Archive of Our Own Release Notes

I. OTW'S 19TH ANNIVERSARY

On September 5, we celebrated the OTW's 19th anniversary! \o/ Our announcement spotlighted where you can find us, such as the OTW's social media accounts and additional news outlets. We also challenged fans to participate in an anniversary drabble challenge.

On Fanlore, fans collected special teddy bear-themed badges while completing the site's annual Stub September challenge, including special OTW-themed editions for the OTW’s anniversary.

For October, Fanlore is celebrating conventions with Contober! They'll be highlighting terminology, activities, and events related to conventions, and would love fans' help expanding convention pages on Fanlore. Check out Fanlore's conventions category or follow along on social media for themed posts all month long.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In September, Accessibility, Design, & Technology deployed version 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, alongside ongoing coding and reviewing work.

Open Doors finished multiple imports in September—thank you to both Open Doors volunteers and external moderators for their work this month!

• Homosapien Press
• Mediafans
• Futures Without End
• American Horror Fic Exchange

They also announced the import of Cardie-ologist & Henrietta Wotton's memorial archives.

In August, Policy & Abuse received 6,464 tickets. Support received 4,795 tickets, partially due to a continued increase in account recovery-related tickets as explained in last month's newsletter.

User Response Translation completed 99 requests from Policy & Abuse and Support, and Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately over 658,000 tags, or around 1,500 tags per volunteer. They also announced 14 new canonicals in their September news post.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

On September 15, TWC published No. 49 of Transformative Works and Cultures, their general issue, containing eleven full essays, eight Symposium essays, and three book reviews.

Translation completed their latest round of recruitment, with Basque re-joining their list of languages.

Legal has responded to several fan queries about law and fandom, and is carefully watching legal proposals in the U.S. and around the world.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board has been preparing for their new term beginning October 1, welcoming new directors Jennifer Howard, Rebecca C Moritz, and Theodore Bloyd, and saying farewell to departing directors Anh Pham and Qiao Chu. Board Assistants Team has been supporting them with turnover, creating additional training documentation, and preparing for the October Board meeting.

Organizational Culture Roadmap has been collaborating with Communications to prepare a future news post series and working with ICCR to finalize procedures to handle compromised volunteer accounts and other situations that necessitate urgent access removal.

Strategic Planning has been wrapping up the 2023-2026 strategic plan overview by finalizing progress updates on goals and making notes for the next strategic plan.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for five committees: Accessibility, Design, & Technology; AO3 Documentation; Communications; Open Doors; User Response Translation; and Volunteers & Recruiting. They also completed an internal audit of their internal volunteer induction and removal procedures.

From August 23 to September 16, Volunteers & Recruiting received 239 new requests, and completed 280, leaving them with 53 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of September 16, 2026, the OTW has 1,106 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

• New Directors: Jennifer Howard, Rebecca C Moritz, and Theodore Bloyd
• New Committee Chairs/Leads: corr and peaandsea (Volunteers & Recruiting Chairs) and Whatsit (Policy & Abuse Chair)
• New BAT Volunteers: 2 Volunteers
• New Fanlore Volunteers: 90Percent Human (Team Coordinator), 1 Discord Moderator, and Copywake, Reg, RosaNooktown, and 2 other Policy & Admin Volunteers
• New Finance Volunteers: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Bookkeepers)
• New Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Import Assistant
• New Support Volunteers: anticle, eldfjall, gloriouscacophony, Hugo, kenny 1883, Lily M, Maria Sage, Nio, Ooggieboogiesboys, Teddy Naleen, whynothana, Yara, and 6 other Volunteers
• New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: AJ, ajbee, Alec, Amethyst, Annabel, Arii, Ays, blagi, Caira, Candylotor, CB, Chorus, Cloudy, DanDan, DaniB, Daphcres, Dayao, E11L, emberyuki, EmilyMaria, Estel, Evon, Fallguy, Fang, Fengnuan, feyscape, freak20375, Huanzhu, hyckleren, Julia G, Jule05, kirinki, LaisQuack, Lindsey-Y, Lisweetjuices, Lucy Stars, Luvsni, Mandyjie, marshiestars, Merryvair, Morgalion, Nikki Rain, Novic, Peach S, Pilzchen, RespectedWhaman, Reverie, Robinade, rubberorange, ShadowSanctum, Soph, SuddenlyLee, Wallace, Winho, yataga, and Yoshi (Tag Wrangling Volunteers)
• New Translation Volunteers: ainotski, Demkó, dila, Evie E, Hana Maze, Katari, lawmag, ­Markell, Nasumica, ToothOfTheRose, Tuva Boman, Zeina, and 7 other Translators
• New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: ambiverti, HannaC, MapleLynn, sonofasaxophone, and 2 other Volunteers
• Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Brian Austin (AD&T Chair) and 1 Translation Chair
• Departing Communications Volunteers: callmeri (Posting Volunteer) and 1 TikTok Moderator
• Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Chair Track Volunteer
• Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Administrative Volunteer and 1 Digital Collections Intern
• Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Chair Track Volunteer, 1 Supervisor, and 1 Volunteer
• Departing Support Volunteers: John Pork and 7 other Volunteers; 1 AD&T Liaison Volunteer
• Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: PhoenixAsh, Wicked, and 3 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
• Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager
• Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: corr and peaandsea (Chair Assistants), and 1 Volunteer

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

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

Back in April, we announced that AO3 was exiting the open beta phase, a step mostly marked by the removal of the little beta note in the site header. In July, we followed this up with an official switch from 0.9.xxx release numbers to the big 1.0!

The addition of filters to user Collections pages was a highlight of our July releases, which also included a variety of bug fixes, security updates, and other enhancements. Among those changes were small updates to various site policies to make cross-referencing easier, a Rails update, and a fix for an issue that caused blank word counts when posting from the Edit Tags page.

Shoutout to everyone who submitted code to AO3 for the first time in July! There were a lot of you. Thank you to Aadya, Anastasia095, aowriter, Fiona Young, G., iris, Isabelle Zhang, James Larson, John Wang, kurumiuchi, Megan Joy (lepuscavum418), mmarianaamy, notpies, Paula Yuan, and Sherin!

Credits

Coders: Aadya, aowriter, Anastasia095, Bilka, Danaël Villeneuve, Fiona Young, G., iris, Isabelle Zhang, James Larson, Jesse Malark, John Wang, kurumiuchi, Ling-Yi, Megan Joy (lepuscavum418), mmarianaamy, mellowmarsach, niic, notpies, Pablo Monfort (VAIRIX), Paula Yuan, Scott Venkataraman, Sherin, ticking instant

Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken

Testers: Bilka, Brian Austin, Cocoa, hvalrann, lydia-theda, marcus8448, megidola, ömer faruk, Rachel Linton, Theodore Bloyd, therealmorticia, Ven

Details

1.0.0

Our first release for major version 1, deployed on July 10, contained a lot of small updates to various site policies, as well as a few bug fixes.

[AO3-3754] - The flash message that appears when you edit and preview a draft work or an existing chapter would linger at the top of the page even if you left the work preview. That's fixed now!

[AO3-7448] - The section of the Privacy Policy discussing data requests now has a link to the Terms of Service FAQ section explaining how to make one.

[AO3-7449], [AO3-7452], [AO3-7509], [AO3-7510] - Updated an anchor name and added a few links to our Content Policy, connecting it with relevant questions in our Terms of Service FAQ.

[AO3-7507], [AO3-7508] - Added several links to our Terms of Service, connecting it with relevant questions in our Terms of Service FAQ.

[AO3-7511] - Updated an anchor name in our Privacy Policy.

[AO3-7477] - Updated some text in the help pop-up explaining challenge matching.

[AO3-7489] - Removed redundant links and fixed a broken one on the Languages page. Following the works link for English will now, rather unsurprisingly, take you to a list of all the English works on AO3.

[AO3-7503] - Fixed the error message you get when trying to create a new tag set without entering a title.

[AO3-7522] - Fixed the wording of the browser page title when editing an AO3 news post.

[AO3-7525] - Updated the locale for Simplified Chinese to be called zh-Hans instead of zh-CN, to conform with ISO standards.

[AO3-7479] - We removed an unused gem from our gemfile.

1.2.0

Our July 17 release featured some security fixes, bug fixes, and filters for users' Collections pages.

[AO3-5670] - We made sure users can only submit one group of nominations for a given tag set.

[AO3-6671] - We fixed the error 500 that occurred when adding a host parameter to FAQ URLs.

[AO3-7530] - We fixed an issue that made it possible to use the content property in skins to include CSS that would normally be stripped out by our sanitizer.

[AO3-7143] - Users' personal Collections pages can now be filtered just like the main Collections index!

[AO3-7241] - We prepared the help files explaining the various kinds of tags on AO3 for translation.

[AO3-7325] - When a page containing a bookmark is reported to Policy & Abuse, we now make sure the bookmarked work isn't attached to the ticket.

[AO3-7425] - If you followed the "Edit Tags" link on a draft and posted the work from there, the word count would be empty. We have now addressed this fascinating edge case and made sure the word count is displayed.

[AO3-7481] - Updated our Diversity Statement.

[AO3-7513] - We bumped our version of the nokogiri gem from 1.19.3 to 1.19.4 to address some security vulnerabilities.

[AO3-7514] - We bumped faraday from version 2.14.2 to 2.14.3 to address a security vulnerability.

[AO3-7518], [AO3-7528] - We updated actions/checkout and actions/cache for our automated tests.

[AO3-7529] - We bumped concurrent-ruby from version 1.3.5 to 1.3.7 to address some security vulnerabilities.

1.3.0

In our July 29 release, we fixed some tiny but annoying bugs related to posting works and made a few improvements for admins.

[AO3-5556] - Editing a work to add it to a collection would, stubbornly, add the work to the collection even if you changed your mind and pressed the Cancel button. That's fixed now!

[AO3-6142] - If you filled a prompt, but then deleted the work, the prompt would vanish from your personal Claims page and from the options in the posting form. We now make sure the prompt still shows up everywhere it should, so you can fill it again!

[AO3-6272] - Sometimes when previewing and then posting a work, the chapter count would be set to 0/1, which was clearly wrong. We've fixed that now.

[AO3-6964] - The comment moderation notice on AO3 news posts was using the text we display on works. Now it correctly refers to news posts instead of works.

[AO3-7164] - We updated the rack-dev-mark gem to address a deprecation warning.

[AO3-7378] - We've added a button to the two-step verification process for site admins, so they can easily copy the setup code for pasting in the appropriate place.

[AO3-7499] - In AO3-7080, we began recording a standardized version of the email associated with your account. Previously, this record was updated every time you tried changing your email to a new address. We've now made sure that it doesn't get updated until you actually confirm your email change.

[AO3-7520], [AO3-7521] - Fixed the browser page title that's displayed when previewing a new or edited AO3 news post.

1.4.0

On July 30, we deployed a Rails security update.

[AO3-7562] - Bumped Rails to version 8.1.3.1.

The Big Bang, Baby Challenge, a Harry Potter fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who have work(s) on The Big Bang, Baby Challenge
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The Big Bang, Baby Challenge was created in 2005 to incentivize the creation of more canon-based novel-length Harry/Draco fics in the wake of The Order of the Phoenix, and was twice repeated following the publishing of The Half-Blood Prince, and The Deathly Hallows. Over the Big Bang, Baby Challenge’s run, dozens of invite-only fanartists contributed to richly illustrating fics which met the challenge’s minimum 50,000 word count. The Big Bang, Baby Challenge is the origin of the name and style of the Big Bang type of fic/art exchanges. The archive is being imported in order to preserve the works and ensure their availability to future fans.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Dana, Aja, and Reena to import The Big Bang, Baby Challenge into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all art currently in the Big Bang, Baby Challenge will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from The Big Bang, Baby Challenge to AO3 after September. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who have work(s) on The Big Bang, Baby Challenge?

We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of 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 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.

Please contact Open Doors with your The Big Bang, Baby Challenge pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

• You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
• You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
• You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
• You would NOT like your works moved to AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
• You are happy for us to preserve your works on AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
• You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your The Big Bang, Baby Challenge account, 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 The Big Bang, Baby Challenge mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to AO3
• adding your works to the new collection The Big Bang, Baby Challenge

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

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

We're excited to be able to help preserve The Big Bang, Baby Challenge!

• The Open Doors team and Dana, Aja, and Reena

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

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

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

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

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

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• Authority Kink
• Characters Haunting the Narrative
• Doomed by the Narrative
• Kissing Scars
• Liminal Spaces
• Medium Burn
• Non-Consensual Fingering
• Wound Fingering
• Overpowered Characters
• Platonic Fluff
• Power Couples
• Toxic Yaoi
• Toxic Yuri
• Vaginas

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Gangbang is now a subtag of Group Sex
• Period-Typical Racism is now a subtag of Racism
• Period-Typical Sexism is now a subtag of Sexism
• Rape Recovery is now a subtag of Recovery
• Necromancy has been removed as a subtag from Dark Magic

In Conclusion

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

• Doomed Protagonist
• Overpowered Characters
• Power Couples
• Scars
• Slow Burn
• Toxic Yaoi/Yuri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I. SPOTLIGHT ON GOVERNANCE

August saw three new OTW Board Directors announced: congratulations to Jennifer Howard, Rebecca C. Moritz, and Theodore Bloyd. Thank you to our outgoing Board Directors Anh Pham and Qiao Chu! Board and Board Assistants Team have begun preparing for Board turnover, which will happen on October 1.

On August 1, Board held a public meeting with 37 attendees. Minutes are available on the OTW website. Elsewhere, ongoing project work continued, including BAT volunteer retention research, drafting training for new Board members who have never served as Chairs, and investigating mental health support options for volunteers.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In July, Support received a record high of 5,321 tickets, with 2,713 of those tickets received from July 24-31. Near the end of July, Systems implemented a block preventing users from logging in if their password was compromised in a data breach from another website and requiring users to reset their passwords before logging in again. This led to a large increase in Support tickets helping users with password/login issues and account recovery. Support is working to help everyone regain access to their accounts, and asks for your patience as they address the higher ticket count.

Policy & Abuse received 5,634 tickets in July, a slight increase which was largely due to a recent phishing scam. User Response Translation received and completed 104 requests from Policy & Abuse and Support.

The OTW's social media moderators fielded many user concerns regarding an increase in AO3 users due to changes to Wattpad's content guidelines. Communications collaborated with Support and PAC to publish a social media statement reiterating AO3's commitment to maximum inclusivity. They also answered media outlets' requests for comment, including an NBC article covering the topic. The OTW's TikTok surpassed 100,000 followers, with a recent video about AO3's minimal data collection gaining over 790,000 views.

Elsewhere at AO3, Accessibility, Design & Technology deployed a large list of bug fixes and small usability improvements, as well as several important security patches. They also published the last set of change logs before version 1.0!

Open Doors finished importing the Watchmen Kinkmeme and announced the import of American Horror Story Fic Exchange.

Tag Wrangling published their August update on "No Fandom" tags, detailing both updates to additional tags and some new relationship tags with Original Nonbinary Character(s). In July, they wrangled approximately over 630,000 tags, or around 1,400 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. FANLORE

On August 6, Fanlore suffered a data breach, and the site went briefly offline to investigate and address the incident. Systems quickly responded to the compromise, identified the exploitation path, and redeployed all Fanlore's servers. Communications and Fanlore worked to inform users about the incident, detailing what happened and what actions we recommend affected users take.

Due to multiple controls, we quickly determined that the compromise was limited to Fanlore, and neither AO3 nor any other OTW project was affected. Systems is working on a public writeup which will be published on the official AO3_Systems account.

IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications collaborated with Legal on a news post covering Canada’s Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act.

Fanlore is preparing for their Stub September event. This is an annual event dedicated to adding information to very short existing Fanlore articles called "stubs". They're collaborating with the Organizational Culture Roadmap to make some badges in connection with a fun new theme! Stub September will run from September 13 to the 27. Pay attention to Fanlore's social media for further announcements!

TWC is finalizing their upcoming general September 2026 issue and in review for the three 2027 issues. They're also pleased to announce Meihua Lu as their 2026 Fans of Color Prize award winners for the article "From Cinderella to i-woman: Web novels, fandom, and feminist politics in China", published in TWC’s special issue "Chinese Fandoms" on December 15, 2023.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting offered recruitment for ten roles in August and continued to work on the Code of Conduct rollout.

From July 26 to August 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 202 new requests, and completed 161, leaving them with 98 open requests. As of August 22, 2026, the OTW has 1021 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Frederica (Liaison)
New BAT Volunteers: MustardPot (Chair Assistant)
New Fanlore Volunteers: Aud (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer)
New Open Doors Volunteers: homusapiens, Uni, and 3 other Technical Volunteers
New Support Volunteers: Harold Liu and 1 other Chair Assistant
New Translation Volunteers: carroncards, Hennessey, solrosan, and 3 other Translators

Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor and 1 Liaison
Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Shipping Assistant and 1 Shipping Specialist
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: The Professor (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Doogle, Pat Zarzecka, Redwood Trees, and 2 other Import Assistants
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Joni and 1 other Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: President Hades and 9 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: LS, Urtin and 2 other Translators
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Proofreader

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• Coronation Ceremonies
• Low Fantasy
• Menstrual Pain | Period Cramps
• PMS | Premenstrual Syndrome
• Menopause
• One-Sided Pining
• One Falls in Love First but the Other Falls in Love Harder
• Royal Weddings

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Female Anti-Hero is now a subtag of Anti-Hero
• Sloppy Makeouts is now a subtag of Making Out
• Manipulative Relationship is now a subtag of Manipulation
• Character Turned Into a Ghost is now a subtag of Ghosts

In Other Wrangling News

We recently held guideline discussions about how to handle the canonization of relationship tags associated with Original Nonbinary Character(s). You can view the changes made to wrangling guidelines in the section on Original Characters. As a result of this update, we have canonized and/or updated the following tags:

• Canon Nonbinary Character
• Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Female Character(s)/Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Male Character(s)/Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Male Character(s) & Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Female Character(s) & Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Character(s)/Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Nonbinary Character(s) & Original Nonbinary Character(s)
• Original Nonbinary Character(s)/Original Nonbinary Character(s)

In Conclusion

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

• Fantasy
• Pining
• Trans Characters in Fandom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In June and early July, we updated the AO3 Terms of Service FAQ and made improvements all around prompt memes and gift exchanges. We also improved skin previews and the AO3 admin area, along with a few other small fixes.

Special thanks to the first-time contributors charliewhiskee, Gardin233, gemmie, lynn, Naomi Liu, sagittaerys (Olamilekan Aremu), Smaran Jawalkar, Soaphbar, and varram. Thank you also to notpies for alerting us to a security issue!

Credits

Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, bre-nana, caitlin, charliewhiskee, Danaël / Rever, David Bilsky/Ironskink, Gardin233, gemmie, KooShnoo, Ling-Yi, Luis Pabon, lydia-theda, lynn, Naomi Liu, nicolacleary, Pablo Monfort (VAIRIX), reader-dev-2026, sagittaerys (Olamilekan Aremu), Sarken, slavalamp, Smaran Jawalkar, Soaphbar

Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, redsummernight, Sarken, slavalamp

Testers: Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Cocoa, Lute, lydia-theda, marcus8448, megidola, ömer-faruk, pk2317, Runt, slavalamp, therealmorticia

Details

0.9.482

Our June 8 deploy was themed around improvements to prompt memes and gift exchanges.

[AO3-5713] - There was a tag set option that would prevent participants in a challenge from offering or requesting characters outside the tag set. However, this would only apply to the autocomplete suggestions, and not actually prevent someone from entering a tag manually and submitting that sign-up. Now the sign-up is actually checked against the allowed tags!

[AO3-6084] - We now make sure no input is lost if you try and fail to submit prompts for a prompt challenge with a noncanonical tag. We also greatly improved the error message, so you can fix your prompts and try again!

[AO3-6876] - Some special characters wouldn't be displayed correctly in prompt titles; now everything is tidy again.

[AO3-7182] - If a prompt had fills that were restricted to logged-in AO3 users only, guests could still see the blurb containing information about the work, even if they couldn't access the work itself. Now everything is hidden from guests, as it should be.

[AO3-7243] - We prepared three help pop-ups related to creating a work for translation.

[AO3-7261] - It was previously possible to create a challenge with zero allowed fields for requests or offers, which would indeed make for quite a challenging sign-up process. If you try to do that now, we return an error message to ask for at least one allowed field.

[AO3-7379] - There were no delimiters in the stats listed in collection blurbs (e.g., the number of works or bookmarks in said collection). You now get more readable numbers such as 11,111 instead of 11111.

[AO3-7398], [AO3-7399] - The Challenge Sign-ups and Challenge Assignments pages now include your username in the browser page title.

[AO3-7406] - Moved the gift exchange mailers to a separate file.

[AO3-7407] - Added an anonymous CSS class to work, series, and bookmark blurbs of currently anonymous works and series.

[AO3-7494] - Work skins are only meant to apply to the section of the page containing a work, its title, and its notes, but certain combinations of styles sometimes allowed skins to break free of that area. We've made some adjustments to keep them contained.

0.9.483

On June 17, we deployed a Terms of Service FAQ update and made some improvements to skin previews as well as pages used by admins.

[AO3-4274] - If your work is a remix or translation of another work, and that work is deleted, the Notes section will now say, "Inspired by a deleted work." (You can edit your work to remove the association, if you want.)

[AO3-6218] - To help troubleshoot problems with challenges or assist in cases of abuse, AO3 admins from our Support and Policy & Abuse committees can now access pages in a collection that are usually only accessible to owners or mods of that collection.

[AO3-6765] - Made some changes to the message you get when previewing a site skin to make it more helpful!

[AO3-7397] - You used to be redirected to a random tag page to preview a skin. We've now designated a specific page for this preview, since redirecting to a random page can be unreliable.

[AO3-7366] - Changed which page AO3 admins use to edit work tags and language.

[AO3-7413] - The browser page title and the page heading for external bookmark creation now match.

[AO3-7456] - Updated the Terms of Service FAQ. You can view the differences here.

[AO3-7447] - We improved the wording of the Content Policy notice on the work posting form.

[AO3-7453], [AO3-7454], [AO3-7450] - Updated the Policy & Abuse Confidentiality Policy link in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and added a link to the Fannish Next of Kin FAQ item to the Terms of Service.

[AO3-7474] - Updated the faraday gem to address a security issue.

[AO3-7476] - We fixed that text-only bylines sometimes contained raw HTML.

[AO3-7488] - We no longer submit comments that are already deleted or considered spam to the spamchecker when manually marking comments as spam from the console.

[AO3-7478] - We made it impossible for admins to enable a language for our future translated interface if we don't already have some emails available in that language (since translated emails will come first).

0.9.484

The July 6 release included more improvements for AO3 admins, most notably the ability to preview and save drafts of news posts such as this one!

[AO3-2782] - We now make sure tag wranglers can't assign themselves non-canonical tags.

[AO3-4989] - Deleting a bookmark would redirect you to the first page of bookmarks, even when the deleted bookmark was on a different page, or you had applied filters to your bookmark listing. We now make sure you'll stay right where you are.

[AO3-5696] - We added another check before we send out subscription emails, which means people who are subscribed to the orphan_account will not receive a notification if a user adds a chapter to a work previously co-created with the orphan account.

[AO3-6779] - If a Policy & Abuse admin previously corrected the language on a work, that change would be recorded as tag edit in the admin area's activity logs. Now it is correctly considered a language edit!

[AO3-7250] - Conversely, an admin's cancelled or invalid attempt at editing a work's tags (such as trying to perform an operation that results in an error message) would be logged, even though the work remained unchanged. That's also fixed now.

[AO3-6960] - Admins with posting privileges can now preview a news post or save a draft, like it's long been possible for creative works on the Archive. Yay!

[AO3-7242] - We prepared four more work creation related help pop-ups for translation.

[AO3-7421] - We fixed that the CSV export of gift exchange sign-ups could contain unescaped special characters in the sign-up titles.

[AO3-7493] - In addition to checking an account's age (i.e. how long ago it was created) to determine how many comments that account can be allowed to leave in quick succession, we now also consider how many comments that user has left previously.

[AO3-7496] - We updated the net-imap gem to address some security advisories.

[AO3-7498] - We made sure that one of the dependencies of our automated tests can't update without our approval.

In May, updates to AO3 focused on improving skins, collections, and gift exchanges, boosting performance across AO3, and addressing several security issues. The Collections page now has options to sort by number of works and bookmarks, and we've added some improvements to tag set nominations and the matching process for gift exchanges. The month also included multiple security fixes for permission issues, strengthened URL import protections, and updated dependencies.

Shoutout to this month's first-time contributors gemmie and Mane Muradyan, and special thanks to notpies and Taxen99 who alerted us to security issues.

Credits

Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, cayugulan, Céline Bertau, gemmie, Hunter Ada Smith, Jesse Malark, Julian Saxl, kiyazz, Lara Rodrigues, Ling-Yi, Luis Pabon, Mane Muradyan, marcus8448, mjec, Nate Berkopec, nicolacleary, Noah Bravo, Pablo Monfort (VAIRIX), Pearl, Respheal, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, slavalamp, wAO3rker, Yang, zrei

Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, Ling-Yi, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, slavalamp

Testers: Bilka, Berix, Brian Austin, choux, Claire P. Baker, LilyP, lydia-theda, marcus8448, Nary, ömer faruk, pk2317, sarken, slavalamp, therealmorticia

Details

0.9.474

On May 1, we released a bunch of miscellaneous bug fixes and updated the text on several pages.

[AO3-3601] - Deleting a pseud and choosing "Transfer these bookmarks to the default pseud" wouldn't reliably update the default pseud's bookmark index, so the bookmarks appeared to be gone. But they weren't! And now they should show up under the default pseud without a big delay.

[AO3-4693] - It was previously impossible to delete a collection that contained a challenge (such as a gift exchange or a prompt meme). Now you can delete your collection no matter what.

[AO3-6348] - In the tag autocomplete, a stray semicolon would sneak into tags with ampersands (&) if those tags also contained a pipe (|). That's fixed now!

[AO3-7267] - We now serve 404 Not Found errors to users and site admins if they try to access a preferences page for a user that doesn't exist.

[AO3-7316] - Shuffled some CSS around in the code for site banners. Neater now!

[AO3-7320] - We now make sure a comment won't be sent to our spam checker for evaluation if it's already considered spam.

[AO3-7331] - A user's Marked for Later page now displays their username in the browser page title.

[AO3-7337] - The "Sign-up closes:" time in a collection's blurb now adjusts to the timezone selected by a user in their preferences.

[AO3-7353] - When you're on your Refused Gifts page, the navigation buttons now indicate that this is indeed the page you're on, and Accepted Gifts are just a click away.

[AO3-7362] - Updated our takedown policy to add guidance related to requests made under the Take It Down Act (TIDA).

[AO3-7375] - JavaScript would break in browsers with localStorage disabled or not supported. Now it shouldn't throw up errors anymore!

[AO3-7376] - We now display a helpful message when you try to delete a pseud you have already deleted (e.g. in another tab), instead of throwing an Error 500.

[AO3-7405] - We improved the performance of generating the RSS feeds for tags.

0.9.475

Our May 12 deploy focused on collection and challenge improvements. On our Collections page, you can now sort all collections by the number of works or bookmarks they contain. \o/

[AO3-3764] - It was previously impossible to see all tag set nominations awaiting review. If there were too many to fit on one page, you'd have to review some first to make room. We have now added pagination buttons, so you can access all nominated tags!

[AO3-6068] - Some code cleanup.

[AO3-5764] - The notifications we send when someone submits a prompt fill contained very little information about the submitted work. We now include the same information as in subscription emails, so the prompter can review tags and warnings before opening the work.

[AO3-6106] - Checking the "Approve" ticky for a filled assignment in a moderated gift exchange will now correctly let the submitted work into the collection and mark the assignment as completed.

[AO3-6277] - If you run matching on gift exchange sign-ups and get no potential matches back, the notification email and matching page will now contain helpful information about the status of your matches, and what to do about it.

[AO3-6978] - In an effort to speed up a background process during work imports, we created a new table to store the original URLs of imported works. Making sure we aren't adding duplicates to AO3 should be much faster in the future!

[AO3-7012] - Gift works locked to registered users were hidden from site admins (such as Policy & Abuse volunteers) on gift pages or in gift searches. Now they show up.

[AO3-7179] - The success message you get when updating someone's membership status in a collection (such as making them an owner, or removing them as a member) now contains their pseud and username, as it should.

[AO3-7188] - You can now sort collections by the number of collected works or bookmarks!

[AO3-7239], [AO3-7392] - We prepared several help popups related to posting a work, as well as a line in work-related email notifications, for translation.

[AO3-7356] - We improved the performance and reduced the load on our database servers when displaying a series.

[AO3-7400] - The browser page title for a user's Gifts page is now correctly formatted.

[AO3-7411] - The browser page title for a work now lists both fandoms if the work contains two, and says "Multifandom" for works with three or more fandom tags.

[AO3-7415] - In a user's Preferences, the site skin options included skins that were just created as a parent for other skins and weren't actually supposed to be used by themselves. That's fixed now.

[AO3-7422] - We updated the erb gem update to address a security issue.

0.9.476

Our May 15 release focused on security issues.

[AO3-7385] - Under certain circumstances, it was possible to use the parent skin option to access the title and CSS of a site skin belonging to another user. It was not possible to look for skins belonging to a specific user. If a user included a name in skin titles or CSS (e.g., Darth Vader skin), that name would be visible, but it would not be possible to confirm whether that skin was created by a specific user. We are unable to verify that all or any skins were accessed in that manner.

[AO3-7420] - We fixed an issue that made it possible to use a POST request to reorder works in series you didn't own.

[AO3-7443] - We have removed Google from our list of permitted audio embed sources as they discontinued their audio player a long time ago.

[AO3-7433], [AO3-7438], [AO3-7439] - We updated some gems to address some security issues.

0.9.477

We deployed multiple improvements to skins, including allowing some new properties, on May 20.

[AO3-6390] - It's now only possible to change the default look of AO3 if you have database access (and not if you're merely logged in as a site admin).

[AO3-7160] - The username autocomplete when trying to assign a pinch hitter to an assignment will no longer be cut off after the first username.

[AO3-7189] - If a user applies a site skin containing broken code that renders the site unusable (and prevents them from accessing the option to revert to a different skin), a Support admin can now reset the skin in the user's Preferences.

[AO3-7345] - We have made the success message for temporarily setting a new site skin more informative.

[AO3-7388] - Since it's impossible to use a skin that's set to be a "Parent Only", it's also impossible to generate a preview of what AO3 would look like with that skin. We now display an error message if you try.

[AO3-7390] - We now allow the fill, stroke, and stroke-width CSS properties in work and site skins.

[AO3-6198], [AO3-6454] - We switched the code library for talking to our spamchecker to our own code, because the library was no longer maintained.

[AO3-7391] - We fixed some incorrect selectors in some rarely used CSS.

[AO3-7427] - We changed how we define some config variables to make things easier when using the Rails console.

0.9.478

On May 27, we turned on a setting to hopefully improve overall website performance.

[AO3-7465] - We enabled a Ruby setting which aims to improve performance of the whole site.

[AO3-7475] - We switched away from a GitHub Actions dependency that wasn't maintained.

0.9.479 & 0.9.481

On May 28 and May 31, we deployed security fixes for the work import form.

[AO3-7483], [AO3-7484] - When importing a work from a URL, some URL imports could bypass our proxy and access URLs within the internal AO3 network. We made sure they can't do that anymore.

I. AO3 SECURITY & PHISHING COMMENTS

In late July, Policy & Abuse (PAC) coordinated with Accessibility, Design & Technology and Systems to increase AO3 account security measures against logins with insecure passwords in response to an active phishing comment scam targeting thousands of users. PAC also worked with Communications and Support to publish several social media posts to help users secure their accounts and keep them informed.

We'd like to remind you that AO3 volunteers will never communicate with you about the status of your account through comments on your works. We will also never require payment from users to make an account or to "unlock" features. AO3 is and will always be free to use.

We recommend you verify that the email on your account is one that you have access to and that it is up to date. Please also make sure that your password is secure and unique to AO3. Read our update on insecure passwords for more information.

For general advice on how to keep your AO3 account secure, refer to World Password Day: Keeping Your Account Secure. If you need help changing your email or password, refer to our Archive FAQ questions on: How can I change the email associated with my account? and How do I change my password?

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In July, AO3 surpassed 80,000 canonical fandoms! \o/

As of July 10, AO3 is officially on version 1.0. Accessibility, Design & Technology's releases have included internationalization work, documentation tweaks, gem updates, bug fixes, improvements to admin tools, and filters for user collection pages.

AO3 Documentation updated the Statistics FAQ and Your Account FAQ.

Open Doors announced that the Mass Effect Kink Meme will be imported to AO3, and they began importing the unfilled prompt challenges from Forging Ghost.

In June, Support received 3,556 tickets, while PAC received 4,254 tickets. As of July 31, PAC has consistently reduced their ticket backlog for the past six months in a row, and all PAC tickets submitted prior to January 2025 have been closed. User Response Translation received and completed 78 requests from PAC and Support.

Tag Wrangling published a July update on "No Fandom" tags. In June, they wrangled over 595,000 tags, or approximately 1,300 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications published an overview behind why AO3 doesn't have an official app and provided some alternatives for specific functionalities. They also formally said goodbye to the OTW's LiveJournal account as the automated cross-posting used for OTW News there is no longer supported.

Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge is Stub September—keep an eye on their social media (Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr) for announcements about the challenge!

TWC's production team is preparing the 49th issue of Transformative Works and Cultures which will be published September 15, 2026. Their editorial team continued work on the two special issues slated for 2027—Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms—and their editorial board jury is finalizing the reviews for the 2026 Fans of Color Research Prize.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections announced the publication of the first batch of Q&As from candidates, focusing on the future direction of the OTW. They also shared that this year's synchronous candidate chat will be on August 8 at 4pm UTC (what time is that for me?). It will be held in the Elections Discord server.

Board spent July primarily focusing on internal projects and preparing for the public Board meeting which took place on August 1; minutes will be uploaded to the website soon.

Board Assistants Team completed the project to update the static content on the OTW website that they've been working on with Communications since 2024. All pages have been reviewed to ensure that they are up to date, clear, and consistent.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting continued work on rolling out the updated Code of Conduct and conducted recruitment for five roles across Open Doors, Tag Wrangling, and Translation.

From June 23 to July 25, Volunteers & Recruiting received 321 new requests, and completed 294, leaving them with 55 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of July 25, 2026, the OTW has 1,044 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Lulu S (AO3 Documentation Chair)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 Chair Assistant and Aquilas (Social Media Moderator)
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener
New Legal Volunteers: Amy R (Trademark Specialist)
New Open Doors Volunteers: ahcandy, Faye Wright, Gina-Nicole, GineSage87, Invariance, limethymes, Ro Koseki, and 6 other Import Assistants; Fly-dot-net, navy-yard-elle, TC, and 1 other Administrative Volunteer; and 1 Documentation Specialist
New Support Volunteers: 2 Support Volunteers
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Fly-dot-net and 1 other Import Assistant, and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Iolanthe and 2 other Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Bette, lovemelikesunday, OldScoil, Paula, Potato, and 2 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Copyeditor, 1 Outreach and Communications Editor, and 1 Symposium Editor
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• 4+1 Things
• Aquarium Dates
• Coffee Dates
• Dinner Dates
• Movie Dates
• Picnic Dates
• Anger Issues
• ASMR | Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
• Author is Projecting
• Canon - Book & TV Combination
• Complicated Feelings
• Concubines
• Courtesans
• Depersonalization
• Derealization
• Droit du Seigneur | Jus Primae Noctis | Lord's Right of the First Night
• Emotional Breakdowns
• Emotional Vulnerability
• Falling Out of Love
• Fibromyalgia
• Glasses Kink
• Medieval Fantasy
• No Mpreg | Male Pregnancy
• New Game Plus
• Piss Kink
• POTS | Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome
• Reassurance
• Self-Care
• Sex as a Coping Mechanism
• Sex as Self-Harm
• Sleep Paralysis
• Stimming
• Tattoo Artists

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Falling In Love is now a subtag of Love
• Uniform Kink has been removed as a metatag of Clothing Kink and is now a subtag instead
• Uniform Kink has been removed as a metatag of Uniforms and is now a subtag instead

In Conclusion

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

• Coffee in Fanworks
• Stimming
• Yuri Aquarium Date

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lastly, we'd also like to celebrate a major milestone this month with the creation of our 80,000th canonical fandom on AO3, The Grand Deception of Benedict Blackmoor - Gaia Tate. To give a brief overview of the growth of fandoms on AO3, there were 5,000 fandoms canonized around New Year's Day 2010, around 20,000 fandoms around December 2015, and about 40,000 fandoms canonized in November 2020. We look forward to continuing to share and celebrate future tagging milestones with all of you in the months and years to come. \o/

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

We're excited to announce that we've crossed another milestone: AO3 now has more than 18 million fanworks! A big Thank You to everyone who contributed to that success, whether you're a fanwork creator yourself, or cheering on your favorite creators with kudos and comments.

Of those 18 million fanworks, a lot live in collections. A collection is a group of works and/or bookmarks compiled together under one theme. You can, for example, group together works for a specific trope or relationship. Prompt Meme and Gift Exchange challenges for specific events are also hosted within collections!

Did you know we recently rolled out some changes adding new features to collections (fairly) recently? Our Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee published a post on it last September, if you want to check it out!

Some of the most important updates were:

• giving collection owners the ability to add up to 10 tags to the collection that show up in the collection blurb
• a "Multifandom" filter for collections containing works from more than one fandom
• the automatic addition of fandom tags to collections as the feature went live (or the "Multifandom" tag for collections with works/bookmarks from many fandoms)

Some additional changes that were rolled out with the tag-feature as well: for example, the Open Challenges page (including the Open Gift Exchange and Open Prompt Memes pages) now shows collections that are closing soonest at the top of the page!

To try out the new features for yourself, you can head on over to the Collections page by selecting "Browse → Collections". Once there you can filter collections either by a specific tag, or include or exclude collections with the "Multifandom" tag. By selecting "Open Challenges" on the top right, you can browse currently open challenges. And if you want to learn more about how to navigate, create, or administrate collections, check out our Collections FAQ!

Thanks again for your continued support, time, and passion for fandom! We hope to celebrate many more milestones with you in the future.

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.

I. OTW CODE OF CONDUCT

On June 7, 2026, Board approved a new OTW Code of Conduct. This policy comes as the result of months of collaboration between Board Assistants Team, Organizational Culture Roadmap, and Volunteers & Recruiting (including their Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee).

This policy update was a goal on the internal culture roadmap created and announced in 2024. As part of the update process, the policy underwent several rounds of review, including one by all OTW volunteers. Thank you to all OTW volunteers who provided feedback!

Volunteers & Recruiting is now at work rolling out the updated policy and getting agreements from all OTW volunteers.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In June, we celebrated AO3 reaching 11 million registered users. \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) deployed several bug fixes, including quality-of-life and security improvements. They've also continued to make progress on their ongoing work to internationalize AO3.

Open Doors announced that Kraith Collected, a collection of Star Trek zines set in the Kraith universe, will be added to AO3. This month, their import assistants also finished importing all unfilled prompts from the Library of Moria!

In May, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 4,814 tickets; Support received 4,125 tickets; and User Response Translation completed 77 requests from PAC and Support.

In June, Policy & Abuse worked with AD&T to publish updates to the Terms of Service FAQ, which includes new answers to common questions like how to find out what's allowed on AO3. You can view the differences here! We hope you find it helpful!

Tag Wrangling wrangled over 650,000 tags in May, or approximately 1,400 tags per wrangling volunteer. They also collaborated with Communications to publish a Tumblr post about updates to the Assassin's Creed fandom tree and a news post announcement of "No Fandom" changes, including 23 new canonicals.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications also established an OTW RedNote (小红书) account in June. This will be a second platform for us to connect with Chinese-speaking fandom (along with our existing Weibo account). If you use RedNote or know anyone who'd be interested in OTW announcements in Chinese on the platform, pass it along!

At the end of May, Fanlore wrapped up their Public Do-May, a public domain fandoms-themed month. They also ran their annual Bingo Challenge with tasty pastry-themed badges for editors to collect.

On June 15, 2026, TWC released Issue 48, a special issue on "Disability and Fandom" guest edited by Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse. The essays in this issue focus on disability both as a marginalized identity and as a critical scholarly approach to fandom and fan studies.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections announced candidates for the 2026 OTW Board. This year's election will be uncontested, as there are three candidates running for four open seats. Platforms for each candidate can be viewed on the Elections website. They also provided the public an opportunity to submit questions to the candidates which will be published soon, refer to the Elections Timeline page for specific dates. Translation is working alongside Elections to make election-⁠related content available in as many languages as possible.

Meanwhile, Development & Membership has begun working on premiums for the October Membership Drive.

Board, Board Assistants Team, and Organizational Culture Roadmap also continued to collaborate on developing procedures to handle compromised volunteer accounts and other situations that necessitate urgent access removal.

Board also approved signing-on to a letter opposing the overbroad NO FAKES Act, which could negatively impact fan art and artists.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

From May 24 to June 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 204 new requests and completed 189, leaving them with 87 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of June 22, 2026, the OTW has 1,037 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New AD&T Volunteers: marcus8448 (Senior Software Developer)

New Communications Volunteers: Caitlynne, callmeri, and 4 other Posting Volunteers, belana, Bianca Sevidal, and Xiao Yi (Social Media Moderators)

New Elections Volunteers: Jahnavi and 1 other Communications Specialist, 1 Candidate Liaison, and 1 Chair Track Volunteer

New Fanlore Volunteers: Hobgirl, Minty, and 2 other Chair Track Volunteers

New Legal Volunteers: asatistic (Paralegal) and Kat M (Trademark Specialist)

New Open Doors Volunteers: elusivefalsehoods (Import Assistant)

New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Anam (Volunteer)

New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Beth B, Lululu, and tomurai (Supervisors)

New Translation Volunteers: artemissmythe, Karasu, madinator, and 3 other Volunteer Managers, and 1 Translator

Departing AD&T Volunteers: marcus8448 (Software Developer)

Departing Communications Volunteers: Aditi Paul, Caitlynne, callmeri, and 2 other Media Outreach Volunteers, 1 Chair Assistant, 1 Posting Specialist, 1 Report Writer, and 1 Social Media Moderator

Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator

Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin

Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Technical Volunteers and 3 Import Assistants

Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Chair Assistant

Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Erica L., Wond3rland, and 4 other Tag Wranglers

Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Translation Volunteer Manager, Alisé, and 3 other Translators

Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: Kseniia and 1 other Translator

Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 2 Volunteers

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

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

In April, we deployed improvements to tag search and several security fixes. We also made some progress on making more parts of AO3 translatable. And of course, AO3 officially exited open beta in April as well!

In addition to the milestones above, we also had several new contributors to the AO3 codebase this month. Thanks and welcome to Aya Sayadi, bre-nana, Jesse Malark, kinnerapriyap, Kylie, and Ling-Yi!

Credits

Coders: Aya Sayadi, Bilka, bre-nana, Brian Austin, caitlin, Danaël / Rever, EchoEkhi, Jesse Malark, kinnerapriyap, Kylie, Ling-Yi, marcus8448, not-varram, ömer faruk, sarken, Scott Venkataraman, Tom Milligan, Xiang Rassul Li

Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, marcus8448, redsummernight

Testers: Berix, Bilka, Brian Austin, C. Ryan Smith, calamario, choux, Dre, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, megidola, mumble, ömer faruk, pk2317, Tal, therealmorticia, TinaOe

Details

0.9.469

On April 2, we removed the "beta" note from our site header! End of an era.

[AO3-7364] - Removal of references to the AO3 being in beta.

[AO3-7361], [AO3-7365] - Gem updates.

0.9.470

On April 3, we deployed a quick security fix.

[AO3-7372] - We made sure that when removing images from comments we didn't leave potentially dangerous HTML in their placeholders.

0.9.471

We deployed a couple more fixes related to image embeds on April 4.

[AO3-7373], [AO3-7374] - We made sure that when we disable embedded images in comments, the restrictions can't be bypassed with creative HTML.

0.9.472

Our April 13 deploy included an improvement to our tag search and a bunch of other miscellaneous fixes.

[AO3-7244] - We prepared the help pop-ups about our rich text editor and HTML mode for translation.

[AO3-7283] - We added a configuration option for the number of shards that Elasticsearch data for pseuds and tags is stored in.

[AO3-7293] - We added two more options to the Wrangling Status section of our Tag Search.

[AO3-7326], [AO3-7327] - Your statistics page and your preferences page now have your username in the browser's page title!

[AO3-7339] - The way we'd structured the translatable portions of our password reset emails wasn't compatible with future translation work, so we made sure the wording will work in different languages.

[AO3-7348] - We removed the word "Archive" from the success message "You are now using the default Archive skin again!"

[AO3-7355] - To build the dropdown menu for each user, we now only query the database once if the user has special permissions that require another menu item, and then save that information. Much nicer to the database servers!

[AO3-7359] - When a site admin is viewing their two-step verification backup codes, there is now a button at the bottom of the page to copy the codes to the clipboard.

[AO3-7360] - Updated a link on our Privacy Policy page.

[AO3-7368], [AO3-7369] - The browser page title now reflects whether you're on the page listing our public site skins or public work skins.

[AO3-7370], [AO3-7371] - Gem updates.

0.9.473

Another grab bag of fixes and improvements went out on April 24.

[AO3-6229] - We now make sure the 404 Page Not Found error always looks like it's part of AO3, and not just a blank white page.

[AO3-6281] - On pages listing gifts for recipients without an AO3 account, apostrophes in a recipient's name wouldn't be properly displayed. Now it all looks tidy.

[AO3-6531] - On some works, if there were replies to a now-deleted comment, the whole comment section wouldn't load. We fixed the way we handle deleted comments in a thread, so everything should display as expected.

[AO3-6604] - Admins can create banners (the informative blue, red, or yellow text boxes at the top of all pages) and save them for later, or delete outdated ones. It's now impossible to accidentally delete the banner currently in use.

[AO3-7080] - If an account was suspended, we now make sure the email address associated with that account can't be used to leave guest comments.

[AO3-7140] - When creating a draft work to eventually fulfill an assignment, the page listing your assignments would display some contradictory information about the status of your work. (Is it a draft? Was it accidentally posted?) The work title now contains the word "(Draft)" and we display the date it was created.

[AO3-7165] - We now make sure you can pick a different site skin from the list of options in the footer even if you have disabled JavaScript.

[AO3-7295] - We cleaned up some old code that would be unsafe to rerun now.

[AO3-7322] - When a tag wrangler visits the tag wrangling assignment page, the filter selection now defaults to their name.

[AO3-7333] - The page listing your challenge claims now has your username in the browser's page title!

[AO3-7351] - If a character or relationship tag belonged to several fandoms (such as the book and the movie version of a franchise), and you entered all the applicable fandoms when posting your work, the character or relationship would show up several times in the autocomplete suggestions. The autocomplete has now calmed down a bit and won't show you duplicates of the same tag anymore.

[AO3-7377], [AO3-7381] - Gem updates.

New Canonicals

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

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

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

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

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• Academic Rivalry
• AO3 Skins
• AO3 Site Skins
• AO3 Work Skins
• Birth Control Tampering
• Brat Taming
• Burping Kink
• Off-Screen Character Death
• Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
• Non-Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
• Implied/Referenced Childbirth
• Cover Art Welcome
• Fanart Welcome
• Podfic Cover Art Welcome
• Translations Welcome
• Dark Fluff
• Past Dubious Consent
• Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders
• Groveling
• Hypnosis Kink
• Graphic Depiction of Injuries
• Non-Graphic Depiction of Injuries
• Guided Masturbation | Masturbation Instructions
• Male Characters Masturbating
• Female Characters Receiving Oral Sex
• Male Characters Receiving Oral Sex
• Pregnancy Reveal
• Polycules
• Porn With Some Plot
• Canon-Typical Racism
• Reproductive Coercion
• Locker Room Sex
• Masked Sex
• Stealthing | Non-Consensual Condom Removal
• Stressed Characters
• Malesub | Male Submissive Characters
• Submissive Top Characters
• Title from a Song

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

• Angst and Drama is now a subtag of both Angst and Drama
• Family Drama is now a subtag of Drama
• Not Wearing Underwear has been removed as a subtag from Underwear
• Painful Sex is now a subtag of Pain

In Conclusion

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

• AO3 Skins
• Cover Art
• Fanart
• Masturbation
• Oral Sex
• Polyamory
• Pregnancy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I. SPOTLIGHT ON OPEN DOORS

Open Doors is preparing to import ArtisticAlley, the last FictionAlley house. Unfortunately, they've only been able to retrieve thumbnail versions of the artworks. They're currently asking creators if they can provide copies of the full versions. If you're an ArtisticAlley creator and can provide your full artworks—or would like Open Doors to do anything other than import the thumbnail copies—please check your emails and reply, or get in touch with Open Doors directly. They will begin importing after 30 June.

In May, Open Doors also announced the import of multifandom fanfiction archive Mediafans and its hosted Duncan/Methos zine Futures Without End. They also completed the semi-automated portion of the import of HBO Oz archive Unit B, with more works being imported manually in the coming months. These additional works comprise Big Bang fics, the Unit B Yahoo Group, and the Cellblock 5 Yahoo Group. Thank you to everyone on Open Doors' technical and administrative teams who contributed!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Accessibility, Design & Technology worked on more security updates as well as quality-of-life bug fixes and AO3 internationalization work. Thank you to the coders for those fixes and to the testers for helping with swift releases! They also published release notes for March.

In April, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 4,358 tickets. PAC also worked with Communications to publish a news post spotlighting ways to keep your AO3 account secure as part of World Password Day. Also in April, Support received 4,325 tickets. User Response Translation completed 77 requests from PAC and Support.

Tag Wrangling wrangled over 638,000 tags in April, or approximately 1,300 tags per wrangling volunteer. They also collaborated with Communications to publish a Tumblr post about a new Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom metatag and a news post announcement of 21 new "No Fandom" tags.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore celebrated Public Domain Fandoms, or Public DoMay, on their socials all throughout the month! Check out their Bluesky, Tumblr, and Twitter/X for fun featured articles and posts.

Their annual Bingo Challenge also will begin on June 16 and will end June 29! It's open to new and experienced editors alike, and everyone is encouraged to join in!

Legal continues to answer internal and external questions and monitor the changing legal situation for privacy and free speech.

TWC continued to work on their planned issues related to Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms. May was the deadline for nominations for the Fans of Color Research Prize, which recognizes the best article about fans and/or fandoms of color published in TWC. The next issue will be a general issue published in September.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections continues to prepare for the 2026 OTW Board of Directors election, which will fill four seats (three full term seats and one partial term seat).

If you'd like to vote this year, you must become an OTW member by June 30. To become a member, you must donate at least $10 USD in one donation and check the yes circle under "Do you want to be an OTW member?" on the donation form.

Board, Board Assistants Team, and Organizational Culture Roadmap spent the month collaborating on projects, including sharing the Code of Conduct draft for review from OTW volunteers and working on tasks related to closing out the OTW Crisis Management Plan project.

Finance completed the audit of the OTW's 2024 financials and began preparing our 2025 financials to be audited.

Development & Membership worked on wrap up from the April Membership Drive and began thinking ahead to the next one in October.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In May, Volunteers & Recruiting opened recruitment for four roles for the Fanlore, Communications, and Open Doors committees.

From April 22 to May 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 202 new requests, and completed 177, leaving them with 70 open requests. As of May 23, 2026, the OTW has 1,040 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: 2 Event Coordinators and 1 Fanhackers Volunteer

New Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Senior Technical Advisor and 1 Digital Collections Intern

New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Arashi, Bellis, Citrine, lazyredheeler, Rika G, SaltDove, ZoeT, and 3 other Volunteers

New User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Policy & Abuse Chair and 1 Organizational Culture Roadmap Head

Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Fanhackers Lead and 2 Convention Specialists

Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener

Departing Finance Volunteers: 1 Financial Analyst

Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 1 Senior Technical Volunteer and 1 Import Assistant

Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer

Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Allonym and 15 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers

Departing Translation Volunteers: Katarina Hjarpe and 1 other Translator

Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Volunteer

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

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