Archive of Our Own ^beta

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Support committee is the first point of contact for users of the Archive of Our Own (AO3) when they encounter issues, have questions, or want to submit feedback or feature requests. Internally at the OTW, Support collaborates with other committees frequently, forwarding relevant questions and information to them, or consulting them on specific topics. Besides answering tickets, they also handle several other tasks, like maintaining the AO3 Known Issues page or assisting with testing bug fixes and new features on AO3.

We asked the Support committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Support Committee Specific Question

How is Fannish Next of Kin enacted after one of the parties involved in the agreement passes away?

Committee answer:
After a creator with a Fannish Next-of-Kin passes away, the FNOK can contact us and the fannish next-of-kin agreement is activated. We will update the email associated with the account to match the address provided by your next-of-kin. Your next-of-kin will then be able to reset the password through the normal "Forgot password" process. Control will then be fully transferred to your FNOK. Please see our Fannish Next-of-Kin FAQ for more information.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

• I try to focus more on meeting the expected number of tickets over how many hours I spend working in a week but I think I do hit the ten hours per week that I signed up for. (Louie)
• Not super sure, but definitely a lot! I should probably try and time it at some point to check. I'd say over 15 hours, and that's me low-balling it. (Mille K)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

• First, I catch up on our internal chat tool; then I work on any of my Support tickets that need something done; and then I beta tickets from other Support volunteers, interspersing it with a few tickets of my own. If there is something specific that needs to be done by a Chair Assistant or I'm working on a project, then that comes before betas. (Jennifer)
• Chaos! It really depends on the rest of my schedule for the day, and my energy levels. I prioritize urgent tasks as much as possible. (Kyrie)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

• It sounds cliche I know, but helping others. And the volunteering environment is great, everyone's just so nice! :D (Wtchmn23)
• Answering user's tickets and mentoring saltlings (new Support volunteers) (Jennifer)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

• Just that the number of tickets compared to the number of people (and the time they are able to spend on it) means that some tickets either slip through the cracks or have other reasons they're not responded to in a "timely" manner (PK)
• That despite the fact that we all lead busy lives, the amount of passion people put into doing all they reasonably can for the OTW, our projects, our users, and our fellow volunteers is staggering. Oh and looking at other Support volunteers answers... that we are not paid xD This is not our only job and we're definitely not available 24/7! (Kyrie)
• That unlike many other Support forms out there on the internet, there are real humans on the other side. I love helping people, but it’s hard to keep your spirits up when the folks you volunteer for just swear at you. (Paula)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

• My standard daily routine is: check our ticketing system to see if any tickets have been proofread (betaed) by another volunteer, then check our internal chat tool for key messages and replies. After that, I'll go back to our ticketing system to work on open tickets and find some new ones. Before logging off, I ask senior salts to look up user information I need for my tickets on our internal chat tool for the next day. Newer folks don’t get access to that information right away. (ZZ)
• First, I do some backreading of the messages in channels, check out the odd tickets that were mentioned or documents (like the opportunity to submit answers for this Q&A). Then, I will do some tickets. I start by sending out all my tickets that have been betaed, and then I get my hands on new ones. I'd like to start from later tickets and there's usually a date of where I am now and I start from there. At last I try to do some betas. (Wtchmn23)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

• Today, the ADHD says dragonflies. Butterflies and moths also commonly come up. (Sam)
• I like finches and birds in general though they also scare me a lot. (ChangYan)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

• Very much so, although I'd have trouble picking one single "favorite". The one I've probably recommended the most is "Don't Go", which is in the She-Ra fandom, and was actually written by the creator under an alias. (PK)
• I think my fave is a work called Love Is (Not) A Battlefield, Or: Gay Panic! At the BB Lounge, which is a fantastic Ya Boy Kongming! work. It's just extremely cute and sweet, and funny! And very true to canon. (Mille K)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

• Yes. I enjoy being creative and hearing from my readers that my work brings them joy (or sadness, sometimes you've got to write the angst) (Anren)
• I do dabble in writing, but translation is my true love and calling. Ann Goldstein says "translating can be like lining up unruly toddlers who have their own sense of order," and nothing excites me more than an intellectual puzzle of trying to pin down the exact right word. (Liv)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

• Batman! It's funny cause I don't really know much about canon I just piece together canon from what I read. (killiane)
• Woo, I am in a lot now. Mainly F1 RPF, sometimes code geass, or quanzhigaoshou (Sorry I don't know the exact english name) My bookmarks show that I was really into Star Trek a couple years ago. (Ziting)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

• This question is more challenging than the rest for me, because I have very complicated feelings about Vietnamese fandom on AO3 lol. I rarely read Vietnamese fic on AO3, but in 2024 while I was hyperactive in a Vietnamese survival show fandom, during the period of three months I:
  1. translated around 600-800 Vietnamese tags,
  2. published multiple fanworks in Vietnamese and English,
  3. created a whole fanblog (it now has more than 2 thousands followers lmao) to promote AO3 to Vietnamese fans,
  4. indirectly (allegedly) skyrocketed the amount of Vietnamese Support tickets as a result, oops 😂
  One year later, looking at the current Vietnamese fanworks stat on AO3, I'm quite fond of the whole journey despite the occasional hiccups I encountered. (Anh Pham)
• Years ago when I first discovered fandom, the English community was way bigger than the Chinese one, at least for my ship. So I hung out on Tumblr and AO3, read a lot of amazing and frankly life-changing fics, commented and made rec lists and made friends with people from all over the world. It was one of the best things that happened to me and I wouldn't change it for anything. In 2021, however, we had a renaissance in Chinese fandom. And let me tell you, being able to read and write and participate in fests in your native language is like an epiphany. Is this something y'all have been able to enjoy all the time? Jealousy does not begin to describe how I feel. No more fumbling, no more worrying, I can be as unhinged as I want. Eventually we became good friends in real life, too. We call each other nicknames and meet up several times a year. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare to this. (Liv)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Support volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll collect additional replies to each question!)

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.

On December 5, people all over the world observed International Volunteer Day (IVD) to acknowledge the work of volunteer workers everywhere, and their efforts, dedication, and passion. Since its conception in 1985, IVD has invited us to recognize the ways in which volunteers contribute to communities and are at the forefront of many people-led initiatives.

Here at the Organisation of Transformative Works (OTW) we depend entirely on that drive, as our organization is 100% volunteer-run! Our volunteers handle our strategic planning, administration, infrastructure, development, any day-to-day tasks required in running a non-profit organization, and so on. Volunteers aren't just the backbone of the OTW, they are its whole skeleton!

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of an OTW volunteer looks like? The answer is: It's hard to say! Depending on where in the OTW they are active, their tasks and responsibilities can look very different from those of the next volunteer. Volunteers also work a very wide range of weekly hours, depending on their position(s) and availability: anything from one hour to over twenty hours a week!

For this IVD, we wanted to give you a chance to get to know those volunteers behind the scenes of the OTW and its projects. That is why we sent out a call across our social media for you to send us your most burning questions.

Here are some of those questions with answers from our volunteers!

Questions for Specific Committees

• Question for the Policy & Abuse committee:
  How often do you deal with people who want to censor something on AO3? Is it a common complaint?
  Committee Answer:
  AO3 frequently receives complaints about "offensive content", which includes suggesting that we should remove or censor content that is allowed on AO3. In the past five years, complaints about offensive content have consistently been one of the top three types of Policy & Abuse tickets, albeit not the largest. The Policy & Abuse committee regularly publishes a breakdown of the previous year's tickets, which for 2024 can be found here. Information about 2025's tickets will be available in a newsletter early next year.
• Question for the Volunteers & Recruiting committee:
  What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who'd love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.
  Committee answer:
  The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, so for those roles it mostly depends on being the "type" for the role. For us in VolCom (Volunteers & Recruiting Committee), it's more of the latter than the former; for example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks from to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions across Committees

• How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?
  For myself on Systems, it varies. I usually spend at least an hour a day between checking in on alerts, tickets, and responding to any inquiries from other committees internally. It usually ends up being more, as some of those requests are more involved than others. Any time there's an outage or issue, the number of hours usually goes much higher. (FrostTheFox, Systems committee chair)
• How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?
  What I do each day varies based on what events are coming up for Board and the OTW! We may be working on research projects, preparing for a public Board meeting, replying to questions from the public, or many other things. The variety is a huge part of why I enjoy what I do honestly. I wouldn't enjoy it as much if it was the same every day. Volunteering for the OTW is nice because by and large, you get to pick what ours and schedule you'd like to have. I personally try and block out sections of my time to work on OTW-related tasks and do occasional checking in outside of this time. (therealmorticia, Board Assistants Team committee chair)
• What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?
  Assisting AO3 users, most notably Vietnamese and Chinese users, in my capacity as Support volunteer. Some weeks when the stress from my other OTW roles catches up to me, doing Support work and answering Support tickets remind me of the reason why I started this whole endeavour in the first place: I want to give back to fandom and help AO3 users navigate the Archive a little bit easier. (Anh Pham, Support committee)
• What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?
  Sometimes the things you think will be simplest are the hardest, and vice versa. Personally, I've had to nix features I really wanted myself because they just wouldn't be practical given our volume of users and current resources. (Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee volunteer)
• What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?
  I volunteer as an Open Doors Administrative Volunteer and as an Open Doors Chair Assistant. Both are project management-oriented roles: I help manage archive imports and the committee itself! I start my volunteering time by checking on the status of my archives, answering questions as they arise, making sure archive import tasks are progressing along - it's always something different! I also work on various projects for committee management, such as documenting workflows and new procedures or running weekly working meetings. (Kayla, Open Doors committee)
• What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?
  Aside from cats & dogs, my favorite animal is a sloth. They’re mood and they sound really funny (look it up on youtube!). Favorite dog breed is airedale terrier, because my boyfriend has one and she’s hilarious. She lives with his mom now that he’s studying/working in my city, and I’ve only seen her a few times, so I’m convinced she thinks I’m some sort of weird extension of my bf that just randomly appears every 6 months or so. (kati, Translation committee)
• Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?
  I do! Finding a favorite was the hardest thing I've ever done and I had to dig through my bookmarks, anything by author hanville would make the cut, to be honest, but my absolute favorite is mosaic broken hearts with this is me trying as a really, really close second. (Camila Lopez, Tag Wrangling committee)
• Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?
  I write so many fics. @.@ It's a lot of fun to explore favourite characters in new ways, and to get to expand the worlds in which they live. I'm also cursed to have very few fandoms in which my favourite characters or ships have a lot of content, so I end up having to make it all myself. (Fun fact: I actually found my partner due to a rare pair!) (C, AO3 Documentation committee)
• What fandoms are you (currently) in?
  Well, Heated Rivalry obviously. I'm also really into Fallout, The Pitt, and Formula 1 RPF. (I'm not even a sports person. I don't know how I ended up in sports RPF, yet here I am.) (Whatsit, Policy & Abuse committee)
• Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue? I grew up in German fandom, and I owe some German fandom writers a lot when it comes to my own existence in fandom. I very much stay away from it now lmao. I can't handle anything remotely smutty written in German, and some peculiarities of fanfiction that I can tolerate in English are a dealbreaker in German, as well as grammar and punctuation. I do love that it exists - fanfiction and fandom in general is an amazing space that should not be limited by the language one speaks. (corr, Volunteers & Recruiting committee)

(For more answers from our volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll post additional replies to each question!)

We are exceedingly grateful to all volunteers who have taken time out of their day to compose answers, and for the amazing work they do at the OTW on a daily basis! They are the lifeblood of the OTW, AO3, and our other projects!

If you too want to become part of the OTW and help out as a volunteer, keep an eye on our recruitment posts! And if you're afraid of missing a post, no worries: You can subscribe to our monthly OTW News by Email service for a neat summary of what's currently happening at the OTW!

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.

AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.

None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.

In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• Angst with a Bittersweet Ending
• Angst with a Hopeful Ending
• Angst with a Sad Ending
• Angst with No Happy Ending
• Characters Yelling or Screaming
• Cheek Kisses
• Hand Kisses
• Domdrop
• Farming and Ranching
• Figure Skating
• Flower Symbolism
• Ghost Stories
• Giant/Tiny Relationships
• Internalized Victim Blaming
• Long Chapters
• Short Chapters
• Mating Cycles
• Near Drowning
• Non-Sexual Spanking
• Pining While Fucking
• Platonic Yandere
• Pumpkin Carving
• Rapid Pregnancy
• Right Person Wrong Time
• Robot Gore
• Ruined Orgasms
• Soft Dom Characters
• Throuples | Triad Relationships
• Wank and Tell | Creator is Open to Comments about Masturbating to This Work
• Will They Won't They Relationships

In Conclusion

While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:

• Angst
• Big Guy, Little Guy
• Height Difference
• Flower Symbolism
• Ghosts
• Mating Cycles
• Pining While Fucking
• Throuples
• Wank and Tell
• Yandere

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:

• Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates and 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
• Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts

For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.

In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected.​ If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.

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.

The Randall Morgan Memorial Archive, a Queer As Folk (US) fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

This memorial account was set up with the assistance of Open Doors and Irishcaelan, the maintainer of Randall’s personal website, Randall’s Rambles. Randall also wrote under the pseudonym Brian Hennessey. Randall Morgan was taken from us in 2013, and this site is a permanent place where the fanworks he so loved to create will go on.

Open Doors will be working with Irishcaelan to import Randall Morgan’s works into a separate memorial account on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving his works in their entirety, all graphics currently in his works will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works by Randall Morgan to the AO3 after December. You will find them on the RandallMorgan_memorial account.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Randall Morgan and Randall’s Rambles on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're honored to be able to help preserve the works of Randall Morgan, and while we mourn the loss of Randall, we also realize that we are fortunate that he had a friend who was given permission to collect and preserve his works on the AO3 so that they will not be lost. Thinking about the death of a fandom friend may be difficult, but it can also be an opportunity to consider what will happen to your fanworks and accounts and those of your friends after your deaths. The Archive of Our Own has an option to name a Fannish Next of Kin, someone who would be able to gain access to your accounts in the case of your death or incapacitation. By naming someone who can act on your behalf, you can decide ahead of time how you want your AO3 accounts handled going into the future.

- The Open Doors team and Irishcaelan

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) Board of Directors is saddened to announce that Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm have resigned from their roles as Board Directors for personal reasons. Their resignations are effective as of December 11, 2025.

Erica was elected to her seat in 2024, and her term was set to end in 2027; her seat will be filled in the upcoming election as a one-year term. Kathryn was elected to her seat in 2023, and was already scheduled to be replaced in the upcoming election. In the meantime, both of their seats will remain vacant.

We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board and for their years as OTW volunteers. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

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

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

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

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

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

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

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

AO3 Documentation updated the Contacting the Staff FAQ.

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

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

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

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

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

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

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

IV. GOVERNANCE

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

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

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with AuroraT, who volunteers as an administrative volunteer for Open Doors.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I'm an administrative volunteer with the Open Doors Committee, which helps import at-risk digital archives to AO3 in order to preserve fanworks that might otherwise be lost. I'm responsible for project management, walking an archive and its archivist through our lengthy import process. We put a lot of effort into keeping track of the metadata for each work and respecting creators' privacy, so a lot of what I do involves managing spreadsheets and communicating with the archivist, other committees in the OTW, and other teams in the Open Doors Committee. I also write documentation for the committee, updating or writing down our procedures and information about the archives I'm managing.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
There's a lot of variety in what an import project requires, so my weeks tend to vary a lot. Sometimes, I'll spend one of our weekly meetings working on a single task, such as preparing the documents we need to initiate a new import or cleaning up a spreadsheet. Other times, I'll jump around from task to task: emailing a different committee, discussing a procedure change with other admin volunteers, responding to feedback on documentation I wrote, creating the AO3 collection where we'll add the works we imported, answering a ticket from a creator wanting to claim works we previously imported, and so on.

What made you decide to volunteer?
I'm a huge supporter of the OTW's mission to preserve fanworks and fight censorship, and I had been watching calls for volunteers for positions I was qualified for in order to contribute to those efforts. I'd recently gotten much more into fanwork preservation when I began working at a library with a zine collection, where I was managing cataloguing and shelving a backlog of donated zines. Project management and working with spreadsheets is a lot of fun! When I saw the application for the administrative volunteer position, it seemed in line with my interests and skills, so I applied.

(Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to me when I applied, the library I was working at is one of Open Doors' partner institutions for our Fan Culture Preservation Project, which helps connect donors with physical fanworks to libraries and archives with zine collections. Some of the donations I was processing were facilitated with the help of Open Doors!)

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
It's absolutely task management. Our process for importing an archive is over a hundred steps long and some of those require a lot of prep work and communication between people. And that's not even including documentation or other administrative work! Thankfully, through the miracle of digital checklists and automatic reminders, as well as the detailed procedure instructions Open Doors has written over the years, it's not too difficult to keep on top of everything. Plus, I have my lovely fellow committee members to help out when I need it :)

What fannish things do you like to do?
I read a lot of fanfiction these days, especially longfics—the one I'm currently reading is over 430k words long and still being published. I also really like to leave long comments on the fics I read. It's a lot of fun to get that sweet, sweet AO3 email that the author responded to me! Recently, I started writing fanfiction for the first time in several years. Joining a new fandom really helped get those creative juices flowing.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.

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.