OTW Newsletter

March's #OTW newsletter spotlights #AO3 exiting open beta, a new OTW News by Email option, and Systems publishing a postmortem on early March's downtime. Read more at otw-news.org/ycktrt9r

Spotlight on Policy & Abuse

As #spam continues to be a problem on #AO3, here's an update on the types of spambot comments you may see, what we're doing to combat them, and how you can help! Read more at otw-news.org/mr42w8j9

AO3 being out of beta does not affect or change our site policies, mission statement, TOS, or non-profit status. This is just an update on our code passing to the next stage of the development cycle! The protection of fanworks archived on AO3 remains the same. - Mod Tiana, OTW Comms

Spotlight on Board

The OTW Board will be holding its next public meeting at 01:00 on April 18, 2026 UTC. Learn more at: otw-news.org/yt52h3ya

AO3 Update

#AO3 is exiting open beta! Learn more about how far we've come since launching open beta, our future plans for improvement, and what you can do to contribute at otw-news.org/4w2dn3tc

I absolutely love this!

Spotlight on Omegas

In a society that values alphas and betas, omegas can often be overlooked. This April 1st, we're placing omegas front and center at #AO3. Check our latest news post for details: otw-news.org/7ehh7trb

OTW Signal

In March's #OTW Signal we look at the long and fannish career of author Diane Duane and the downsides of unwanted fandom media attention + tips for you on OTW News by Mail in multiple languages! Read more at otw-news.org/2p8t5nft

Spotlight on Open Doors

SlasHeaven, a Spanish-language slash fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to #AO3. Read more about it at: otw-news.org/4ewussfj

Spotlight on Tag Wrangling

#AO3 tag wranglers have canonized some new "No Fandom" additional tags. Check out the latest news post for details: otw-news.org/mr4aj6ms

#OTW Systems volunteers have published a postmortem about the issues behind the unplanned #AO3 downtime in early March. Check it out on AO3: ao3-news.org/2v2en3bf

Transformative Works and Cultures

#TWC's issue 47 on Gaming Fandom is out! Read more at otw-news.org/ystt4tr6.

Spotlight on Tag Wrangling

AO3 tag wranglers have made a fandom metatag for the Critical Role Exandrian Universe, with subtags Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series), The Legend of Vox Machina (Cartoon), and The Mighty Nein (Cartoon) – and many more newly-canonized Critical Role fandom tags! Read more at ao3-news.org/3saxubbs

[update] Resolved: #AO3 and #Fanlore are back! Our data center says they have disabled the upstream provider that was causing the outage, but we are continuing to monitor the situation.

[update] Investigating: #AO3 and #Fanlore are currently down. We are investigating.

#AO3 started the year with some major improvements to our bookmark search, making it possible to sort and filter bookmarks by word count, and deployed several batches of fixes to strengthen site security and improve performance. These release notes collect all changes made to AO3 in January.

Applications for #Communications News Post Moderator, User Response Translation Translator and #Translation Volunteer Manager are still open, check out our volunteering page for more information: otw.org/volunteer!

OTW Recruitment

Are you interested in moderating OTW news posts? Are you fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, or Spanish, and want to help us reply to #AO3 users? Are you a skilled organizer who enjoys working in a team? The #OTW is recruiting! Learn more at: otw-news.org/265mfcz8

Image of three books with text '17 Million Fanworks on AO3'

#AO3 now has over 17 million fanworks on the site! Come celebrate with us at otw-news.org/2p9bk5jk

Banner of a paper airplane emerging from an envelope with the words 'OTW Newsletter: Organization for Transformative Works'

February's #OTW newsletter spotlights #IFD 2026, an upcoming #TWC issue on Gaming fandom, and Fanlore's #FemslashFebruary editing challenge. Read more at otw-news.org/yc2n549e

[update] Resolved: The fix we applied 24 hours ago appears to be holding, so we are resolving this incident. We thank everyone for their patience!

[update] Monitoring: We have made some adjustments based on recommendations from our database vendor and will continue to monitor their impact on system stability.

[update] Investigating: Following guidance from our vendor, we've brought #AO3 back online to help troubleshoot. We expect the site will go back down, although we don't know when that will happen. If you choose to post or update your works while AO3 is up, we strongly recom...

[update] Investigating: AO3 is now fully down. After performing a software upgrade a few days ago, we've been unable to keep our server cluster healthy due to what we believe is a bug or issue with the new release of our database server software.

We're working with our ve...

[update] Investigating: We are investigating reports of errors when trying to load AO3, including errors saying that AO3 is down, which seem to be related to the previous incident. We will update when we have more information!

[update] Resolved: We have resolved the underlying issue, and #AO3 should be behaving as normal for all users again.

[update] Investigating: #AO3 will remain down for at least several hours until we can consult our database vendor's support team and resolve the underlying issue. We're very sorry for the inconvenience.

[update] Investigating: We are investigating reports of errors when trying to load AO3, including errors saying that AO3 is down.

[update] Monitoring: #AO3 is back up! We appreciate your patience. We've got our protections against bot traffic turned up a bit higher than usual, so some users may experience problems if they're using a VPN or similar tools.

[update] Identified: We've identified the problem and are working on a fix. We expect to remain down for several more hours. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience!