Archive of Our Own

I. APRIL'S MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

April's Membership Drive ran from April 24-27 and raised $362,171.85 USD across 9,702 people in 87 countries, with 8,035 donors choosing to become OTW members. Thank you so much for your support!

This year, the April Drive spotlighted Accessibility, Design, & Technology (AD&T) and their behind-the-scenes work in developing, updating, and maintaining the AO3’s software and infrastructure. If you're familiar with coding and would like to help improve AO3, contributions from the community are welcome; for details, check out AO3's Software Contributing Guidelines and other documentation at our GitHub repository. All contributors are credited in AO3's release notes which detail recent code updates and fixes.

Development & Membership worked with Communications on drafting and publishing Drive-related news posts, which Translation made available in 23 languages. Finance posted an update on the 2026 budget prior to the Drive.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In April, AD&T worked on security updates, quality-of-life bug fixes, and making more parts of AO3 translatable. They also welcomed their first long-term contractor who has already begun submitting pull requests and reviewing code. AD&T previously engaged with contractors for specific projects, but this is their first time hiring someone to work on the AO3 code with a broader scope.

AO3 Documentation completed their biannual review of user-facing documentation.

Open Doors announced the import of SlasHeaven and received enormous support from the Spanish-speaking community on AO3. They also began importing the works from the Watchmen Kinkmeme to AO3, which has been in progress for several years due to pre-import complications.

Policy & Abuse continued work on some major updates to the Terms of Service FAQ and coordinated with Communications on a news post about spambots. Going forward, this post will be updated as new spam behaviors get reported. In March, Policy & Abuse received 4,560 tickets, while Support received 3,466 tickets. User Response Translation completed 71 translation and beta tasks for Policy & Abuse and Support.

Tag Wrangling wrangled over 613,000 tags, or approximately 1,400 tags per volunteer. They also announced 27 new "No Fandom" tags.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications started the month with a lighthearted April Fool's post spotlighting omegas and coordinated with AD&T for the site's temporary logo change. This was then followed by a more serious announcement about AO3 exiting beta. Across both posts, Communications' News Post Moderation subcommittee helped moderate over 5,600 comments, most of which were positive and joining the celebration.

Communications also coordinated the OTW's attendance at Supanova, a fan convention in Melbourne, Australia. Thank you to everyone who came to see us! Fanwork recommendations from those who attended have been collected in the Supanova 2026 AO3 Collection.

Fanlore prepared a public domain-themed month for May. Check out their Bluesky, Tumblr, and Twitter/X for featured articles, and join their Discord server for a themed editing chat!

Legal continues to answer questions from fans and internally, especially around new laws restricting internet freedom.

In March, TWC released their special issue on Gaming Fandom and are currently in production for their June special issue on Disability and Fandom. Their editorial sections are working on the general issue for September and the 2027 special issues on Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections is preparing for this year's election, which will fill four seats on the Board: three full-term seats (3 years) and one partial term seat (1 year). The election will open on August 14, and members need to make a donation of at least $10 USD before July 1 if they'd like to vote.

Organizational Culture Roadmap's Code of Conduct draft has been reviewed for legal compliance, clarity, and other factors by an external nonprofit HR firm they partnered with on this project. They have incorporated their feedback and the updated draft will soon be available for review by all volunteers.

Board collaborated with Board Assistants Team to hold the second-quarter public Board meeting with 51 attendees. Thank you to everyone who attended! Meeting minutes are available on the OTW website. Board Assistants Team also continued progress on ongoing projects, including investigating mental health resources for volunteers, investigating volunteer retention within the committee, and supporting AD&T with documentation work.

In April, Board consulted with Legal and Volunteers & Recruiting to approve changes to the OTW's recruitment policies. The OTW will now require all applicants confirm they're 18 years old or older when applying for positions. Previously, some positions were open to volunteers aged 16 or 17. This change will only affect applicants moving forward and will not impact current volunteers.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In April, Volunteers & Recruiting opened recruitment for three roles for Legal and Policy & Abuse.

From March 23 to April 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 201 new requests, and completed 295, leaving them with 45 open requests. As of April 22, 2026, the OTW has 1,051 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Rhine (Translation Chair)
New Communications Volunteers: Jo Foderingham Brown (Social Media Moderator)
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: anzie, Cocoa, GGLadybug, and 1 other News Post Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: Orla Maeve, Bre Hartfiel, and 3 other Volunteers
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: AAAthea, Agata, AlexTheTwin12, Amalaa, Aza, BerryBlue, Cait B, CherryAmaretto, Chien, Cid, Elistanel, Em L, Fujirope, hen, Hershel, inezblue, Insidia, Izhi, Kirave, Kvalli, Lacosta Seren, Liz27, Lua, Marieta, Marilianne, Milo, mina, moonjelly, Nootmeg, Novace, Pingj, Pinkie, Potato, principalityofmusicalchairs, PurplePurl003, rexmachina, Sachet, Sambuca, sequencefairy, Shira, Snowy, SophiaSun, Stephenie, Tets, Toni, ValerieM00ny, Vandali, vinnawis, Wesley, Winnie, Xiaohe, and 3 other Volunteers
New User Response Translation Volunteers: AifasInTheSky, Cadira, Lacuna, ­Matilda, mocong, shilight, and 6 other Translators

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Fiona M (AO3 Documentation Chair)
Departing AD&T Volunteers: Bilka (QA Supervisor)
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: Deniz (Volunteer)
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Chair Track Volunteer and 1 Social Media & Outreach Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Ember J, Lost_for_good, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Shubhi Tandon and 2 other Translators

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

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

I. AO3 IS EXITING OPEN BETA

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

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

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

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

II. ELSEWHERE AT AO3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

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

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

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

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

IV. GOVERNANCE

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

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

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

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

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

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

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

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

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

I. INTERNATIONAL FANWORKS DAY

On February 15, Communications coordinated many International Fanworks Day (IFD) activities, including a Feedback Fest highlighting fanwork recommendations, an editing challenge in conjunction with Fanlore, and an IFD Discord server with games and chatting. Additionally, Translation helped make IFD materials available in 22 languages. Thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In February, we celebrated AO3 reaching 10 million registered users! \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) focused on some important upgrades and bug fixes, including upgrading to Ruby on Rails 8 and improving the collection revealing process. They also published release notes for December's code changes.

AO3 Documentation began their biannual review of user-facing documentation.

In the past month, Open Doors signed five new agreements with moderators to import their archives to AO3! Fandoms include Highlander, The Magnificent Seven, My Chemical Romance, and others. They also completed the import of Slashknot, a Slipknot (band) fanfiction and fanart archive.

In January, Support received 3,811 tickets, while Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 7,972 tickets. User Response Translation completed 12 requests from PAC and 37 requests from Support. PAC continues to work closely with AD&T and Systems to combat spam that users have been experiencing across the site.

Tag Wrangling announced 28 new "No Fandom" canonical tags for February. In January, they wrangled over 648,000 tags, or around 1,400 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore ran a Femslash February monthly editing challenge! Systems also helped upgrade Fanlore to a new version of MediaWiki.

In February, Legal had one of their volunteers participate in a briefing for staffers in the U.S. Legislature to gain a deeper understanding of copyright fair use. Elsewhere, Legal answered a number of questions internally and from users.

TWC is preparing their March 2026 issue on "Gaming Fandom" for publication. They also completed an update of TWC's editorial board as part of their ongoing work to expand TWC's scope, diversify their discipline in terms of historically marginalized fans and scholars, make the journal more international in scope, and increase multimodal approaches.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board has concluded all Board-committee check-ins and is reviewing key themes across the organization. They also voted to approve an interpretative rule of one bylaw to better accommodate any future Board members with hearing disabilities.

Board Assistants Team continued work on various projects, including revamping the OTW Board Discord and researching projects on volunteer retention, public meeting best practices, and volunteer mental health.

Organizational Culture Roadmap continued work on the OTW Code of Conduct update project by finishing a summary of internal survey results and adjusting Code of Conduct drafts based on recommendations from an external HR firm. The OTW Crisis Management Plan has been finalised and approved by the Board.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In February, Volunteers & Recruiting ran recruitment for seven roles across four committees and one workgroup.

From January 23 to February 21, Volunteers & Recruiting received 182 new requests and completed 295, leaving them with 61 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of February 21, 2026, the OTW has 985 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: 3 Social Media Moderators
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager and 1 Translator
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: corr and peaandsea (Chair Assistants) and 1 Volunteer

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Elizabeth Wiltshire (Organizational Culture Roadmap Head) and 1 Elections Chair
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing Communications Volunteers: Abby (Social Media Moderator) and 2 Weibo Moderators
Departing Elections Volunteers: 1 Voting Process Architect
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Mei and 2 other Import Assistants, and 1 Chair Assistant
Departing Support Volunteers: Mily and RRHand (Volunteers)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Indes, lifeisyetfair, PinkBrain, plantpun, and 14 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Idiosincrasy (Volunteer Manager and Translator), 3 Volunteer Managers, and 1 Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: corr, peaandsea, and 1 other Senior Volunteer; and 2 Volunteers

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

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

I. AO3 STATISTICS ROUND-UP

2025 was a busy year for AO3! The site continued to see rising traffic, with Communications publishing an update on AO3 statistics from 2020-2025. In December, Support received 3,589 tickets, totaling to over 40,000 tickets received in 2025, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 6,357 tickets in December, totaling approximately 47,500 tickets in 2025. Check out PAC's pie chart for more details.

In the first half of January, User Response Translation translated or betaed 32 ticket requests from Support and PAC.

Open Doors finished importing three archives in December: Absolution - The Inugrrrl Memorial Archive about the manga InuYasha, InDeath.net Fan Fiction about the In Death book series by J.D. Robb, and The Pinky and the Brain Page about the cartoon Pinky and the Brain. In total, Open Doors completed the imports of eight archives in 2025! They also announced the import of the Randall Morgan Memorial Archive, a Queer as Folk (US) fanfiction archive by the creator Randall Morgan.

In December, Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately 598,000 tags, or around 1,300 tags per volunteer. In total, they wrangled approximately 4,944,000 tags in 2025. They also continued work on handling "No Fandom" additional tags, publishing December and January news posts detailing recent changes. In total, Tag Wrangling published nine "No Fandom"-related news posts in 2025 covering around 399 new canonical "No Fandom" additional tags.

II. ELSEWHERE AT AO3

Accessibility, Design & Technology coordinated improvements to bookmark searches in the latter half of January, including the ability to filter bookmarks by word count. They also continue their work on performance improvements, bug fixes, and working with PAC and AO3's spam detection service to address spam comments. In conjunction with Communications, they posted a December 2025 update on how to recognize and report AO3 spambots.

In January, Tag Wrangling updated their Fandom Tag Metatag guidelines, including clarifying when a fandom metatag should be made and when to merge closely related fandoms into one fandom tag. Check out the news post detailing the new policy.

As part of International Volunteers Day (IVD) 2025, Communications collected and batched answers to the IVD Q&A by committee, resulting in five committee-specific news posts highlighting Communications, Support, Tag Wrangling, Translation, and Volunteers & Recruiting. Answers across committees, along with additional responses not featured in the news posts, have been compiled in a separate AO3 work.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore ran an editing chat to close out 2025, and it was a lot of fun! They also began preparing for their annual IFD Fanlore Challenge and Femslash February event! Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr for announcements.

Legal answered many internal and external questions this month.

TWC is readying the publication of the two 2026 special issues: "Disability and Fandom" and "Gaming Fandom". They also continue work on the two 2027 special issues: "Music Fandom" and "Latin American Fandoms", and there continues to be a rolling deadline for submitting to TWC’s next general issue.

In January, Communications' Fanhackers wrote about the Transformative Approaches to Fan Identity, and they began a multi-post survey of acafannish research and publishing resources.

IV. GOVERNANCE

In December, Board announced the resignations of two directors: Kathryn Solderholm and Erica Frank. We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours with the OTW.

In January, Board finalized and approved the OTW Procurement & Purchasing Policy. They and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organised the first quarter of 2026 public Board meeting on January 18 which had 54 attendees. Minutes of this meeting will be available soon on the OTW website. Elsewhere, Board and BAT continued work on document review and archiving board statements, Code of Conduct tasks in conjunction with Organizational Culture Roadmap, and ongoing projects for mental health resources for volunteers, scheduling tools, public meeting best practices and volunteer retention in BAT. BAT also updated their OTW website committee page.

Organizational Culture Roadmap finalized a confidentiality policy in preparation for upcoming external recruitment.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In December, Volunteers & Recruiting thanked all OTW volunteers on International Volunteer Day with their organization-wide email and graphics campaign. In January, they ran recruitment for Open Doors.

From November 22 to January 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 355 new requests, and completed 378, leaving them with 52 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of January 23, 2025, the OTW has 1,013 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Subcommittee Leads/Workgroup Heads: Eevee (Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead) and megidola (Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head)
New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Lulu S (Chair Trainee)
New Fanlore Volunteers: Elfie, Konsta Morales, Watts, and 1 other Graphic Designer
New Open Doors Volunteers: Addiebees, AviLine, feelyx, LeighR, Marie K, meservey66, MetaKass, miffmiff, Mort, pinkconstellations, SleepyJane, Spit, StormySea, Truendz, Vail, and 11 other Import Assistants
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: megidola (Supervisor) and 1 Chair Track Volunteer
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Chelsea Cheyanne, inspiredstork, Sanity, will, and Yrindor (Supervisors)
New Translation Volunteers: Rhine and 1 other Chair Trainee; Arushi, athursdayschild, Eirinar, Linarii, Mira8, Niki K, Phoebe B­, Pi, Rita P, and 12 other Translators
New TWC Volunteers: Fiona M, Yumi, and 3 other Layout Editors; and 2 Outreach and Communications Editors
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Eki, f0f8ff, HARRitte, Jules R, Laus, PanPan, rosings, zoy zauce, and 3 other Translators

Departing Directors: Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm
Departing Committee Chairs: 1 Communications Chair and 1 Elections Chair
Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Communications Volunteers: KW Ukuku (TikTok Moderator), Lori P (Graphics Volunteer), 1 Fanhacker Volunteer, and 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Membership Data Specialists, and 2 Volunteers
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Discord Moderator, 1 Outreach Analyst, and 1 Policy & Admin
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Pelagia and 1 other Administrative Volunteer, Wynne (Import Assistant), and 1 FCPP Intern
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Nary and 22 other Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Nary and 1 other Supervisor; Asas Carmesins, Bruno, Eevee, lianneder, Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse, McBangle, Sayornis, Tea Huimyni, and 10 other Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Teelee (Task Assistant); Illiterations and 4 Translators
Departing TWC Volunteers: Melanie Kohnen (Review Editor); Courtney Lazore and 1 other Proofreader; and 1 Symposium Editor
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 2 Volunteers

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

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

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

In November, Fanlore ran the Fanlore No Fault November challenge: a catch-up event for earlier badges editors missed! The challenge ran from November 16 to 30, with many editors participating and earning badges from previous months.

Curious about editing Fanlore? Check out the New Visitor Portal and Tutorial for getting started!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

On November 14, we celebrated AO3's 16th anniversary! \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology continued to prepare emails for translation and improved how the download and chapter index menus behave with each other on smaller screens.

AO3 Documentation updated the Contacting the Staff FAQ.

Open Doors finished importing Oz Magi, an Oz annual gift exchange, and Stayka's Saint Seiya Archive, a Saint Seiya archive. They also shared an annual roundup of the fanzine collections created in the last year for fanworks imported through the Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) and announced the upcoming import of a Harry Potter archive, PhoenixSong.

In October, Policy & Abuse received 5,061 tickets, setting a record high for the third month in a row. Support received 3,043 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 600,000 tags, or over 1,380 tags per wrangling volunteer.

Tag Wrangling also continues to create new "No Fandom" canonical tags and announced a new batch of tags for November.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

TWC continues to prepare for the two upcoming 2026 special issues: "Disability and Fandom" and "Gaming Fandom". The submission deadline for the two 2027 special issues, "Music Fandom" and "Latin American Fandoms", is also quickly approaching on January 1.

In November, the OTW filed an Amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the Supreme Court should clarify the rules surrounding who can challenge a trademark registration application. In a case involving whether someone should own the trademark "Rapunzel" for dolls of the character Rapunzel, the OTW argued that the Trademark Office should consider the interests of the public—including fans—in deciding whether to award private ownership over a word or symbol that may be in the public domain.

Legal also worked with Communications on a news post about recent legislation and have responded to a number of comments and queries on this post and other issues.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board continued work on annual turnover and meeting with all committees. They made progress on the OTW Procurement Policy and expected to get it finalized soon. They, along with the Board Assistants Team, also continued to work with Volunteers & Recruiting and Organizational Culture Roadmap on the ongoing Code of Conduct review.

Development & Membership has been catching up on post-Drive tasks.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

December 5 was International Volunteers Day! As a volunteer-run organization, the OTW would not be possible without the support and diligence of our volunteers. We thank all our volunteers, past and present, for the work they've contributed to the OTW.

If you're curious about volunteering for the OTW, we recruit for various positions on a regular basis, and recruitment will next open in January.

From October 25 to November 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 287 new requests, and completed 270, leaving them with 63 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of November 22, 2025, the OTW has 983 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Fanlore Volunteers: Luana and 2 other Chair-Track Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Anderson, Araxie, corr, Aspenfire, Klm, Mothmantic, Nova Deca, vanishinghorizons, and 1 other Volunteer
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 90Percent Human, Aeon, Alecander Seiler, ambystoma, Astrum, Atlas Oak, batoidea, Bette, Bottle, bowekatan, Bruno, Chaosxvi, Destiny, DogsAreTheBest312, Dream, elia faustus, Ellexamines, Elliott W, Gracey, jacksonwangparty, Jean W, Kalico, Keira Gong, Kiru, lamonnaie, Lavender, Loria, Lucia G, LWynn, Max, Nikki, Nioral, noctilucent, Our Hospitality, Primo, Rie, Salethia, Sapphira, sashene, Schnee, Scylle, sneakyowl, soymilk, Thaddeus, TheCrystalRing, thewritegrump, Water, Wintam, yucca, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
New TWC Volunteers: Lys Benson (Copyeditor)
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Cesium (Translator)

Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Irina, Paula, and 2 other Import Assistants; 1 Administrative Volunteer, and 1 Fan Culture Preservation Project Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Communications News Post Moderation Liaison
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Julia Santos (Tag Wrangling Supervisor); blackelement7, pan2fel, and 7 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: weliuona and 2 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 2 other Volunteers

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, 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.

I. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

October's Membership Drive ran smoothly, with Communications drafting posts in coordination with Development & Membership, and Translation making drive materials available in 26 languages. Finance also published a mid-year budget update prior to the Drive. This year's October Drive spotlighted Systems, who handle the OTW's server infrastructure, respond to outages, and perform routine upgrades and maintenance to ensure the OTW's projects remain available.

In total, we raised around $290,000 USD during the Drive, with around 2,500 gifts requested and around 7,000 people either starting or renewing their OTW membership. Thank you so much for your support!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In October, AO3 celebrated reaching 16 million works. Thank you to everyone who helped us achieve this milestone!

Accessibility, Design & Technology upgraded their servers to Ruby 3.4. They had a record 6 releases in 3 weeks which included bug fixes, usability improvements to a variety of AO3's site features, and further preparatory work for making AO3's interface and emails translatable in the future.

AO3 Documentation updated the Orphaning FAQ.

Open Doors announced two new import projects: The Pinky and the Brain Page, a Pinky and the Brain fanfiction archive, and Dreaming the Answers, an X-Files fanzine.

In September, Policy & Abuse received 4,300 tickets, while Support received 3,372 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 520,000 tags—around 1,150 tags per wrangling volunteer.

Tag Wrangling also continued the process of creating new "No Fandom" canonical tags and released a new batch of tags in October.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications' Con Outreach division coordinated the OTW's attendance at COMICUP ShangHai Plus 2025 in Shanghai, China, and MCM Comic Con London 2025 in London, England. Thank you to the volunteers who tabled these conventions, and everyone who said hi to us there!

Fanlore celebrated a Books themed month in October! Their next editing challenge will give editors a chance to earn missed badges from previous challenges. Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr for announcements about the challenge, which will run from November 16 to 30.

In October, Legal and an ally, the Wikimedia Foundation, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Mississippi's online age verification statute overburdens mission-driven platforms and threatens the free speech rights of those platforms and their users. For more details, head over to our latest Spotlight on Legal Issues. Legal also answered a number of queries from fans.

TWC is finishing reviewing articles for the two upcoming 2026 special issues: "Disability and Fandom" and "Gaming Fandom".

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board held their third quarter public Board meeting on October 5 in the Board Discord. There were 35 attendees, and they answered 8 questions. Meeting minutes are available on the OTW website. Board also approved signing on to two US Supreme Court amicus briefs, one on opposing an age verification law and one on public domain of a folklore character.

The Board Assistants Team assisted with Board turnover, continued work on the OTW website, and collaborated with Organizational Culture Roadmap towards their goals. Organizational Culture Roadmap is currently in the process of evaluating responses to a survey of volunteers about the OTW Code of Conduct.

Strategic Planning continues to prepare for the 2026-2029 Strategic Plan. They are currently exploring different tools to support them in running the next phase: prioritization.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for five committees this month: Fanlore, Open Doors, Policy & Abuse, Translation, and User Response Translation. Volunteers & Recruiting also finalized an update to the OTW Name Policy, which contains information on what OTW names are now permitted, under what name volunteer work may be credited publicly, how to request a reference letter if someone's OTW name is not their legal name, and more.

From September 25 to October 24, Volunteers & Recruiting received 145 new requests, and completed 140, leaving them with 54 open requests. As of October 24, 2025, the OTW has 983 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Board Directors), and Rachel Linton (Vice President)
New Committee Chairs/Leads: Kyrie (Support)
New AD&T Volunteers: marcus8448 and ömer faruk (Software Developers)
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 2 Development & Membership Volunteers
New Open Doors Volunteers: eviltothecore13 and 1 other Technical Volunteer
New Support Volunteers: V Snow (Chair Assistant)
New User Response Translation Volunteers: meat (Volunteer Coordinator)

Departing Directors: Jennifer Haynes (Director) and Kathryn Soderholm (Vice President role only)
Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Accessibility, Design, & Technology Chair
Departing AD&T Volunteers: 1 Software Developer and 1 Senior Volunteer
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: spacegandalf (Volunteer)
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Vihi (News Post Moderator)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Executie, Hazelwyrm, Jas, SCEnt Hope, Zoë Two Dots, and 4 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: heine and 1 other Translator
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Amy2 (Projects Volunteer) and Ehryn (Volunteer)

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, 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.

I. UPDATES TO AO3 COLLECTIONS

In late September, Accessibility, Design & Technology updated AO3's collections feature by introducing collections tags—allowing more granular filtering and browsing between collections. This update also generally improved collection performance, introduced the ability to mark collections as "Multifandom", and added Subcollections to the Collections filtering page.

For more details on recent AO3 releases and code changes, check out the most recent release notes.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Besides updates to Collections, AO3 committees also continued work in a variety of areas.

Open Doors finished importing My Mongoose, a The Sentinel ezine archive, and announced two new import projects: Faerie: Tolkien Fanfiction and Forging Ghost, a Spike/Angel archive.

Tag Wrangling continued their work on creating new "No Fandom" canonical tags and announced another batch of tags in mid-September. On the @ao3org Tumblr, Tag Wrangling also announced changes to Critical Role fandom tags in light of the upcoming Campaign 4. They hope these changes will help users in finding and filtering for the works they want to see.

In August, Policy & Abuse received 3,863 tickets, while Support received 4,319 tickets—the current record for the most tickets either committee has received in one month. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 579,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.

From mid-July to mid-September, User Response Translation helped Support and Policy & Abuse with 38 translation requests.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore's Stub September editing challenge was a big success! Thank you to everyone who took part. For October, Fanlore is currently running a book-themed month. Check out the Help page for how to take part and claim a book-themed badge!

TWC's Transformative Works and Cultures has released issue No. 46, a general issue! It includes the launch of a new special section, New Currents. This section collects articles on new topics or approaches at a smaller scale than a special issue. In this issue, New Currents focuses on how fans and fan studies scholars engage with AI as a tool for transformative engagement with fannish texts.

In September, Legal responded to a number of user queries; they also joined allies in filing an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in the case of Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment. The case deals with when internet service providers can be held responsible for the actions of their users.

Legal's brief discussed the importance of internet access as a practical necessity of daily life and argued that holding service providers liable for users’ copyright infringement based only on accusations of infringement, rather than actual proof of infringement, would threaten innovation and creativity by creating an incentive for service providers to deny service to creators without requiring evidence or providing due process. There is no date set yet for when the case will be argued before the Supreme Court.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections closed out the 2025 election—congratulations to the OTW's new Board Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg!

In preparation for October's membership drive, Development & Membership has been organizing new donation gifts, Finance has been compiling the pre-drive 2025 budget update, and Communications and Translation have prepared the associated news posts.

Board coordinated with Communication's Con Outreach division to attend EagleCon in Los Angeles, USA, and received the Lemonade award on the OTW's behalf. Elsewhere, the Board Assistants Team (BAT) continued work on OTW website updates, prepared for the quarterly Board meeting, and completed a report on non-profit training.

Organizational Culture Roadmap, in conjunction with BAT, Board, and Volunteers & Recruiting, continued work on the cross-committee review of the OTW's Code of Conduct. A survey was sent out to all volunteers soliciting their feedback for potential Code of Conduct updates.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

This month, Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for 3 committees: Fanlore, TWC, and Tag Wrangling.

From August 21 to September 24, Volunteers & Recruiting received 171 new requests and completed 174, leaving them with 46 open requests. As of September 24, 2025, the OTW has 991 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New BAT Volunteers: Cait B, Deimos Crow, MelMel, MustardPot, and Sullie Tosho (BAT Volunteers)
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Chair Assistants
New Development & Membership Volunteers: Kae Coolen, Maddie64, and Mako (Graphic Designers); Danielle G., jennybug, LizLeaf, and 2 other Development & Membership Volunteers
New Open Doors Volunteers: AuroraT, Kayla G, and vinnawis (Chair Assistants); and Julie Bozza (Senior FSHP Volunteer)
New Strategic Planning Volunteers: Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Cybersecurity Delegate)
New Systems Volunteers: E.V. Moebius (Systems Volunteer)
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Review Editor

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Board Assistants Team Chair
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Cybersecurity Delegate)
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Julie Bozza (Chair Assistant) and 1 Import Assistant
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Strategic Planning Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: SlantedKnitting (Support Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Mayrin, Yuechiang Luo, and 7 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Translation Volunteer Manager and 3 Translators

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, 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.

I. 2025 BOARD ELECTION

Elections successfully closed the 2025 OTW Board Director election. Congratulations to the OTW's new Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg! Elizabeth and Harlan will be replacing the seats of outgoing Board members Jennifer Haynes and Zixin Zhang.

Many committees collaborated on Board Election work, with Communications helping distribute announcements, Development & Membership coordinating with OTW members, and Translation making Elections material available in multiple languages.

Elections would like to thank all the candidates who ran, the volunteers from across the OTW who assisted Elections in their work, and everyone who engaged with the election by asking questions or turning out to vote.

Statistics from this year’s election were made available on September 1: out of 15,138 eligible voters, 2,197 cast a ballot, representing 14.5% of potential voters.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In August, AO3 celebrated both one million Mandarin Chinese works and nine million users. Thank you to everyone who's helped us reach these milestones!

Also in August, Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) deployed a couple releases that included bug fixes and security improvements, and Systems continued their routine tasks, such as improving performance and auditing Archive traffic for malicious bots. User Response Translation began completing ticket translation requests, and Open Doors announced the import of Faerie, a Tolkien fanfiction archive.

In July, Policy & Abuse received 3,570 tickets, while Support received 3,999 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled just over 636,000 tags, or over 1,400 per wrangling volunteer!

Elsewhere, Tag Wrangling coordinated with AD&T and announced changes to fandom tag policies for fangames and fanmade web series in a series of three posts on the @ao3org Tumblr. The first post outlined the general policy, while the second post focused on Undertale and the third post focused on Fangans from Dangan Ronpa. Lastly, Tag Wrangling also coordinated with Communications to announce 20 new "No Fandom" canonical tags on AO3 News.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Legal is continuing to answer user queries and monitor legal developments. Although there are many concerning legal developments around freedom of speech and expression online, they are not directly affecting AO3. Legal also dealt with some unauthorized app who’ve used OTW and AO3 trademarks in confusing ways.

Transformative Works and Cultures has two active calls for papers, both due by January 1, 2026. The first is a special issue on Latin American Fandoms, and the next is a special issue on Music Fandom.

Communications' Con Outreach division wrapped up Worldcon 2025 in Seattle, Washington, USA - thank you to everyone who tabled and who said hi to us! You can check out con goers' recommendations in the con's AO3 collection.

Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge, Stub September will run from September 14-28, and graphics will have an animals with swords theme. Check their Bluesky, Twitter/X and Tumblr for announcements.

IV. GOVERNANCE

In August, Board, Board Assistants Team (BAT), Organizational Culture Roadmap, and Volunteers & Recruiting began a cross-committee review of the OTW's Code of Conduct. This review aims to ensure the Code of Conduct still serves both the OTW as an organization as well as its many volunteers.

Elsewhere, Board collaborated with other committees on Crisis Communication Guidelines, began their biennial review of the Board Confidentiality Policy, had their quarterly check-in with Legal, and approved the 2024 Annual Report. Minutes from July's public Board meeting are now available on the OTW website. Board also started preparations for the upcoming Board turnover after receiving the 2025 OTW Board election results.

BAT continued work on several projects, including collaborations with the Organizational Culture Roadmap and a report on nonprofit training. Lastly, Strategic Planning continued work on their two-year progress report on the implementation of the current strategic plan.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In addition to the aforementioned Code of Conduct Review, Volunteers & Recruiting also began a project focused on workgroups, aiming to increase the OTW’s ability to support projects that might not fit within the purview of a single committee.

This month, Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees: BAT and Development & Membership.

From July 23 to August 20, Volunteers & Recruiting received 203 new requests, and completed 252, leaving them with 51 open requests. As of August 20, 2025, the OTW has 982 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: GrayIsNotEmo, KW Ukuku, Magda19, and 1 other TikTok Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: Becca Bun, Jules Moon, Tiff, Zoe Bird, and 2 other Social Media & Outreach Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Ain, embobem, Gail, Rissi, and 2 other Policy & Abuse Volunteers
New Support Volunteers: ChangYan, Clarice Strand, Jennifer Elliott, llianne, John Pork, Louie, Maycix, melon8, Mily, nayogn, Stevie, TinaOe, viewofsilence, Wtchmn23, Ziting, and 8 other Support Volunteers
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: amphob, Bec, Berix, Bettelort, bingus, Bismuth, bluejello, Clarissa, Daisya, dila, Draconic, Drakoshig, firstestly, genitus6, grexigone, Hazelwyrm, heliolatry, Jas, KD, Lace, Lau, Leo M, Leuconoen, Maris, Mary, Nerva, nekojoo, null_ice, Nyxia, Pandasaurio, pickledragon, radiance, Ravenna, rikka, RJ, Sabrina_Tangerina, sarkastic, Sayornis, SCEnt Hope, shrikes, Soyash, Talixa, Tea Huimyni, Thunder, twistingsands, Zee, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Ana Niccals, Bekyro, PerpetuallyPurple, and 2 other Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Communications Chair
Departing BAT Volunteers: 2 Board Assistant Team Volunteers
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Event Coordinator, 1 Media Outreach Volunteer, 1 Report Writer, and 2 TikTok Moderators
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Social Media & Outreach Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Esin and 9 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Janka (Translator)

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, 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.