Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we're posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We'll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.

AO3 is a home for all fanworks and operates under the principle of maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content. We allow content of any rating, and all kinds of fictional topics, as long as the creator provides basic information about the intensity and type of content that may be present in a work.

PAC handles many different types of TOS violations, including incorrect ratings and Archive warnings. In this post, we'll discuss the requirements for ratings and warnings as well as provide information on how to report works with incorrect ratings or warnings. We do our best to investigate every report, but incorrect ratings and warnings can take us a very long time to investigate if the report doesn't contain enough information.

Don't go looking for things to report.

Please do not start searching for works with incorrect ratings or warnings to report after reading this post. We know that these kinds of TOS violations are a problem on AO3. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.

Ratings

All works on AO3 must have a rating. Creators can either select a specific rating ("General Audiences", "Teen and Up", "Mature", or "Explicit") or opt out of providing a specific rating by applying the non-specific rating "Not Rated".

Our TOS divides ratings into two tiers: ratings that will trigger the Adult Content notification ("Mature", "Explicit", or "Not Rated"), and ratings that won't ("General" or "Teen"). When you click on a work rated "Mature", "Explicit", or "Not Rated", a banner will warn you that you're about to access a work that may contain adult content. By selecting the "Yes, Continue" button on the banner, you are agreeing to access a work which may contain adult content. Registered users can disable this notification, which is enabled by default on new accounts.

Works rated "General" or "Teen" are not subject to this notification system. If a work rated "General" or "Teen" contains explicit content that you believe should trigger the Adult Content notification, you can report that work to PAC, and we will investigate whether that work needs to use one of the three higher ratings.

However, PAC doesn't make any distinctions within these two tiers. This means that we won't require a work rated "General Audiences" to be changed to "Teen and Up", and we won't require a work rated "Mature" or "Not Rated" to be changed to "Explicit", or vice versa. We defer to the work's creator(s) for those decisions: the only part we enforce is whether or not the work needs a rating that triggers the Adult Content notification.

Archive warnings

There are four specific Archive warnings: "Underage Sex", "Rape/Non-Con", "Graphic Depictions of Violence", and "Major Character Death". Any work on AO3 that contains content relating to one of the four specific Archive warnings must be tagged with either that warning or the non-specific "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" label.

Creators can always Choose Not To Warn.

The "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" (CNTW) label is a blanket warning. It means "Read at your own risk!" or "This work may contain any of the four specific Archive warnings." If you don't want to encounter content depicting underage sexual activity, rape/non-consensual sex, graphic violence, or major character death, then you should not click on works tagged with "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings".

When you post a work, you can use the CNTW label if you don't want to apply a specific Archive warning. For example, if you don't want to spoil a plot twist by adding a "Major Character Death" warning, you can instead apply "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" to your work. You can also apply a combination of CNTW and other Archive warnings. If your work contains rape and a major character death, and you want to warn for the former without spoiling the latter, you can label the work with both "Rape/Non-Con" and "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings".

If you don't Choose Not To Warn, then you may need to add a specific warning.

As mentioned above, you can always opt out of applying Archive warnings by instead selecting "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings". If you do not select this label, then in the following circumstances, you must use one or more of the four specific Archive warnings:

The "Underage Sex" warning is required on works that depict or describe sexual activity involving characters under the age of eighteen (18). We don't consider dating activities, like kissing, to be sexual content. Offscreen sexual content also doesn't need a warning.

For characters that are underage in canon, we do not automatically assume (without evidence) that they are also underage in the fanwork. If there are no indications that a particular character is under 18, we will assume they are 18 or older. When evaluating works, we consider explicit statements of a character's age as well as contextual clues (such as the work being clearly set in a time period where the character is underage). If you're worried that a character in your fanwork may be misinterpreted as being younger than 18, you can always specify the character's age in the tags, notes, or body of your work.

The "Rape/Non-Con" warning is required on works that depict onscreen rape or non-consensual sex. If the work only contains a reference to non-consensual sex, then we don't require this warning to be applied. Additionally, there are circumstances that are not considered consensual in real life, but don't necessarily require the "Rape/Non-Con" warning on AO3. For example, we don't inherently require a "Rape/Non-Con" warning for adult/minor relationships (though we might require "Underage Sex" or CNTW). We also do not require a "Rape/Non-Con" warning for situations that are dubiously consensual, such as the Sex Pollen or Fuck or Die tropes. When in doubt, we defer to the creator's judgement.

Similarly, the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" warning is only required if the work contains graphic violence that is explicitly shown "onscreen" in the work.

We require "Major Character Death" when the character is both a major presence in the fanwork and they're dead by the end of the fanwork. We don't take canon into consideration here – what we're interested in is whether the character is a major presence in your fanwork. If you create a fanwork centered on a character that dies and stays dead in your work, that work should be warned for "Major Character Death" even if they only appear for one line in canon. If that same character dies before the start of your work, and dealing with the grief of their loss is a major part of the fanwork, "Major Character Death" is also required in this situation.

If your work features a character death and that character returns in a later chapter that is currently posted, then this warning is not required. However, if the character does not return to life until a sequel fanwork, the warning is still needed on the work in which they died. Archive Warnings apply to individual fanworks, not to series of works.

"No Archive Warnings Apply" may coexist with other warnings.

There is also a sixth label in this category: "No Archive Warnings Apply". The best way to think of this Archive warning is as a placeholder. If "No Archive Warnings Apply" is the only Archive warning on a work, then it means that the work should not feature underage sex, rape/non-consensual sex, graphic violence, or major character death – or if it does contain such content, it is only a brief reference.

However, the "No Archive Warnings Apply" label can be present on a work that is also labeled with any or all of the other five Archive warnings. In that case, the other warning label always takes precedence. PAC never removes any Archive warnings already on a work. We only add the "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" label to the work if it's missing a required warning.

For example, some users may apply a "Major Character Death" warning and a "No Archive Warnings Apply" warning in order to emphasize that while the work may contain Major Character Death, it doesn't contain any of the other warnings. The presence of "No Archive Warnings Apply" does not negate the "Major Character Death" label on the work – a major character death may still occur in this work.

If both "No Archive Warnings Apply" and "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (CNTW)" are applied to the same work, then the CNTW warning is what takes precedence, and the work may contain content relating to any of the four specific Archive warnings. Some users may apply both the CNTW label and the "No Archive Warnings Apply" label for ambiguous situations, or to emphasize that while they don't think the work contains something that needs a warning, it is open to interpretation. However, you should not assume anything about a creator's intentions or the severity of content in the work – consider works warned with both CNTW and "No Archive Warnings Apply" the same way you'd consider works tagged with only CNTW or any/all of the specific Archive warnings.

We generally defer to the creator's judgement.

For borderline cases, PAC will defer to the creator's judgement. However, if we feel that a work depicts content clearly requiring one of the four specific Archive warnings, we'll require the creator to either add the warning or opt out by applying the "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" label.

Can I use Additional tags instead of Archive warnings?

Sometimes users include warnings in the Additional tags of their work. If the content is merely a reference or offscreen, this is fine. However, for any content requiring an Archive warning, the label must also be added in the Archive warnings category. For example, while you are welcome to include an additional tag of "rape" on your work featuring a rape scene, you still need to apply the "Rape/Non-Con" Archive warning (or CNTW).

Why does AO3 have only four required Archive warnings?

AO3's warning system is deliberately minimal. When AO3 was created, these four warnings were chosen as a balance between the most common types of content that users wanted a warning for, and what would be feasible for PAC (a small team comprised entirely of volunteers) to enforce in a consistent and fair manner. We know that there are many other kinds of content that you might not want to see, so we encourage you to check out the additional tags, summary, notes, and bookmarks of a work before opening it. However, PAC will not enforce the use of tags or warnings beyond what is required by the TOS.

It's what's in the work that counts.

When it comes to ratings and warnings, we evaluate what is in the body of the work. If an author says in their notes that they plan to include explicit sex eventually, but the only chapter posted is a fluffy introduction with no explicit content, then we will not require that the work be given one of the higher ratings. Similarly, if a work carries an additional tag of "X dies at the end" but nobody actually dies in the work, then we will not require a "Major Character Death" warning.

Because of this, please do not report works based on what is in their additional tags or summary. Many creators may have begun works and added additional tags or notes based on their plans for future updates, but plans change, and not all works in progress are completed. Please only report works to us when there is actual content in the work itself that necessitates a rating or warning change.

Ratings and warnings are not promises.

AO3's warnings and ratings both mean "may contain", not "must contain". If you want to rate your fluffy, non-sexy slice-of-life as "Explicit", you're allowed to do that. A higher rating means that a work may contain explicit content, not that it must contain such content. Similarly, if you want to warn for "Major Character Death" even though nobody has died, you're allowed; we don't ever make someone remove a warning.

What will happen if I get reported for having an incorrect rating or missing warning on my work?

First, we'll review your work to confirm whether or not your work's rating and/or warnings are insufficient. If we determine that the rating or warnings need to be changed, we'll send you an email notifying you to update your tags.

We'll only ever contact you by email, and only after we've already reviewed your work and confirmed that the current rating and/or warnings are insufficient. We will never comment directly on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account's email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our email.

If you don't update your tags, we'll change them. For an incorrect rating, we'll set the work to "Not Rated". For a missing warning, we'll add the "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" label to the work. We won't remove any of the warnings that are already on the work.

We don't ever delete works for having insufficient warnings or ratings. While we do require all works to have appropriate ratings and warnings (as specified in the TOS), it is very rare for us to apply any penalties to a user's account for insufficient ratings or warnings. We would usually only penalize a user if they undo changes we made or required them to make. A user may also receive a penalty if they repeatedly mislabel their works even after being contacted about similar violations, or for the purposes of harassment.

What should I do if I encounter a work that has the wrong rating or a missing warning?

You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.

How do I report a work with the wrong rating or missing warnings?

Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out incorrectly tagged works to report, if you come across a work with the wrong rating or missing warnings while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3.

Please don't report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you're reporting, so that all information about that user is in the same place.

Please tell us exactly where in the work the content requiring the higher rating or warning is. The best way to do this is to give us a short quote from the relevant scene that we can search for in order to immediately find the content. If you are reporting multiple works by the same creator, please group all the works into one report and provide this information for each work.

If the rating or warning issue pertains to a specific character, please tell us the name of that character as used in the work. If it's Bert who died, please tell us it's Bert, so that we don't spend time trying to figure out if it was Ernie (who was only badly wounded). If you are reporting a missing "Underage Sex" warning, please tell us exactly where the underage sexual content occurs and where the indication of the character's age is. As a reminder, if there are no indications that a particular character is under 18, we will assume they are 18 or older.

Rating and warning issues can take a lot of time for us to investigate if we're not given clear information about where the violation has happened. PAC will not act unless we've confirmed a policy violation ourselves. If we're sent a report about a work that is 80,000 words long and the report only says "contains rape", we have to confirm that there is a rape scene somewhere in those 80,000 words before requiring a "Rape/Non-Con" (or CNTW) warning. If we can't find it easily, the most likely result is that we'll reply to you asking you to give us more info – and if you don't, we'll close your report with no further action. So please make sure to include as much information as possible when submitting a report.

For example, a report of a work with an incorrect rating might look like this:

Link to the page you are reporting: https://ao3-cn.top/works/00000000

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Incorrect rating

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is rated G but it's entirely smut from the very first sentence.

If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Incorrect ratings and warnings

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is rated G but it's entirely smut from the very first sentence.

Some of their other works also have the wrong rating or warning:

https://ao3-cn.top/works/23456789 is rated T with No Archive Warnings Apply, but it has underage sex onscreen. CHARACTERNAME is 17 (in chapter 2 it says "after his seventeenth birthday party three weeks ago") and has sex in chapter 4 (starting at "He stepped closer, leaning in...")

https://ao3-cn.top/works/34567890 has the main character CHARACTERNAME die at the end (search for "She gasped in horror"), but the work isn't tagged with Major Character Death or Creator Chose Not To Warn.

You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:

• Who posted the incorrectly tagged work(s): Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
• Where we can find the work(s): Enter one URL in the "Link to the page you are reporting" field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
• What violates the TOS: Explain why you think the rating and/or warning(s) on each work you're reporting are incorrect, for example by including a quote from the relevant scene(s). A brief description of the work is fine; you don't need to be very detailed or quote an entire TOS or FAQ section.

You'll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same work. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.

What if I have more questions about ratings and warnings?

PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.

If you think you've found a work that's incorrectly rated or missing a warning, or if you want to know whether a particular scene requires a specific rating or Archive warning, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ on ratings and Archive warnings.

If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.

Are you interested in helping keep OTW news post spaces a welcoming and safe space for engagement? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:

• News Post Moderator - closing 28 May 2025 at 23:59 UTC [or after 40 applications]

We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.

All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.

If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.

NEWS POST MODERATOR

News Post Moderation is a Communications subcommittee that is responsible for moderating comments on AO3 and OTW News Posts as well as liaising with other OTW committees to respond to individual commenters as needed.

News Post Moderators freeze, hide, or disallow comments that do not comply with our News Post Moderation Policy. We approve comments that do comply, respond to user questions and concerns, and communicate with other OTW committees so that users can receive helpful, accurate answers.

We are looking for volunteers who can maintain a consistent level of work, ask for help and collaborate both inside the team and with other committees, and make fair and objective decisions about what comments to moderate.

Applications are due 28 May 2025 [or after 40 applications]

Apply for News Post Moderator at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

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.

Homosapien Press, publisher of multi-fandom fanzines including Samurai Errant, Homosapien, and Pure Maple Syrup, is importing the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) in Homosapien Press’s fanzines
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Homosapien Press was based in Australia and run by Julie Bozza, publishing various fanzines from 1988 to 2004. Julie is keen to preserve this part of fandom history, with the explicit permission of the creators.

Please contact us if you had works in these zines and would like them to be imported!

The fanzines to be imported are:

• Samurai Errant: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Homosapien: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Espresso: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Pure Maple Syrup: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• The Deal/Juliet is Bleeding: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Westering Boundaries: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
• Horatio Hornblower & the Prix d'Amor: Fanlore page and AO3 collection

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Homosapien Press to import the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW's servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Homosapien Press’s fanzines to the AO3 after May 2025, where we have explicit permission from the creators. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Homosapien Press’s fanzines?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the 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.

Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

1. You’d like us to import your works!
2. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publisher has a record of.
3. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
4. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
5. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
6. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
7. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, 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 Homosapien Press to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collections listed above

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 Homosapien Press and its fanzines 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 Homosapien Press’s fanzines!

- The Open Doors team and Julie Bozza

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.

We are incredibly excited to announce that AO3 now has over 15 million fanworks! Last year in May we celebrated 13 million works on the site. Two million new works in one year is an incredible achievement. And to think it took more than four years to reach one million works when AO3 was first founded!

We would not be here without your love for fandom, your dedication, and your ceaseless enthusiasm and creativity. Kudos to all of you! However you choose to contribute to fandom, you are invaluable to our community.

In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, comment below your favourite ways of engaging with fandom. Are you a creator? Do you translate works? Create podfics? Run exchanges? Are you an avid commenter on other people's works? What do you enjoy most about how you engage with fandom?

Thank you for 15 million fanworks, and here's to many more to come!

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.

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we're posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We'll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.

PAC handles both major and minor policy infractions. We get tens of thousands of reports each year about a lot of different types of TOS violations, but approximately half of all reports are about one specific thing: the violations we call "non-fanworks". In this post, you'll learn about some of the most common types of non-fanworks, why we don't allow them, where to put this type of content instead, and what you can do if you see a non-fanwork on AO3.

Don't go looking for things to report.

Please do not start searching for non-fanworks to report after reading this post. We know that non-fanworks are a problem on AO3. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.

AO3 is an archive for fanworks, not other kinds of content.

AO3 has a very specific purpose: to host fanworks, and only fanworks. Our definition of "fanwork" is broad: fanworks can take many shapes and forms, including fanfiction, fanart, podfics, fanvids, fancrafts, fannish non-fiction, original works, and more.

What are some examples of non-fanworks?

Works that are not fanworks should not be posted to AO3. These include (but are not limited to):

• Fic searches or requests for recommendations
• Advertisements for roleplay partners or servers
• Personal messages to other users
• Updates, polls, or announcements
• Reaction, blog, or vent posts
• Spam, shitposts, or memes
• Reposted novels or other published works
• Placeholders and other empty works
• Links to or lists of works you've read or created
• Ideas or prompts for fanworks
• Requests for other users to provide you with ideas or prompts for fanworks

AO3 has many features that you can use instead of posting a non-fanwork.

There are many AO3 tools and features that are designed to assist you with finding, recommending, and creating fanworks. Please use these features instead of posting a non-fanwork.

• Tags and Search: AO3 has an extensive tagging and searching system, which you can use to browse for works you might be interested in or find a specific work.

• Bookmarks: You can use bookmarks to save or share fanworks hosted on AO3 or other sites. AO3 bookmarks can be organized using tags, notes, and collections.

• Series and Collections: You can make a series to organize your fanworks so that other users know what order to read them in, or a collection to group similar kinds of fanworks together. Fanworks can be placed in multiple series or collections at the same time.

• Prompt Memes: Prompts or ideas for fanworks that you would like to see (or requests for others to give you ideas for fanworks to create) are not themselves fanworks. Instead, you can request or post prompts using a prompt meme, which is a specialized type of collection that lets multiple users share and fulfill each other's ideas.

• Drafts: All works on AO3 must be fanworks; empty placeholder works aren't fanworks. You shouldn't post a placeholder work that has no content, nor should you remove all the content from your work while you're editing it. If you have a work in progress that you aren't ready to post yet, please save your work as an unpublished draft instead.

• Profile and Notes: You can share links to your accounts on other sites or provide updates on your writing progress by editing your profile or adding notes to your fanworks.

If you need help using any of AO3's features, please contact Support.

I've seen others post these "non-fanworks". Why can't I?

As our TOS FAQ explains, we don't review content until it's reported to us. You may have seen somebody else post a fic search or a prompt as a work on AO3, but that doesn't mean it's allowed. All it means is that nobody has reported that non-fanwork to us yet, or that we haven't finished processing the report.

What if I plan to delete it as soon as possible?

Works on AO3 must be fanworks. By posting a non-fanwork, you're violating our TOS. If someone reports your work to us, we may still take action even if you've already deleted the work.

What will happen if I get reported for posting a non-fanwork?

First, we'll review the reported work to confirm that you violated our TOS by posting a non-fanwork. If we determine that your work is a non-fanwork, we'll hide the work and send you an email telling you to delete the non-fanwork. In some cases, we may offer you the chance to edit your work instead.

We'll only ever contact you by email, and only after we've determined that your work is a non-fanwork. We will never comment on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account's email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our warning email.

If you repeatedly post non-fanworks, you may be temporarily suspended. Continuing to violate the TOS will result in you being permanently banned from AO3. You can learn more about warnings and suspensions in our TOS FAQ.

What should I do if I encounter a non-fanwork?

You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.

How do I report a non-fanwork?

Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out non-fanworks to report, if you come across a non-fanwork while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3.

Please don't report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you're reporting, so that all information about that user is in the same place.

For example, a non-fanwork report might look like this:

Link to the page you are reporting: https://ao3-cn.top/works/00000000

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Non-fanwork

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is a search for a fanfic.

If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is a search for a fanfic.

Some of their other works are also not fanworks:

https://ao3-cn.top/works/23456789 is a request for roleplaying partners.

https://ao3-cn.top/works/34567890 is a list of prompts.

You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:

• Who posted the non-fanwork(s): Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
• Where we can find the work(s): Enter one URL in the "Link to the page you are reporting" field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
• What violates the TOS: Explain why you think each work you're reporting is not a fanwork. A brief description of the work is fine; you don't need to be very detailed or quote an entire TOS or FAQ section.

You'll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same work. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.

What if I have more questions about non-fanworks?

PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.

If you think you've found a non-fanwork on AO3, or if you want to know whether a particular work is a fanwork, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ for examples of fanworks and non-fanworks.

If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.

ETA: As mentioned earlier in the post, original works are a type of fanwork allowed on AO3. For more information, please refer to our TOS FAQ: Can I post original fiction?.

The OTW Elections committee is pleased to announce that the timeline for the 2025 election for new members of the Board of Directors has been posted!

As previously announced, Zixin Zhang stepped down from her position on the Board. Jennifer Haynes is also stepping down from the Board as she has reached the end of her term. There are 7 Directors on the OTW's Board and this year OTW members will elect 2 new Directors to serve 3 year terms on the Board.

This year's election will be held August 15-18. This means that the deadline for volunteers to declare their candidacy is June 20.

As usual, the election membership deadline is June 30. If you're interested in voting, please make sure your membership is active as of that date. If you are unsure whether your donation was made before the deadline, please contact our Development and Membership Committee by using the contact form on our website and selecting "Is my membership current/Am I eligible to vote?".

You can find out how to become a member on the Elections website, or if you're familiar with the process, you can donate here!

If you want to know more about the election process in general, you can check out the Elections Policies.

We're looking forward to an active election season with ample communication between candidates and voters, and we hope you'll be a part of it. Don't forget to follow the Elections committee on Bluesky and Tumblr to keep up to date with the latest news!

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact Elections.

April came with a lot of smaller changes and fixes to AO3. We also made a few bigger improvements, such as fixing gif icons that weren't animating and updating the way we send invitations to new users. On top of that, we added a confirmation email to the email change process and created a button to delete all your subscriptions. We also made a number of changes to make the work of our Policy & Abuse committee easier as they continue to tackle a wave of spam.

Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Emily Wiegand, Hamham6, Laura, melo, Michelle Tanoto, niic, and Tom Li!

Credits

• Coders: Amy Lee, Bilka, Brian Austin, EchoEkhi, Emily Wiegand, Hamham6, irrationalpie, Isabel Nunes, Laura, lydia-theda, marcus8448, melo, Metallicity, Michelle Tanoto, niic, sarken, slavalamp, Tom Li, unsafe-deref
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, lydia-theda, redsummernight, sarken
• Testers: Aster, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Deniz, Jennifer D2, Lute, lydia-theda, megidola, Rachel Linton, Ridicully, Runt, Sanity, sarken, Scott, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.404

On April 2, we fixed gif icons which weren't animating and deployed a number of small changes all around the site.

• [AO3-5596] - When the boxes on the All Fandoms page were of unequal heights, we'd sometimes end up with a box jumping over to the wrong side of the page and creating a big empty space where it should've been. We've fixed it so the boxes should now stack up in the correct columns no matter how tall they are.
• [AO3-6751] - When a fandom tag had a period in its name, the "Relationships by Character" link on its tag landing page would give a 404 error. We've fixed that by properly escaping the periods in the link.
• [AO3-6939] - We've added more information to the browser page title for various collection pages, so now they include which page you're on in addition to the collection title (e.g., "Collection Title - Profile" or "Collection Title - Fandoms").
• [AO3-6942] - The page where a Policy & Abuse admin confirms the deletion of a spammer's works and comments had the browser page title "Confirm Delete User Creations Admin User." This was computer-generated gobbledygook, so we changed it to "Confirm Deletion of User Creations," which is at least marginally better.
• [AO3-6955] - When we changed the code library we use for icons across the site, animated gif icons stopped being animated. We've fixed this so gif icons, including icons uploaded before this release, are now animated again.
• [AO3-6799] - Our Support and Policy & Abuse committees needed to move some things around in their ticket trackers, so we moved some things around in the code to make sure ticket information still ends up in the right place.
• [AO3-5744] - If the URL you entered when importing a work redirected you to a different URL, you'd get a 500 error. We've fixed it so the work will still get imported.
• [AO3-6949] - We bumped our version of the nokogiri gem from 1.18.3 to 1.18.4.

0.9.405

On April 11, we deployed some improvements for the Policy & Abuse committee. We also made a number of display fixes and increased the reliability of sending invitations from the invitation queue.

• [AO3-5573] - If you tried to change the sort order on your Works in Collections page, the works stubbornly remained sorted by their updated date no matter which option you chose. We've fixed it so now they'll actually be sorted in the desired order.
• [AO3-6597] - We were making some changes around invitation pages, so we took the opportunity to prepare those pages for future translation.
• [AO3-6877] - When you fill a prompt in a prompt meme, we automatically add some text to the work notes linking back to the prompt meme. We've updated this text so it will now use the collection's display title rather than its name, which is primarily intended for the URL. (Please note that this will not affect notes on existing works.)
• [AO3-6957] - We improved the look of the error highlighting when you try to leave an invalid comment, such as an exact duplicate of a comment you previously left in the same place.
• [AO3-6961] - We made caution notices, such as the text informing you what will happen if you change your username, more readable in the Reversi skin.
• [AO3-6672] - When a Policy & Abuse admin needed to change someone's username to a generic one, they used to need help from someone with database access. Now they can press a button and the username will be automatically changed.
• [AO3-6830] - When someone reports a work to our Policy & Abuse committee, we now automatically add a list of the work's creators to the ticket PAC receives.
• [AO3-6913] - Admins can now control how often invitations are sent by specifying the frequency in hours instead of days. This helps improve the stability of sending emails by letting us spread the load out over the course of a day instead of doing all the work at once.
• [AO3-6952] - When a Policy & Abuse admin bans a spammer, we no longer submit comments that are marked as deleted to our spam checker.

0.9.406

On April 17, we added an option to delete all your subscriptions to the Subscriptions page. Additionally, we improved error messages all around the site to be more informative and made some other small changes.

• [AO3-6578] - If you marked a work as inspired by a work not hosted on AO3, the ratings in the blurb for the inspiration would overlap the text informing you that the work is not posted on the Archive. We've moved the text so it's now completely readable.
• [AO3-6896] - We've made it so long usernames in the kudos section of a work will wrap across lines instead of running off the side of the page on small screens.
• [AO3-6935] - Trying to create a skin with a title that matched an existing skin's title in every way but capitalization used to result in a 500 error, but now it will give a nicer error telling you the skin title must be unique.
• [AO3-6956] - We reworded the error message you get when you try to make duplicate comments in the exact same spot (for example, submitting the same comment twice in a row on the same work).
• [AO3-6965] - We optimized some of our automated tests by spending less time on posting works.
• [AO3-3524] - We adjusted our HTML parser so you can now use media embeds from 4shared.com in your works.
• [AO3-6401] - If an OTW volunteer tries to leave kudos while logged in to their committee's official account, they'll get an error message telling them to log in with their personal account instead.
• [AO3-6711] - Your subscriptions page now has an option to delete all of your subscriptions. (You can also delete all subscriptions of a certain type, such as work subscriptions, by going to the page listing that kind of subscription.) Don't worry, all of these buttons come with a separate confirmation page.
• [AO3-6849] - To make testing and translation easier, we made a preview of the email users receive when they are gifted a work.
• [AO3-6911] - When a page takes too long to respond, you will now be redirected to a more informative error page.
• [AO3-6945] - When you were entering a tag with a pipe (|) in a field, the autocomplete would return unexpected results if you didn't surround the pipe with spaces. We've fixed that and also sped up the autocomplete search for tags with pipes.

0.9.407

In our deploy from April 24, we improved account security by adding a confirmation email that will be sent to your new email address when you attempt to change the email address of your account.

• [AO3-6113] - Previously, the autocomplete dropdown for tag fields would sometimes stay open after you selected a result from it. It should now always close as expected.
• [AO3-6938] - We updated the browser page title on the Related Works page to include the username of the page's owner.
• [AO3-6962] - When reviewing nominated tags for tag sets, the tags were unreadable in the Reversi skin. We fixed this and also adjusted the Snow Blue skin to address an issue with hover styles on that page.
• [AO3-6972] - Our dependency updater bumped our code style checker from version 2.21.2 to 2.21.3.
• [AO3-5350] - We updated the email that is sent to you when your work is hidden as spam, so that the email can be translated in the future.
• [AO3-6388] - To help keep your AO3 account secure, we've changed the process for updating your account's email address. We already made you enter your new email address twice to reduce the risk of typos, but now you'll need to confirm the new address is correct one more time before we start processing the request. You'll still receive a notification at your old email address, but now we'll also send a confirmation link to your new email address. Your email address will officially be changed only if you log in and use the confirmation link within seven days.

0.9.408

On April 29, we deployed some improvements to our automated tests and fixed a few bugs on the archive.

• [AO3-5053] - When you updated your username or pseud, the blurbs for your bookmarks would continue to show the old name for some time. We've changed this so they will now update immediately.
• [AO3-6136] - Admins can now see the timestamp when a user successfully reset their password in the user's account history.
• [AO3-6813] - When translated emails were enabled but an admin disabled translations for a specific locale, emails would continue to be sent in that locale. Since that's not what the admin intended when disabling the translations, we've fixed this behavior.
• [AO3-6845] - When an admin searched for invitations sent to a particular email, the result would be displayed in a different format if there was only one invitation. That format was inconvenient, so we've changed it to display the same way as a search result of multiple invitations.
• [AO3-6963] - Some normally invisible line breaks in the page title would result in awkward AO3 link previews on other sites. We removed the extra whitespace, so the title in the link preview now looks nicer.
• [AO3-5862] - Back in 2018, we created a migration to remove a column from the database, and then promptly forgot to run it. We've updated the migration and didn't forget about it this time.
• [AO3-6982] - We fixed some automated tests that were randomly failing.
• [AO3-6031] - The file for our automated comment tests was getting quite large and unmanageable, so we split it up into several smaller files.
• [AO3-6980] - One of our automated tests started failing because it was accessing a website that no longer exists. We changed the test to use a mock website instead.
• [AO3-6974] - We bumped our version of the nokogiri gem again, this time to 1.18.8.

I. APRIL'S MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Development & Membership ran April's Membership Drive, which ended with just over US$269,000 raised from over 8,000 donors. Communications helped distribute news posts, while Translation made Drive information available in 24 languages.

In anticipation of the April drive, Finance posted the 2025 budget.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Although AO3 has not experienced a data breach, malware and reused passwords can still put accounts at risk. On World Password Day, Policy & Abuse published a reminder about how to keep your AO3 account secure and other internet security best practices.

In April, Open Doors announced the import of Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press, a collection of fanzines for Star Trek: The Original Series. This is the first of their Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) publisher imports.

Also in April, Accessibility, Design & Technology deployed a number of bug fixes and improvements to AO3, including performance improvements to the invitation queue and fixing the bug that made animated gifs not animate when uploaded as pseud icons. They also published release notes covering changes made in March.

In March, Policy & Abuse received 2,988 tickets, while Support received 2,909 – less than Support received in the previous two months, but still above their usual average.

Tag Wrangling announced some new "No Fandom" additional tags, or tags not specific to particular fandoms. This update included tags related to Pregnancy and Reader-Insert. In March, the committee wrangled over 460,000 tags, or approximately 1,150 tags per wrangling volunteer!

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore is running a themed month for May, focusing on monsters and creatures in fandom. Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Tumblr, or Twitter/X for featured articles, and join their Discord server for a themed editing chat in May!

In April, Legal continued responding to user queries, tracking legislation, and preparing to respond to events as they unfold.

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) has announced their second annual Fans of Color Research Prize! The award recognizes the best peer-reviewed article about fans and/or fandoms of color published in TWC in the preceding three years (for 2025, no earlier than 2022) and furthers the journal’s goal to support scholars whose work fills critical gaps in fan studies literature about racially marginalized and/or non-Western fans. The winner will receive a US$500 cash prize. Submissions are due to [email protected] no later than May 15, 2025 (Anywhere on Earth).

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board ran their second public meeting on April 26 in the Board Discord server. Their agenda was announced beforehand, and meeting minutes will be available on the OTW website soon.

The Board Assistants Team continued work on ongoing projects, including revamping the Board Discord and investigating non-profit training. In conjunction with Board and the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap team, they also devoted a lot of focus to working on the OTW Crisis Procedures and making related edits to the Procurement Policy draft.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for four committees in March: Policy & Abuse, Strategic Planning, Translation, and TWC.

From March 19 to April 20, Volunteers & Recruiting received 200 new requests, and completed 208, leaving them with 45 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of April 20, 2025, the OTW has 918 volunteers. \o/

New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: chocolatedreams, Evolcahra, and 3 other Documentation Editors
New Open Doors Volunteers: bubble-sort, Maciej, and 1 other Technical Volunteer
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Ana, Murus, Yuca, and 1 other Policy & Abuse Volunteer
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Alpha, amihan, Andrea T, ari v., Ata Māhina, Aurum, Azure Guest, blossomshed, Canoe, Catrain, Cesario, Corbin, CrystalM, Dalmuri, ECS, Ellie-Bee, Executie, Fyodor, Gialla, greenribbon, Hai, Hima, iri, Ishmael, Jesse Reno, kaijuboyy, Knight, Krchov, Lillie, Luke, Mária_Waluigi, Mayonayys, midoriC, midwinter, Paxsky, PinkBrain, Rain, Ratty, Sarah Wallenfelsz, Shinji, skeleton-kai, Spit, Sunny1, TheDragonflyBox, tomurai, Ushio, Vip, Wicked, Xanya V, and 3 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: Ailín and 5 other Translators
New User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Liaison from Policy & Abuse

Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Site Moderator and 1 Graphics Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Jennifer D2
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Policy & Abuse Volunteer
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Strategic Planning Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 1 Tag Wrangling Supervisor and 4 Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Eilean and 4 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Frost The Fox (Senior Volunteer) 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, 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.