Archive of Our Own ^beta

We've been so busy fixing bugs, keeping on top of Ruby on Rails and gem updates, and improving site performance and security, we fell a bit behind on actually telling you about it all! So here's a rather massive overview of code we deployed from June through October last year.

It includes many improvements for site admins and Open Doors archivists, as well as accessibility fixes and some enhancements to prevent abuse and harassment. We also started blocking some AI-related bots from crawling the site. In our tag search, you can now sort results by number of uses.

Many thanks to new contributors Mitch Stark, Ivedonestranger, and Eliah Hecht!

Credits

• Coders: alien, Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, Cesium-Ice, Cesy, EchoEkhi, Eliah Hecht, ellieyhc, Hunter Ada Smith, Ivedonestranger, james_, korrien, Potpotkettle, salt, Sarken, Scott, Tara Rosenthal, ticking instant, tlee911, Tyme, warlockmel, weeklies
• Code reviewers: alien, Bilka, bingeling, Brian Austin, Ceithir, EchoEkhi, james_, redsummernight, Sarken, ticking instant, weeklies
• Testers: Cesy, Claire P. Baker, bingeling, Brian Austin, C. Ryan Smith, Chrome, CJ Record, intyalote, Jenn Casso, james_, Jennifer D2, Keladry, lydia-theda, Maine, Mar, Petricores, Runt, Sammie Louise, Sarken, Taylor Clossin, Teyke, V Snow, wick

Details

0.9.345

On 25 July, we had quite a few updates! Included are an array of visual improvements, better behavior for long lists of pseuds, and letting Open Doors archivists automatically add works to collections (saving time when they import works from at-risk sites.)

• [AO3-3997] - We had previously used multiple methods to determine if an email address was legitimate. We consolidated code to use the most robust method of checking.
• [AO3-4268] - On some devices with a narrow screen, site navigation menus were overflowing off the screen. Navigation menus have now been instructed to take up the full width of the screen and not a pixel more.
• [AO3-5258] - On your gifts page, the buttons on mystery works displayed on the opposite side of the buttons on non-mystery works. They now consistently appear left-aligned. To the left, to the left, all of your buttons in the column to the left!
• [AO3-5356] - We added an attribute to tell screen readers that localized language names are not, in fact, English.
• [AO3-5627] - Previously it was possible to delete the only posted chapter of a work. This caused the work to become inaccessible in certain circumstances. We've added an error message and prevented the deletion of chapters which are the only posted chapter of a work.
• [AO3-5777] - Work blurbs that had hits, comments, kudos, or bookmarks over 999 did not have a comma separator for ease of reading. We've added in the separator. Read easy, friends!
• [AO3-5889] - Some of us have pseuds. Some of us have a lot of pseuds. For those of us with more than twenty pseuds, pagination will now appear on your pseuds page to save the database a little stress on loading all those pseuds.
• [AO3-5901] - Similarly, we're limiting the number of pseuds that appear on the dashboard sidebar and profile page.
• [AO3-6141] - Admins used to be able to assign any role to a user, regardless of their own admin role (so, for example, an Open Doors admin could make a user a tag wrangler or a translator). We've fine-tuned the role assignment process to prevent admins from assigning roles outside their purview.
• [AO3-6158] - The thermometer widget used during fundraising drives was hard coded to label the value in US Dollars. We've removed that so we can display other things (e.g., new memberships during a drive).
• [AO3-6199] - We've renamed the list of sources you're not allowed to use with the video and audio HTML tags so it uses the word "banned" rather than "blacklisted."
• [AO3-6243] - If you clicked the "Edit" button on one of your comments and then disabled JavaScript in your browser, you would receive a Session Expired error page if you tried to save your edits. You can now successfully save your edits!
• [AO3-6513] - We have given the ability to Open Door Archivists to automatically add works to collections they moderate. This ability works irrespective of the "Allow others to invite my works to collections" setting. Work creators will receive an email when an Open Doors Archivist adds their work to a collection, and can always remove their work later, if they choose.
• [AO3-6535] - We upgraded Rubocop and erb-lint, two gems we use to help us with code review.
• [AO3-6557] - Waaay back in 2011 we added a monkeypatch to allow users to access works from their PlayStation Portables. The underlying bugs that necessitated the monkeypatch have been resolved, so we deleted the monkeypatch. You should still be able to access works from your PSP, although we'd like to hastily point out that it's not a platform we officially support.
• [AO3-6558] - We updated the usage of a variable used for side-wide settings, to reduce errors. One day, we'll live in a world free of Error 500s. One day.
• [AO3-6560] - For the sad times when you do receive an Error 500, we've added a link to our Tumblr as well as our Twitter. Now you have two places to tell us the servers are down! (And we're looking into setting up a status page that does not rely on the whims of social media platforms.)

0.9.346

We did some quick Gem updates on August 2.

• [AO3-6559] - We updated the sanitize Gem.
• [AO3-6562] - We updated the audited Gem.
• [AO3-6568] - We removed a Gem that was causing errors in our (and many other people's) tests.

0.9.347

We deployed some user experience improvements for admins and tag set owners, along with a few other bug fixes on August 9.

• [AO3-4867] - We fixed a bug that made it difficult to add or remove a tag set owner or moderator whose username matched someone else's pseud.
• [AO3-4868] - The same bug also occurred when assigning givers in gift exchanges, so we fixed it there, too!
• [AO3-6488] - Admins sometimes need to edit orphaned works (e.g., to remove identifying information the original creator left behind), but there was a slow query on the form that caused 504 gateway timeout errors, making that impossible. We've improved the query so admins can once again edit orphaned works.
• [AO3-6530] - Sometimes live validation error messages near the bottom of forms were partially hidden behind the footer. Now they'll hang over the footer, allowing you to actually read what they say.
• [AO3-6545] - The FAQs are supposed to remember which language you chose the last time you browsed them, but they were forgetting and showing you the English FAQs instead. We've fixed it so the FAQs will once again load in your language of choice (unless you follow a link that specifies a language in its URL).
• [AO3-6552] - We added some missing accessibility-related code to the "Log In" link in the header.
• [AO3-6192] - We were manually turning off comments on news posts after two weeks, which was a task ripe for automation, so automate it we did!
• [AO3-6536] - We've created an admin role to give volunteers on the OTW Elections team access to some tools that will help them do their work more efficiently.
• [AO3-6556] - There were a few places on the site that talked about needing to "confirm" newly created accounts, but we generally use the term "activate." We've updated those places to use our preferred terminology, which will hopefully make things clearer.
• [AO3-6567] - We changed how we translate strings, which improved performance by about 20%.

0.9.348

We did a tiny Rails update on August 10.

• [AO3-6577] - We bumped the version of Rails we're on to 6.1.7.4 to make sure we have the latest fixes.

0.9.349

On August 11, we fixed an error resulting from a previous change.

• [AO3-6589] - When we made the change to improve the performance of our old translation string method, we inadvertently caused some errors when user-generated text containing the percent sign (%) was passed to the method a certain way. We've changed the way we're passing that text so the errors won't happen.

0.9.350

August 22 was quite the busy release! We improved the way information like draft expiration date and adult content warning is displayed, blocked some AI crawler bots, and made improvements to a few internal tools to make our developers' lives a bit easier.

• [AO3-4494] - There's a message on draft works that indicates when they'll be automatically deleted. The message used to include a time of day, but that time of day wasn't actually correct, so we've removed it.
• [AO3-5052] - Sometimes, when you changed your username or pseud, your old name would stay on your series blurbs. We've fixed it so series blurbs will refer to you by your updated name.
• [AO3-5248] - If you tried to visit a page for a user who didn't exist, you'd get redirected to the People Search page. That made sense in a way, but wasn't terribly consistent with other nonexistent pages. Now you'll get a 404 error instead, which makes it easier to check for typos in the URL you entered.
• [AO3-6442] - When trying to create a bookmark or inspired by link for works on ficbook.net, you used to get an error message suggesting the site was down, even though the site was working just fine. We've stopped that error message from appearing.
• [AO3-6480] - The adult content warning on works was missing some hidden text used by screen readers, and some of the visible text wasn't particularly clear to many users, so we made the necessary tweaks!
• [AO3-6540] - Permanently banned users can now access the options for orphaning or deleting their works, as well as removing themselves from works they've co-created, without having to contact the Policy & Abuse team.
• [AO3-6546] - A rusty old bit of JavaScript sometimes caused the account creation form to get stuck if you entered an invalid username (e.g., one someone was already using). We replaced it with some newer, shinier JavaScript that won't do that.
• [AO3-6553] - We added some accessibility information to the code for the list of media on the homepage.
• [AO3-6561] - The code that was supposed to display a confirmation pop-up when you mark a comment as spam wasn't working, so we've fixed it.
• [AO3-6549] - We updated the preference code to remove a reference to a database column we got rid of a while back.
• [AO3-6573] - For several years now, we've been using Percona's pt-online-schema-change to make changes to the database schema while the site is up and running. This required some extra work on our part, so we've added the Departure Gem to take care of some of that extra work for us.
• [AO3-6583] - We updated our robots.txt to prevent GPTBot from accessing the site. While we were there, we also cleaned up some old lines that were no longer needed.
• [AO3-6590] - We've started using Reviewdog, an automated tool that makes sure proposed changes to our template files meet our coding standards.
• [AO3-5732] - Admins will now get a nice error message when they search for invitations by email and there are no matching results.
• [AO3-5961] - Our logs were pretty long, so we stopped logging a bunch of things that we didn't really need to be logging.
• [AO3-6212] - We added an index to the tag_set_associations table to speed it up.
• [AO3-6506] - We updated how bookmark searches work to make things a bit more efficient.
• [AO3-6595] - We updated our robots.txt to prevent ChatGPT-User from accessing the site.

0.9.351

On October 20, we deployed a number of bug fixes both to the site and our own development tools. Of particular interest, we added the ability to sort by number of uses in tag search.

• [AO3-6483] - We fixed a bug that prevented showing admins certain account activity logs for older accounts.
• [AO3-6487] - Sometimes when fandom tags were renamed, the character and relationship autocomplete fields on the work form wouldn't suggest the relevant tags for the fandom. This is now fixed.
• [AO3-6571] - To avoid unexpected results when referencing images, you now have to use the image's whole URL in the HTML img tag's src attribute. If you just enter a relative URL like /image.jpg, you won't get an error, but we'll add the Archive's domain, making it https://archiveofourown.org/image.jpg.
• [AO3-6599] - Not all types of servers were being updated automatically when we changed some files; they felt left out, so we've made sure all of them are told about configuration updates.
• [AO3-6602] - We fixed a script our developers use so it works properly on macOS in addition to Linux.
• [AO3-6618] - We added some missing character escaping to the code for pre-filling information for bookmarks of external works.
• [AO3-6621] - We updated the OTW donation link to point to the new donation form.
• [AO3-6603] - We bumped the version of actions/checkout -- a utility that helps run automated tests on our code -- from version 3 to version 4.
• [AO3-4595] - Certain admins can now remove pseud icons and update pseud descriptions.
• [AO3-5522] - To prevent someone flooding your email with lots of password reset emails, we've limited the number of resets someone can request within a short amount of time.
• [AO3-6040] - To avoid confusion with official accounts, we have added the ability to forbid using certain usernames.
• [AO3-6321] - Fannish Next-of-Kin tickets are now handled by our Support team, and we have updated the Terms of Service FAQ to reflect this.
• [AO3-6328] - When you use Tag Search, you can now choose to sort the results by number of uses.
• [AO3-6467] - Admins can now see changes to users' Fannish Next-of-Kin relationships in the users' account history.
• [AO3-6312] - You can now prevent guests from replying to your comments on news posts and other users' works by going to your Preferences page and choosing "Do not allow guests to reply to my comments on news posts or other users' works (you can still control the comment settings for your works separately)."

Do you have experience with personnel management and project management? Do you have experience in public relations or social media? Are you a frequent X (Twitter), Facebook, or LinkedIn user who enjoys helping others? Do you know MySQL and want to rescue at-risk fan archives? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

• Communications Chair-Track Volunteer - closing 31 January 2024 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications are received
• Communications Media Outreach - closing 31 January 2024 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications are received
• Communications Site Moderator - closing 31 January 2024 at 23:59 UTC
• Open Doors Technical Volunteer - closing 31 January 2024 at 23:59 UTC or after 30 applications are received

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 Chair-Track Volunteer

Are you a people person? Are you an organizational wizard? Can you communicate clearly to a diverse audience? The Communications committee is looking for new Chair-Track Volunteers to join our team.

Communications is the central information distribution team for the OTW. We manage news posts, events, reports, media outreach, social media, and more. The Chair-Track Volunteer position is for people who have the time and dedication to learn all about our operations so that they can be considered for the role of committee chair.

We're looking for someone who has experience with communications and an understanding of social media; who is comfortable with personnel management and training new recruits; and who will be interacting with other committee Chairs to troubleshoot problems and work on projects. Candidates also need strong time management skills and the ability to work on and track multiple tasks at a time. If that's you, please apply!

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

Applications will close on 31 JANUARY 2024 or after 40 applications are received

Apply at the volunteering page!

If you have further questions, please contact us.

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 will close on 31 JANUARY 2024 or after 40 applications are received

Apply at the volunteering page!

If you have further questions, please contact us.

Communications Site Moderator

The Communications Committee is recruiting Site Moderators to manage the Organization for Transformative Works' presence on the social networking sites X (Twitter), Facebook, and/or LinkedIn.

These positions are part of the Communications Committee. Communications is the main information distribution team for the OTW. We distribute information both internally to OTW personnel and externally to the general public, media, and fans. We also serve as the general first point of contact for those contacting the OTW.

Each moderator will be part of a small team of social media moderators working across the OTW's social media outlets. At this time, we’re seeking moderators for three of our platforms: X (Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn. You are welcome to apply for as many or as few of these openings as fit your interests and qualifications.

For these positions, we would like to find someone who is familiar with the conventions of X (Twitter), Facebook, and/or LinkedIn posting and has experience moderating a social media page. We would also be interested in hearing from those with customer service experience, especially in an online environment. We will expect you to have an interest in fandom at large and an understanding of the concerns and activities of the OTW (although we will of course provide you with training once you start).

The X (Twitter) & Facebook mods will be expected to maintain an active presence on their respective sites, creating or reblogging a range of posts of relevance and interest to the OTW's userbase, and doing outreach to fan groups and individuals on the site. Meanwhile, the LinkedIn mod will be expected to maintain an active presence on LinkedIn, creating original content that informs the public of OTW's mission and projects, and communicating the same to individuals in relevant discussions on the site.

Each mod will also handle incoming user queries and manage responses to the OTW's original news content. You should be prepared to work as part of a team, and you will need to have roughly 3-4 hours of time available across the week to dedicate to your OTW responsibilities.

If you're a frequent X (Twitter), Facebook, and/or LinkedIn user who enjoys helping others, has wide-ranging interests across the fandom space, and is curious and willing to learn, we'd love to hear from you!

Applications will close on 31 January 2024

Apply at the volunteering page!

If you have further questions, please contact us.

Open Doors Technical Volunteer

Do you know MySQL and Python or other programming languages and want to rescue at-risk fan archives?

The Open Doors project receives many requests to rescue fan sites which are at risk of disappearing because their owners can no longer maintain them. The sites we import to the Archive Of Our Own range from database-driven archives based on common software packages like eFiction and Automated Archive to hand-coded HTML sites that are over twenty years old!

As a technical volunteer for Open Doors, you will process the contents of legacy sites to do the following:

• analyse the original data to find all the content and metadata needed for the import
• remove spam, legacy navigation and personal information from HTML files
• convert tags to official AO3 tags as specified by the Tag Wrangling team
• ensure chapters are correctly combined into complete works
• resolve duplicates, such as works already imported to AO3 by their creators or previous imports
• convert the cleaned data to MySQL tables in a standard format that can be ingested automatically into the Archive

As the person responsible for ensuring that all the content from the original site is correctly imported to the AO3, you will have an excellent eye for detail and an ability to work independently within the rules of Open Doors. You will also liaise regularly in chat with other Open Doors volunteers, keeping them up to date with your progress on your assigned tasks.

Please note that you will be asked to complete a short coding test (which should take you less than 1 hour, to be returned in 1 week) as part of your application.

Applications will close on 31 JANUARY 2024 or after 30 applications are received

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.

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 Dae, who volunteers as a member of the Fanlore Policy & Admin team and the Elections committee.

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

I have been… accumulating hats. In the Fanlore committee, I’m a Policy & Admin team member, so my work with Fanlore is mainly focused on handling user queries via our contact form and writing/updating Help pages and policy information as the wiki grows and evolves. I am currently also a team coordinator for Fanlore P&A, which means I’m responsible for monitoring incoming emails and other tasks, assigning them to team members, and following up to make sure things happen in a timely manner (for email responses), or maintain forward motion (for larger projects).

I am also on the Elections committee in a Candidate Liaison role, which means my focus in the “off-season” (Octoberish-Mayish) is on finding people who may be willing to run for the OTW Board in the next year, then helping them with answers to questions and resources to prepare for the election process. During the election season (Mayish-Septemberish), things get much busier; I interact directly with candidates to answer questions and support them as they jump through the hoops of being candidates, including platform posts and the public candidate chats on Discord.

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

With Fanlore, I keep an eye on the email inbox, write and post meeting minutes if we’ve recently had a full committee meeting, and work on my longer-term projects like updating Help pages or page categories or drafting policy documents as I can. I also usually jump in when we do themed editing events (such as Stub September or Podtober) as a badge awarder for a day or two.

With Elections, it depends heavily on where we are in the year - in the “off season,” everything is on a pretty long timeline, so I’ll participate periodically in discussions about the next election and help update documentation where appropriate. In the election season, it’s very different; I monitor channels with candidates very closely and help coordinate posting candidate bios or Q&As and moderate the live chats, depending on where we are in the election schedule.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I’ve been an AO3 user since 2012, and I’m very invested in fandom culture as embodied by the OTW, so I had a general desire to help out if I could. Fanlore Policy & Admin very much played to my strengths and experience, so I was excited to apply when I saw that applications were open in early 2022.

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

*pictures of various committees falling out of pockets* Not biting off more than I can proverbially chew, really. Fanlore was a very fitting entry point for me because as I said above, it was a match for my skillset and interests, and also was compatible with my general schedule when I applied. When the team coordinator position was created, I had just joined Elections (and the election season was about to start!), but the other Fanlore P&A people had too much else going on to pick it up. So I decided to volunteer after chewing on it a bit, and that has been going well. I am now also in training for the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee.

OTW work is the majority of my non-day-job time these days, and I’m very okay with that. I love working with my colleagues on various committees and sub-committees, but in order to be as effective a volunteer as I can be, I’m aware that I need to keep a lid on my tendency to just want to do more and more and more. I need to stick to my strengths so that I can put my all into those.

And, you know. Still have time to read/write fanfic and play video games.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I write fic and meta, I read fic (sometimes literally in the ~45 seconds walking from my apartment door to my car door), I beta read fic, I play a LOT of video games, I attend cons, I cosplay, and of course, I volunteer for the OTW. My main fandoms from the last several years are The Sandman (TV and comics), Hannibal (TV, though I’ve read the books), Baldur’s Gate (mostly 3 but I did play 1 and 2 back in the 90’s/00’s), and Pillars of Eternity.

I’m eternally in love with Tumblr’s general BS, so basically, Goncharov was the best thing on the internet that happened in 2022, as far as I’m concerned. I’m still active in that fandom, such as it is.

And I love, love, love, specifically the Yuletide annual fic exchange for small fandoms. I’ve gotten to write some very fun things for it, and gotten gift fics better than I’d ever have imagined.

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.

We encourage comments responding to our post content. Off-topic comments will be hidden by the moderators

Time flies! We’re already celebrating the tenth anniversary of International Fanworks Day (IFD) here at the Organization for Transformative Works.

Every February 15th, on the day when, ten years ago, AO3 celebrated its millionth published fanwork, fandom gathers to celebrate IFD and fanworks in all their forms—fics, art, vids, zines, meta, and more—and their importance in and across fannish communities all over the world.

We would love to hear about your experience in fandom—as a fan, as a creator, as a member of the community. The running theme for this IFD is 10: give us your ten things that mean the most to you about fandom; share with us a highlight about the past ten years you've spent in fandom; or, if you're feeling nostalgic, tell us about ten funny, exciting or noteworthy moments that happened in your fandoms.

We are going to keep an eye out for the stories shared by fans, so tag your posts with #IFD2024 and we'll signal boost those stories on the OTW News social media accounts.

In a few weeks we'll be announcing what the OTW is doing to celebrate IFD 2024. But we also want to know what you and your fandom communities will be doing to celebrate the 10th year of this event! Back in December we asked you what your community was planning for this IFD: we'll collect information and links to those events until January 28. We'll then promote those events to our readership on both our website and socials along with our own event schedule, so make sure to share your celebrations!

We are really happy to share this milestone with you, and can't wait to know what you're doing to celebrate. We look forward to reading about what fandom and fanworks have meant to you!

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.

Elysejský klíč, a Harry Potter fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work(s) on Elysejský klíč
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Elysejský klíč is a fanfiction archive created in 2010 and maintained since then by Alice O’Really, author of the fanfiction of the same title. Elysejský klíč is being imported to Archive of Our Own in order to preserve her work in case she is no longer able to do so herself, and also to preserve the work of her fans who wrote tributes to her work and created other fannish content inspired by Elysejský klíč.

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 pimpinella, FemmeFragile and belldandy to import Elysejský klíč into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanart currently on Elysejský klíč will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Elysejský klíč to the AO3 after December 2023. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who have work(s) on Elysejský klíč?

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 the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.

Please contact Open Doors with your Elysejský klíč 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 archive.
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 the AO3.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the 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 with which you first contacted Elysejský klíč, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Elysejský klíč mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Elysejský klíč

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 Elysejský klíč 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 Elysejský klíč!

- The Open Doors team and pimpinella, FemmeFragile and belldandy.

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on January 22nd. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

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 petricores, who works as a Support volunteer.

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

I volunteer with the AO3 Support Committee, which is the team responsible for handling feedback and requests for technical assistance from AO3 users. In a nutshell, we answer a lot of questions and requests sent by users from all over the world.

Support work is highly collaborative work; we don’t have all the answers all the time, so we regularly rely on the expertise and information supplied by our coders, sysadmins, tag wranglers, and translators, to name a few.

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

Out of an abundance of superstitious caution, I will refrain from characterizing a “typical” week – you just never know! Our queue of Support inquiries can go from perfectly ordinary with your run-of-the-mill “I can’t log in” tickets, to a hundred reports of the same error flooding in at once (like the DDoS attack from July). Waking up and checking our volunteering tools to find such incidents is like running towards the tree on Christmas morning to check your presents, but a bit less joyous.

Special occasions aside, I typically spend a few hours per week, usually on evenings or weekends, claiming Support requests and drafting replies to them. I also beta and provide feedback on email replies drafted by other Support volunteers, and help the Accessibility, Design & Technology Committee (AD&T) with testing fixes or improvements to the Archive’s features.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I applied for the role and had my interview in spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had shut everything down overnight. I was very lucky that the pandemic lockdown led to me having a lot of leisurely time on my hands, and as a result I was spending more time on reading/writing fics. When I saw the volunteer position posting, I figured why not apply and try it out? It’s funny, even though I created my AO3 account in 2013, I did not learn what the Statistics page is until I started training as a Support volunteer.

As luck would have it, I absolutely love what I do in Support. It has been a very rewarding experience. I could not have anticipated the increased amount of traffic and popularity that the Archive experienced from 2020 onwards, particularly among users from non-Anglophone countries. Even after 3 years I still think it’s so exciting and cool that I can help both English-speaking users and users who share my mother tongue to gain more out of their experience using the Archive as a bilingual person.

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

Due to the nature of the Archive and OTW’s operations, most of our activities must take place via text-based communications. I find the constraints of text-based communication to be the biggest challenge both when troubleshooting issues with AO3 users and when collaborating with other OTW volunteers.

I lean on my fellow Support volunteers heavily for beta reading and/or giving me suggestions on making my drafted reply easier to read and follow (especially if I need to give instructions to the user on what troubleshooting steps to try), especially since they are likely confused or frustrated already.

In a similar vein, learning people’s different communication styles within the OTW is also a key part of learning how to do this job well. As I said earlier, there is a lot of collaboration that goes into what Support does; as a volunteer, I’ve definitely had to train myself to get better at observing other volunteers’ communication style and adapting my own communication, and I do my best to communicate effectively to the specific audience via text.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I read, I write, I browse, I kudos, I squee, I comment, I re-read. I re-read stuff a lot.

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.

In the past few weeks, the Archive of Our Own's Support Committee has been receiving a number of requests for assistance with an app that creates a paywall block after more than one hour of daily reading. We have no control over this (or any) mobile app, and do not approve of any paywalling of AO3 content. This is not the first time users have had problems with unofficial apps. For various reasons, the Archive is not developing a mobile app, so any app you may find available is unofficial and might even pose a security risk to use.

The AO3 site is always free to use through a web browser on any and all devices, including mobile devices. One of our core tenets is protecting fans and fanworks from commercial exploitation, so we don’t have ads or charge anyone to use the AO3, and we don’t approve of other people charging you money for AO3 content.

Because we haven't developed a mobile app ourselves, we are okay with individuals creating unofficial apps, provided that these apps clearly state they are unofficial, refrain from using our logos, and do not charge users for their usage. Forcing people to pay to use those apps is a violation of the AO3 Terms of Service section 1.D.5.

Please let other fans know that we are not connected to any apps they may find, and we are unable to assist them should they have issues with them. Remember AO3 is always available for free on your browser!

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.

The Common People Warehouse, an archive for Marvel Comics fanfiction of The Common People genre, is 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 The Common People Warehouse
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

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. In order to preserve and keep TCP stories available for old and new fans, the TCP Warehouse is being transferred to AO3. 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 sevenall to import the TCP Warehouse into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. We will begin importing works from the TCP Warehouse to the AO3 after December. 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 The Common People Warehouse?

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 the 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 TCP Warehouse 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 archive.
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 the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the 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 your TCP Warehouse account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the archive mod to confirm your claims.) Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Common People Warehouse

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Common People Warehouse on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve The Common People Warehouse!

- The Open Doors team and sevenall

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on 26 December. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.