dianas

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31896

Spotlight on Tag Wrangling

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 will provide an overview of some of these upcoming changes.

Previous Tag Wrangling updates can generally be found on the @ao3org Tumblr and, for No Fandom tags, AO3 News. While No Fandom tag updates are generally announced on AO3 News as well as the @ao3org Tumblr, this may not be true of all wrangling updates. Some updates may remain solely distributed via Tumblr, especially those that only affect one or two fandoms. The way we distribute updates is subject to change as we work through new processes.

During this round of updates, we began a method which streamlines creation of 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:

Breeding Kink
Conlangs | Constructed Languages
DILFs | Dads I'd Like to Fuck
English Is Not The Author's First Language
Fast Burn
Mind Break
Monsterfucking | Teratophilia
Rivals to Lovers
Wholesome

In Conclusion

While all these new tags have already been made canonical, we are still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant tags, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. We thank you in advance for your patience!

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future on the tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can check AO3 News, follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org, Twitter/X @ao3_wranglers, or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags, linked below:

Update on "No Fandom" tags
Another Update Regarding "No Fandom" tags
Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, posted to AO3 News

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

In addition to providing technical help, 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.

Lastly, as mentioned above, we are still working on connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals. 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 two months from now.

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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31896

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31894

OTW recruitment banner

Are you interested in social media, community management or outreach? Or would you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? Do you want to create videos and connect with fellow fans on TikTok? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!

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

Fanlore Social Media & Outreach Volunteer - closing 16 July 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications
Policy & Abuse Volunteer - closing 16 July 2025 at 23:59 UTC
Communications TikTok Moderator - closing 16 July 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 60 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.

Fanlore Social Media & Outreach Volunteer

Do you have an interest in fandom history, or in fannish culture and the different tropes, ships, communities and viewpoints that make up fandom? Are you interested in social media, community management or outreach? The Fanlore committee is recruiting for Social Media & Outreach volunteers!

Fanlore Social Media & Outreach volunteers are responsible for writing and editing Fanlore's promotional posts on social media, planning and running Fanlore's editing challenges, maintaining Fanlore's social media channels, and thinking of ways to reach out to and engage with new corners of fandom.

No extensive experience required—only reliability, teamwork, good communication skills, and an interest in fandom and Fanlore in particular. Join us!

As part of our application process, candidates who pass the initial review will also be asked to create a sample social media post for Fanlore consisting of a 280-character tweet and a 100-word Tumblr post promoting a Fanlore article. Further directions will be given upon applying.

Applications are due 16 July 2025 or after 40 applications

Apply for Fanlore Social Media & Outreach Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Policy & Abuse Volunteer

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for addressing questions and concerns about potential violations of the AO3 Terms of Service. We determine whether reports are about legitimate violations of the Terms of Service, and what to do about them if they are. PAC volunteers correspond directly with AO3 users and collaborate on projects both within PAC and with other OTW committees.

Our main goals as a committee are:

to adhere to the AO3 Terms of Service
to make our reasoning and processes as clear and transparent as possible
to handle all user reports consistently, no matter which volunteer is doing the work
to keep every case we work on completely confidential

We are seeking people who can:

Commit to working on cases regularly
Be patient with rephrasing explanations
Ask for help when needed
Collaborate both inside the team and with other committees
Act in accordance with established rules, policies, and procedures
Treat confidentiality and user privacy as a priority

You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. While English proficiency is required, we welcome applicants who are fluent in other languages, especially Spanish (Español), Brazilian Portuguese (Português brasileiro), Russian (Русский), Chinese (中文), or Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia).

Applications are due 16 July 2025

Apply for Policy & Abuse Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.

Communications TikTok Moderator

Do you use TikTok? Do you like making videos? Do you want to connect with your fellow fans?

OTW TikTok Moderators create content for the OTW TikTok account, including drafting scripts, recording and editing videos, and reviewing other moderators' scripts and videos. Moderators address user comments on videos by responding to user questions, removing comments that violate our policies, and flagging comments for video topics. Moderators also try to regularly engage with fandom on TikTok by interacting with relevant, appropriate videos and liking, reposting, and/or commenting.

You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. We are looking for volunteers familiar with TikTok and passionate about outreach on the platform. They should be able to maintain a consistent level of work, collaborate inside the team and with other committees, ask for help when needed, and commit to making fair decisions about how to handle comments.

Applications are due 16 July 2025 or after 60 applications

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

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31894

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31888

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

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FICTIONALLEY IMPORT

Open Doors has nearly finished importing FictionAlley, a Harry Potter archive. With approximately 29,000 works imported so far, it is Open Doors' largest import yet. You can check out all imported works at the FictionAlley collection. Unclaimed works are currently locked to logged-in AO3 users only, but per Open Doors' agreement with the FictionAlley archivist, they will be unlocked 30 days after the import is fully completed.

All FictionAlley creators should have received one or more emails with links to claim, orphan, delete their works, or prevent the import of any additional works of theirs in the future. If you were a creator and did not receive this email, please contact Open Doors for assistance. You can also contact Open Doors if you would like to prevent future imports of your Harry Potter works specifically.

Open Doors has two other Harry Potter archives currently in their queue: HarryPotterFanFiction.com and MuggleNet Fan Fiction. If your email address has changed since you were a member of either archive, or you would like Open Doors not to import your works, please contact Open Doors. Please refer to the import announcements for a full list of how Open Doors can assist you with either import.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) coordinated with Board and Volunteers & Recruiting to formally decommission the Quality Assurance & Testing (QA&T) subcommittee—thank you to everyone who has served on QA&T over the years. Quality assurance and testing of AO3's code will continue under the oversight of AD&T's new QA Supervisor role. AD&T's latest releases have focused on various bug fixes, code clean-up, and monitoring improvements: check out the release notes. Also, Systems has installed some new Elasticsearch servers and repurposed the old ones as application servers! \o/

Open Doors announced the import of Absolution – The Inugrrrl Memorial, an InuYasha fanfiction memorial archive.

In May, Support received 3,177 tickets, while Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 3,763 tickets—a nearly 40% increase which is likely due to PAC's recent TOS spotlight series. PAC worked with Legal and Communications' News Post Moderation subcommittee to review over 1,700 comments across seven posts, with more than 400 comments receiving a reply. PAC will also be recruiting soon, so look out for the upcoming recruitment post!

In June, Tag Wrangling neared completion of phase two of three of their committee-wide guideline discussions on fandom metatags. They also launched a new procedure which streamlines creation of new "No Fandom" canonical tags, which are canonical tags not specific to any particular fandom. The committee plans to post announcements periodically detailing new tags, including one in a few weeks.

In May, Tag Wrangling handled over 610,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Fanlore's Annual Bingo was a huge success! \o/ 25 participants completed at least one bingo, and 16 got a total blackout. Thanks to everyone who took part!

In July, Fanlore is running a themed month—Fandom in Color—which celebrates characters of color, the contributions of fans of color, and more! Check out their social media (Bluesky and Tumblr) for page spotlights throughout the month.

Communications is now overseeing the OTW's Convention Outreach division, which was previously run by Development & Membership. If you have inquiries regarding OTW's convention presence, Communications can be reached through their contact form on the OTW website.

TWC is finalizing their upcoming general issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, volume 46, which will be published on September 15. They are still accepting submissions for their Latin American Fandoms special issue until January 1, 2026.

IV. THE 2025 ELECTION AND GOVERNANCE

Elections announced the 2025 Election candidates; this year's election is contested, with three candidates running for two open seats in this year's election. Their platforms are available on the Elections website. Communications has been coordinating public posts, while Translation is working on translating candidates' platforms.

2025's OTW Board Election will take place on August 15-18. OTW Members who plan to nominate a proxy should contact Elections by August 6. Specific dates for Q&A and Candidate Chats will be made available on the 2025 Election Timeline page.

Development & Membership has been checking membership for Board candidates and donors who want to vote in this year's election, while Finance has begun preparing for the 2024 audit.

Board uploaded minutes from the April 2025 Board public meeting to the OTW website. They also approved two new Finance Bookkeepers, held check-in meetings with Legal and the Paid Staff Transition Lead, and continued to work with the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup. The Board Assistants Team's work also continues on several projects, including the Procurement Policy and Board Discord Server Guidelines revamp.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees—Tag Wrangling and Support—and two subcommittees—News Post Moderation and Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution—this month.

From May 19 to June 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 147 new requests and completed 139, leaving them with 53 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).

As of June 22, 2025, the OTW has 944 volunteers. \o/

New Committee Chairs/Leads: 2 Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Heads
New AD&T Volunteers: 1 QA Supervisor
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Convention Specialists and 3 TikTok Moderators
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Mossie, Vihi, and 1 other News Post Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: 90PercentHuman, Hobgirl, Sparrow, and 1 other Policy & Admin Volunteer
New Finance Volunteers: Scott and 1 other Bookkeeper
New Open Doors Volunteers: Bette, devinwolfi, Kelpie, korry, November_Clouds, Pat Zarzecka, scattered_coreopsis, Starlings and 6 other Import Assistants
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Goal Supervisor; megidola and 1 other Volunteer
New Support Volunteers: 2 Chair Assistants
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Adri Jaimes, Lia404, ttom1323, and 5 other Translators
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Felipe and friki (Translators)

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Nary (Support) and 2 QA&T Leads
Departing AD&T QA&T Volunteers: runt and 1 other QA&T Testing Volunteer
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Leja, Evolcahra, and 1 other Editor
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Lead
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Convention Specialist
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Import Assistants and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Sandra 002 (Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: ladydragona (Supervisor); Daniailís, MFY11EP, Barbara Thomas, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Mirjam, DaisyJane, DanielUL, and 6 other Translators
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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/31888

yarn_harlot_feed

Posted by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

https://www.yarnharlot.ca/2025/07/whats-math-for-anyway/

https://www.yarnharlot.ca/?p=9830

Well, spoiler alert… Ranunculus fits just fine. This was not at all a guarantee, despite the rather ridiculous number of times that I checked before binding off and going back to do the neck. I felt compelled to pop back and tell you all how it was fitting, not just because I mentioned that I was worried it was going to be too short, but because the very last picture I posted of it on instagram looked like this.

Let’s back up to how I got there – which I admit was a very dramatic moment – one where I went to pull a finished sweater over my head and lo, it did not go. On the upside, I did stop worrying about the length for a while. Here’s what happened. I told you all in the last post that since I changed the gauge on this sweater (I went down a needle size or so to make a fabric I like better. What the heck, it’s my sweater.) That meant though, that I wasn’t at all sure how many I wanted to cast on for a top down sweater, so I skipped it. I cast on provisionally after the neck, and just started working the sweater. When I was done, I came back, picked up all the stitches, and worked the neckband.

Here’s the thing though. Did I do any figuring? Did I follow up on my original thought and have a little chat with my inner knitter about how I was worried it would be too small because I went down a needle size, and perhaps reflect upon how none of that had changed? Yeah verily, did I look upon the knitting and think “Well Stephanie, this is exactly the moment one knits a swatch for” and having though that, picked up the swatch that I did indeed knit, and count how many stitches it would take to go around my noggin? Did I?

No, gentle knitter, I did not. Even though the swatch sat nearby, even though (sort of unbelievably) I had a tape measure nearby… nope. I just took a look at that neckline and decided to just smash the question with the weight of my experience and thought “Looks right.” and just went for it. It was not right. (See above.)

Anyway, obviously I ripped back the cast on, and all the ribbing, and then I did the math and NOW this sweater both goes over my head and …

It is the right length. I knew it.

Sweater: Ranunculus, Yarn; (Cottage Fingering, 50% Merino, 20% Linen, 15% Silk, 15% Cotton) Modifications, changed the gauge, provisional neckline, fewer stitches for the neckband itself – oh, and I only did the short rows in the back, and I made them wider. It fits me better that way.

For now, I’m off to bed. Jen and I are going on a training ride in the morning, and I have to get up at 5:30am to make it happen, and that is not a thing that is really in my wheelhouse without getting to bed early. If I survive, I’ll pop back and tell you a story about some socks.

(PS. If you wanted to sponsor me or Jen tomorrow to encourage two rather old soft women to ride like the wind, you can do it by clicking on our names. We start to ride at 7, and can use whatever encouragement you can offer. )

Stephanie

Jen

https://www.yarnharlot.ca/2025/07/whats-math-for-anyway/

https://www.yarnharlot.ca/?p=9830