sempervivum

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-is-exiting-open-beta/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=282744

We’re excited to announce that we’re exiting open beta! We’ve come a long way from when we announced and launched AO3 open beta in 2009.

At launch, there were just 347 AO3 accounts and 6,598 works. While we started growing very quickly, we were originally much more limited in what we could do.

Did you know that AO3 invitations were originally sent out manually by individual AO3 volunteers? During our initial rapid growth, we were still only sending out about 1200 invitations per day, and eventually tapered off to 50 per day. Today, we send around 6,000 invitations every 12 hours. Our old news posts also include fun stats about what AO3’s user base and works looked like in 2009, which you can compare to the stats post we recently shared in January to see how far we’ve come.

What’s Changed Since Then

Since 2009, AO3 has grown and changed a lot. We’ve introduced many features over the years through the efforts of our volunteers and coding contributors, as well as the contractors we’ve been able to hire thanks to generous donations from our users. While there are a lot of additions we’re proud of, some of our favorites include:

• Our tag system and tag wrangling
• Orphaning, which allows creators to disconnect works from their account or delete their account while leaving their works online
• Downloads that provide offline access to fanworks in AZW3, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, or HTML format
• Privacy settings for works that let creators restrict access to registered AO3 users and control who can leave comments
• Chapter-by-Chapter and Entire Work modes for multi-chapter works

Looking at where we are now in 2026, we recently celebrated 10 million registered users and 17 million fanworks! We’re grateful for all the fans that have accompanied us all this time—all of our accomplishments are thanks to you!

Some recent improvements we’ve made include adding new options to bookmark and collections filtering and updating all of the buttons at the bottom of the forms for posting, previewing, or editing a work to make them more user-friendly.

What’s Next for AO3 and How You Can Help

As the AO3 software has been stable for a long time, the change is mostly cosmetic and does not indicate that everything is finalized or perfectly working. Exiting beta doesn’t mean we’ll stop continuing to improve AO3—our volunteer coders and community contributors will still be working to add to and improve AO3 every day. For one, it’s likely you’ll continue to see references to us being in beta for a while as we update our documentation.

If you’d like to see what issues are being worked on, check out our project on Jira. This is a public list of all the bugs and features that are on the to-do list for our coders.

If you’re familiar with coding and would like to contribute your time, we welcome contributions from anyone! Take a look at our Contributing Guidelines and other documentation on GitHub. All contributors are credited in our release notes.

If you’re interested in helping AO3 but don’t have any coding ability, consider volunteering for one of the other teams that work on AO3 or contributing to AO3 in some other way.

If you have a feature request or bug to report, please contact AO3 Support. Support handles communication between users and the various teams involved with AO3. The Support team helps to resolve technical problems experienced by users and passes on users’ feedback to the relevant committees.

For all the fans who were part of our beta journey from 2009 until today, here’s a badge for you, as a small thank you for your support! You’re welcome to display this badge on social media, your AO3 profile, or any other website of your choosing. For example, if you want to display the badge in your AO3 profile, add this HTML tag <img src="https://media.archiveofourown.org/news/ao3-updates/2026-04-leaving-beta/badge-english.png" alt="Circular badge with the words 'I was here for beta' with an AO3 logo"> into the “About Me” section in your profile. If you’d like more information on how to embed images, refer to our Posting and Editing FAQ or our guide on how to format HTML on AO3!

We are deeply appreciative and grateful for all the support we’ve gotten from fans since we were founded, so let us be the first to say: Welcome to Post-Beta AO3!

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-is-exiting-open-beta/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=282744

Posted by callmeri

https://www.transformativeworks.org/spotlight-on-omegas-at-ao3/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=282755

Omegas are the glue that holds us all together, providing the essential social lubricant needed for our society to function—and yet they are often maligned and treated as lesser-than. This April, we are changing part of our logo to highlight omegas as part of our commitment to the inclusion and wellbeing of our omega volunteers and users.

We believe that visibility is important. As we post this, we’re home to over 2,900 omega characters and counting. AO3 is one of the only spaces online where omegas are in the limelight, and we are proud to offer this safe space.

Volunteers at the OTW are never required to state their designations, though many choose to do so. Regardless of their decision or subgender, we aim to support our volunteers to the best of our ability; our policies on short breaks and hiatuses are written to help volunteers maintain their privacy and focus on their needs. Here are some words from our volunteers on the subject:

• “As someone in a leadership position at the OTW I have always felt supported by my fellow volunteers in all matters relating to my designation. Going on break regularly is a non-issue because my alpha chair assistants hold down the nest without taking advantage of my absence, and the only comments I get from my committee are people asking whether I’ve had enough rest when I return.” — Choux, Communications Chair (Ω)
• “Everyone gets to shine as a volunteer here, because our diverse leadership brings invaluable insight. I’m proud to volunteer for the OTW, this being one of many reasons.” — orphan_account, Support Volunteer (β)
• “Fandom unites us in a way that transcends bounds. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of an organization that champions its volunteers regardless of subgender, with no tolerance for alpha posturing.” — Tal, Tag Wrangling Supervisor (α)
• “As an older omega, it is a rare thing to find a volunteer community so consistently supportive. Three years of service, and the whole OTW has always had my back.” — Remi, OTW Tumblr Mod (Ω)

As part of this commitment, our Tag Wrangling Committee recently canonized several tags to better represent experiences had by people of all subgenders! Here are some our omega volunteers have chosen to highlight:

• Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega
  • Consensual Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega
  • Omegaverse Alpha Bitching | Alpha Turning into an Omega
  • Omegaverse Beta Bitching | Beta Turning into an Omega
• Omegaverse Studding | Turning into an Alpha
• Female Omegaverse Alpha Characters
• Male Omegaverse Omega Characters
• Heat Suppressants
• Scent Blockers

Finally, a word from our Board President:

Dear gentlebeings at AO3, on this serendipitous day of 2026, the Board of Directors are pleased to announce that:

All our volunteers have enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; we don’t feel the treachery or insecurity of omegas in heat, nor the possessiveness or aggression of alphas in ruts. We have no occasion of bribing, lubricating, or alphasplaining, to procure the favour of any great omega, or of their beta and alpha supporters. We don’t need protection against dishonesty or oppression: there is neither insurance company to destroy our health, nor politician to ruin our equal rights movement; no reporter to watch our words and actions, or forge accusations against us for our designations.

Gracefully yours,

Anh Pham
President of the OTW Board of Directors (Ω)

Happy April Fools! On this day and every other day of the year, AO3 is proud to host all your efforts towards making omegas just that little bit more real! To celebrate, we’ve changed our site header superscript to “omega” instead of the usual “beta”. If you’d like to learn more, you can visit the Fanlore article on the topic.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/spotlight-on-omegas-at-ao3/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=282755

Posted by an

https://www.transformativeworks.org/otw-signal-march-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=281256

Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.

In the News

An article published in February in the Dublin Inquirer highlights the fannish origins of author Diane Duane and how her experiences writing fanfiction influenced her career.

Inspired by a deep love of the (at the time) newly airing Star Trek: The Original Series, Duane began to craft stories featuring her favourite characters. Like many fans discovering a new world for the first time, she turned to storytelling as a way to explore it more deeply. The skills she developed while writing these stories would help her build a decades-long career as an author.

Duane found herself writing Trek “fan-fiction” – although, she says, she didn’t know that’s what it was called then.

Taking a sip of her cabernet sauvignon, she remembers her first effort as a crossover between Trek and musical sitcom The Monkees.

“I don’t know why I’m even admitting this in a public place, but it’s true,” she says, laughing.

Duane’s writing credits include novels and screenwriting work for well-known series from the Marvel, DC Comics and Disney franchises in addition to her original work. She remains engaged with the Star Trek fandom, enjoying the franchise’s recent series, Strange New Worlds.

Not all coverage is good coverage: When media threatens fandom takes a look at how sudden mainstream visibility can disrupt long‑standing fandom etiquette and trust built within fandom communities.

Using a recent article featured in Dexerto and the subsequent online backlash as an example, the author argues that when large media outlets introduce fanworks to broader, uninvolved audiences it can disrupt a community based on shared norms, and mutual understanding.

Fandom spaces used to be private, and fandom etiquette previously outlined a set of rules for fans. Now, media exposure turns these online communities mainstream, posing problems for authors when fan works are often created quietly and out of admiration for the source material — not a desire for attention.

The author stresses that ethical reporting on fandom requires recognizing fandom as a legitimate cultural practice that is shaped by decades of participatory storytelling, shared values, and communal identity.

OTW Tips

If you like keeping up with OTW news, our News by Email service has a new subscription option! It now has the ability to email you whenever volunteer recruitment opens. These emails are available only in English. Sign up to stay connected with the latest from the OTW! If you are already subscribed to our News by Email service and would like to change your subscription (to add this option or change it in some other way), contact Communications. They will be able to help you adjust your current subscription type.

We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/otw-signal-march-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=281256