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Posted by an

https://www.transformativeworks.org/june-2026-newsletter-volume-212/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285416

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.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/june-2026-newsletter-volume-212/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285416

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-469-0-9-473-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285407

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.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-469-0-9-473-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285407

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/updates-to-no-fandom-additional-tags-june-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285352

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:

• 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.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/updates-to-no-fandom-additional-tags-june-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=285352