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I. SPOTLIGHT ON GOVERNANCE
August saw three new OTW Board Directors announced: congratulations to Jennifer Howard, Rebecca C. Moritz, and Theodore Bloyd. Thank you to our outgoing Board Directors Anh Pham and Qiao Chu! Board and Board Assistants Team have begun preparing for Board turnover, which will happen on October 1.
On August 1, Board held a public meeting with 37 attendees. Minutes are available on the OTW website. Elsewhere, ongoing project work continued, including BAT volunteer retention research, drafting training for new Board members who have never served as Chairs, and investigating mental health support options for volunteers.
II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
In July, Support received a record high of 5,321 tickets, with 2,713 of those tickets received from July 24-31. Near the end of July, Systems implemented a block preventing users from logging in if their password was compromised in a data breach from another website and requiring users to reset their passwords before logging in again. This led to a large increase in Support tickets helping users with password/login issues and account recovery. Support is working to help everyone regain access to their accounts, and asks for your patience as they address the higher ticket count.
Policy & Abuse received 5,634 tickets in July, a slight increase which was largely due to a recent phishing scam. User Response Translation received and completed 104 requests from Policy & Abuse and Support.
The OTW's social media moderators fielded many user concerns regarding an increase in AO3 users due to changes to Wattpad's content guidelines. Communications collaborated with Support and PAC to publish a social media statement reiterating AO3's commitment to maximum inclusivity. They also answered media outlets' requests for comment, including an NBC article covering the topic. The OTW's TikTok surpassed 100,000 followers, with a recent video about AO3's minimal data collection gaining over 790,000 views.
Elsewhere at AO3, Accessibility, Design & Technology deployed a large list of bug fixes and small usability improvements, as well as several important security patches. They also published the last set of change logs before version 1.0!
Open Doors finished importing the Watchmen Kinkmeme and announced the import of American Horror Story Fic Exchange.
Tag Wrangling published their August update on "No Fandom" tags, detailing both updates to additional tags and some new relationship tags with Original Nonbinary Character(s). In July, they wrangled approximately over 630,000 tags, or around 1,400 tags per wrangling volunteer.
III. FANLORE
On August 6, Fanlore suffered a data breach, and the site went briefly offline to investigate and address the incident. Systems quickly responded to the compromise, identified the exploitation path, and redeployed all Fanlore's servers. Communications and Fanlore worked to inform users about the incident, detailing what happened and what actions we recommend affected users take.
Due to multiple controls, we quickly determined that the compromise was limited to Fanlore, and neither AO3 nor any other OTW project was affected. Systems is working on a public writeup which will be published on the official AO3_Systems account.
IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Communications collaborated with Legal on a news post covering Canada’s Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act.
Fanlore is preparing for their Stub September event. This is an annual event dedicated to adding information to very short existing Fanlore articles called "stubs". They're collaborating with the Organizational Culture Roadmap to make some badges in connection with a fun new theme! Stub September will run from September 13 to the 27. Pay attention to Fanlore's social media for further announcements!
TWC is finalizing their upcoming general September 2026 issue and in review for the three 2027 issues. They're also pleased to announce Meihua Lu as their 2026 Fans of Color Prize award winners for the article "From Cinderella to i-woman: Web novels, fandom, and feminist politics in China", published in TWC’s special issue "Chinese Fandoms" on December 15, 2023.
V. OUR VOLUNTEERS
Volunteers & Recruiting offered recruitment for ten roles in August and continued to work on the Code of Conduct rollout.
From July 26 to August 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 202 new requests, and completed 161, leaving them with 98 open requests. As of August 22, 2026, the OTW has 1021 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Frederica (Liaison)
New BAT Volunteers: MustardPot (Chair Assistant)
New Fanlore Volunteers: Aud (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer)
New Open Doors Volunteers: homusapiens, Uni, and 3 other Technical Volunteers
New Support Volunteers: Harold Liu and 1 other Chair Assistant
New Translation Volunteers: carroncards, Hennessey, solrosan, and 3 other Translators
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor and 1 Liaison
Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 Social Media Moderator
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Shipping Assistant and 1 Shipping Specialist
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: The Professor (Social Media & Outreach Volunteer)
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Doogle, Pat Zarzecka, Redwood Trees, and 2 other Import Assistants
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Joni and 1 other Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: President Hades and 9 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: LS, Urtin and 2 other Translators
Departing TWC Volunteers: 1 Proofreader
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, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.