Archive of Our Own ^beta

We fixed some issues that were making things harder for our Open Doors team, updated a whole bunch of invisible bits and bobs, and took care of several unrelated bugs for extra neatness. An extra special thank you to our first-time contributors Alix and lethnie!

Credits

• Coders: Alix, Angela, Ariana, cosette, Elz, james_, lethnie, Nerine Luna Cyran, redsummernight, Sarken, Tal, ticking instant
• Code reviewers: Ariana, james_, redsummernight, Sarken
• Testers: Adi M., CJ Record, GoldenFalls, Lady Oscar, Morgan Drake, Natalia Gruber, Nerine Luna Cyran, Paula, redsummernight, Rebecca Sentance, Sarken, Veronica M

Details

Imports

• [AO3-5143] - Trying to sign up for an account and claim a work imported by our Open Doors team wasn't working correctly when the second of two identical buttons on the Claiming Your Imported Works page was used, because sometimes bugs are just really weird. We have now fixed that second button.
• [AO3-5648] - When importing a work from another site, anchor links such as #notes were being turned into absolute links back to the original site. They are now kept as relative links.
• [AO3-5650] - We added the option to set a language for imported works when the Open Doors team does a mass import of an at-risk or defunct archive.
• [AO3-5245] - The task to bulk update redirects for Open Doors imports used to rely on string matching to find the works to update, but now uses the work id.
• [AO3-5572] - One of the fields in the JSON response for the mass import code could be either a string or an array, which made life awkward for the client side application Open Doors use for imports. It is now consistently an array.
• [AO3-5664] - We removed the old, unused version of the code Open Doors uses for mass imports.

Site Administration

• [AO3-5310] - To combat abuse by spammers who request invitations to post MORE SPAM (e.g. advertisements for streaming sites), we now display the IP address associated with an invitation request to admins who review the automated queue.
• [AO3-4681] - Deleting one of the publicly posted Wrangling Guidelines wouldn't lead to a friendly success message (despite success), so we added the friendly message.
• [AO3-5473] - Way back in 2012, we added an admin setting that would allow us to disable filtering in the event the move to Elasticsearch made the site blow up. Seven years and several upgrades later, it's probably safe to say that Elasticsearch is doing okay, so we removed the setting.
• [AO3-4110] - We restored the site admins' ability to see the number of private bookmarks (albeit not the bookmarks themselves) when looking at a user's dashboard.

Misc. Fixes

• [AO3-5315] - The autocomplete keyboard controls (e.g. for entering tags in the work form) were previously assuming that all users are using QWERTY keyboards, which some obviously aren't. It now correctly detects when the comma key is used and processes input accordingly.
• [AO3-5135] - When using the Edit Multiple Works page, checking the name of a collection (where it says "Check to remove") would not actually remove the work from said collection. Now it does!
• [AO3-5204] - In the Chrome browser, the "Comments" link at top of a work wouldn't scroll you down to the comments section, nor would the "Next" link take you to the top of the next page of comments. Now both those links work!
• [AO3-5526] - We had previously fixed cramped work stats by introducing a few pixels of space between wrapped lines; it turned out to be a smidge too much space, so we pushed the lines ever so slightly closer again. 🤷
• [AO3-5637] - Occasionally, going to the work listing for a tag (e.g. Alternate Universe) would show a filtered version of that page (e.g. Alternate Universe works rated Teen And Up Audiences). We've fixed the caching bug that caused this to happen.
• [AO3-2808] - The parser checking the user-created CSS in site or work skins didn't know that .jpeg was a valid file extension and wouldn't accept those files as background images. We have told the parser it's fine.
• [AO3-4996] - On our About page, the link to get in touch with the Communications team was broken, so we unbroke it.
• [AO3-5267] - We previously didn't allow fullscreen mode for embedded videos using the iframe option, but now we do!
• [AO3-5672] - Our charming homepage blurb (explaining the purpose of the Archive to logged out users in a few words) was using unconventional spelling for "nonprofit" and "noncommercial." We have removed the offending hyphens now.
• [AO3-5180] - Words in headings would sometimes break in odd places on small screens, so we made sure that shorter words are kept intact while very long words are still broken to avoid horizontal scrolling or other messiness.
• [AO3-5656] - Trying to download a work with a summary set to nil for some reason (as opposed to works with no summary) would lead to an error 500. Now those works can be downloaded as well.

Infrastructure

• [AO3-5123] - Refactored some code which controls the display of labels for different kinds of tags, making it invisibly but reassuringly neater.
• [AO3-5647] - We removed some unused bookmark code.
• [AO3-5598] - Due to race conditions, we'd have a few errors whenever the cache on the Archive's admin settings expired. We've added a race_condition_ttl to stop the errors.
• [AO3-5653] - We fixed an automated test that was failing intermittently, which is always rather annoying.
• [AO3-5651] - The Archive is currently running Elasticsearch 6.7, so we made sure the CI services that runs our automated tests use the same version.
• [AO3-5654] - We made a few tweaks to various configuration files used by our version control system and CI services.
• [AO3-5674] - We upgraded to a more recent version of the nokogiri gem.

Are you an awesome beta, or a writer with an eye for technical details? Can you communicate clearly to a diverse audience? Do you have graphic design skills and enjoy creating social media content? Or would you like to help translate OTW/AO3 news posts? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• AO3 Documentation Staff - closing Wednesday 7 August at 23:59 UTC
• Communications Chair-Track Staff - closing Wednesday 7 August at 23:59 UTC
• Fanlore Graphics Designer Volunteer - closing Wednesday 7 August at 23:59 UTC
• Translation Volunteer - closing Wednesday 7 August at 23:59 UTC

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

AO3 Documentation Staff

Do you enjoy helping others learn about AO3? Are you an awesome beta, or a writer with an eye for technical details? If so, then please consider joining Docs!

AO3 Documentation is the committee that writes and updates AO3 FAQs, tutorials, and more. We’re looking for people who love the Archive of Our Own and who have experience relevant to writing and proofreading user help documentation. If that sounds like you, then please follow the link for more information and apply today!

Applications are due Wednesday 7 August 23:59 UTC

Communications Chair-Track Staff

Do you love working with people? Are you an organizational wizard? Can you communicate clearly to a diverse audience? The Communications committee is looking for new chair-track staffers to join our team.

Communications is the central information distribution team for the OTW. We manage news posts, media outreach, social media, and more. The chair-track staffer position is for people who have the time and dedication to learn all about our operations so that they can be considered for the role of committee chair.

We're looking for someone who has experience with communications and an understanding of social media, who is comfortable with personnel management and training new recruits, and who can write and edit for a global audience. If that's you, please apply!

Applications are due Wednesday 7 August 23:59 UTC

Fanlore Graphics Designer Volunteer

Would you like to help Fanlore reach more fans and get new editors? Do you have graphic design skills and enjoy creating social media content? If so, we need your help! The Fanlore team needs designers to create graphics and banners for Tumblr posts, tweets, and Fanlore challenges, to help us reach more fans and potential editors. We have a lot of amazing fan history content, but we need your help to help others find out about it. If you think you might enjoy that, come and join us!

Applications are due Wednesday 7 August 23:59 UTC

Translation Volunteer

If you enjoy working collaboratively, if you're fluent in a language other than English, if you’re passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help us reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!

Translation volunteers help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider global audience. We work on translating content by the OTW and its projects from English to other languages, such as site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs and AO3 Support emails. (However, we do not translate fanworks.)

We really need volunteers who speak Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Filipino, Galician, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Marathi, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Ukrainian and Welsh—but help with other languages would be much appreciated. If you're interested in starting a team for a language we don't have yet, you're very welcome to!

(Please note that our Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese-BR, Portuguese-PT, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese teams are not accepting new members at this time.)

Applicants may be asked to translate and correct short text samples and will be invited to a chatroom interview as part of the selection process.

More information about us can be found on the Translation committee page.

Applications are due Wednesday 7 August 23:59 UTC

Apply at the volunteering page!

At this time, all eligible OTW members should have received an email linking to the voting instructions for 2019. The subject line was "Voting Instructions for Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) Board Election". Please note that anyone who didn’t receive this email is not on the voter rolls this year and will not receive a ballot.

The voting instructions email contains a link to a test version of the ballot. Please follow that link to make sure that the page displays correctly and the candidates are visible. If not, please ensure you are not blocking JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com, bootstrapcdn.com, and/or opavote.com.

If you are a member and didn’t receive this email, please do the following:

1. Check your spam folder.
   • If you use Gmail, check your Social tab.
   • If the email is marked as spam, unmark it. Otherwise, you will not receive your ballot, as it will end up in spam as well.
2. If no email is present, open your donation receipt and check the date.
   • To vote in this election, your receipt must be dated between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019, inclusive of both dates.
   • If you paid by check, your membership is measured by the arrival date of the check.
3. If your donation was made during the eligible time period, make sure you checked the box to become a member. Membership is voluntary for those who donate at least $10; only members can vote.
4. If you did become a member, make sure you neither marked any email from the OTW as spam nor opted out of OTW emails or last year’s ballot. If you did so and would like to vote this year, you’ll need to follow step 5 below.
5. If you donated at least $10 during the eligible period and you checked the box to become a member, please fill out the Elections Contact Form and select the topic “Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?” Make sure to include the email you used when donating.
   • Membership has no connection to being a user of AO3 or Fanlore. Please don’t give us your AO3 or Fanlore username – we have no way of knowing who that name belongs to, and we don’t want to know.

Most importantly, if the voting instructions email bounces, gets marked as spam, or you opt out, you will not receive a ballot for this year’s election, and you may not receive a ballot next year. Similarly, if any of those things happened to last year’s election emails, you will not receive a ballot this year. Therefore, if you previously opted out of OTW emails or marked them as spam and would like to vote, fill out the Elections Contact Form and select the topic “Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?”

On 17 July, the Archive of Our Own hit 2 million registered users. Today, we have reached an even more significant milestone: 5 million posted fanworks! \o/

AO3 entered open beta in November of 2009. It took until February of 2014 to reach the first 1 million fanworks, but almost every year since then we've reached another million. In July of 2018, we reached 4 million fanworks, and in October of that year, we reached 30,000 fandoms.

Thanks so much to everyone who visits AO3, both those 2 million registered users and the many unregistered users who visit the site alongside them, for helping us get to this point. It's because of you that AO3 is what it is today.

In celebration of this 5 million fanworks milestone, we're presenting you with a challenge: AO3 Bingo! AO3 Bingo is a cross between regular bingo, a fanworks rec list, and a scavenger hunt. Everyone can play AO3 Bingo, and we have different reward badges according to the number of challenges you complete.

But first, here’s how the AO3 Bingo card works:

The graphic below is your AO3 Bingo card. Each square contains a type of fanwork or fanwork-related element that can be found on AO3. For each square, you recommend a fanwork or related element that you love by providing a link to an AO3 page that contains something that matches the square. Once you complete one of the types of bingo listed below, you win a badge!

You can play by posting your cards and links on social media using the hashtag #AO3Bingo. You can also comment on this post to play.

Follow the links below to access your badge, and you can post it on social media, hang it up on your door, wave it around in a parade, or otherwise put it wherever you please. We’re using the honor system here, so we’re counting on you to keep track of your own completed challenges.

How to get a bingo:

Complete five of the challenges in a line across, down, or diagonally (much like normal bingo), and you will have earned the bronze badge.

Complete the challenges in a checkerboard pattern (either all of the red squares or all of the white squares), and you will have earned the silver badge.

Finally, if you complete all twenty-five challenges on the AO3 Bingo card, then you will have earned the gold badge!

Good luck, and don’t forget to use the #AO3Bingo hashtag on social media so we can find your post!

The #AO3Bingo card (html version):

The chat will be held in the Elections Discord server from 4pm-5:30pm UTC on Sunday, July 21. [What time is that for me?] Please note that though the link to the chat server is already active, chatting capabilities will not be enabled until approximately half an hour before the chats begin.

Read on to learn more about using Discord.

• On the login page, you'll need to provide a screen name.
• Once you enter the server, you'll find a list of users on the right and a list of chat rooms on the left. Settings are available via the gear icon on the lower left, near your screen name; there you can choose, among other options, whether you prefer a dark or light chat room appearance.
• There are three rooms available to chat attendees who are not candidates or Elections Committee staffers: general, candidate_chats, and open_chat.
• General is where you'll find a list of rules for the chats. Please read through these carefully before entering the other two rooms.
• Candidate_chats is where the candidates will answer questions and debate amongst themselves. Only the candidates and moderator will be able to chat in this room.
• Open_chat is where all attendees can participate and talk to each other. We ask that you try to stay on topics related to the election. A moderator will be in the room, so if you have a question for the candidates, you can signal the moderator with o/, the candidate's name, and the question. Use o// if it's a follow-up question to the current discussion.

I. OTW ELECTIONS SEASON BEGINS

Our Elections team has been busy as this year’s OTW Board Directors election season has begun! The election will be held from 9-12 August, but in the meantime you can learn more about the three candidates competing for positions on the Board at our Elections page (for personal reasons, one of the original four candidates has withdrawn her candidacy). The Elections Committee would like to thank everyone who contributed questions for the upcoming candidates Q & A, answers to which will be posted to the Elections page.

Please note that the deadline to become an OTW member in order to vote in the upcoming election has now passed. If you don’t want to miss out next year, you can join at any time by making a US$10 membership donation at the OTW’s donations page.

II. FANLORE BINGO

This month, Fanlore concluded a very successful Bingo Challenge event which saw lots of participants – both established editors and newcomers – taking part to complete their 'bingo cards' and earn adorable badges. Thanks to everyone who took part!

III. AT THE AO3

Our AO3 Documentation team uploaded a new FAQ, explaining how to format content on AO3 using HTML. Look out for more FAQ updates coming soon!

The Open Doors committee was happy to complete the Born For War archive import, first announced in February.

The Policy & Abuse committee received around 2,000 tickets this month, which is more than usual. They ask for your patience as they work through them! Meanwhile, our Tag Wrangling team wrangled over 262,000 tags and Support received approximately 1,400 tickets.

IV. LEGAL ADVOCACY

June brought good news for Legal’s advocacy project on two fronts. First, the results of the Canadian Parliament’s statutory review of the Copyright Act review were released, and the OTW’s submission was cited favorably in a number of places. This report doesn’t change Canadian law in any way, but it reflects that Canada’s Parliament hears and respects the interests of fans! Second, the OTW joined allies in successfully opposing proposed fan-unfriendly expansions of the right of publicity in New York State.

V. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Many of our teams welcomed new members this month, including Translation whose 11 new volunteers included four which created new language teams: Afrikaans, Galician, Lithuanian and Macedonian.

In total, the OTW has 722 volunteers as of 26 June. Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Staff: redheadandslytherin (Translation)
New Communications Volunteers: Atiya B, Elin, and 2 other volunteers
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 2 volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: 7 volunteers

Departing Committee Staff: Ingi (Tag Wrangling), Lauren Hanna (Communications), Linde (Volunteers & Recruiting), Priscilla Del Cima (Fanlore) and 1 other Communications staffer
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Adie and 2 other volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: RiiaN and 5 other volunteers

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 Chelsea Eidbo, who volunteers with the Development & Membership and Tag Wrangling Committees.

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.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

As a staff member of Development & Membership, DevMem for short, I help with the Membership Drives and fundraising; work with users to resolve issues surrounding donations; and brainstorm for fundraising ideas, future drives, drive graphics, and gifts for donors. As a Tag Wrangler, I help to organize user-created tags in a variety of fandoms to make them searchable and make all creators’ works easier to find.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

In a typical week, there is a weekly meeting with DevMem staff to discuss any upcoming projects, plan for any upcoming changes that might affect or interest users and work on graphics, banners and posts for the next Membership Drive. I wrangle in any spare time I have. I work with other wranglers on several mega fandoms as well as maintaining about twenty-five fandoms solo.

What made you decide to volunteer?

It’s not overly exciting. I had just quit my job and planned to spend the next two months living with my grandmother to help her out. I needed something to do in my downtime and wrangling seemed perfect. I joined DevMem two years later because I’d done fundraising as a teenager and was interested in doing it again and I was, and still am, highly motivated to make sure the OTW gets donations.

Plus, it’s fun!

What's the most fun thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?

Walked right into that one. There is so much fun to be had! Watching the Membership Drives happen from the volunteer side of it is awesome because all the volunteers are in a positive mood and excited to see how much users care about the OTW and AO3, and that they want to donate to keep us up and running. In the October 2018 Drive, we introduced the AO3 heart-shaped stress balls which were a huge hit and I’m psyched to have one, even though my cat has co-opted it as his favorite toy.

What fannish things do you like to do?

So many things. I read and write fanfiction on AO3 endlessly. Lots of crack fic and fluffy, fluffy romance. Lately, I’ve been letting my OTW friends inspire me for the most crack-filled ships to write about. I also listen to and record podfic, and get my fill of drama by reading the Fanlore pages. Most of my free time is either volunteering or meandering through my favorite AO3 tags.

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 comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier 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.

Do you have experience with research methods, problem solving or nonprofit governance? Or would you like to wrangle AO3 Tags? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• Strategic Planning Staff - closing 10 July 2019 at 23:59 UTC
• Tag Wrangling Volunteer - closing 10 July 2019 at 23:59 UTC or after 90 applications

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

Strategic Planning Staff

The Strategic Planning Committee is recruiting for new staff members! We are a close-knit and collaborative committee of people who are tasked with researching, developing, and supporting the implementation of the strategic plan. We are looking for organized people well-versed in writing and social science research methods, with knowledge of or a background in organizational change processes and/or nonprofit governance. Knowledge of agile project management, surveying, and interviewing are all pluses, but not requirements. We welcome all perspectives and are actively interested in people with diverse views on fandom and the OTW!

Applications are due Wednesday 10 July 23:59 UTC

Tag Wrangling Volunteer

The Tag Wranglers are responsible for helping to keep the millions of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! Wranglers follow internal guidelines to choose the tags that appear in the filters and auto-complete, which link related works together. (This makes it easier to browse and search on the archive, whether that’s Shěn Wēi/Zhào Yúnlán with ABO Dynamics, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark with angst, g-rated Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam fluff, or Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V Are Childhood Friends.)

If you’re an experienced AO3 user who likes organizing, working in teams, or excuses to fact-check your favorite fandoms, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join us, click through to the job description and application form.

Please note: You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. Additionally, we’re currently looking for wranglers for specific fandoms only, which will change each recruitment round. Please see the application for which fandoms are in need.

Applications are due Wednesday 10 July 23:59 UTC or after 90 applications

Apply at the volunteering page!