I. AO3 SECURITY & PHISHING COMMENTS

In late July, Policy & Abuse (PAC) coordinated with Accessibility, Design & Technology and Systems to increase AO3 account security measures against logins with insecure passwords in response to an active phishing comment scam targeting thousands of users. PAC also worked with Communications and Support to publish several social media posts to help users secure their accounts and keep them informed.

We’d like to remind you that AO3 volunteers will never communicate with you about the status of your account through comments on your works. We will also never require payment from users to make an account or to “unlock” features. AO3 is and will always be free to use.

We recommend you verify that the email on your account is one that you have access to and that it is up to date. Please also make sure that your password is secure and unique to AO3. Read our update on insecure passwords for more information.

For general advice on how to keep your AO3 account secure, refer to World Password Day: Keeping Your Account Secure. If you need help changing your email or password, refer to our Archive FAQ questions on: How can I change the email associated with my account? and How do I change my password?

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In July, AO3 surpassed 80,000 canonical fandoms! \o/

As of July 10, AO3 is officially on version 1.0. Accessibility, Design & Technology’s releases have included internationalization work, documentation tweaks, gem updates, bug fixes, improvements to admin tools, and filters for user collection pages.

AO3 Documentation updated the Statistics FAQ and Your Account FAQ.

Open Doors announced that the Mass Effect Kink Meme will be imported to AO3, and they began importing the unfilled prompt challenges from Forging Ghost.

In June, Support received 3,556 tickets, while PAC received 4,254 tickets. As of July 31, PAC has consistently reduced their ticket backlog for the past six months in a row, and all PAC tickets submitted prior to January 2025 have been closed. User Response Translation received and completed 78 requests from PAC and Support.

Tag Wrangling published a July update on “No Fandom” tags. In June, they wrangled over 595,000 tags, or approximately 1,300 tags per wrangling volunteer.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Communications published an overview behind why AO3 doesn’t have an official app and provided some alternatives for specific functionalities. They also formally said goodbye to the OTW’s LiveJournal account as the automated cross-posting used for OTW News there is no longer supported.

Fanlore’s themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge is Stub September—keep an eye on their social media (Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr) for announcements about the challenge!

TWC’s production team is preparing the 49th issue of Transformative Works and Cultures which will be published September 15, 2026. Their editorial team continued work on the two special issues slated for 2027—Music Fandom and Latin American Fandoms—and their editorial board jury is finalizing the reviews for the 2026 Fans of Color Research Prize.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Elections announced the publication of the first batch of Q&As from candidates, focusing on the future direction of the OTW. They also shared that this year’s synchronous candidate chat will be on August 8 at 4pm UTC (what time is that for me?). It will be held in the Elections Discord server.

Board spent July primarily focusing on internal projects and preparing for the public Board meeting which took place on August 1; minutes will be uploaded to the website soon.

Board Assistants Team completed the project to update the static content on the OTW website that they’ve been working on with Communications since 2024. All pages have been reviewed to ensure that they are up to date, clear, and consistent.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers & Recruiting continued work on rolling out the updated Code of Conduct and conducted recruitment for five roles across Open Doors, Tag Wrangling, and Translation.

From June 23 to July 25, Volunteers & Recruiting received 321 new requests, and completed 294, leaving them with 55 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of July 25, 2026, the OTW has 1,044 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs/Leads: Lulu S (AO3 Documentation Chair)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 Chair Assistant and Aquilas (Social Media Moderator)
New Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Gardener
New Legal Volunteers: Amy R (Trademark Specialist)
New Open Doors Volunteers: ahcandy, Faye Wright, Gina-Nicole, GineSage87, Invariance, limethymes, Ro Koseki, and 6 other Import Assistants; Fly-dot-net, navy-yard-elle, TC, and 1 other Administrative Volunteer; and 1 Documentation Specialist
New Support Volunteers: 2 Support Volunteers

Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Fly-dot-net and 1 other Import Assistant, and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Iolanthe and 2 other Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Bette, lovemelikesunday, OldScoil, Paula, Potato, and 2 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Copyeditor, 1 Outreach and Communications Editor, and 1 Symposium Editor
Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.