Archive of Our Own

Credits

• Coders: Ariana, Daniel Erenrich, Enigel, james_, Marie Markwell, Sarken
• Code reviewers: Ariana, Elz, james_, Scott
• Testers: Erialeduab, hele, Lady Oscar, mugenmine, mumble

Details

Works & Stats

• We have updated the text of the emails that go out (to existing AO3 users as well as creators who don't have an account yet) when an archive mod or site owner imports someone's work through our Open Doors project. (See what the team has accomplished this year in our News posts about Open Doors!)
• On the Statistics page, reversing the sort order for Date, Kudos, Comment Threads, Hits etc. would not update the corresponding graph title. It now properly says "Oldest" or "Bottom Five By [Kudos/Comment Threads/Hits etc.]" when displaying the reverse sort results.
• Drafts of a related work, e.g. fanart for another user's fic, were showing up in the author's sidebar, e.g. Related Works (1), even though the work draft was still invisible to anyone but the artist. Now the number in the sidebar only increments when the work has been posted.
• The code responsible for deleting drafts one month after their creation was not working properly in some cases, resulting in the drafts still being listed on the user's draft page despite being deleted/inaccessible. It should be working properly now.
• The big chunk of code responsible for handling works and work-related actions had become unwieldy and messy over time. It has now been refactored--cleaned up and reorganized--to adhere to best practices.

Collections & Challenges

• When changing the settings for a challenge (Moderated, Closed, Unrevealed, Anonymous), the challenge blurb, e.g. on the main Collections index, would not be updated to reflect the change. This has been fixed!
• If you posted a work to fulfill a challenge assignment and your recipient deleted their account, you would then be unable to edit your work (getting an error 500 instead of the editing form). This has been fixed!
• In tag sets, the option for adding a chunk of relationship tags at once ("batch loading") wasn't working. Now it is.

Misc.

• Our tag cloud was displaying only a few very popular tags in large font size, with all the other tags being more or less the same size. It now calculates tag counts and display size differently, making the cloud more useful and easier to parse.
• When selecting a tag from the dropdown menu to browse the AO3 News, but leaving the language selection blank, trying to get to the next page of results would lead to an Error 500. This was because the code expected a language selection - we now explicitly set the default language to English, so this error won't happen anymore.
• In preparation for further work on a translatable interface for the Archive, we removed all lingering code related to a previous translation project.
• Switched our Rails memcached client to Dalli, which is better maintained and should make pages load slightly faster.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

Ink Stained Fingers, a haven for Harry Potter slash and femslash fan fiction and fan art, is moving to the Archive of Our Own (AO3). In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work on Ink Stained Fingers
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The Ink Stained Fingers archive was created at a difficult time in fandom. FF.net had just outlawed explicit slash, and several Harry Potter fandom archives had to impose strict limitations on stories allowed to their sites because of their host’s regulations. Open archives were also receiving Cease & Desist letters from publishers and closing. At the same time, writers in the HP fandom were expanding their horizons with stories featuring mpreg, non-con sex, BDSM, kink, bestiality, and explicit slash and femslash. A decision was made on the Snape-slash mailing list to locate a host platform that would accept a no-holds-barred slash archive, and to create that archive for everyone to use. Over the next 10 years, over 3,300 stories would be uploaded to this archive.

Fast-forward to 2014, when the web-world is much different. Small and medium single-fandom sites with less accessible search capabilities are giving way to large multi-fandom sites where every kind of story and pairing is allowed and searching is easy. Fandom itself is more accepting of stories that push the edge. During the last year, only 2 stories have been uploaded to ISF, primarily due to the age of the posting interface and the lack of new readership. It was either time for a face-lift, or time to move our stories elsewhere. After polling the readership, it was agreed that moving the collection to AO3 was the way to best serve the Harry Potter fandom, to preserve these stories for the future, and even lure in new readers.

Open Doors will be working with Diana Williams to import the Ink Stained Fingers archive' into a separate, searchable collection with its own identity. We will begin manually importing works from Ink Stained Fingers to the AO3 collection in January 2015.

What does this mean for creators who have work on Ink Stained Fingers?

This is the part where we ask for your help!

1. If you already have an AO3 account and have posted your ISF works there, please contact Open Doors with your ISF pseud(s) and e-mail address(es), so that we won’t import your stories. (For instructions on mass-adding stories to the new collection on the AO3, InkStainedFingers, please see the Open Doors website.)

2. If you don’t already have an AO3 account but would like one to import your stories yourself, please contact Open Doors with your ISF pseud(s), and the preferred e-mail address to send the AO3 invite to. (For instructions on importing works and adding them to the InkStainedFingers collection, please see the Open Doors website.)

3. If you don’t already have an AO3 account but would like one, as well as assistance importing your works, please contact Open Doors with your ISF pseud(s), and the preferred e-mail address to send the AO3 invite to. (Once your account is set up, let us know your AO3 name, and we can transfer your works to you.)

4. If you would NOT like your works moved, please contact Open Doors with your ISF pseud(s) and e-mail address(es) so that we will not add them. (If you would not mind them being preserved but do not want your name attached to them any longer, please let us know that too—we can orphan your works instead of leaving them behind to be deleted.)

All works archived on a creator’s behalf will be attributed with the creator’s name in the byline of the work. As we import works, we will e-mail notifications to the address associated with the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 3 months, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Ink Stained Fingers account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the stories elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with Diana to confirm your claims.)

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ page, contact the Open Doors committee, or leave a comment on this post and we'll respond as soon as we can.

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

Ink Stained Fingers has been delighted to serve the Harry Potter slash community and looks forward to a future as part of the AO3--and we're equally delighted to welcome this archive aboard!

- The Open Doors team

International Fanworks Day will take place on February 15, 2015! The OTW is making plans to celebrate, but we also want to know what you will be doing!

What is International Fanworks Day?

A day to promote fan creativity in all of its forms, all over the world. Whether in text, image, audio or multimedia, and whatever their nation or language of origin, we use fanworks to express love for our fandoms and forge our own communities and traditions. On International Fanworks Day (IFD), we want fans everywhere to show how important fanworks are to them.

So how do we celebrate it?

Here are some ideas -- and we'd love to hear more from you!

• Post a fanwork to the International Fanworks Day tag at the Archive of Our Own or add the tag to wherever else you host your work.
• Participate in the drabble challenge we'll be holding across our OTW News sites.
• Link to five fanworks where you've left feedback in comments to our IFD post on February 15th.
• You tell us!

Look for further announcements as we get closer to February 15!

Credits

• Coders: Ariana, james_, Sarken
• Code reviewers: Elz, james_, Lady Oscar, Sarken
• Testers: Anika Kabit, Lady Oscar, legalizemavin, mumble, Priscilla del Cima, Runt

Details

• When a user attempted to change their username to one that was less than three characters or more than forty, the error message they received would tell them which characters are allowed in user names. Now it will tell them how long a username must be.
• A user who had archivist privileges and wanted to import their own works from another site would receive an error message incorrectly preventing them from importing their work. They will no longer receive this error message, allowing them to import their works.
• The admin interface for creating translations of news posts had a dropdown menu that let translators choose which of the recent posts the translation corresponded to. However, our translators are awesome and want to translate some older news posts, so we changed from a dropdown menu with a limited number of posts to an autocomplete that will let them choose any news post they like.
• In our previous release, we tidied up the margins on tags in work blurbs, but we also introduced a bug that moved the tags closer together. We've fixed the typo that caused the problem and tags are properly spaced out once again.
• We made some minor improvements to the code used for manual imports, in particular to turn names listed on a line starting with "Characters:" into tags where possible.
• When a logged out user tried to access an FAQ using an old URL (e.g. one ending with archive_faqs/30), they would get a 404 error telling them the page could not be found. Now they should be redirected to the new URL (e.g. one ending in /faq/ao3-internal-tools?language_id=en) just like logged in users are.
• In works and site documentation, <h4> headings were hard to distinguish from the main text. Now text in <h4> tags will be bold to make it stand out more.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

For more information about the purview of our committees, please see the committee listing on our website.

I. A WIN FOR LEGAL

It’s been a very active month for Legal's advocacy mission. In the beginning of November, they filed petitions with the U.S. Copyright Office to renew the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) exemption that the OTW helped win in 2009 and 2012. This made it legal for fan video makers to rip DVDs and online sources in order to make noncommercial fan video. In addition to seeking renewal, Legal has asked the Copyright Office to expand the exemption to include ripping Blu-Ray discs for the same purposes. The petition is only the first step. Over the coming months they will be submitting evidence and providing further arguments to support the need for the exemption. Legal thanks everyone who helped them with stories and information so far.

Legal also got some good news this month based on some work they did back in April in the case of Garcia v. Google. In April, Legal filed a brief in support of Google’s request that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-hear the case. And we succeeded! On November 12, the court declared its original ruling void, and set a schedule for re-hearing the case. So on November 25, Legal filed another brief, explaining why we thought the previous result would promote online censorship and harm free speech.

Legal also did some informational work in November by helping to create some educational materials about transformative works and U.S. fair use law. Their post on “The Case Against Licensing Fanworks" sparked some lively discussion on AO3 News.

Finally, in November Legal also continued work on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s multi-stakeholder project to improve the functioning of the DMCA notice and takedown process, and responded to several queries from fans. As always, they welcome your queries!

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design and Technology had two code deploys in November — (Releases 0.9.33 and 0.9.34) — and are currently working on a third, with the help of shiny new testers from our last recruitment round! Accessibility, Design and Technology handled a security concern related to our development data by upgrading our encryption method and asking users to change their passwords (via AO3 News post and targeted emails).

Tag Wrangling helped Support resolve tag-related tickets, fixed some broken links in the Tag Wrangling FAQ, and held special-topic training sessions for beginning and intermediate wranglers.

Abuse handled roughly 270 tickets in November, with more constantly streaming in. Please do remember that our team does not need multiple reports sent in; one report per case is all that is required for us to investigate. Most cases are dealt with in less than a week, while trickier cases could take up to two weeks to handle. Abuse is also working with coders to create a way to help better track Fannish Next of Kin requests.

AO3 Documentation sent the first five new FAQs to other committees for revision. This is the last step in their drafting workflow, which means that the first new FAQs are finally almost done! They've also welcomed a new volunteer, and started working on the required documentation to transition into a full committee, while also creating a committee roadmap for 2015.

III. STEPS FORWARD

Systems made some changes to the OTW's internal email architecture to better handle future OTW membership drive emails so that they won't affect the delivery of our internal emails. Meanwhile, Content Policy began revisions to Open Doors' FAQ, with that committee's assistance.

Open Doors announced the pending import for Chains (available in multiple languages thanks to Translation!). They are also receiving much appreciated assistance from Accessibility, Design and Technology on a solution for a second archive import, and have been making progress on two other pending archives. Translation focused on internal documentation and future-planning, including revamping workflows for news posts. Translation chairs are hard at work on chair training documentation and a roadmap for 2015.

The Web Strategy, Design & Development Committee resolved the problem with the OTW website that had been causing frequent downtimes. And Journal is finishing up obtaining final versions of manuscripts for the first two Transformative Works and Cultures issues of 2015, which will go into copyedit in January.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections wrapped up the 2014 elections period with a final OTW news post containing transcripts of the three public chats with candidates. They are now writing a roadmap for 2015 and are contacting other committees for feedback on that process.

Strategic Planning drafted an initial plan from the list of strategic goals that was brainstormed in October and presented it to all staff and volunteers for review, input, and discussion of specific implementation steps.

They then hosted two organization-wide chats to review the goals with any personnel who wished to attend. Additionally, each committee chair was contacted individually to solicit input on implementation the specific goals involving their committees. Once the feedback is received, the plan will be revised and reviewed again.

Strategic Planning also welcomed new staff members who will be helping to refine the Strategic Plan, as well as finish up survey reports for each committee and workgroup.

Development & Membership worked with the Board to create a post on the OTW's financial future following our record-breaking drive. The committee also had a lengthy "what we learned" document put together. Because of our technical difficulties with the OTW website, there were some snags in premium fulfilment for donors. But the committee has a good handle on it now, and things are should be smoother going forward.

In addition, Development & Membership announced that the OTW is taking part in the Amazon Smile program so that fans making purchases at Amazon can automatically donate to the OTW. They are also developing business cards and stationary for organizational use.

V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting spent November diving into internal committee work after closing out all external recruiting campaigns for 2014. They've made huge leaps forward on an internal audit of all OTW-wide tools, started a revision of recruitment documentation to help improve our recruiting services in 2015, continued to assess and revise committee internal documentation and procedures, and worked on feedback for the recently released draft of the Strategic Plan.

New Committee Chairs: jsparc (Wiki), Curtis Jefferson (Volunteers & Recruiting)

New Committee Staff: Nerine Luna Cyran (Tag Wrangling), ragingrainbow (Tag Wrangling), Nary (Tag Wrangling), theteapot (Translation), Kirsten Korona (Communications), Ridicully (Support), Kenna McKay (Support), LilyC (Support), Sparrow Rubin (Support), Amy Shepard (Strategic Planning), FeminineBrain (Strategic Planning), 3 other Communications staffers, 2 other Tag Wrangling staffers, 3 other Support staffers, 1 other Strategic Planning staffer, and 1 Systems staffer

New Workgroup Members: Amalia Blondet (AO3 Documentation)

New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 1 Tag Wrangling volunteer

New Tester Volunteers: mugenmine, Anika Kabit, twofingerpost, pendrecarc, nightmarefluff, Agwen, and 6 other testing volunteers

New Translator Volunteers: 1 Translator volunteer

Departing Committee Staff: Priscilla Del Cima (Development & Membership), Camden (Communications)

Departing Workgroup Members: EnthusiasmGirl (AO3 Documentation), 3 other AO3 Documentation volunteers

Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: 11 Tag Wrangling volunteers

Departing Translator Volunteers: Nothorse and 1 other Translator volunteer

Since 1985, the United Nations has designated the 5th of December as International Volunteer Day, a day to celebrate and honour volunteerism around the world. We would like to take today to thank all the dedicated volunteers who keep this organisation running.

Today, the OTW is made up of 479 active volunteers and volunteer-staff, who run 20 committees and 2 workgroups. They keep AO3 and Fanlore online and functioning; edit Transformative Works & Cultures; preserve fansites through Open Doors; and protect and defend fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenge as well as do many, many internal tasks that are unseen by fans.

The OTW's staffers and volunteers put countless unpaid hours toward the organisation's mission of providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan cultures. Whether you've joined us recently or have been with us since the beginning--seven years ago!--we are grateful for the fantastic work you have done. To all the thousands of volunteers, past and present, who have helped move us forward in our work, thank you!

Credits

• Coders: Emily E., Lady Oscar, Sarken
• Code reviewers: james_, Sarken, Scott
• Testers: Agwen, Lady Oscar, legalizemavin, LtFoxYee, mumble, nightmarefluff, pendrecarc, Runt, Sara Heins, twofingerpost

Details

Tag Wrangling & Tag Sets

• When a tag wrangler attempted to create a tag containing certain restricted characters (i.e. , ^ * { } = ` \ %), the error message they received was incomplete and confusing due to the way the ^ character is interpreted by our code. We switched to using the numeric character reference for ^ and now a full, clear error message will be given.
• When a user attempted to nominate a tag or create a tag set using restricted characters (e.g. giving it a title with * or ^ in it), the error message they received was similarly incomplete. These issues have been fixed as well!
• The Wrangling Tools page (visible to logged-in wranglers) previously contained only a few links to the Wrangling Guidelines and the OTW-internal wiki. Now it includes a more detailed set of links to various pages of documentation and updated contact information for the committee staff.

Importing

• Attempting to import a work from a LiveJournal community or journal marked as containing adult content would instead import the contents of LiveJournal's support page. We adjusted the importing code so it will bypass the adult content warning and import the work itself.
• The "Post New Work Instead?" link on the import page was only reloading the import page. Now it will take you to the page for posting a new work.

External Works

• When a user bookmarks an external work, they are asked to provide information about that work based on the work's headers. However, the field for providing the work's category (i.e. F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, or Other) was presented as a dropdown menu, which would only let the user choose one category tag. The options are now presented as checkboxes, so the user can select all categories that apply.
• Admins were unable to access the form for editing external work information due to a conflict with the "Hide my work from search engines when possible" preference. We've fixed the conflict so admins can access the page once again.

Stats

• The "Totals" section on a user's Statistics page lists how many users are subscribed to them as a work creator. It was previously labeled "Author Subscriptions," but because we have more than written works on the Archive, we changed it to "User Subscriptions."
• A work posted on or backdated to 31 December would not be included in the user's statistics for that year (or any other year). Now it will be listed in the correct year and any word counts, kudos, comments, hits, or subscriptions for that work will also be included in that year's totals.

Misc.

• In work blurbs, the first tag in a line of text was aligned differently based on whether it started on that line of text or had wrapped from the previous line. Now the tags will always align the same, creating a tidier margin on the left side of the tag section of the blurb.
• If a form's HTML provides certain information, most browsers will place keyboard focus on an input (e.g. a checkbox or text field) when a user interacts with its label. To improve usability and accessibility, we've added that information to the form on the reset password page, so the field will correctly receive focus.
• We recently changed the code for the pop-up search suggestions in the header (e.g. tip: lex m/m (mature OR explicit)) on most site pages. However, because our error pages use different code than the rest of the site, the search tip was always displaying there, not just when using the search field. The error pages have been updated and will now work the same as all other pages.
• The chapter number at the top of a chapter was supposed to be a link in Chapter-by-Chapter mode and plain text in Entire Work mode, but caching would sometimes result in the the wrong format being used in a given mode. Now the chapter number will always be a link, regardless of which mode is in use.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

AO3 Support staffers are the people who receive your tickets through the Support and Feedback form and try to respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do their best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.

So Support will be holding an Open Chat session in our public chat room.

They'll be available on Sunday, December 7, 00:00 UTC to 04:00 UTC (what time is that in my timezone?). Volunteers will be available to answer inquiries in English, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. If you can't make it to this one, keep an eye out for future chat announcements.

If you're having a problem using the Archive, want help trying something new, or would like an explanation of one of our features, please drop in and talk to us in person!

Some guidelines from Support, just to keep things running smoothly

We don't have a fancy presentation or material prepared--there are plenty of FAQs, tutorials, and admin posts for that. The point of live chat is to talk with you, not at you. We're happy for you to drop in and say "hi", but it's even better if you drop in and say, "Hi, what's up with my work that won't show as complete even though it is?!"

As Support, our function is to help users with bugs and issues, and pass reports on to our Coders and Systems team, who actually keep the place running. This means that policy questions are way over our pay grade. (Just kidding--none of us get paid!) So, if you have questions or comments about AO3 or OTW policies, good or bad, Support Chat isn't the right place for them. If you do want to talk to someone about policy issues (meta on the Archive, philosophical issues with the tagging system, category change, etc.) we can direct you to the appropriate admin post or contact address so you can leave feedback directly for the people dealing with the area of your concern.

Additionally, if a question looks like it might violate a user's privacy to answer (if it needs an email address or other personal information, for example) we may not be willing to work with it in chat. In those cases, we'll redirect a user to the Support Form so we can communicate via email.

So, now that that's out of the way, what kind of things are we going to talk about?

Live chat is best for questions of a "How do I...?" or "Why does it...?" nature. For example, you might have been wondering:

• I'd like to run a challenge, but I'm not sure how to do what I want.
• For that matter, where did my work submitted to an anonymous challenge go?!
• I want to post using formatting the Rich Text Editor won't give me. How do I do it using a work skin?
• I want to add a lot of my older works to the AO3 -- what would be the easiest way to do that?

We'd be happy to help you with any of these questions, and anything else you're having trouble doing or would like to try doing with the Archive.

We've recently upgraded our password encryption in response to a possible security issue affecting a number of accounts. Your account will be automatically upgraded to use the stronger encryption next time you log in. If you usually stay logged in all the time, please log out and then back in to ensure your account is upgraded.

What was the issue?

We maintain a virtual development environment which coders who want to work on the Archive can download: this is a copy of everything needed to run the Archive so that our coders can easily develop and test. This comes with a partial copy of Archive data, so that coders can see how changes in the code will affect the site, with identifying information such as email addresses stripped out. However, we were alerted to the fact that the way we previously encrypted passwords meant someone with access to this data could theoretically use it to figure out passwords associated with some accounts.

Our new encryption system will make it much harder for anyone who accesses our data in any way to guess passwords. In addition, we will review how we put together the sample data we use for development. Only known coders have accessed the old data (we keep a record of downloads) and we have no reason to think that users' accounts were compromised. However, account security is a priority and we're asking our users to change their passwords as a precautionary measure.

How to change your password

Affected account holders will shortly receive an email with a link to the "Change My Password" page. To change your password without the link:

1. Log into your account with your current password.
2. Visit your Profile.
3. Follow the "Edit My Profile" link at the bottom of the page.
4. Follow the "Change Password" link at the top.

We strongly recommend you pick at least a combination of letters and numbers, and avoid easily guessable passwords like 'password' or '123456'. You may wish to use a service like How Secure is my Password? to help you create a strong password.

As many fans are preparing to celebrate the end-of-year holiday season, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) would like to let U.S. supporters know that there is a simple way they can donate if they are making purchases through Amazon.

AmazonSmile is a program set up by Amazon that allows you to donate to a charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. There are currently nearly one million organizations participating, and the OTW is one of them!

How to use AmazonSmile

Simply go to http://smile.amazon.com from the web browser on your computer or mobile device. The site has the same products and services as the usual Amazon domain, many of which will be marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages. (Recurring Subscribe-and-Save purchases and subscription renewals are not currently eligible.) The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charity of your choice. Donations are made by the AmazonSmile Foundation, however, and will not be tax deductible by you.

If you have an existing Amazon.com account, all details will remain the same including your shopping cart, Wish List, wedding or baby registry. On your first visit to AmazonSmile you will be asked to select a charitable organization. Enter "The Organization For Transformative Works Inc" in the search field. That's it!

If you'd like to donate to more than one charity, you can always select the “Change your Charity” link in the “Your Account” page for different purchases. If you'd like to know more about AmazonSmile, visit their program details page.

What if I don't use Amazon U.S.?

At this time, AmazonSmile is only available to users of the U.S. site, and AmazonSmile is the only retail program through which we receive donations. If you have suggestions of other programs, please let us know!

However, you can donate directly to the OTW at any time of year through our donation page. We have answers to some frequently asked questions there, but if you have additional questions, please contact us.

Credits

• Coders: Lady Oscar, Sam Johnsson, sarken
• Code reviewers: Enigel, james_
• Testers: Anika Kabit, Lady Oscar, Runt, sarken

Details

• Misc.
  • Previously, if the original version of an AO3 News post was accidentally designated as being a translation, it couldn't be set back, creating a situation in which the post would permanently vanish from the main feed. It's now possible to restore the setting.
  • On the External Bookmark page, required fields were not correctly marked as being required. All required fields are now denoted with an asterisk (*) and error messages have been updated to be inclusive of non-text fanworks.
  • We have added a link to the Troubleshooting: Common Problems When Logging In News Post from the error message that is generated upon a failed login attempt.
  • We have reduced the number of emails sent out during the AO3 signup process. After signing up, users will still receive an email with an activation link, but will not receive a success email after activating the account, as this email contained no new information.

• Skins
  • While using the 'Reversi' Skin, it was previously impossible to read the 'You have already left kudos' message. This has been fixed.
  • We have also edited Reversi to make it easier to read the tooltip information displayed when viewing Tag Set nominations.
  • We have added a '.book' style to the Basic Formatting workskin. This style will indent the first line of each paragraph and remove the blank lines between paragraphs to give an appearance similar to the text in a standard printed book. You can read more about Work Skins in our Work Skins Tutorial.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

As fanworks have become more popular and the concept of fanwork creation has become more mainstream, the legality of fanworks has become a popular topic for media stories and blog posts. Some of these stories reflect understandings of American copyright law that are muddled or just plain wrong. Writers--particularly those focused on recent examples of "commercialized" fanworks--ignore or under-emphasize copyright's fair use doctrine, or look for ways to combine fanwork creation with media markets. One common trope, lately, has been to suggest that fanwork creators can, or should, obtain licenses before creating fanworks. After all, the argument goes, many authors and other media creators now recognize the positive value of fanworks, and would be delighted to give permission for fans to make fanworks. So why not have more licensing regimes for fanworks, where copyright holders give fans permission to make fanworks, probably in exchange for a fee or a share of the fan's proceeds if they want to commercialize their fanworks?

Here's why not -- licensing is neither legally necessary nor is it favorable to fans or fan culture for a number of reasons.

Licensing is unnecessary, especially for fans who do not want to commercialize their fanworks.

The American copyright doctrine of fair use favors noncommercial transformative works. The fair use doctrine is an exception to copyright infringement, and it provides people with a right to base their works on copyrighted works without infringing copyright. The factors considered in determining whether a work is a fair use--that is, noninfringing--include whether it transforms the meaning or purpose of the original, whether it's commercial or noncommercial, how much of the original work it copies, and whether it serves as a market replacement for the original. Because commerciality of use is one consideration in the fair use analysis, fans who want to try to make money from their fanworks face a more difficult legal question, but if their works don't create market competition with the original, they still may constitute fair use. But noncommercial transformative works -- the kind hosted on the AO3, for example -- are generally protected from infringement by the fair use doctrine.

Licensing invites censorship.

Licensing requires either seeking permission from a rights owner, or creating a work in line with a set of permissions that the creator has set out. In a past post, we discussed how Kindle Worlds' licensing system allows Amazon to restrict what fans can create in that setting, and that's only one example. Fanworks provide a way for fans to express things that the original creator didn't express, and even the most fan-friendly rights holders may not like what every fan wants to create. Licensing schemes may want fans to “celebrate the story the way it is,” not explore ways in which it might be different. But that takes away the freedom that makes fanworks so vibrant, innovative, and even potentially critical of the originals works' approach to sexuality, race, politics, or any number of other topics.

Licensing discriminates against those with low resources.

Licensing generally also involves a financial exchange --paying the rights holder, sharing proceeds, or owing some other sort of payment to the rights holder either for every work or for works that meet certain criteria (such as reaching a pre-determined amount of financial success). Even a small fee creates a barrier to creation that can be particularly detrimental to fans with fewer financial resources, young fans, and struggling and beginning artists, many of whom rely on fanwork creation to hone their crafts.

Licensing creates psychological and practical barriers to fanwork creation.

As OTW Legal's Rebecca Tushnet has been saying for years, creativity is often spontaneous and unpredictable, and if people have to ask permission before writing 500 words about Harry Potter, they will make other plans. This means many fanworks simply won't get made under a licensing system. This barrier to creation is especially strong for younger fans and those who doubt their political or expressive power--the very people who most often use fanworks to discover themselves, talk back to culture, and benefit from the support of fan communities.

Licensing undermines fan cultures.

Licensing invites commercialization of fanworks and undermines the "gift economy" that brings many fans together. It makes fanwork creation a transaction rather than just a conversation, and disturbs fan ecosystems.

Licensing hurts the law.

Finally, and importantly, the existence of widespread licensing for certain kinds of fanworks could warp perceptions of the fair use doctrine, which explicitly (and importantly for free speech!) exempts fair uses from the need for licensing and already exists to provide a space for fanwork creation. Some courts have held that when a licensing market exists, failure to obtain a license makes a use less likely to be fair. But even when licensing markets exist -- as we've seen above -- they do not provide the sort of freedom that the fair use doctrine is designed to provide.

These are only a few illustrations of why the OTW does not support a move toward licensing of fanworks. For more on the OTW's views about the legal framework for fanworks and the drawbacks of licensing regimes, see the document we produced addressing why any change in copyright law should favor freedom to make transformative works.

OTW's Legal Committee works on behalf of fans and fandom to make sure our voices are represented in discussions on copyright reform and they are available to answer individual fans' questions.

For more information about the purview of our committees, please see the committee listing on our website.

I. FANDOM COMES THROUGH!

Thousands of fans became new members of the OTW in October and many more donated, signal boosted, and cheered us on during our most successful membership drive ever! The final total for the drive was US$173,760.34, but by the end of October we had received US$182,930.34 in donations from 8,211 people.

Our Development & Membership committee had been preparing content for months, but then had to handle many last-minute workarounds due to tech issues and changes during the drive. Development & Membership also responded to hundreds of fan questions and comments during the drive itself, meaning many long days for this small but hardworking group.

Translation also worked extremely hard in a tireless race to translate all the October drive content, even while it changed as the drive went on. They prepared 10 documents in 18 languages — including two infographics and lots of tweets! Everyone came through brilliantly and amazingly fast. Special kudos to teams Czech and Hebrew, who only recently joined the committee and already hurried to help with the drive effort, as well as to volunteer Ania, who created versions of all the many drive graphics in each language.

II. AT THE AO3

Accessibility, Design and Technology had a series of tiny code updates this month (Releases 0.9.26, 0.9.27-.29, and 0.9.30-.32) and otherwise worked with Development & Membership and others on drive matters. The Quality Assurance & Testing subcommittee has been recruiting and will welcome a bunch of new testing volunteers soon!

Abuse handled over 180 tickets in October. They are currently working on a roadmap for next year and reviewing stats for 2014 in preparation for an end of term report. Meanwhile, AO3 Documentation is still making good progress as it works on AO3 FAQs.

Tag Wrangling's had a busy month! Wrangling staff helped Support on several tag-related tickets, answered questions from Twitter, and moved to Trello for internal task management. Our wrangling guidelines completed the migration to a new location. Finally, they welcomed 36 new tag wrangling volunteers and five new staff members!

III. PROJECT NEWS

Open Doors has been continuing to assist with archive imports and improving committee documentation. Communications released a second guest post, this one interviewing fandom blogger Jamie Broadnax. Meanwhile, Journal is pushing through the last few manuscripts for their next two issues while redoing their coding documentation.

Legal has been hard at work on the OTW's initial submissions in the process of seeking to renew the U.S. Copyright Office exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that provides legal protection for fan video creators who have to break encryption on DVDs (and other media) in order to make fan videos. They put out a call for comments, and have received some very helpful responses. If you have other responses, or examples of videos from the last three years that you think we should consider using as examples of how fan videos can create new meaning from existing works (especially if making those videos required breaking encryption on Blu-Ray or online sources such as iTunes or Netflix), please continue to send them! Legal plans to submit our exemption requests in November, but the process will continue from there, and we will still have lots of uses for new examples.

In addition to that, Legal has continued to work with the USPTO/NTIA Multistakeholder process for improving the operation of the DMCA notice and takedown procedure, and has responded to several queries from fans with legal questions and requests for help.

IV. GOVERNANCE

The OTW Board and Strategic Planning were joined by representatives from Volunteers & Recruiting and Legal for a planning session to map out future plans for the OTW. During the meeting, Strategic Planning presented the data they had collected from surveys and interviews of current and retired staff and volunteers and highlighted organization-wide challenges facing the Board, chairs and leads, and committees and workgroups. From this presentation, they facilitated a brainstorming session that led to a list of overall strategic goals to be accomplished in six-month intervals over the next three years. Board director Anna Genoese stepped down from the OTW Board following the three-day meeting.

Strategic Planning then scheduled three follow-up meetings, open to observers throughout the OTW, to review the goals brainstormed in the meeting. They are currently working on writing up these goals into a draft that will be presented to all staff and volunteers for review, input, and discussion of specific implementation steps. Strategic Planning expects to contact each committee or workgroup individually, as well as lead OTW-wide discussions of these goals, during the feedback phase.

Internationalization & Outreach has been holding a series of internal meetings to help it develop a more thorough understanding of the needs and ideas of the OTW, so that the direction that the committee takes in the future is in response to those needs and ideas. Internationalization & Outreach is focused on raising the profile of the OTW in underrepresented fannish communities and devising outreach strategies and implementing them. Internationalization & Outreach wants to focus on which fannish communities may share or be interested in the OTW's goals, how to reach them, and how to make our projects and our organization more welcoming and more in line with their needs.

Elections announced this year’s candidates for the OTW Board and posted candidate manifestos and bios for the public to peruse. They also reached out to the public for question submissions, which led to the recent posting of a Candidate Q&A covering many issues relating to OTW Board work. They also held a series of chats with the candidates and worked on creating transcripts of those meetings.

V. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting was very active in October both in terms of committee projects and providing support to the rest of the organization. At the beginning of the month, three staff attended the in-person Board meeting to provide input into the discussions there, and have been actively involved in the follow-up conversations working toward the draft strategic plan. Volunteers & Recruiting also managed recruiting for five different roles (with over 150 applications received) and began the official decommissioning of the Category Change workgroup.

Internally, they finished documenting their annual report project and planning for next year, closed out the annual Still Willing to Serve project, finalized the annual revision of our induction and removal procedures, and completed the final stages of migrating volunteer records to a new database system. They also identified and filled in a few documentation holes and have started looking at the future leadership structure for the committee and succession planning with an eye toward sustainability.

New Committee Chairs: Niko Thompson (Strategic Planning Co-Chair)
New Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Forever42, Karissa, LauraBeth, Jamie101, Yzmaisamzy, mrajick, Elizabeth Moonstone, Carolina, Gryfeathr, a_phasia, cordial, SunnyB, Kise, RawringPopcorn, Sezso, clotpoleofthelord, Asha, grungehemmings, Assassin_J, ravelqueen, whylorinda, hannahmhall, ShotaSammy, Swimmies, Amy Ketchup, phoenixacid, Cryllia, needleyecandy, Perfidiously, PhoenixFlame, Pax, Celia, Estirose, Sinope, especiallysarah and Krista
New Translator Volunteers: Neru and Hirannis

Departing Directors: Anna Genoese
Departing Committee Chairs: Cat Meier (Finance) and Aja (Development & Membership)
Departing Workgroup Leads: Soledad Griffin (Category Change)
Departing Committee Staff: 2 Translation, 1 Web Strategy, Design & Development, Reanna LaCasse (Support), 2 Communications, 1 Volunteers & Recruiting, 1 Tag Wrangling, 4 Abuse and 1 Finance
Departing Workgroup Members: 1 AO3 Docs volunteer, hele braunstein (Category Change), Lady Oscar (Category Change), bingeling (Category Change), kiki-eng (Category Change) and 2 other Category Change volunteers
Departing Communications Volunteers: Diane Quintal and 1 other
Departing Tester Volunteers: ljunattainable, openendings and 28 others.
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Michelle Dong and 62 others.
Departing Translator Volunteers: 3

The October drive was a massive success thanks to your generosity! The staff and volunteers of the Organization for Transformative Works are in awe not only of the amount of money raised but also the thoughtful discussions that took place during the drive.

One question raised in those discussions is: what are we going to do with the extra money? We were also asked why, if our goal was US$70,000, didn’t we stop there?

There are multifaceted answers to both. The shortest and most direct have been given in the comments on the news posts for the drive; we’ll invest more money in servers, in staff training, and in consultants to back up our all-volunteer staff. Raising money beyond our initial goal allows us to do all of those things along with paying our bills until our next scheduled drive in April (and beyond). It also lets us grow our "rainy day" reserve for emergencies.

The longer answer means digging into a little of the structure of OTW and the history of our fundraising.

As you saw in post seven of the drive, a nonprofit organization like the OTW has many expenses. About 70% of our budget goes to hosting, servers, and other things to keep the AO3 up and running. The other 30% is spread among our other projects, services, meetings and general administrative costs.

While we’ve always been able to cover our expenses, there have been times when it was close. AO3, our major expense, has grown exponentially—and quite frankly, we weren’t sure what to expect in the early years. Now we have a better handle on our needs, and over the past three years, we’ve refined our fundraising plans to be more mindful of growing our income to match the growth of our expenses. Think of it as the OTW going from "living from paycheck to paycheck" to having a regular household budget, a safety net, and some extra funds to be able to do more good.

Our goal of US$70,000 was what we thought was attainable for us. Our last October drive had raised US$52,381, so we were prepared to fall short of the goal, even if we had been able to bring in more than last year.

We were not prepared for the overwhelming success of this drive. In fact, we expected to have to dip into our reserve fund to get us through the end of the year and help keep us afloat until our next scheduled drive, in April 2015. This isn’t uncommon for a nonprofit, especially one as young as OTW, but also not a strategy we could sustain long-term. Discussions began in August about expanding our fundraising plan to include major donor solicitations, more methods for monthly donations, and adding one or two special events to supplement our annual drives.

We will still be looking into those things, because they are part of a solid and diverse fundraising strategy, but the immediate pressure has eased thanks to nearly 8,000 donor who came through for us this October. Simply put, our finances are stronger than ever, and that means strengthening all of the projects under the OTW umbrella.

Anticipated expenses, in brief:

• US$45,000 will be used to add additional servers in 2014, with at least US$100,000 in additional machinery in 2015.
• More servers mean more space for colocation and higher power costs for those servers, expected to total US$36,000 or more in 2015, with an additional US$25,000 for a tertiary colocation site, analytics, and domain registrations.
• An improved ticketing system for our Abuse and Support teams will cost an additional US$400 per month, a total of US$4,800 a year.
• Training seminars and workshops for staff will be available from a pool of at least US$7,500, with another US$7,500 set aside for travel, lodging, and registration fees for presentations at fan cons, academic conferences, and other events.
• An in-person meeting for the Board will take place in October, with possible attendance by chairs and/or other personnel, at an average of US$950 for travel, lodging and meals per person, estimated at US$15,000.
• US$8,000 will cover routine administrative expenses, and other program expenses will require a minimum of US$23,000.
• A nine-month cash reserve for emergencies of approximately US$72,000 will be maintained.

Beyond these immediate expenses, it’s difficult to pin down specific expenditures for 2015. As we mentioned above, we expected to go into next year with a smaller reserve and with modest growth in our income. Most of our concrete plans were built around those numbers. Committees are being asked to submit additional requests in November, but there are a few areas where we expect to increase funding.

We’ve talked about the immediate impact for AO3 in terms of additional servers and rack space, contract employees, and training. Fanlore and Open Doors will see some tangential benefits just from sharing the same server space. The upgrade in software for AO3 Support and Abuse will also make it easier to respond to user inquiries about Open Doors’ preservation work.

Our other two major projects, Transformative Works and Cultures and the legal advocacy work of our Legal committee, run on significantly smaller budgets than the AO3. Our legal team incurs filing fees from time to time along with the costs of traveling to hearings and meetings related to fair use. The staff of TWC, our academic journal, travel to academic conferences across the U.S.; another expense is the annual registration fee for the journal. The budget surplus created by this drive will allow them to represent OTW at more events, and for members of both committees to join Development and Membership—the committee behind our fundraising—in their plans for increased outreach at fan cons.

All of our projects and committees will benefit as well from more money to support staff and volunteers in attending more trainings, seminars, and webinars. Strengthening professional skills and connections across the OTW has always been a priority, whether it’s taking advantage of a management workshop for Volunteers and Recruiting or sending staff to participate in events like AdaCamp.

All of these areas are places in which we can grow thanks to the success of this drive and the generosity of our members. We expect to give an update on both the annual budget and our fundraising plan for 2015 by early January, so watch this space.

We’ll have another fundraising goal in April, and we hope that fandom will come through for us again. Remember: we’re only as strong and as vital as you, our users and members, make us.

Here’s some more details for all the number geeks among you:

Monthly expenses, recurring:
Regular monthly expenses as of 30 October: US$5,497.20
Monthly average expenses estimate for 2015: US$8,066.66
(Includes server colocation, routine program and administrative expenses paid every month)

Total anticipated expenses from 1 January to 30 March:
First quarter expenses, 2015 adjusted estimate: US$84,949.67
(Includes regular monthly expenses plus US$60,000 server purchase and preparation for the April fundraising drive; minimum amount we must have on hand)

Reserves:
9 months of reserves, 2015 estimate: US$72,599.94
(Based on regular monthly expenses; amount held to "keep the doors open" as we are, without growth, during emergencies)

Expenses plus reserves
First quarter expenses plus reserve, 2015 estimate: US$157,549.60
(Amount we must have on hand on 1 January to carry us through to 30 March and maintain 9 months of reserve funding)

Surplus talk:
Carry over: US$197,544.09
(Assumes we meet November and December fundraising goals and spend remainder of 2014 budget; this is the total amount of money we’ll have on hand on 1 January)

Surplus: US$39,994.48
(Amount remaining after 2014 budget is met, first quarter expenses, and reserve goal are met)

Preliminary budget talk, 2015:
We expect our 2015 budget will be (rough estimate): US$230,000
This number includes hardware purchases as well as regular monthly expenses, in-person meeting, staff development and outreach fund, and more.

Thank you for your support—your generosity makes our work possible.

Credits

• Coders: Emily, Enigel, james_, sarken
• Code reviewers: Ariana, Enigel, james_, Scott
• Testers: Lady Oscar, mumble, Runt, Scott

Details

• The option to remove requests or offers while filling in a challenge sign-up wasn't working when there were required tag fields on the sign-up form. Now it works again.
• There was some old bookmark code hanging around, not doing anything. Now it's gone.
• The "Bookmark External Work" button was available to visitors on the bookmark listings for tags. Only logged-in users can create bookmarks, so we removed the button.
• When browsing your subscriptions page on mobile devices with small screens, the links for accessing only series, user, or work subscriptions weren't working when tapped. Now they work.
• The little tooltip pop-up for the header's search field (suggesting possible keywords and sort options) only worked for users navigating by mouse or trackpad. Now it will work for people using keyboards, screen readers, or touch screens as well. Additionally, now it only appears when the search field is selected, rather than popping up whenever the cursor is nearby.
• We used an HTML attribute to label many things in various listings on the site -- for example, the titles of works. Unfortunately, some screen readers read the content of this attribute instead of the actual text, which made it sound like every work on the Archive was named "Title." We've removed this attribute from everywhere it could impact screenreaders in this way.
• When an admin went to a user's dashboard, any restricted works the user had posted were hidden from the admin. Now the admin can access those works from the user's dashboard, just like regular logged-in users can.
• We moved to an even stronger encryption method for safely storing passwords.
• Previewing a work for the first time automatically creates a draft. However, subsequent previews don't update that draft unless the user explicitly chooses "Save Without Posting". We removed the message that implied otherwise. Remember, don't use our posting form as your only writing tool! Browsers can crash, things can go wrong, your draft might get eaten. Always have a backup somewhere else.
• We considerably spruced up the README file used for displaying information about the AO3 software project on GitHub.com.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

Boys in Chains, a multi-fandom archive for both fiction and art, with a focus on stories about emotional bonds between people of different ranks or status, is moving in with the Archive of Our Own (AO3). And to reflect its openness to femslash, het, and gen, its name will be changing to Chains: The Powerfic Archive. In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work on Boys in Chains
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Boys in Chains opened in 2000 as a m/m slash slavefic archive. It later expanded its content to become an archive for works representing power imbalances, including slavefic, prisonfic, hookerfic and fic with BDSM themes. It welcomed fan fiction and original fiction in the categories of m/m slash, f/f slash, gen, and het as well as yaoi, yuri, and gay/lesbian fiction. As well as fiction, it also had a gallery of fan art depicting similar themes.

On the AO3, Chains: The Powerfic Archive will be a separate, searchable collection with its own identity for all of the fanworks that were housed on the original archive. We will begin importing works from Boys in Chains to the AO3 collection in December 2014.

What does this mean for creators who had work on Boys in Chains?

This is the part where we ask for your help!

1. If you already have an AO3 account and have posted your Boys in Chains works there, please contact Open Doors with your Boys in Chains pseud(s) and e-mail address(es), so that we won’t import your works. (You can mass add works to the new collection on the AO3.)

2. If you don’t already have an AO3 account but would like one to upload your works yourself, please contact Open Doors with your Boys in Chains pseud(s), and the preferred e-mail address to send the AO3 invite to.

3. If you would NOT like your works imported, please contact Open Doors with your Boys in Chains pseud(s) and e-mail address(es) so that we will not add them. (If you would not mind them being preserved but do not want your name attached to them any longer, please let us know that too—we can orphan your works so that present and future fans can still enjoy them.)

All works imported on a creator’s behalf will be attributed with their name in the summary of the work, and will include a note about how to claim the work in the future. As we import works, we will e-mail notifications to the address associated with the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 3 months, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Boys in Chains works, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Chains archive mod to confirm your claims.)

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ page, contact the Open Doors committee, or leave a comment on this post and we'll respond as soon as we can. - The Open Doors team Share your memories of Boys in Chains on Fanlore and keep its story going for future generations--contributions are welcome from all fans! (New to wiki editing? No worries, just visit this page.)

Credits

• Coders: Elz, Lady Oscar, sarken
• Code reviewers: james_, Scott
• Testers: Lady Oscar, mumble, Scott

Details

• There was a "Bookmark" button on user dashboards, implying that you could bookmark another user, although no such functionality exists yet. We have removed the button and the "Coming soon!" page for now.
• The log of admin activities (used primarily by Abuse personnel) was returning errors if a page contained an admin account that had been deleted. It now displays the activity with an "Admin deleted" note.
• The log also wasn't accessible from the main Admin menu. Now it is!
• We deployed a temporary donation page (put together by Development & Membership staffer Kristen!) for our October Drive, and made some edits halfway through the Drive week. Thank you all so much for your donations!
• Relatedly, we reached our goal for the Drive after only two days and had to make some on-the-spot edits to our "progress bar" code to allow for stretch goals. Next year we'll be better prepared!

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.

Throughout the week, you’ve seen that we need you, that we’re made in fandom, that we're ad-free, that we protect free speech, that we respect each other, that we advocate for fans and fanworks, and that we are our community.

We hope that this week you got a more complete understanding of the wonder that is the OTW. We talked about how there are seven wonders of the OTW, but that’s just scratching the surface. We have thousands and thousands of wonders here — each and every one of you who has touched or has been touched by one of our projects is a wonder.

Whenever you record podfics, make fanart, create and/or edit wiki pages, write fic or meta, beta, consume, or do any of a thousand other fannish things, you are changing the world forever.

Part of our mission as an organization is to preserve fan culture. We want the amazing culture that we all have built to be remembered and honored, as all history should be.

Whether you are able to financially support us or not, you are part of this history. With your help, we will be here for a long time. And this drive, you’ve really come through and shown your support for the work we do every day, so thank you!

Twice a year, we come together to ask you, our community, to help us keep going. This drive we made history by breaking through our goal of US$70,000 to reach US$164,625.58. With your help, this was the best October we’ve ever had as an organization!

As this drive has been so successful, we understand that some of our donors would like to know how these funds will be spent. Because we have been as surprised as many of you to see this amazing total, various committees and our Board will be working together to give you some answers with a post made here next Sunday (November 2).

What we can tell you today is what it means to us to have received this vote of support. Not everyone knows that the OTW is run 100% by volunteers, which is the biggest reason why we are able to do what we do on the budget we do it on. Although that work is done without any financial reward, your support gives us that much more energy and determination to keep making the OTW better for you. Thank you.

The other day you saw the kind of awesome things our volunteers do. Today, we focus on YOU, the community, who make our projects wonderful.

When using an OTW project, you might not know that everything we do is so interconnected. All of our projects do unique things, but they are part of one big organization.

Below you’ll find an infographic with interesting stats about Fanlore and the Archive of Our Own. All the stats are based on activities you, our community members, do. You may have seen some basic stats from AO3 — such as 1,329,304 fanworks and 417,711 users — but have you ever looked deeper? Ever wondered how many works per day are posted, or how many series there are? Wonder no further!

As you read this, please remember that we exist entirely because of our community. Without you guys there is no OTW; we're all in this together. Take a look at the graphic below and know that your donations to the OTW help support our vital and brilliant community.

With your help, we can keep our projects running and growing more and more every day — please make a donation.

Many fans discovered the OTW while exploring the Archive of Our Own or Fanlore, but not all our visitors realize that the Organization for Transformative Works is an advocacy group, or what that might mean.

To the OTW, it means that we don't just provide spaces to protect and preserve fanworks. It means that we also add our voices to public conversations about fandom and fanworks. We speak out in order to help improve public policies and perceptions about fanworks and remix culture that affect us as fans. Your support helps us to speak up in more ways and in more places about issues that affect us all.

The OTW feels it's especially important to advocate for female-driven fan spaces. Far too often, modern fandom is seen as a largely male domain, be it in the areas of sports fandom, traditional sci-fi fandom, or newer fandoms. We believe in the value of online fanwork-based communities in which female, queer, genderqueer, POC, and other marginalized fans congregate.

To us, advocating for these spaces doesn’t just start and stop with online outreach. That’s why we are focusing more on doing outreach in real-life spaces like conventions. This year, we've sent OTW representatives to Comic-Con and Worldcon, and we're working on developing even more resources for anyone who wants to represent OTW or its projects at conventions.

We also recognize that outreach is sometimes larger than just fandom: that's why we recently sponsored an event at Dragon Con with EFF to advocate for online privacy rights. We also have had presences at other fandom-friendly events like AdaCamp, an open source training camp aimed at women in tech and open source culture. And, as always, through our legal work we have advocated for empowered fan spaces and greater creative freedom under current copyright laws. These activities allow our volunteers the chance to gain confidence in their skills and abilities while improving the OTW’s ability to do its work.

We believe that our advocacy helps us create a more empowered fan space for ourselves and our community. By making a donation to the OTW, you can ensure that we can continue to use our voices to speak out for fanworks for years to come.