The Organization for Transformative Works is thrilled to announce another milestone for the Archive of Our Own: one million registered users!
The Archive of Our Own was conceived based on a desire to have a fan-controlled space where fanworks could be hosted without commercial influence or content restrictions. It took two and a half years to go from that initial idea to Open Beta, but on November 14th, 2009, members of the public began opening accounts on AO3. The archive began to grow, and the milestones began piling up. We hit the incredible one million fanworks milestone on February 15th, 2014, and instituted the first annual International Fanworks Day on February 15th, 2015, in celebration.
When the Archive reached its two million fanworks milestone, we celebrated the dedication of all our users, registered and not, who inspire us to volunteer and help keep the OTW’s projects going. Now that we’ve reached one million registered users, we want to celebrate and thank them in particular–the creators sharing fanworks, moderators hosting challenges and exchanges, readers curating collections, and commenters encouraging everyone to keep up the good work. Without your support and creativity, none of this would be possible. Without users, there would be no Archive of Our Own, and we appreciate all of the passion and hard work you share with us every day.
There’s a lot of excitement to come here at the Archive, so keep visiting to see what’s happening next. Thank you again for all of your support, and we hope you continue to enjoy the Archive!