Releases 0.9.404 - 0.9.408: Change Log

April came with a lot of smaller changes and fixes to AO3. We also made a few bigger improvements, such as fixing gif icons that weren't animating and updating the way we send invitations to new users. On top of that, we added a confirmation email to the email change process and created a button to delete all your subscriptions. We also made a number of changes to make the work of our Policy & Abuse committee easier as they continue to tackle a wave of spam.

Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Emily Wiegand, Hamham6, Laura, melo, Michelle Tanoto, niic, and Tom Li!

Credits

• Coders: Amy Lee, Bilka, Brian Austin, EchoEkhi, Emily Wiegand, Hamham6, irrationalpie, Isabel Nunes, Laura, lydia-theda, marcus8448, melo, Metallicity, Michelle Tanoto, niic, sarken, slavalamp, Tom Li, unsafe-deref
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, lydia-theda, redsummernight, sarken
• Testers: Aster, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Deniz, Jennifer D2, Lute, lydia-theda, megidola, Rachel Linton, Ridicully, Runt, Sanity, sarken, Scott, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.404

On April 2, we fixed gif icons which weren't animating and deployed a number of small changes all around the site.

• [AO3-5596] - When the boxes on the All Fandoms page were of unequal heights, we'd sometimes end up with a box jumping over to the wrong side of the page and creating a big empty space where it should've been. We've fixed it so the boxes should now stack up in the correct columns no matter how tall they are.
• [AO3-6751] - When a fandom tag had a period in its name, the "Relationships by Character" link on its tag landing page would give a 404 error. We've fixed that by properly escaping the periods in the link.
• [AO3-6939] - We've added more information to the browser page title for various collection pages, so now they include which page you're on in addition to the collection title (e.g., "Collection Title - Profile" or "Collection Title - Fandoms").
• [AO3-6942] - The page where a Policy & Abuse admin confirms the deletion of a spammer's works and comments had the browser page title "Confirm Delete User Creations Admin User." This was computer-generated gobbledygook, so we changed it to "Confirm Deletion of User Creations," which is at least marginally better.
• [AO3-6955] - When we changed the code library we use for icons across the site, animated gif icons stopped being animated. We've fixed this so gif icons, including icons uploaded before this release, are now animated again.
• [AO3-6799] - Our Support and Policy & Abuse committees needed to move some things around in their ticket trackers, so we moved some things around in the code to make sure ticket information still ends up in the right place.
• [AO3-5744] - If the URL you entered when importing a work redirected you to a different URL, you'd get a 500 error. We've fixed it so the work will still get imported.
• [AO3-6949] - We bumped our version of the nokogiri gem from 1.18.3 to 1.18.4.

0.9.405

On April 11, we deployed some improvements for the Policy & Abuse committee. We also made a number of display fixes and increased the reliability of sending invitations from the invitation queue.

• [AO3-5573] - If you tried to change the sort order on your Works in Collections page, the works stubbornly remained sorted by their updated date no matter which option you chose. We've fixed it so now they'll actually be sorted in the desired order.
• [AO3-6597] - We were making some changes around invitation pages, so we took the opportunity to prepare those pages for future translation.
• [AO3-6877] - When you fill a prompt in a prompt meme, we automatically add some text to the work notes linking back to the prompt meme. We've updated this text so it will now use the collection's display title rather than its name, which is primarily intended for the URL. (Please note that this will not affect notes on existing works.)
• [AO3-6957] - We improved the look of the error highlighting when you try to leave an invalid comment, such as an exact duplicate of a comment you previously left in the same place.
• [AO3-6961] - We made caution notices, such as the text informing you what will happen if you change your username, more readable in the Reversi skin.
• [AO3-6672] - When a Policy & Abuse admin needed to change someone's username to a generic one, they used to need help from someone with database access. Now they can press a button and the username will be automatically changed.
• [AO3-6830] - When someone reports a work to our Policy & Abuse committee, we now automatically add a list of the work's creators to the ticket PAC receives.
• [AO3-6913] - Admins can now control how often invitations are sent by specifying the frequency in hours instead of days. This helps improve the stability of sending emails by letting us spread the load out over the course of a day instead of doing all the work at once.
• [AO3-6952] - When a Policy & Abuse admin bans a spammer, we no longer submit comments that are marked as deleted to our spam checker.

0.9.406

On April 17, we added an option to delete all your subscriptions to the Subscriptions page. Additionally, we improved error messages all around the site to be more informative and made some other small changes.

• [AO3-6578] - If you marked a work as inspired by a work not hosted on AO3, the ratings in the blurb for the inspiration would overlap the text informing you that the work is not posted on the Archive. We've moved the text so it's now completely readable.
• [AO3-6896] - We've made it so long usernames in the kudos section of a work will wrap across lines instead of running off the side of the page on small screens.
• [AO3-6935] - Trying to create a skin with a title that matched an existing skin's title in every way but capitalization used to result in a 500 error, but now it will give a nicer error telling you the skin title must be unique.
• [AO3-6956] - We reworded the error message you get when you try to make duplicate comments in the exact same spot (for example, submitting the same comment twice in a row on the same work).
• [AO3-6965] - We optimized some of our automated tests by spending less time on posting works.
• [AO3-3524] - We adjusted our HTML parser so you can now use media embeds from 4shared.com in your works.
• [AO3-6401] - If an OTW volunteer tries to leave kudos while logged in to their committee's official account, they'll get an error message telling them to log in with their personal account instead.
• [AO3-6711] - Your subscriptions page now has an option to delete all of your subscriptions. (You can also delete all subscriptions of a certain type, such as work subscriptions, by going to the page listing that kind of subscription.) Don't worry, all of these buttons come with a separate confirmation page.
• [AO3-6849] - To make testing and translation easier, we made a preview of the email users receive when they are gifted a work.
• [AO3-6911] - When a page takes too long to respond, you will now be redirected to a more informative error page.
• [AO3-6945] - When you were entering a tag with a pipe (|) in a field, the autocomplete would return unexpected results if you didn't surround the pipe with spaces. We've fixed that and also sped up the autocomplete search for tags with pipes.

0.9.407

In our deploy from April 24, we improved account security by adding a confirmation email that will be sent to your new email address when you attempt to change the email address of your account.

• [AO3-6113] - Previously, the autocomplete dropdown for tag fields would sometimes stay open after you selected a result from it. It should now always close as expected.
• [AO3-6938] - We updated the browser page title on the Related Works page to include the username of the page's owner.
• [AO3-6962] - When reviewing nominated tags for tag sets, the tags were unreadable in the Reversi skin. We fixed this and also adjusted the Snow Blue skin to address an issue with hover styles on that page.
• [AO3-6972] - Our dependency updater bumped our code style checker from version 2.21.2 to 2.21.3.
• [AO3-5350] - We updated the email that is sent to you when your work is hidden as spam, so that the email can be translated in the future.
• [AO3-6388] - To help keep your AO3 account secure, we've changed the process for updating your account's email address. We already made you enter your new email address twice to reduce the risk of typos, but now you'll need to confirm the new address is correct one more time before we start processing the request. You'll still receive a notification at your old email address, but now we'll also send a confirmation link to your new email address. Your email address will officially be changed only if you log in and use the confirmation link within seven days.

0.9.408

On April 29, we deployed some improvements to our automated tests and fixed a few bugs on the archive.

• [AO3-5053] - When you updated your username or pseud, the blurbs for your bookmarks would continue to show the old name for some time. We've changed this so they will now update immediately.
• [AO3-6136] - Admins can now see the timestamp when a user successfully reset their password in the user's account history.
• [AO3-6813] - When translated emails were enabled but an admin disabled translations for a specific locale, emails would continue to be sent in that locale. Since that's not what the admin intended when disabling the translations, we've fixed this behavior.
• [AO3-6845] - When an admin searched for invitations sent to a particular email, the result would be displayed in a different format if there was only one invitation. That format was inconvenient, so we've changed it to display the same way as a search result of multiple invitations.
• [AO3-6963] - Some normally invisible line breaks in the page title would result in awkward AO3 link previews on other sites. We removed the extra whitespace, so the title in the link preview now looks nicer.
• [AO3-5862] - Back in 2018, we created a migration to remove a column from the database, and then promptly forgot to run it. We've updated the migration and didn't forget about it this time.
• [AO3-6982] - We fixed some automated tests that were randomly failing.
• [AO3-6031] - The file for our automated comment tests was getting quite large and unmanageable, so we split it up into several smaller files.
• [AO3-6980] - One of our automated tests started failing because it was accessing a website that no longer exists. We changed the test to use a mock website instead.
• [AO3-6974] - We bumped our version of the nokogiri gem again, this time to 1.18.8.