Releases 0.9.462 - 0.9.468: Change Log

Our releases in March included a slew of collection, bookmark, and history bug fixes, as well as several improvements for site admins.

Special thanks to first-time contributors charliewhiskee, Dobe, goose, Lubczi, Marianna, mellowmarsach, Nathan Cunningham, nghz, Oyon Ganguli (0ce10tsgit), and Xiang Rassul Li!

Credits

• Coders: Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, charliewhiskee, Cubostar, Daniel Haven, Danaël / Rever, Dobe, EchoEkhi, FlyingFalcon, goose, Lubczi, Mae Light, Marianna, mellowmarsach, Nathan Cunningham, nghz, ömer faruk, Oyon Ganguli (0ce10tsgit), Richard Hajek, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, varram, Yi Fang, Xiang Rassul Li
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Daniel Haven, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, slavalamp
• Testers: Berix, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, EchoEkhi, hvalrann, Lute, lydia-theda, marcus8448, pk2317, therealmorticia, Ven, wichard

Details

0.9.462

On March 2, we deployed a patch for the gem we use to manage authentication (to address a performance issue related to the March 2026 Downtime).

• [AO3-7306] - Devise patch to prevent an excessive amount of strain on the database.

0.9.463

Our March 6 deploy included a few gem updates.

• [AO3-6916] - Migrated from Gitpod/Ona to devcontainers for our development needs, as Gitpod was no longer suitable.
• [AO3-7271] - Updated which data is included when comments are sent to our spam checker for evaluation.
• [AO3-7305] - We updated the internationalization of some emails based on feedback from translators.
• [AO3-7227], [AO3-7304], [AO3-7308] - Code cleanup and gem updates.

0.9.464

On March 12, we released a whole bunch of bug fixes.

• [AO3-6359] - In some rare cases it was possible to delete the pseud that corresponds with your username. We fixed this edge case.
• [AO3-6688] - In order to prevent tragic accidents, we've made it harder to delete your entire History. Instead of a small "Are you sure?" popup, you are now directed to a confirmation page that requires another button click.
• [AO3-7214], [AO3-7215] - On a page with several bookmarks, closing and opening the "Edit" or "Save" functions on several bookmarks would get the popup form all confused which bookmark you wanted to edit or save. Or, in some cases, the buttons would just disappear on you! We've now sorted out the underlying JavaScript to let you save, or indeed edit, the bookmark you clicked on last.
• [AO3-7273] - When an account is banned for posting spam, we now also automatically delete all its profile contents, including any icons and alt text.
• [AO3-7285] - The user ID was missing from a page accessible to Policy & Abuse volunteers; we've added it now.
• [AO3-7290] - When you access AO3 without being logged in, you might be able to scroll down the page a bit, but then a popup will inevitably ask you to agree to our Terms of Service before you can continue. We now take you back to your scroll position once you click the button.
• [AO3-7314] - We've fixed the draft deletion to make sure it adheres to the correct deletion dates even for drafts created in the short month of February.
• [AO3-5683] - We fixed some security warnings pointed out by the helpful Brakeman tool.
• [AO3-7302] - We changed the code for displaying work meta-information so it accesses the work in one unified way.

0.9.465

On March 18, we released a bunch of bookmark, admin, and accessibility fixes.

• [AO3-5937] - On some pages, the "Save" button on bookmarks was visible to logged-out users, not that clicking it would do anything. Now it's only there when you're logged into your account.
• [AO3-6203] - On tag pages, we display a list of tags associated with the one you're browsing, e.g. the characters or relationships for a fandom (with a limit of 300 tags per type). For large fandoms, for example, that would put a considerable strain on the database. We have now moved to getting this data from our search engine, so retrieving the associated tags doesn't hammer the database servers anymore.
• [AO3-7030] - When we introduced Archive skins, we envisioned a system where users could create custom CSS to change the appearance of AO3, and then apply to make the code available to other users with a button click. This was never a sustainable idea, so we've been working on phasing it out. Now only official accounts, e.g. those belonging to the AO3 development team, can apply to have their skin reviewed for general usage. (All users can still create skins for themselves and make the code available in other ways, e.g. on GitHub or Tumblr or as a fanwork on AO3.)
• [AO3-7131] - The text used by screen readers to announce a help link was confusing, reading out the question mark we use to indicate the availability of the help popup. We've cleaned up the way we generate the text, which should be easier to follow now.
• [AO3-7256] - We've added a limit to how many times a specific bookmark can be submitted to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
• [AO3-7272] - When accessing a comment via the "Reply to this comment" link, some buttons would be gone for site admins or logged-out users that they'd normally be able to use, e.g. if viewing a single comment thread. Now the buttons are always there!
• [AO3-7303] - On your Statistics page, the tool-tip you get when hovering over a graph would flicker if it popped up right under your cursor. That's fixed now, so it should be easier to read.
• [AO3-7317], [AO3-7318] - We removed an incorrect ARIA attribute from some HTML.
• [AO3-7319] - If a site admin bans an account for posting spam, they are now redirected to the admin dashboard for that account (after the successful deletion of all the spam).
• [AO3-7335] - We fixed that running all the tests in one sitting would leave extra files and models behind.

0.9.466

We upgraded to Rails 8.1 on March 20.

• [AO3-7328] - We updated Rails, the framework the AO3 runs on, to the next major version.
• [AO3-7346] - Updated a gem used by our search engine to address a security issue.

0.9.467

For our penultimate March release, we deployed several display fixes and small site improvements on March 25.

• [AO3-5866] - The links to work creators in our RSS feeds were broken; now they're fixed!
• [AO3-6138] - Leaving kudos on a work with JavaScript disabled would previously knock you back to the top of the page. You can now see the success message (or the friendly hint that you've already left kudos) without having to scroll down to it.
• [AO3-6385] - On the page displaying all prompts in a prompt meme, or all requests in a gift exchange, the page content would overlap the sorting buttons at the top if viewed on a small screen. Now everything looks tidy.
• [AO3-6498] - To assist in abuse cases involving our gifting feature, members of the Policy & Abuse team can now access a user's refused gifts page.
• [AO3-7059] - We will now display a warning message if the password you're using to log into AO3 was found in a data breach documented on HaveIBeenPwned.
• [AO3-7255] - We've added a limit to how many times a specific series can be submitted to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
• [AO3-7268] - If you try to navigate to the inbox for a nonexistent user, you will now get an Error 404, since, like the user, the inbox does not exist.
• [AO3-7280] - Creating a multi-chapter draft and then hitting "Post" on the first chapter would indeed post that chapter, but treat the work as a whole still as a draft. It now publishes the work, with the first chapter, leaving any other chapters alone so you can post them later.
• [AO3-7315] - Members of the Policy & Abuse team can now edit and save a work's tags, e.g. to change the selected language, even if it has more than 75 tags. (As a regular user, you'd be prompted to remove tags from your work until you're below the limit.)
• [AO3-7323] - We updated the introductory text on our homepage.
• [AO3-7352] - Our previous fix making help text links more accessible for screen readers unfortunately prevented some content in work blurbs (e.g. warnings and ratings) from being read out loud. This has now been fixed!
• [AO3-7329], [AO3-7330] - Your History page and the page listing your blocked users now have your username in the browser's page title, as they always should have.
• [AO3-6906] - Updating the autocomplete for users and pseuds no longer depends on an unmaintained library!
• [AO3-7120] - In the rare case that the admin search results for a user are outdated, admins can now manually mark the search to be updated.
• [AO3-7338] - We recently changed how we cache bylines, and now all that new code is organized neatly in its own file.
• [AO3-7354] - We updated Rails to 8.1.2.1 for some security fixes.

0.9.468

On March 31, we deployed another batch of miscellaneous fixes and performance improvements.

• [AO3-6998] - Trying to search all signups in a gift exchange by pseud would cause an Error 500; now it returns the signup you were looking for!
• [AO3-7062] - AO3 site admins can now view all work blurbs on a user's "Works in Collections" page.
• [AO3-7223] - We prepared the help pop-ups on the Preferences page for translation.
• [AO3-7284] - When we rebuild our Elasticsearch indexes, we batch multiple objects together into one reindexing operation. We can now easily configure how large those batches are.
• [AO3-7292] - On the page for managing wranglers assigned to fandoms, the button to remove a wrangler only had a small clickable area around the X. Now the whole button does what it's supposed to do.
• [AO3-7311] - When a collection's settings were changed, e.g. from moderated to unmoderated, that information wasn't fully reflected everywhere. Now we make sure that listings and search results are updated immediately.
• [AO3-7321] - If you subscribe to a work that is then added to an unrevealed collection, we now display a "Mystery Work" placeholder on your subscriptions page until and unless the work is revealed again.
• [AO3-7332] - The page listing your muted users now has your username in the browser's page title!
• [AO3-7341] - If old jobs are still running on the development environment when a coder pushes changes to their branch of the Archive software, those jobs will now be stopped to save resources.
• [AO3-7347] - We cleaned up an unused method related to prompts.
• [AO3-7350] - We improved the performance of the History page by reducing the number of queries required to show each page.