Archive of Our Own ^beta

The day is finally here - after much hard work from our coders and testers, we are ready to roll out our exciting new code on the Archive of Our Own! We will be deploying shortly, and the AO3 will go down for a while while we do so. When we come back, there will be some big changes which you need to know about:

New site scheme

Front-end coder lim, working with back-end coder Naomi, has reworked our site HTML and CSS to make it more accessible, more functional, and all-round nicer. So, you'll see some visual changes across the site (and if you're using assistive technology or special browser settings you should find it behaves better - if not, please tell us). Don't be alarmed if things don't look how you're used to!

New skins

The new CSS has allowed us to massively overhaul our skins functionality to make it way more flexible - check out our post about the new skins for a bit more background. This will allow for a lot more cool site mods in the future! The unfortunate side-effect is that old skins will break. To make the transition smoother, we'll be doing the following:

• Disabling all old skins and setting all accounts to use the Archive default, so that noone gets stuck on a broken skin.
• Loading up a whole bunch of new skins, including new versions based on the most popular public skins in use at the moment. So, many of you will be able to switch immediately to a new skin which replicates the one you were using before. We'll post a list of the new skins right after the deploy.
• Holding an open house for skins support in the next week or so (time tba).

We'll be posting more docs and help over the coming hours and days! There may be the odd bit of unexpected behaviour along the way (with skins especially, the diversity of user-created skins means we can't prepare for every possible scenario) but we think the new functionality will give you much much more awesome! Cinderella is getting her ballgown on and the good news is that for the shiny new skins, midnight will never come!

We'll tweet to AO3_status when we start the deploy, so you'll have a heads-up before the site goes down. Download your long works now to tide you over while our fairy deploymother is working her magic!

As part of our series giving an insight into what goes on behind the scenes at the Archive of Our Own, Support staffer Sam has written up a day in the life of an AO3 Support staffer! Sam started out volunteering with the AO3 as a tag wrangler, and joined the Support team at the beginning of the July Ticket Blitz. He has degrees in journalism, English literature, and cognitive and discourse linguistics. He's taught skills-based computer classes for near a decade, so Support was a natural fit. Sam tends to jump on tickets involving CSS code and the skins; downloads, especially ePUBs; and all things Tag, as he's currently the liaison (read: troublemaker) between Support and Tag Wrangling.

By and large, Support is all about answering all the tickets that come in. To do this involves a whole lot of trying to break the Archive in new and creative ways, keeping a light eye on what the Coders are up to under the hood, and generally trying to divine what the users need and want.

There are a whole bunch of resources we use to do so (some of these resources are only accessible to staffers - we've linked the public ones):

• 16bugs - This is our main ticket tracker where we keep information on each ticket that comes in, and any communication with the user or other committees. This will soon (hopefully) be replaced with the Support Board.


• Campfire - The chat interface all AO3 committees use. Support has its own room where we'll request betas and comment on tickets, life, and fic; and we're often lurking in the Coders room, checking for surprise!bugs and fixes.
• Both the "Beta" Archive (the real one) and the Test Archive (where we test new code) - Sometimes we have to track down to see what a reported bug is doing and possibly see if it's already been fixed on the next release.
• The wiki "Knowledge Base" - One of our Support reps has been collating the answers to commonly answered questions into a massive internal reference source. This is awesome, because it helps ensure that knowledge gets passed on and we don't have to duplicate work.
• Google code otwarchive issues - The list of things-to-do for the Coders, to see if a bug is known or a feature planned (and occasionally provide all the information).
• Squee! - This internal squee page is where we keep all records that we're doing something right (700+ and counting). It helps us track what's working and also provides a nice place for people to go when they need a boost!

I pop open my email to see if anyone sent beta requests to the list or if any tickets have come in. (Most responses to users are beta-read by a second support member, for accuracy, clarity, and something resembling UK/US/CA/AU English.) I'll also log into Campfire and check the Support room, since several staff will leave their beta requests in there.

Both 16bugs and the Support form send an email to each Support staff when a ticket comes in. I tend to not read the emails themselves, but use them as a sign to go check 16bugs and see what new tickets are there.

Certain tickets we immediately assign to another committee (Legal, Abuse, Tag Wranglers) and wait for a response from that committee before contacting the user. Some committees will contact the user directly, some don't.

Since every ticket is different, I'm going to give examples of two recent tickets. (All confidential details are removed, but hi, users, if you recognize your questions!)

A ticket comes in from a user asking about a problem logging in with hir OpenID. I open the ticket in 16Bugs, and in the ticket set my name for "Assigned to" and "Status" to "Solving".

I've heard some talk about the discontinuance of OpenID, so I poke my head into the Coders chatroom in Campfire and ask if anyone has more specific information. I luck out and one of our Coders knows of two open code tickets regarding OpenID, which saves me the time. I open the tickets in GCode and skim them, seeing the current development status for OpenID (we're planning to phase it out).

To make sure the code is still working as intended, I use my own account as a guinea pig, setting up my own OpenID login, logging out and testing it. It all works, so I assume that the problem comes from improper configuration. I step back through the process involved and make detailed notes to set up OpenID. I add those to our Knowledge Base on the wiki so next time we have a question like this, the info is easy to find.

I then compose a reply to the user as a comment to the ticket in 16bugs. I also copy in the links to the GCode tickets into 16bugs for reference. After coming up with the response, I poke my head into Support chat in Campfire. Fortunately, one of the other Support staffers is on, so I ask hir to beta my response. Sie reads it over, we discuss and revise a few lines, and sie comments in the thread that it looks good. I copy the response from 16bugs.

In my email, already set to forward through the official email, I search and find the ticket email that came in and reply to it, using the copied text from 16bugs.

After sending the email, in 16bugs I set the status to "Solved". If the user responds, I can find the ticket in 16Bugs and reopen it as needed. When the user responds that sie doesn't actually have an account, I send back a betaed response on how to get an invite, either through the queue or through a friend.

Another ticket has come in regarding a tag that's misfiled - in this case, a fictional football team that has somehow been wrangled into the "Football RPF" fandom. Since this relates to wrangling policy, I'll mark the ticket to watch it and assign it to the "Tag Wranglers" and wait for a response from one of the Wrangling committee members before I send a response to the user. In this case, it's an easy fix by the wranglers, and I'm able to quickly notify the user that the tag has been re-wrangled.

There. My two tickets for the day - with the new influx of staff we've had, and a fairly slow inflow of tickets lately, sometimes I don't even get the option to do that many! (However, different times of year or new lots of code can produce a sudden uptick, so we take the rest while we can!)

Sometimes tickets aren't nearly as straightforward. Sometimes it takes time to track down the bug - while I'm doing so, I'll set the status to "Testing". If the response requests additional information from the user, I'll leave it as "Solving" until I can get a response from the user. If I find other bugs in 16Bugs or code issues in GCode, I'll leave links in the comment leading to them, as well as leave links to the active ticket elsewhere. If the ticket contains a feature request, I'll make a note on our wiki's Feature Requests page and if it continues praise, I make a note on the Squee page.

Let it be said: us Support minions are human. There are tickets that have us staring at our monitors in awe, wondering "how did they do that?" There are tickets where we realize we've answered the same thing frequently, and therefore need better documentation and/or to prioritize a bug fix. There are times that we look at a ticket and mentally draw straws about who gets to tell the Coders that the recently-fixed feature isn't so fixed.

All that said? It's all worth it. It's worth it, helping the users better interact with the Archive. It's worth it, seeing the feature requests and ideas. It's worth it, feeling like I'm contributing to the development of the Archive. It's worth it.

I've now knocked out a couple tickets, updated a page on the wiki, updated a bug on GCode, and tripped over a work I want to read. Never let it be said I can't take a sign! Off to read!

The good news!

Shed your skin! We're about to have a massive deploy of new code that will bring us - among other things - radically new skins! The underlying code for the Archive has been streamlined and modified to make it more accessible and maintainable, and much easier to override. This is going to allow for fantastically beautiful and awesome customizable looks for the archive; fanartists, prepare to go wild! As a bonus, we've also added some skins options for logged-out users (you'll find these in the footer)!

The bad news :(

Since we had to radically retool the underlying code to make this all work well, existing skins are not going to work right out of the box. (We did mention that this was an archive in beta, right?) We're really sorry for the inconvenience, but we had to sacrifice consistency in the short term to make the skins feature more awesome and ensure our code remains maintainable in the long term.

To make sure that no one comes to the archive and finds a broken skin, we'll be temporarily turning off the existing skins when we deploy the new code - don't be alarmed if you come to the Archive to find it looks different! You'll be able to preview your old skins to see how they'll look with the new code, so you can fix the private ones before turning them back on if necessary. We've also already upgraded a bunch of the existing public skins and added some new ones-- for instance a new light-on-dark skin, and a new plain text skin. We'll be posting a list of these skins as soon as the code deploys.

What's so great about the new skins?

LOTS OF STUFF! \0/ One major improvement is that you'll no longer have to use the dreaded !important for most of your overrides to the default skin. In fact, if you want to you can strip away our default skin altogether and write your styles without using any of our CSS at all. But that's only the beginning! There are a whole bunch of new features:

• Modular system so you can make your skin a 'child' of another skin. This means that when you find that skin which has a perfect layout but a color you hate, you can apply that skin for your layout, then add another one on top which just changes the color. (And that's just the beginning of what you can do with the modular skins - we'll have more in a future post explaining the cool possibilities.)


• Make different skins for different devices (this is courtesy of the modular skins) - you'll be able to make a custom skin for when you're browsing on your computer, and another one for when you're browsing on your phone, and have them kick in automatically when you're logged in to your account (providing your phone respects mobile stylesheets). Customization wherever you are!


• An array of images you can use to customize your skins! You can already use images hosted offsite in your own skins (but not in public ones because we need to be sure the images won't change or break). Now you'll be able to pull from a bunch of stock images on the Archive to make your skins even prettier.

Essentially, the new system is aimed at giving you control of ALL THE THINGS! We'll be posting a list of pre-loaded skins as well as loads of shiny new skins over the coming days. We'll also post tutorials and examples so you can get to grips with the new shiny!

O NOES MAH SKINS ARE BROKEN

All may not be lost! If your skins are broken or you think they're likely to be, you can do some things to prepare. We'll be holding a Skins Open House in a week or two where we'll go over how to make new skins and fix old ones - watch this space for news on that.

Accessible skins

One last note - one reason it was important to us to make this change is that it makes it MUCH easier to customize skins to meet specific accessibility needs. If you are using one of the public skins geared towards particular accessibility needs (e.g. low contrast, plain text, etc), then we have either fixed this to work right out of the box under the new system or (where that wasn't feasible) added a new skin to do the same job. We're adding new accessible skins for logged-out users too - you'll be able to access a Low Vision skin and a Light on dark Small Text skin in the footer even when you are logged out. If you need a customized skin for accessibility reasons and our existing skins don't meet that need, please get in touch with support and let us know what you need - we'll do our best to help! (Also, if you run up against an accessibility issue anywhere on the Archive, please let us know - we're committed to keeping the site as accessible as possible, but inevitably there's stuff we miss!)

Stay tuned for more info about skins!

Are you interested in volunteering as a coder or tester for the Archive of Our Own? Do you have questions about our development process, or would you like to learn more about how archive features go from idea to reality? The Accessibility, Design and Technology Committee will be holding an open house to talk about our work and answer any questions you may have!

All are welcome! The chat will be held on Sunday, October 30th at 20:00 UTC (what time is it in my timezone?) in OTW's public chatroom on Campfire. The chatroom can be accessed at https://fanarchive.campfirenow.com/e79cc.

Accessibility, Design, & Technology is the guiding body that coordinates software design, development and testing on behalf of the Organization for Transformative Works. Currently we are responsible for designing and building the Archive of Our Own.

The Accessibility, Design and Technology committee oversees technology-related projects within the OTW. Currently we are responsible for designing and building the Archive of Our Own. Our regular meeting updates keep you informed about developments on the AO3!

This is a busy time for AD&T, because we're coming closer to our big deploy! We've been working on some major changes and they are almost ready to go onto the main Archive - this means lots of testing and bugfixing and general activity!

OTW October Drive!

Everyone has been working so hard that this already feels like a long time in the past, but we can't post without mentioning the great success of the OTW October Membership Drive! It was the most successful drive ever, raising a whopping US$21,456! This money will help to support the Archive as it grows, along with the rest of the OTW's projects. We're totally awed at the generosity of fandom (you can read more about the details of the drive at DevMem's October Drive Wrap-up.) We'd also like to give a big shout-out to Megan and the rest of the DevMem team, who worked really hard to make this drive the success it was. Kudos to everyone involved!

Meeting highlights!

Site redesign

We will soon be rolling out a redesign for the site. Visually, it won't be changing dramatically, but the front-end code underneath is changing a lot. It's now more flexible, easier to understand, and - crucially - more accessible. This has been a big job, but we think it will make the Archive much more usable and maintainable going forward.

Skins changes!

The overhaul of the site CSS and HTML has allowed us to make some major changes to our skins features. When we launched skins, users were super happy - but we know that they were not quite as flexible as you might like. With the new site CSS, you will no longer have to use the dreaded !important all the time. Even cooler, the new design allows you to have multilayer skins, so that you can combine several skins to get the site exactly how you want it. Most importantly, this means that if we change the site design again in future, you can make the old design a 'parent' for the skin you're using so that it doesn't break (similar to the way you can use S1 and S2 styles on Livejournal.)

The only downside of the new skins system is that your existing skins may break - we're doing our best to make sure this doesn't happen, but as there are a lot of user-designed skins we can't be 100% certain. We're currently testing the new system and figuring out exactly what the implications are for existing skins - we'll keep you posted on what to expect and how best you can prepare for the change.

Our Feature Requests process

We spent some time discussing our process for dealing with feature requests from users. Our lovely Support team receive lots of requests for new features or enhancements from users, and until recently these were logged on our internal wiki to await review by AD&T, who decide whether we can make a change and how it fits into our overall plans for the Archive. However, things were not getting off that page and onto the AD&T agenda as fast as we'd like, so we've been looking for a new process for a while now. Support have come up with a new proposed process which will involve putting new requests directly onto the AD&T agenda, so we don't overlook anything and deal with it more swiftly. Anything AD&T approve will be put into the pool for coders to work on; we'll also be keeping a clearer list of things which we decide we won't implement, with the reasons why. We're hoping this will help us be much more efficient and more responsive to users (it will certainly make Support's life a whole lot easier!). We're also thinking about ways of making the whole feature request process more visible to users, so you can see a bit more of the decision-making that goes into building the Archive.

Next deploy

The next deploy is scheduled for as soon as we can get it all working and tested. It includes some big changes, including the new site design, new skins features, tag sets for challenges, and much more - this is awesome but it means we want to be EXTRA sure we have picked up any problems (although no doubt some will sneak through the net).

News from our sub-committees

Coders

Coders are working away like busy busy bees, fixing things and writing new code. Rebecca ran some awesome training on automated testing tool RSpec, which will help us write some nice speedy tests so we don't fall asleep while we're waiting for tests to run - thanks, Rebecca! We are working on building up more and more coder training sessions, to share our skills and help people develop.

Testers

Testers are also busy, getting the new code tested and making sure it is all up-to-scratch. They work quietly in the background, but they are all absolutely awesome and without their hard work the Archive couldn't exist - thanks, testers! Longtime tester hill has also been working on automated testing using Watir - this replicates testing in different browsers, cutting down on the amount of manual testing needed and thus saving the testing team to work on the things that really need the human touch. Thanks, hill! We always welcome volunteers, and our awesome testers are particularly in need of backup - if you're interested in joining the team, get in touch via Volunteers and Recruiting.

News from our sister committees

Support

The Support team have maintained their great work keeping up with tickets - right now there is not one single unassigned ticket! We're pleased to welcome Anna and arithilim to the team - it's great to see them already getting stuck in with tickets! We'd also like to give a big shout-out to Yshyn, who has been doing awesome work developing Support's documentation and building up a knowledge base, and to Sam, who has ventured into the thorny wilds of the old Feature Requests page to carve out overlooked ideas!

If you're interested in what Support do, check out the recent Spotlight on Support - and remember, Support are always happy to answer your questions on all aspects of the Archive - just get in touch via the Support & Feedback form.

Tag wrangling

The Tag Wrangling Committee ran a very successful Open House in which we talked a bit about how wrangling works and walked through some wrangling. If you missed it, a transcript should be up on the OTW website soon! We are planning more sessions like this in future \0/ - keep an eye out for future news posts.

Wranglers also provided information for a number of support requests. In response to one of them, we have added the metatag Anthropomorphism above Anthropomorfic, with them both being canonicals (canonicals can be used to filter search results). This lets users who consider their works part of the “-fic” tradition to use this tag, while encouraging works of different types of media. We've left the subtags of Anthropomorfic as they are for the moment, with the exception of Fandom (Anthropomorfic)- since some of the works under this tag were not related to anthromorphism, but rather inspired by fandom itself, Fandom – Fandom was canonized as well under Other Media, and Fandom (Anthropomorfic) was subtagged under it as well as Anthropomorphism. We’ll be keeping an eye on fandom usage and adapt if necessary. If you’ve got further input to this, or other wrangling issues, please let us know by filing a Support request or tweeting us @ao3_wranglers.

Finally, we're pleased to welcome lots of new wranglers, including welfycat, Niko, Sossity, melodiousb, Pax, foxinthestars and Rodo! If you're interested in wrangling, check out the list of fandoms without wranglers - the Marvel Universe is particularly in need of love right now, and could use several co-wranglers who can work together on the various different parts! Please note that wrangler signup will close for the year on 1st November, so visit the volunteers page now to join the team!

If there are things you'd like to do or say, please share them in comments, via the AO3 support and feedback form, by volunteering, or in whatever medium you feel comfortable with. Everyone is welcome to this party!

This meeting round-up by Lucy.

When you fill in the AO3 support form and press 'Send feedback', your message wends its way to our trusty Support team, who answer questions from users of the Archive of Our Own. They provide help and support on all aspects of using the Archive, and provide a bridge between Archive users and our coders so that bugs get fixed and new features get coded! They are an awesome and dedicated team who love making sure that users have a good experience on the AO3.

What questions do Support answer?

All kinds of things relating to the AO3! If users discover that something is broken, or they want help figuring out how something works, or they'd like to ask for a new feature, all those questions come to Support. Sometimes users will send in broader questions about the OTW as a whole, or about fannish issues in general, and Support will also answer those or pass them on to someone who can (if you have questions that are not AO3-specific, you can also ask those via the OTW Communications webform).

What do Support do when they get a ticket?

The first thing a Support member does when a ticket arrives is to take a look and figure out what kind of question it is. Some kinds of questions are common - for example, we are often asked why they can only view 1000 works in a fandom (answer: to save our servers, but we're working on a better solution that will make it unnecessary) - and in these cases Support can quickly send out a reply. If it's not such a common question, the Support member might do a bit of testing to see if they can reproduce a bug, or consult with other teams: for example, they work with Coders and Accessibility, Design and Technology for technical bugs and feature requests, Tag Wrangling for tag questions, Content for issues about what kind of things can be posted on the Archive, and Legal for questions relating to the legality of fanworks.

This sounds like a lot! Do Support members have some kind of special skills?

They have the skill of beng awesome! But other than that, there are not too many specific qualifications for being a Support staffer. Most importantly, Support need to enjoy problem-solving and be able to communicate clearly and effectively. At present, we only do Support in English (this is something we hope to expand as the Archive grows), but you don't need to be a native English speaker, as long as you are fluent in English - one of our most longstanding and dedicated staffers, Anne-Li, is a native Swedish speaker. Support staffers also need to know the Archive pretty well, although they tend to pick up some of the nitty-gritty as they gain experience. Several Support staffers also serve on other committees, so they can contribute additional knowledge to the team, and thanks to the efforts of staffer Yshyn, Support are also building up an awesome knowledge base on our internal wiki.

What does the future hold for Support?

This is an exciting time for Support - they've just taken on some new staff members and are now working and planning for the transition to a Support Board integrated into the Archive. This will be a public-facing board where users as well as staffers can offer advice (along the lines of LJ or DW) - we think this will be great for transparency and for helping more people get involved in a more informal manner. However, it will be quite a radical change, so Support are now beginning work on some of the policies and strategies which will be needed to make that a success.

This all sounds awesome - can I join?!

Yes! If you're interested please fill out our Volunteers Form.

Today is the last day of the OTW's membership drive! Donate now to ensure you have voting rights in the forthcoming Board election!

Donations to the OTW help to support the Archive of Our Own - and given the rapid expansion of the site, we certainly need support! We bought our first set of servers in September 2009, expecting these two servers to last us for three years. By the middle of 2010, however, it was evident that the site was expanding much faster than we had ever dared to hope - on 20 August 2010 we hit 100,000 works on the Archive - and we started planning for more servers. We bought four new servers and a switch in January 2011, massively improving our site capacity. However, fandom seemed to take this as a challenge, and at the time of writing the AO3 has:

• 23,528 users


• 232,357 works


• 7,449 fandoms

We add approximately 300 new users every week, and the fact that our invitations queue now stands at over 1800 shows that there's a lot more demand beyond that! We're already thinking about what we need to do for futher site expansion - more servers are definitely going to be needed, as well as some structural/database changes which need some careful thought.

We have added a bunch of great new features this year, including subscriptions, prompt memes, tag sets (coming in our next deploy), and a whole host of enhancements across the site. We're still working on more subscriptons, improved bookmarking features, fanart hosting and support for vids (in collaboration with the OTW's Vidding committee).

All of this amazing stuff is only possible because of YOUR support! Donate to the OTW now and help ensure the AO3 continues to thrive!

<a href="http://transformativeworks.org/how-you-can-help/support"><img src="http://transformativeworks.org/sites/default/files/2011-fund-drive.PNG" alt="OTW logo: red circle with an arrow. Text reads: Organization for Transformative Works Membership Drive October 9-16, 2011" /></a>

Have you ever wondered about what it is tag wranglers do? Are you thinking about volunteering as a wrangler? Do you have a question about tags on the Archive of Our Own? Is your fandom in need of some temporary assistance? The Tag Wrangling Committee is hosting an open house! This is a drop-in session where you can ask us what's on your mind, or just have a chat about tags. We'll also have some AO3 invites to give away.

All are welcome! The chat will be held on Saturday, 15 October at 22:00 UTC (what time is that where I live?) in OTW's public chatroom on Campfire. The chatroom can be accessed at: https://fanarchive.campfirenow.com/e79cc

The Tag Wrangling Committee maintains and administers the curated folksonomy system within the Archive of Our Own, assuring accessibility, diversity of fannish expression, descriptive practices, and a high level of user ease.