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Published:
2023-06-12 15:05:50 UTC
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Bullhorn and the words 'OTW Announcement'

In 2020, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) made a commitment to our users, members, and volunteers that we would work towards making our organization and our projects more welcoming and inclusive to fans of color, and preventing and combating racist harassment on our platforms.

Today, we'd like to provide an update on what steps we have taken so far to accomplish those goals, and what still needs to be done. But first, we have a duty to acknowledge that this work hasn't been nearly as prompt as we had hoped, and that the main victims of our delayed progress are the people of color who continue to suffer due to harassment and slow action. In May, fans organized a campaign against racism in the OTW, and we want to take a moment to thank everyone who participated. We hear and appreciate the people who continue to reach out to us, to share their ideas and their concerns, and to hold us accountable.

What We've Done So Far

Since the posting of our original plan in 2020, we have completed or made significant progress on a series of goals to help protect our users and volunteers against harassment:

  • We implemented the ability to freeze comment threads and turn off comments on your works entirely, giving you more control to moderate interactions on your AO3 fanworks.
  • User muting was introduced to help you avoid encountering works, bookmarks, or comments from specific users when browsing the Archive.
  • We have implemented comment blocking to prevent specific logged-in users from commenting on your works entirely.
  • You can now opt out of receiving gifts on AO3, as well as opt out of allowing your works to be invited to collections.
  • We have improved admin tools to facilitate investigations by our Policy & Abuse team.
  • Internally, we have updated our Code of Conduct to make it explicit that discrimination based on caste is not tolerated in the OTW.
  • We also implemented methods for volunteers to contact and submit feedback to the Board anonymously by introducing a separate feedback form.

We are still committed to working towards giving you more control over how you experience the Archive going forward. To that end, we will be expanding blocking features to cover more user interactions, and further limiting how guest users can interact with you on the Archive.

What We're Working On

We have been reviewing the Archive's Terms of Service to help the Policy & Abuse team address different types of harassment. This review is still ongoing, but we hope to complete it soon. Once concluded, any planned changes to the Terms of Service will be made available for public comment in a dedicated news post.

Alongside this review, the Policy & Abuse team continues to improve and calibrate their internal policies about harassment and hate speech in icons, user names, and other non-story elements. The team strives to remain vigilant and flexible in order to respond appropriately to new harassment vectors as needed.

Internally, back in 2021 the OTW opened recruitment for a Diversity Consultant Research Officer (DCRO). They began their work in 2022, contacting internal stakeholders and researching firms. The DCRO hopes to finish their internal studies by September, and has already begun to investigate potential contractors.

We will keep you updated on how these projects are progressing. Please continue reading to learn more about how we plan to communicate these updates.

Communications Improvements

One of the areas the OTW has been working to improve in is transparency in communication. We know how important these topics are to our users, and we will be trying to better keep you informed about what we're doing to combat and prevent racism in the OTW and on AO3.

One change we have already implemented is to provide quarterly updates on our diversity work during OTW Board of Directors public meetings. These meetings take place on Discord and can be attended by anyone. There are a few ways you can know when a meeting is coming up:

  • Keep an eye on the OTW's Twitter account—every meeting is announced at least one week in advance.
  • Join our Discord server—as soon as a meeting is scheduled, a notification will appear in the meeting channel.
  • Subscribe to the Board Calendar so that new meetings will show directly on your personal calendar.

Additionally, we will be making an effort to include all information discussed in these meetings in the OTW's monthly newsletter. The newsletter will also provide smaller updates between meetings whenever possible.

We understand how frustrating these delays have been, and we deeply apologize. We remain committed to making our spaces more welcoming and safe for all users. We sincerely thank you for sticking with us as we strive to improve. Your feedback on this and any other matters is welcome and valued, always.

The OTW Board of Directors can be reached for direct feedback and further suggestions via email.


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.

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With the proliferation of AI tools in recent months, many fans have voiced concerns regarding data scraping and AI-generated works, and how these developments can affect AO3. We share your concerns. We'd like to share what we've been doing to combat data scraping and what our current policies on the subject of AI are.

Data scraping and AO3 fanworks

We've put in place certain technical measures to hinder large-scale data scraping on AO3, such as rate limiting, and we're constantly monitoring our traffic for signs of abusive data collection. We do not make exceptions for researchers or those wishing to create datasets. However, we don't have a policy against responsible data collection — such as those done by academic researchers, fans backing up works to Wayback Machine or Google's search indexing. Putting systems in place that attempt to block all scraping would be difficult or impossible without also blocking legitimate uses of the site.

With that said, it is an unfortunate reality that anything that is publicly available online can be used for reasons other than its initial intended purposes. In many cases, AI data collection traffic relies on the same techniques as the legitimate use cases above.

Once we became aware that data from AO3 was being included in the Common Crawl dataset — which is used to train AI such as ChatGPT — we put code in place in December 2022 requesting Common Crawl not scrape the Archive again.

We cannot go back in time to stop data collection that already occurred, or remove AO3's content from existing datasets, as much as we may dislike that it happened. All we can do is attempt to reduce such collection in the future. The Archive's development team will continue to be on the lookout for individual scrapers collecting AO3 data, and to take action as needed.

Likewise, our Legal committee has and will continue to serve the OTW mission of protecting fanworks from legal challenge and commercial exploitation. This includes their position that users should be allowed to opt out from having their works incorporated into AI training sets, a position that they have presented to the U.S. Copyright Office. They, too, will continue to keep pace with this developing field.

What can I do to avoid data scraping?

You may want to restrict your work to Archive users only. While this will not block every potential scraper, it should provide some protection against large-scale scraping.

AI-generated works and AO3 policies

At the moment, there is nothing in our Terms of Service that prohibits fanworks that are fully or partly generated with AI tools from being posted to the AO3, if they otherwise qualify as fanworks.

Our goals as an organization include maximum inclusivity of fanworks. This means not only the best fanworks, or the most popular fanworks, but all the fanworks that we can preserve. If fans are using AI to generate fanworks, then our current position is that this is also a type of work that is within our mandate to preserve.

Depending on the circumstances, AI-generated works could violate our anti-spam policies (e.g. if a creator posts a significant number in a short time). If you're uncertain whether a work violates our Terms of Service, you may always report it to our Policy & Abuse team using the link at the bottom of any page, and they can investigate.

This statement reflects AO3’s policy at the time of writing, as we wanted to be transparent with our users about what our current stance is and what can be done – and is being done – to mitigate scraping for AI datasets. However, these policies are also under discussion internally among AO3 volunteers. If we agree on changes to these in the future, those will be announced publicly; additionally, if there are any proposed changes to the AO3 Terms of Service, they will be made available for public comment as is required of any and all changes to our Terms of Service.

We hope that this helps to make things more clear – this is a complicated situation, and we’re doing our very best to address it in a way that doesn’t compromise AO3’s principles of maximum fanwork inclusivity or legitimate uses of the site. As discussions and approaches evolve, we will keep our users updated.

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Construction crane over a computer monitor with the words 'Spotlight on Support'

As we continue to work on better balancing the responsibilities of our Support and Policy & Abuse committees, we are shifting two further types of issues from Policy & Abuse to Support's mandate:

Fannish Next-of-Kin

This is an option we offer that allows a designated person to manage your account if you die or become incapacitated. To learn more about the Fannish Next-of-Kin program, you can read our TOS FAQ on the subject. Please note that if you have a currently-in-process Fannish Next-of-Kin request, our Policy & Abuse team will complete the ones that they have already received.

Going forward, if you wish to set up a Fannish Next-of-Kin, or need to change or activate one currently in place, please contact Support.

Duplicate works

Sometimes, due to a glitch or error, a work may be posted multiple times. This can be reported to our Support team, who will investigate and take down exact duplicates. Please note that works that contain different content (such as a work that is an edited or rewritten version of another work) will not be considered exact duplicates.

If you wish to report works that are exact duplicates of one another, please include links to both or all of the works in question in your report to our Support team. We hope these changes will be helpful by allowing our Policy and Abuse team members to devote more of their time and energy to other issues!

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Published:
2022-11-28 15:58:17 UTC
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Bullhorn and the words 'OTW Announcement'

As many readers know, Twitter has been undergoing changes which are destabilizing the platform, and there have been reports of frustrating user experiences as services are reduced. This is leading some individuals and organizations to explore other social media options.

The OTW has various accounts at Twitter for our individual projects as well as the OTW as a whole. We will be evaluating how Twitter fits into our news distribution efforts as the site changes continue.

During this time of possible transitions, we are taking the opportunity to remind readers and followers both where else you can find us, as well as to caution fans about new unofficial accounts that may start popping up.

Official vs. Unofficial Accounts

Many people choose to subscribe to OTW news either through their social media accounts or through feed readers. It is important to check, however, if those accounts are actually ours.

On occasion, fans will set up unofficial social media accounts, either on the same platforms we use or in spaces where we have no accounts. Unofficial accounts sometimes make that status clear and sometimes they don't. Similarly, fans on various platforms have set up RSS feeds of our news posts. These feeds are automated accounts and there is no one running them. The information may also only be available temporarily, and while they include official news, they are not controlled by the OTW and you can't reach us there.

The best way to check whether a social media account is official is to visit the ‘Where to Find Us’ page at the OTW website. This lists our live accounts across all platforms. If you're not subscribed to one of those, you are not following an official account.

Contacting Us

Official accounts are individually posted to by the Communications Committee. While we receive comments and questions on those platforms, these accounts are not always moderated and the platforms themselves may restrict our responses in different ways. To ensure that we receive your question or comment, it is therefore always best to get in touch with us through our contact form. Questions or comments regarding the Archive of Our Own should be sent to the Support team

If you're not sure who to direct your question to, try Communications, and if we don't have the answer we will send your message on to the OTW team who can help you.

The OTW can be contacted in 46 languages, something which is also facilitated by using our contact forms.

Access to Our Accounts

We are aware that people may have barriers to accessing our sites, whether it's a social media account or the OTW website itself. This is one of the reasons why we maintain official accounts in multiple locations.

While for many these restrictions may be due to local blocks from a school or business, there are also different nations which either temporarily or permanently block particular internet addresses.

If you are unable to follow us at one platform, hopefully another one of our sites will be available to you. We are always examining additional locations for official accounts in order to best reach fans, and you are welcome to send us suggestions. Although current staffing or workloads may prevent us from expanding in the near future, we will keep requests in mind as part of long-term planning.

Spread the Word!

It is tremendously helpful to the OTW when fans help us to share information either about our organization and projects or particular news releases. So please, help us reduce misinformation and boost relevant content by pointing people to our official accounts. You can also let other fans know what sorts of information they can find at our website, and that they can reach us through our contact forms. And if you come across unofficial accounts which are not listed as such, do let us know.

Thanks for your help!


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.

[Edited on November 30, 2022, 13:07 UTC: Due to off-topic replies, comments on this post have been disabled.]

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Published:
2022-10-15 14:35:02 UTC
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The OTW is delighted to announce that the Archive of Our Own has reached ten million fanworks! After hitting nine million fanworks in March of this year, it’s taken only seven months for our users to post the most recent million works. By contrast, it took just under four and a half years after going into open beta for users to post the first million works to AO3.

It’s been a year of milestones for AO3 and the OTW. In 2022 alone, we’ve reached not only ten million works but also five million registered AO3 users, 50,000 canonized AO3 fandom tags, and the OTW’s fifteenth anniversary. We are forever grateful to our dedicated creators and users for the support and enthusiasm you’ve given us over the years.

Thank you to everyone who’s helped us grow to this point. We can’t wait to see what you continue to create and share!

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Since May 3rd, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) — the nonprofit behind AO3, Fanlore, and other projects — has been dealing with malicious attacks aimed at the organization and its volunteers. We wanted to share with you some of what's been happening, as well as what we're doing to contain it, and how it may affect our response times to your inquiries and our workload in general. Above all, we need to ask for your patience, because these are complicated times for all of us at the OTW.

An unknown attacker has been sending our volunteers threatening emails with illegal child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which has been reported to several law enforcement authorities.

These attacks have not affected AO3 user accounts or accounts on any other OTW projects, or OTW donor data. At this time we have no reason to believe that emails or other private user data whatsoever associated with AO3 or any of our other projects have been exposed to any external bad actors.

We've already alerted the relevant authorities, and we're seeking legal advice on how best to proceed. Protecting our volunteers and safeguarding this investigation is our top priority right now, which means we've shut down a number of internal tools necessary to do our work effectively. This was done to better protect our volunteers from further threats.

As a consequence of this, changes and announcements that had been planned for the next few weeks are likely to be delayed. You can expect delays in response times for all OTW teams. Please note:

  • AO3 Tag Wrangling's planned changes for Dream SMP fandoms will be delayed. New tags will not be wrangled until a later time.
  • AO3 Support, Open Doors, and Policy & Abuse responses are all likely to take much longer than usual. The same applies to Fanlore teams.
  • Responses to queries sent to OTW Legal, including DMCA Takedown Notices, may be delayed.
  • OTW donation gifts may be delayed.
  • OTW recruitment is suspended until further notice.
  • The OTW's social media posting schedule will be reduced for most outlets.

There have been no changes to the following:

  • The OTW election timeline will remain unchanged.
  • AO3 invitations for new users are being sent out normally.

Please be patient with us at this time. We are trying our best to keep our projects running as smoothly as possible while also keeping our volunteers — without whom none of these projects would exist — safe. Thank you so much for your understanding and support.

(One final note: we've disabled comments on all our news posts for the time being for security reasons. If you need to get in touch with us, please use the Support and Feedback form, but bear in mind that responses will likely be delayed.)

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In our next release, we'll be rolling out two changes to comments on the Archive. The first change will provide both work creators and site admins with the ability to freeze comment threads. The second change will provide site admins options to restrict comments on news posts, much like creators can restrict comments on their works.

Comment freezing

Creators will soon be able to freeze comment threads on their works using the "Freeze Thread" button. Freezing a thread prevents new replies from being added to a comment or to any of its replies. It also prevents comments in the thread from being edited.

A comment with replies. Each comment has a Freeze Thread button.

Frozen comments will have a "Frozen" indicator and the "Reply" button will be hidden. An "Unfreeze Thread" option will allow creators to re-enable replies.

A comment with replies. The first reply and its replies are frozen and have a Frozen indicator, which looks like a pressed button. They also have Unfreeze Thread buttons.

Although "Freeze Thread" initially prevents replies to all comments in a thread, creators can use "Unfreeze Thread" to selectively re-enable replies for some comments in a thread.

Site admins will also be able to freeze comments on news posts, and the Policy & Abuse team will be able to freeze comments anywhere on the site.

News post comment settings

In August, we gave creators more control over who can comment on their works, enabling them to choose between allowing comments from anyone, restricting comments to registered users, or turning comments off completely.

Site admins will soon have the same options when creating and editing news posts. This will allow our teams to turn off comments on outdated news posts and prevent newer ones from being overwhelmed by spam (e.g. advertisements or, more commonly, short series of random letters left by bots).

If comments on a news post are turned off, or if you're logged out and comments are restricted to registered users, the comment form will be replaced with a message indicating which setting is in use.

If you can't comment on a news post, you are always welcome to contact Support with any feedback.

We hope both of these changes will help the users and volunteers who read, write, and receive comments on the Archive!

Edit, February 12, 21:20 UTC: Comments on this post had to be disabled due to off-topic discussions, trolling, and harassment.

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The AO3 Reaches Three Million Registered Users!

The Organization of Transformative Works is pleased to announce that Archive of Our Own has now passed 3 million registered users!

After opening to members of the public on November 14th, 2009, AO3 has seen rapid growth. We hit 1 million registered users four years ago on October 31, 2016 and 2 million registered users just over a year ago on July 17, 2019. We could not be more thrilled to have hit this new record.

We absolutely could not have done this without all of you, our users, both registered and unregistered alike, and we cannot thank you enough for helping us to achieve this mind-blowing milestone.

Thank you for all your contributions – your fanworks, your comments, your collection curation and moderation. We hope that this milestone is just one of many more to come, and that you will grow with us as we move forward.

While we’re incredibly grateful for all of AO3’s users, there are benefits to registering an account! Firstly, you’ll be able to access restricted works. Some works are posted so that they can only be accessed by logged-in account holders.

Secondly, registered users have access to AO3 skins that can change their reading experience and can make AO3 more accessible. The Reversi skin is AO3’s version of dark mode, and is only one of several options available.

Thirdly, you can get updates on your favorite works or creators by subscribing to them. You won’t have to manually refresh the page to see if that fic you’re reading updated: you can get a notification right to your inbox. Of course, these are just three reasons, there are many more!

There are lots of ways to become a registered user. You can always request an invitation from AO3. (You can check out the wait time on the Invitation Request Status page.) If you’re feeling particularly impatient, you can ask your friends for one of their invitations! Many registered users have a number of invitations they can give away – if you don’t want to join the waiting list, that’s the way to go.

As a thank you for all of your support throughout the years, we have created a phone screen and desktop wallpaper for you to download. Download them to your devices and join the celebration!

AO3 phone wallpaper
(select image to enlarge)

AO3 computer wallpaper
(select image to enlarge)

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