Archive of Our Own

We're excited to announce that we're exiting open beta! We've come a long way from when we announced and launched AO3 open beta in 2009.

At launch, there were just 347 AO3 accounts and 6,598 works. While we started growing very quickly, we were originally much more limited in what we could do.

Did you know that AO3 invitations were originally sent out manually by individual AO3 volunteers? During our initial rapid growth, we were still only sending out about 1200 invitations per day, and eventually tapered off to 50 per day. Today, we send around 6,000 invitations every 12 hours. Our old news posts also include fun stats about what AO3's user base and works looked like in 2009, which you can compare to the stats post we recently shared in January to see how far we've come.

What's Changed Since Then

Since 2009, AO3 has grown and changed a lot. We've introduced many features over the years through the efforts of our volunteers and coding contributors, as well as the contractors we've been able to hire thanks to generous donations from our users. While there are a lot of additions we're proud of, some of our favorites include:

• Our tag system and tag wrangling
• Orphaning, which allows creators to disconnect works from their account or delete their account while leaving their works online
• Downloads that provide offline access to fanworks in AZW3, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, or HTML format
• Privacy settings for works that let creators restrict access to registered AO3 users and control who can leave comments
• Chapter-by-Chapter and Entire Work modes for multi-chapter works

Looking at where we are now in 2026, we recently celebrated 10 million registered users and 17 million fanworks! We're grateful for all the fans that have accompanied us all this time—all of our accomplishments are thanks to you!

Some recent improvements we've made include adding new options to bookmark and collections filtering and updating all of the buttons at the bottom of the forms for posting, previewing, or editing a work to make them more user-friendly.

What's Next for AO3 and How You Can Help

As the AO3 software has been stable for a long time, the change is mostly cosmetic and does not indicate that everything is finalized or perfectly working. Exiting beta doesn't mean we'll stop continuing to improve AO3—our volunteer coders and community contributors will still be working to add to and improve AO3 every day. For one, it’s likely you’ll continue to see references to us being in beta for a while as we update our documentation.

If you'd like to see what issues are being worked on, check out our project on Jira. This is a public list of all the bugs and features that are on the to-do list for our coders.

If you're familiar with coding and would like to contribute your time, we welcome contributions from anyone! Take a look at our Contributing Guidelines and other documentation on GitHub. All contributors are credited in our release notes.

If you're interested in helping AO3 but don't have any coding ability, consider volunteering for one of the other teams that work on AO3 or contributing to AO3 in some other way.

If you have a feature request or bug to report, please contact AO3 Support. Support handles communication between users and the various teams involved with AO3. The Support team helps to resolve technical problems experienced by users and passes on users' feedback to the relevant committees.

For all the fans who were part of our beta journey from 2009 until today, here's a badge for you, as a small thank you for your support! You're welcome to display this badge on social media, your AO3 profile, or any other website of your choosing. For example, if you want to display the badge in your AO3 profile, add this HTML tag: <img src="https://media.archiveofourown.org/news/ao3-updates/2026-04-leaving-beta/badge-english.png" alt="Circular badge with the words 'I was here for beta' with an AO3 logo"> into the "About Me" section in your profile. If you’d like more information on how to embed images, refer to our Posting and Editing FAQ or our guide on how to format HTML on AO3!

We are deeply appreciative and grateful for all the support we've gotten from fans since we were founded, so let us be the first to say: Welcome to Post-Beta AO3!

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.

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.

We provided an update on this work in 2023, acknowledging that progress had not been as fast as we had hoped, sharing details of the changes that had been made by that point, and laying out the road ahead.

Today we are delighted to share that we have fulfilled the last of the promises we made to you back in 2020. While we celebrate the hard work and dedication to improvement that has taken us to this point, we also regret that it has taken us five years to get here. We are sincerely grateful for all the support we've received from our users, members, and volunteers to complete this work, and we apologize that it has taken this long to do so.

This post lays out both the progress we've made and the specific ways our 2020 promises have been fulfilled, as well as what is coming next and how we will ensure that our work doesn't stop here.

What We've Done

Since our update in 2023, we have completed the following goals to help protect our users and volunteers against harassment:

1. Reviewed and updated the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS) and TOS FAQ. You can read more about this update in the news post announcing the TOS review as well as the accompanying review guide. For some key highlights, we:
   1. Simplified the language and removed redundancies throughout the TOS in order to improve readability for all users, including those who may have English as an Additional Language (EAL);
   2. Generalized the Abuse Policy to provide the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) with greater flexibility to determine how to address harassment and other TOS violations; and
   3. Reviewed the existing mandatory Archive warnings and considered new ones.
2. Improved admin tools, particularly for the Policy & Abuse committee so that they can more easily handle Abuse reports.
3. Implemented improvements to AO3 to help curate your Archive experience, including:
   1. Expanded blocking features to cover more situations, including preventing unsolicited gifts from blocked users and preventing kudos from users you've blocked.
   2. Further limiting how guest users can interact with you, such as stripping embedded images in guest comments and adding a preference to prevent guests from replying to your comments on other users' works and on news posts.
   3. Restarted the creation of "No Fandom" canonical additional tags to allow users to more easily filter in and filter out for concepts as they want. Read more about new canonicals in the Tag Wrangling news posts.
   4. Implemented collection tags and improved collection filters.
4. The Diversity Consultant Research Officer completed their internal review, engaged with contractors, and made a culture audit firm recommendation to the OTW Board in 2023.
1. Following that recommendation, the OTW contracted with an audit firm and underwent a months-long organizational culture audit that included interviews with volunteers at every level of the organization and in every committee.
2. The Board, working with the firm and OTW volunteers from several committees, created an Organizational Culture Roadmap of items that need to be addressed and changed to promote a healthier and safer OTW for all our volunteers.
3. To ensure the completion of these goals, we established the OTW Culture Roadmap Workgroup. This is an independent body from the Board so that this work is unaffected by Board turnover. This work remains ongoing and will continue long beyond this update.
5. Made multiple changes to the procedures of public Board meetings and Board communications generally, to improve transparency regarding Board work and OTW progress. This includes:
1. Implemented a new moderation system for public Board meetings, as of the November 2023 public meeting, allowing the Board to address questions raised during public meetings; since the July 2024 public meeting, started addressing questions submitted asynchronously from people who can’t attend the meeting live.
2. Implemented professional customer relationship management tools for Board work and Board email/communication.
3. Released bi-weekly internal updates regarding Board and BAT work to OTW volunteers.
6. Created two new committees and two new subcommittees to better support the completion of these goals and our long-term sustainability as an organization:
1. Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution: subcommittee responsible for addressing volunteer complaints and conflicts independent from involved committees.
2. News Post Moderation: subcommittee responsible for moderating comments on AO3 and OTW news posts, ensuring they abide by the OTW News Post Moderation Policy.
3. Board Assistants Team: committee assisting the OTW Board of Directors with administrative tasks and project management.
4. User Response Translation: committee responsible for addressing PAC and Support’s translation needs in specific high-need languages.
7. Completed and published a Whistleblower Protection Policy to outline and enshrine the protections for people who make reports about misconduct in the OTW.

What We're Doing

We know that creating a safer environment for our users and volunteers is an ongoing responsibility, and we remain deeply committed to addressing harassment with both urgency and care. While the steps outlined in our 2020 statement marked an important beginning, we recognise that true progress requires continuous effort beyond fulfilling those initial commitments. We are dedicated to building on that foundation with transparency, accountability, and compassion.

We are committed to and already continuing to work beyond our 2020 promises to ensure that this work does not end here. Some examples of our ongoing commitment include:

1. Completing the ongoing project to review the OTW Code of Conduct in full, bringing it into line with industry standards and updating it in collaboration with volunteer feedback;
2. Supporting the ongoing development and growth of the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee;
3. Working on the 2023-2026 Strategic Plan's Diversifying Spaces goals; and
4. Making AO3 more accessible for EAL users through our ongoing internationalization efforts. We've recently finished preparing all emails for translation and are continuing to work on other parts of the site.

Moving Forward

Looking forward to the future, we want to maintain our progress in this area and continue to improve transparency about changes within the OTW. We will make efforts to share information about updates like these in the monthly newsletter and our quarterly public Board meetings on Discord (you can also find updates from our quarterly meetings in our meeting minutes).

We appreciate your ongoing support and patience throughout these efforts, and we offer our sincerest apologies for the extended time required to fulfill our promises. Although progress has been slower than anticipated, we are very excited to share that our major goals are now complete and we are committed to continuing improvement into the future.

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.

In the last year, AO3 has seen a rise in "art commission" spambot comments. The bots leaving these comments pretend to be artists who want to make comics or illustrations for a fan's fic. After convincing their targets to contact them off AO3, they scam their targets into paying for that art. Fans have reported that after sending payment, they either received AI-generated art or nothing at all.

AO3 has been working on various methods that we hope will reduce the spam. However, these scammers are persistent and creative about circumventing our protections.

To avoid falling victim to one of these scams, the Policy & Abuse committee recommends:

1. Do not commission art from someone who solicits you by commenting on your work on AO3. Commercial activity is prohibited on AO3. If someone is encouraging behavior that violates our Terms of Service, it’s a good idea to be cautious. They likely do not have your best interests in mind.
2. Do not provide your email or social media contact information to a commenter who asks for it, even if they say they'd just like to discuss your work further. Scammers try to get you to talk to them privately, because it is often easier to deceive or manipulate people in a one-on-one conversation.

Example of this type of scam

This is just one example of how a scammer tries to lure the work creator onto a different platform where they can pressure the creator into commissioning art. These scammers use AI to generate realistic-sounding comments. The comments often contain generic praise or statements that could apply to any work, but sometimes they are extremely lengthy and/or specific. If the creator is suspicious and asks why the scammer wants to move the conversation off-site, they will typically claim that they aren't a scammer and/or that they can explain things better in private.

However, unlike a regular user, a scammer will always do at least one of two things:

1. They will ask you to commission art from them, or
2. They will share their contact information and/or ask for your information (such as an email address or username on a site that supports private messaging, like Instagram or Discord)

If you suspect that you've received a spam comment on your work, don't reply and especially do not provide them with your contact information. Just report the comment to Policy & Abuse so that we can take care of it.

What to do if you encounter this scam

If you receive a scam comment from a guest, you can press the "Spam" button on the comment. This helps train our automated spam-checker to better detect this type of behavior.

If you encounter a scammer that has a registered account, or if you encounter a guest posting scam comments on someone else's work, please report them to the Policy & Abuse committee. To do so:

1. Select the "Thread" button on the scammer's comment. This will take you to the specific comment page.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Policy Questions & Abuse Reports.
3. In the "Brief summary of Terms of Service violation" field, enter "Spambot".
4. In the "Description of the content you are reporting" field, enter "This is a spambot, their username is USERNAME."

Reporting in this fashion helps us auto-sort your report so that it can be handled as soon as a Policy & Abuse volunteer is available. To help us address reports about these types of bots as fast as possible, please only submit one report per account, and don't include multiple accounts in the same report.

If you encounter a scam commenter on someone else's work, you can let the work creator know the commenter is likely a bot and link them to this news post.

We also encourage you to share this post on social media and help spread the word about how to protect yourself from scammers and reduce spam on AO3.

This year, in recognition of World Password Day, we’re asking all fans to spend a few minutes ensuring that their passwords – and their AO3 accounts – are secure.

Recently, the Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) has seen an increasing number of users who have lost access to their AO3 accounts because they used an insecure password. We'd like to reassure our users that there is no indication that AO3 has experienced a data breach. PAC has been able to determine that all of the affected users' login information had been compromised in other ways, such as by accidentally downloading malware to their devices and/or by re-using the same password on AO3 that they had also used on a compromised website.

In early 2025, several large datasets were posted online, containing hundreds of millions of email/password pairs obtained from malware and compromised websites. It's common practice for scammers to test these compromised email/password pairs on other websites, in case the affected passwords were reused elsewhere. This allows the scammer to access accounts on websites that have never experienced a data breach, such as AO3. After gaining access to an account, the scammer may then change the account's email, password, and/or username, or sell the account information to other people.

AO3 is always free to use, but some people might not understand how to create their own AO3 account. There are many reasons for this, such as language barriers and unfamiliarity with our site. These people may purchase AO3 account information in the mistaken belief that AO3 accounts can be sold legitimately. They only discover they have been scammed once PAC re-acquires the account to give it back to the original owner.

PAC has been working diligently to identify compromised accounts and restore them to their original owners. We have also been working with the victims of the account-selling scam to help them create their own free AO3 accounts. Unfortunately, sometimes these victims, thinking the account they purchased legitimately belongs to them, may delete works or other content posted by the original account owner. While PAC can restore ownership of an account, we are unable to restore deleted content.

Ensure Your Password is Secure

You can reduce your vulnerability to this kind of incident by following internet security best practices:

• Set a unique, secure password for each and every one of your accounts on all platforms.
• Don't ever reuse passwords or share your passwords with anyone else for any reason.
• Use a password manager. This will help you to set unique, secure passwords for each of your accounts without worrying about forgetting them. Many browsers have a free, built-in password manager if you would prefer not to download third-party software.
• Keep your antivirus software and operating system up to date, and set them to scan for malware regularly.
• Check the website haveibeenpwned.com to see if your emails, passwords, and other information may have been exposed in data breaches. Change your passwords for any breached websites and any accounts on other sites where you may have used the same password.

If you are ever worried that your AO3 account is at risk of being compromised, you should do the following:

• Change your password immediately. This will automatically log you – and anyone else accessing your account – out of all sessions on all devices.
  • If you’ve forgotten your password, but you have access to the email address currently associated with your AO3 account, you can log out and reset your password instead.
  • If you’ve forgotten your password, and you no longer have access to the email address you used for your account, please contact Support.
• Make sure the email address associated with your AO3 account is one that you check regularly, as this is where all notifications about your account will be sent. If you need to update your email address, please refer to our FAQ about changing your email.

If you've received an email from @archiveofourown.org saying that the email associated with your account has been changed to one you don’t recognize, and you can't log in to your account, please contact Policy & Abuse. PAC treats compromised accounts as a matter of high priority, and will work with you via email to restore your account. If it's been over a week and you have not heard back from a PAC volunteer about the status of your account, check your email (including any spam, social, or other folders) before replying to our email or submitting a new Abuse report.

Again, we emphasize that there has not been any breach of AO3's servers. We are also developing and implementing additional measures to help prevent unauthorized access to AO3 accounts. However, your account is only as secure as your password and email. We encourage all users to take a few minutes today to ensure that your AO3 password is unique and your email address is up to date.

With approximately 7 million registered users on AO3 and thousands of OTW members, news posts get more engagement than ever. We love when users express their thoughts or concerns regarding the news we publish! However, the comment sections on some of our previous news posts have not been a welcoming or safe space for engagement.

In recent months, we have developed a News Post Moderation policy and recruited a team of volunteers who you may see commenting on posts in the future. We would like to announce the key points of the policies our News Post Moderators will be following when monitoring the comment sections of our News Posts.

Comments on news posts may be frozen or hidden by a News Post Moderator if they contain:

• Spam or unsolicited advertising
• Content about topics outside of fans, fandom, and Internet policy, and which would not fall under the purview of the OTW
• Misinformation (particularly about the OTW) with the potential to harm or mislead others
• Explicit/graphic sexual or violent language
• Attempts to draw negative attention to a specific individual or fanwork
• Insults and personal attacks towards other users
• Inflammatory or speculative language that may result in harassment
• Violations of the site's Terms of Service

Please note that the above is not an exhaustive list of all comments that may be actioned.

In addition, any comments on AO3 News Posts that violate the Terms of Service may be reported to the Policy & Abuse committee.

OTW volunteers will respond to comments using an Official OTW committee account to clarify points of confusion or engage with user feedback. Comments from Official accounts will be clearly marked on AO3 with a bolded (Official) after the username, and on the OTW website with a signature identifying the relevant OTW committee or team. For example, comments from News Post Moderators will use the "OTW_News_Post_Moderation (Official)" account on AO3. On the OTW website, they'll be signed with their name followed by "OTW News Post Moderator".

If an OTW volunteer comments on a news post using a personal account, that volunteer is not acting in an official capacity. Such comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW, nor do they constitute OTW policy.

We hope that our users will welcome this policy announcement and find that it improves their experience on the AO3 and OTW websites.

UPDATE: Due to a high number of off topic comments, comment moderation has been turned on. All comments now must be approved by a moderator before becoming visible. If you have any questions about this policy, please contact the News Post Moderation team directly using our contact form on the OTW 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.

Although OTW News can be accessed through various social media platforms, today we'd like to announce an additional option. You can now subscribe to get OTW News delivered to your Inbox. This service is being offered both for reader convenience as well as a workaround for issues fans experience, such as the inability to add links to Instagram posts, missing news posts due to algorithm shenanigans or busy days, or not using the social media sites we post to (or any social media at all).

The OTW News by Email service is free and available in multiple languages. There is further information at the link, but please also review the following:

1. Not all OTW News gets translated, and even when posts are translated, they may not be available in every language. If you want to receive a copy of all news posts each month, please choose English in addition to your preferred language(s).
2. Including English, there are 16 languages currently available and it is possible more will be added in the future. We will announce this in the OTW Newsletter should this happen.
3. There are three types of delivery options. By default everyone will be signed up for emergency messages (although you can uncheck that option before subscribing).
4. On average, English language OTW News posts go out 3 times each week. If you would prefer fewer emails in your inbox, choose the Digest option which will email you once at the end of each month with blurbs and links to all that month's posts.
5. If you are subscribed to Individual News Posts, you should receive posts for each language you chose within a few hours of the post going public. Timing for each language post may vary depending on the order in which they were posted.

Should you have problems with the subscription process, please check the following:

1. After you chose your subscription options and clicked on subscribe, did you receive an email to verify your address? (Note: you will be redirected to a webpage once you subscribe, but the button there will not confirm your subscription.) To start getting messages you must click on the link in the email sent to you.
2. Did you receive a confirmation email after you verified your address? If not you may want to try subscribing again.
3. If it's been several hours since a post went out and, despite being subscribed to Individual News Posts you have not received a copy, check your spam folder. Or, if you use Gmail, your Social folder. Make sure to mark our emails as Not Spam.
4. Have you been receiving messages in your Inbox but now they're ending up in spam? Be sure to open an email regularly, even if you don't read it. Many email services respond to your behavior and will assume a sender is spamming you if you receive emails from a certain address often but never open them.

If you have made the above checks and are still having an issue, you can contact the Communications Committee for help in troubleshooting your news delivery.

If you like the OTW News by Email service, please let other fans know it's an option for them to keep up with OTW activities and topics!

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 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.

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.

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!

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.]

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!

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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!

(select image to enlarge)

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During last October's membership drive, we announced we were working on a new way to celebrate the OTW's most loyal supporters. We're now happy to share with you the new exclusive gifts we have designed to commemorate three, five, and ten years of consecutive membership!

Everyone who has been a member for at least the past 3 years by the end of 2020 is now eligible to receive a brand new OTW bookmark designed specially for the occasion:

(select image to enlarge)

For our five-year members, we have prepared a lovely sticker that can go on a range of surfaces, from water bottles to laptops. If you have been a member for five years, you are eligible to receive both the sticker and the bookmark!

(select image to enlarge)

And lastly, to mark ten years of membership, we have a magnet perfect for your fridge or any metal cabinet. Of course, anyone who's been a member this long can receive all three new gifts at once!

(select image to enlarge)

We will start shipping these gifts to everyone who was eligible at the end of 2020 at the beginning of next year, and then once a year after that. To receive your gifts, all you have to do is confirm your address! Whenever you're eligible for a gift, we'll send you an email asking you to confirm your mailing information, so please keep an eye on your inbox! (Note that if you have opted out from receiving emails from the OTW, you might not receive this email and your gift. Please contact Development and Membership if you have any questions.)

The OTW's work is made possible by your donations, and we deeply appreciate all of our members, no matter if you donated one single time, or have been supporting us since the beginning. If you would like to become a member, all you have to do is select the membership option when you make a donation of USD$10 or more. Besides celebratory gifts to show our appreciation, OTW membership also makes you eligible to vote on elections for the OTW Board of Directors! If you aren't sure how long you've been a member or have any other questions, please contact Development and Membership.

During 2020, the OTW Finance team has continued to review the organization's financial transactions for accuracy and completeness. Additional tasks have included paying the bills, completing the audit of the 2019 financials, and ensuring that standard accounting procedures were met.

In the meantime, the team has also been diligently working on the update to the 2020 budget, and are proud to present it here! (access the 2020 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2020 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$76,703.46 spent so far out of US$383,327.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• 68.2% of the OTW's expenses go toward maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year, US$18,000 in contractor costs have been spent on separating AO3 administrative roles in the background to make volunteer work more efficient. Other budgeted AO3 expenses include an additional US$100,000.00 in contractor costs for work on moving AO3 collection searching to Elasticsearch and upgrading to Rails 6.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include the purchase of frontend servers, database servers, and VM servers for roughly US$147,000.00. The new database servers will expand the ability of our infrastructure to store works for AO3 and also increase the number of pages served to users. The old servers will be repurposed as application servers, which generate site pages.
• Also planned is the installation of a third server rack later in the year to give AO3 (and OTW websites) more power capacity and reduce the impact of server failures. Adding this rack will involve setup costs of roughly US$8,000.00, and will increase our monthly server costs by US$2,200.00
• Other budgeted costs include US$33,000.00 for a Systems contractor, who will do some work for various OTW projects, including AO3.

Fanlore

• US$2,527.97 spent so far out of US$13,659.57 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchases, maintenance, and colocation costs, in addition to Fanlore's web domain renewals (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$331.00 spent so far out of US$1,831.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, and publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$364.01 spent so far out of US$927.78 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Legal's budgeted expenses consist of filing fees (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100.00 for printing flyers and US$400.00 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$44,771.92 spent so far out of US$107,248.20 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with current and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$10,475.36 spent so far out of US$52,404.14 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2020 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 71% of our income in 2020. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in the past several drives, we are planning to transfer an additional US$150,000 into our reserves, to be kept in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we are exploring alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. We have made progress in a search for a suitable investment method and investment specialist for a small nonprofit organization like the OTW; we aim to fully set up a low-risk, conservative investment portfolio by the end of 2021.
• Your generosity during the April 2020 drive especially has left the OTW with the ability to begin planning for the fiscal feasibility of large scale projects. We look forward to sharing these with you once we figure out the legal and practical logistics!
• We also received our first restricted donation: US$5,161.62 from HP Education Fanon, Inc., a fellow 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to promoting the benefits of reading that sadly ceased operations in 2018. The donation will go toward supporting Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fan vidding for the University of Michigan Press, which is currently in production. The money will be used to pay for the University of Michigan to host the fanvids referenced in the book, as well as assist in making the book free for everyone to read and use.
• US$665,975.09 received so far (as of July 31, 2020) and US$754,362.62 total projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 10 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

To download the OTW's 2020 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

In recent weeks, there have been intense conversations about long-standing issues with racism in fandom, as well as the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) and Archive of Our Own (AO3)'s roles in this problem. We have received valid criticism for not showing our commitment earlier and numerous requests to clarify our position. We would therefore like to take a moment to address our users and fandom at large.

The OTW stands against racism and discrimination in all its forms. We apologize to anyone who has suffered from our inaction in making the OTW and AO3 a better environment for Black fans and fans of color. And we apologize especially to users who, due to this very inaction, have felt unwelcome on AO3. We also apologize to the scholars whose work we cited out of context, leading to their harassment and distress.

We have heard your voices and feedback; we vow to do better in the future, as outlined in our initial response plan below.

Upcoming AO3 changes

AO3 was designed specifically with maximum inclusivity of content in mind, and we remain committed to that principle. When it comes to which fanworks are allowed on AO3, there will always be significant tension between maximum inclusivity of content and making the Archive a welcoming space for all fans.

We can, however, do a better job of helping users curate their own experience on AO3 and avoid works they do not wish to see. We can also implement more tools to prevent and combat harassment. In the coming months, we plan to prioritize our ongoing work on several changes to give users greater control of their AO3 experience:

• Providing work creators more control over comments on their works by offering the ability to freeze specific comment threads or turn off comments entirely. The option to turn off comments will be on the posting and editing forms for individual works and on the Edit Multiple Works page, alongside the existing options to turn off guest comments and/or turn on comment moderation.
• Improving collection searching and filtering to make searching collections by fandom return collections that include bookmarks in the specified fandom. This will help users build and locate curated spaces within AO3 using the collections feature.
• Improving admin tools behind the scenes to facilitate investigations by our Policy & Abuse team.
• Reviewing our Terms of Service and potentially drafting revisions that will allow our Policy & Abuse team to address different types of harassment not covered under the current Terms of Service.
• Reassessing current warnings and discussing the possibility of implementing others in the future. This is an extremely complex issue in terms of definition, implementation, and sustainable enforcement. It is not one that will be quickly or easily addressed, but we are discussing all possibilities in detail.
• We will also continue our design work on additional features like user muting and blocking and explore other possibilities like saved searches to filter out certain works, tag muting, or taking user-added bookmark tags into account with filtering.

The above list is by no means comprehensive—we are committed to continuing to develop features that will improve our users' experience of the Archive and put them in control.

Upcoming OTW changes

Ongoing conversations have brought to light a need for us to reconsider the way we recognize and deal with issues that some of our volunteers may experience. To ensure that all voices are heard, we have opened new channels to allow for more open, honest feedback from our volunteers, and will use this feedback to identify areas in which the OTW most urgently needs to do better.

From this, we hope to build a long-term strategy that will include specific internal goals and structural improvements, which can be further divided into clear, actionable steps that we can incorporate into our upcoming Strategic Plan. As part of this, we will be considering various avenues including, but not limited to, reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group, and will be actively researching credible resources in the coming months.

We recognize that this careful approach will take time as we need to make sure any steps are taken responsibly and with a clear scope and objective, while also keeping up with the other duties and obligations of OTW governance. However, we believe that it is an important step to take in creating a stronger OTW for all.

Next steps

We realize that these issues and ideas are not new. We have heard these criticisms before and failed to meet many fans' expectations. We also understand that these measures are only small steps. Unfortunately, this is a complex issue with no easy answers and no simple solutions. This means that it isn't something we can fix with funding alone. We must be mindful when implementing any features or policies to consider their ramifications carefully, so that changes do not end up compounding existing problems.

Even in cases where we can't meet particular requests due to practical considerations, we will listen and consider them, and assess whether we can accomplish the same goals via other means.

We once again apologize for our shortcomings and remain, as always, open to hearing from you. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to all those who have taken the time to discuss this issue and contact us about it, and we welcome all feedback, now and always. The OTW is made by fans for fans, and we are always open to hearing fans' thoughts on what we're doing and how we could do better.

The OTW Board of Directors
OTW Chairs & Leads

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

As you may already know, we've been busy here at the OTW over the last few months: usage of AO3 has risen significantly since much of the world went into lockdown (you can learn more about it in this stats post). With that in mind, it's not surprising that we've hit our next major milestone. Yes, that's right! We now host six million fanworks on the Archive of Our Own!

The AO3 launched in November 2009. It took 54 months - or four and a half years - before we reached the first million fanworks, in February 2014. The gaps between the milestones have been decreasing ever since; we hit two million in December 2015 (22 months), three million in April 2017 (16 months), four million in July 2018 (15 months), and five million in July 2019 (12 months). And now here we are just 10 months after that, celebrating our six millionth fanwork. Any bets on when we'll reach seven million?!

Six million is a huge number - so big that it's hard to conceptualise. But every individual fanwork is the product of somebody's time, thought, and imagination. We're so grateful to all of you, the fan creators and fanworks consumers who continue to make the Archive such a lively, enjoyable community. And if you'd like to celebrate by recommending one (or six!) of your favourite fanworks in the comments, we'd love to hear about them!

The Organization for Transformative Works is staffed by volunteers located around the world. We work from home, in libraries and coffee shops, and even during downtime in our other jobs. This means that, as more and more of us need to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, how we work won’t actually change much, but our time commitments will. Some of us will have extra time to devote to the OTW and will get more done than we ever anticipated. Others will have family or personal commitments that will cut down on the amount of time we can donate to keep things running smoothly. And some of us may need to spend more time enjoying AO3's vast collection of fanworks and less on building its infrastructure for the sake of our mental health. Please keep this in mind if you experience delays in responses when reaching out to us.

In the meantime, consider exploring our projects. Discover a new fandom on AO3, and record your fannish experiences on Fanlore. Learn about how to save and protect fanworks and fan history with Open Doors and Legal Advocacy. Go down a research hole with Transformative Works and Cultures, and connect with other researchers through Fanhackers.

Times may be a little distressing right now, but we can get through this together. Keep creating. Keep researching and recording. Keep leaving comments and kudos. And above all else, please, stay safe.

And if you have time to share a few recs, please do! We could all use some amazing fanworks to get us through the day.

Note: Due to the potential dangers of misinformation on this topic, we reserve the right to remove comments containing non-factual statements about COVID-19.

We're making a few behind-the-scenes changes to kudos to make sure the Archive can continue to handle the tremendous number of them (659 million and counting!) that users and guests have left over the years. Kudos will continue to work the same, but there will be a new check in the database to make extra certain duplicate kudos can't be left. This will result in a one-time drop in kudos on works that already have duplicates.

Previously, we relied on the kudos code to make sure a single user or guest could only leave kudos on a given work one time. This worked just fine in most cases, but sometimes a slow connection or quick double press of the kudos button could lead to multiple kudos being recorded.

We'll be adding a constraint at the database level that should prevent this from happening. However, this change will also make any existing duplicates invalid and remove them from the database. This means that if you have received multiple kudos from the same user or guest on one of your works, your kudos total will go down when we deploy this change. For example, if your work has three kudos from the same user, the total number of kudos on the work will drop by two.

We plan to make our changes on Monday, March 16, and we expect some brief downtime at the end. We can't predict for certain what time it will be, but we will do our best to give a heads up on the @AO3_Status Twitter before it happens.