your fandom's ecosystem! Interested? Look for our Feedback Fest post on February 13th!
• Tag your own works on AO3 centered around fan communities with our International Fanworks Day 2025 tag!
• Share your experience with fandoms as ecosystems on social media using the tag #IFD2025 or #IFDChallenge2025

We are looking forward to seeing your contributions! Of course, if you want to participate in another way, you are free to do so as well. And if you or your fandom community are planning on hosting your own IFD activities, let us know so we can signal boost them! You can use the tags mentioned above on social media.

We'll announce other celebratory activities for IFD2025 soon, so keep an eye on our social media channels.

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.

We had quite the list of releases to close out 2024 here at AO3! There were improvements to the user experience for our administrators, and a massive improvement for our tag wranglers, meaning they won't have to deal with those pesky tags from draft works anymore. We also deployed a number of things laying the groundwork for some exciting technical improvements and upgrades in the new year.

Thank you and welcome to first-time contributor Jake Faulkner! We'd also like to thank Sekoia for pointing out a security issue.

Credits

• Coders: Amy Lee, Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, Cesium-Ice, Jake Faulkner, james_, Nisha
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, lydia-theda, Sam Johnsson, sarken, Scott, ticking instant
• Testers: Amy Lee, Anh Pham, Bilka, Brian Austin, C. Ryan Smith, calamario, Claire P. Baker, Deniz, Gloria L, Irina, Jenni D., Lucia S., Lute, lydia-theda, megidola, Nary, Rhine, Runt, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, Taki, Tal, Taylor Clossin, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.383

On November 25, we deployed the first in a series of changes to (gracefully) finalize the Rails 7 upgrade.

• [AO3-6812] - Our first try at upgrading cookies to the modern Rails format did not go well. This time, we are preparing by deploying some code to force all servers (new and old) to work with the old format first.

0.9.384

We deployed an array of improvements to the admin experience on December 6. We also added some email previews to help our translators when they translate them into languages besides English, in our ongoing effort to introduce language options to the AO3 interface.

• [AO3-6709] - Policy & Abuse admins can now view comments in user inboxes.
• [AO3-6771] - The email that AO3 creators receive when Open Doors imports one of their works didn't respect the user's locale preference. That is now fixed. (The locale preference is currently only available in testing.)
• [AO3-6773] - To make testing easier, we added a preview for the email that gets sent out if your request for invite codes to share is denied. (Please note that it is not possible to request shareable invitation codes at this time.)
• [AO3-6835] - We also added a preview for the email confirmation you receive when changing your email.
• [AO3-6854] - And what's a release without updating our trusty code linter?

Several of the changes in this release fall into the bucket of "making sure only the admins who need access to something have access to it":

• [AO3-5520] - Modifying the Wrangling Guidelines is now restricted to admins from the Tag Wrangling team.
• [AO3-6697] - Updating the Known Issues page is now strictly the domain of our Support team.
• [AO3-6698] - Modifying the English FAQ has been restricted to the Support and Docs teams, while the Translation team can modify any of the languages the FAQs are translated into.
• [AO3-6760] - Admins from the Policy & Abuse and Tag Wrangling teams can access the unsorted tags bin to see tags that were created by bookmarkers and haven't been assigned categories yet, but only Tag Wrangling can actually sort them into categories.
• [AO3-6761] - Now only admins from the Tag Wrangling team can wrangle tags from the mass wrangling bins or access certain information about wrangling tools, while Policy & Abuse admins can still access the mass wrangling bins but not do any wrangling.
• [AO3-6762] - Similarly, read access to fandom bins and tag edit pages has been restricted to Tag Wrangling and Policy & Abuse admins, but only Tag Wrangling admins can actually make changes to tags.

0.9.385

On December 8, we deployed a single change to continue the process of gracefully finalizing the Rails 7 upgrade.

• [AO3-6686] - We updated the Archive's configuration to use Rails 7's brand new defaults. This only includes some of the changes to cookies this time around, since doing everything all at once last time was definitely a Bad Idea.

0.9.386

On December 9, we prepared to upgrade our web servers to more modern software.

• [AO3-6858] - Added support for Puma, so we can transition away from Unicorn and god for our web servers.
• [AO3-6861] - You'll never believe this, but we also updated our code linter again.

0.9.387

On December 23 2024, we deployed some changes to make work easier for the Support and Policy & Abuse teams. And we snuck in a treat for Tag Wrangling and a security fix along the way.

• [AO3-6211] - Tags on unposted (draft) works used to show up in the wrangling bins, which often made tag wranglers' jobs more difficult. Now those tags don't show up in the wrangling bins until the work is posted.
• [AO3-6232] - When a Support ticket is submitted, we now record which site skin you're using and what page you were on. We've also started including your IP address in the copy of the ticket our Support team receives (it was previously only shared with our automated spam checker).
• [AO3-6308] - When a user is temporarily suspended, an error message tells them when their suspension is supposed to end. The old message sometimes gave an incorrect time, so we've fixed that.
• [AO3-6622] - We decreased the margin sizes on definition lists in FAQs to make them more consistent with styling elsewhere on AO3.
• [AO3-6717] - In order to prevent abuse, banned and suspended users can no longer change their usernames.
• [AO3-6792] - The Support and Policy & Abuse forms each have a list of languages the teams can answer tickets in. We've given admins from those teams the ability to update those lists.
• [AO3-6832] - When people reported a comment to our Policy & Abuse team, a copy of the work the comment was left on was sometimes mistakenly attached to the ticket PAC receives. We made sure that doesn't happen anymore.
• [AO3-6855] - We upgraded rails-html-sanitizer from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1 to address a potential security vulnerability found by our dependency checker.
• [AO3-6864] - We changed the CSS sanitizer to disallow sneaking naughty code into URL values.
• [AO3-6866] - We updated the code that creates our testing database to make sure the test data contains user roles that are similar to the current setup on AO3.

Remembering Tiger Lily Roar, a multi-fandom fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

Tiger Lily Roar was a fanfiction writer. She wrote works for several fandoms under two pen names, Lily Ann Lyones and Tiger Lily Roar. She passed away in 2023. Her fanworks will be preserved by her fans and friends.

Open Doors will be working with Eva to import Remembering Tiger Lily Roar into a separate memorial account on the Archive of Our Own.

We will begin importing works by Lily Ann Lyones to the AO3 after February. You will find them on the rememberingtigerlilyroar_memorial account.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Tiger Lily Roar 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 honored to be able to help preserve the works of Lily Ann Lyones, and while we mourn the loss of her, we also realize that we are fortunate that she had a friend who was given permission to collect and preserve her works on the AO3 so that they will not be lost. Thinking about the death of a fandom friend may be difficult, but it can also be an opportunity to consider what will happen to your fanworks and accounts and those of your friends after your deaths. The Archive of Our Own has an option to name a Fannish Next of Kin, someone who would be able to gain access to your accounts in the case of your death or incapacitation. By naming someone who can act on your behalf, you can decide ahead of time how you want your AO3 accounts handled going into the future.

- The Open Doors team and Eva

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on January 13th. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.