Archive of Our Own

Archive of Our Own, a.k.a. AO3, is a multi-fandom archive website owned and operated by the Organization for Transformative Works, which largely hosts fanfiction. According to the site's main page, it is "A fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic."

Archive of Our Own is a "fan-created, fan-run," site which was first proposed in the post An Archive Of One's Own by Astolat in 2007. The post discussed instances in the past when websites and corporations attempted to profit from fandom, fans, and fanworks on their online platforms, while not respecting or protecting fandom. This issue was especially important because transformative fandom has been repeatedly targeted due to the debated legality of fanworks, which involves issues of copyright, intellectual property, and fair use. On the internet, this has led to websites mass-deleting fan accounts, fanfiction, etc. for various content and reasons. Astolat's post and subsequent discussions led to the conclusion that there needed to be a reliable non-profit fanwork-hosting site that was run by people who were themselves fans, and would therefore know what fans wanted and work in the interest of fandom.

AO3 is currently designed to host text-based fanfiction as well as fandom nonfiction and allows embedding (but not yet hosting) for vids, fanart and podfic. Fanworks are protected under fair use. AO3 permits Underage sex, RPF, and other controversial content, as it is intended to be an archive for any and all types of fanworks. The archive's interface is planned to be translated into languages other than English in order to make it more accessible to an international userbase.[1] It requires that DMCA takedown notices be signed in order to be acted upon[2] and says that the OTW "will remove the content upon satisfactory review of the merits of the infringement claim."

AO3 was first proposed in May 2007 by Astolat. Her post, An Archive Of One's Own, was one of many in LiveJournal fandom reacting to the commercial startup FanLib, which had tried to recruit some fanfic writers for its new fic archive. LiveJournal fandom was unimpressed by the company's desire to profit off of the popularity of fanfic, not to mention a sales pitch to get buy-in from copyright holders saying things like "All the FANLIB action takes place in a highly customized environment that YOU control" (see File:FanLib info.pdf). Astolat's post An Archive Of One's Own set out some guidelines for a fan-controlled archive in opposition to the dystopian future she saw in FanLib: no ads, no restrictions on content, and a commitment to fic as fair use. To realize this vision, the Organization for Transformative Works was created.

Fans had other (often long-standing) reasons for wanting to help build a new multifandom archive. Strikethrough happened a few weeks after astolat's initial post, driving home the point that it was not safe to rely on commercial entities to preserve fan culture. Around the same time, the Snarry archive Detention vanished literally overnight because of an argument between the owner and one of the mods. This raised awareness that a long-term archive would need to be run by an organization not subject to a single person's whims. See Beginnings of OTW: 2007-08 Comments for more comments regarding AO3 and OTW's creation.

AO3 is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works. Many OTW committees are responsible for aspects of the project:

The collections and challenges system is the set of features that make collections of fanworks (including importing for Open Doors), gift exchanges, prompt memes, and other challenges possible on AO3. Collections and challenges were initially implemented for the Yuletide exchange, as the founder of Yuletide is Astolat, but usage of the features has spread out greatly since it was first implemented for Yuletide 2009, including usage by the AO3/Dreamwidth-based exchange fandom. Other large exchanges include Trick or Treat and Chocolate Box.

Collections have the following features available to all users:

Collections that are also gift exchanges or prompt memes get additional features, such as the ability to run matching or posts prompts.

The Archive has an innovative system for managing fandoms and other tags that allows uploaders to enter all manner of freeform tags while "tag wranglers" organize and link them so that readers can browse or search. zvi wrote a noteworthy post explaining it.[33]

The AO3 tagging system (and the related search and filtering problems) have not been all joy for all users. See AO3 Tagging Policy Debate for more information on criticism and discussion of AO3's tagging system.

Fanworks have been written about tags and tag wranglers. The fandom tag for tags is AO3 Tags; wrangler RPF is folded into the OTW RPF tag. See AO3 Tag Wrangling for more details.

AO3 offers extensive filtering options in its "Sort and Filter" sidebar that appears on work list pages (works by a user, works in a collection, or works in a tag). Users can filter to include or exclude a wide range of work metadata, including but not limited to work tags. Both general and fandom-specific filters are available. Filterable metadata types include:

Additionally, users can search for specific words within the filtered results.

The purpose of filtering is to help users more easily find fanworks with specific criteria, and this feature has been celebrated by many fans as one of the benefits of using AO3.

In August 2013, the percentage of fanworks by relationship category on the AO3 was: 50% M/M, 26% Gen, 22% F/M, 5% F/F, 4% Multi, 2% Other.[34] See more AO3 statistics from destinationtoast[35] and centrumlumina.

In October 2014, the overwhelming majority of works posted on AO3 was fanfiction, with the percentages for other work types being: 0.25% fanvids, 0.71% fanart, 0.17% meta (meta nonfiction and fanfiction), and 0.55% podfic.

Fans doing statistical analysis of fanworks frequently use AO3 data.

The Archive of Our Own TOS FAQ states[36]

You can post any noncommercial, non-ephemeral fanwork.

All three of these points must be true of a work to be allowed under the Terms of Service. Later on it also specifies that the fanwork should be "transformative".

The publication of meta essays on AO3 was not officially permitted until 2013, when the OTW Board of Directors announced that they had voted to allow meta on AO3 "after a long period of discussion".[37] Prior to this decision, meta and fannish non-fiction existed in a somewhat dubious grey area: it was occasionally posted to the site and did not appear to be explicitly forbidden by AO3's Terms of Service,[38] but would often attract flames, angry comments and reports.[39] At one point, AO3 appeared to be taking a stance explicitly prohibiting meta, but the decision was almost as quickly reversed.[40]

In their announcement officially permitting meta, the Board of Directors wrote that,

We considered a range of issues while making this decision, including how this move would fit into the overall mission of the OTW, the technical and financial resources required, and demand from users of the Archive and members of the OTW. We determined that there is already a demand for meta on the Archive, and that this use of our resources is consonant with our purview and mission.

The announcement emphasised that officially permitting meta hosting on AO3 was "just the first step in this journey", adding that the Board and relevant committees would now begin working together to "define exactly how meta will be handled" and "agree on some definitions and policies". The Board also invited feedback on the decision via comments on the news post.

Works which may be classified under the umbrella of "fannish nonfiction", including meta, are now allowed provided they fulfill the other stated requirements (noncommerical, nonephemeral, and fannish) of hosted works.

Fannish nonfiction can be discussions of fannish tropes, essays designed to entice other people into a fandom, commentary on fandoms, hypothetical casting for alternate versions of works, documentaries, podcasts about fandom, explanations of the creative process behind a fanwork or works, tutorials for creating fanworks, guides for fan-created gaming campaigns, or many other things.

Fannish vs Nonfannish

The Archive is dedicated to fanworks in particular, and is not intended to be a repository of all creative works. However, there are a number of works produced by fans that do not fit comfortably into a narrow definition of fanfiction, fanart, vids, or other types of fanworks. Original works that are not based on a [[canon|specific media source (canon)] are welcome on the archive so long as they are fannish in nature.The line between fannish and nonfannish is recognized to be ambiguous. The explicit inclusion of meta in 2013 blurred the the line further in some fan's eyes.

Disallowed nonfannish fiction includes:

Ephemeral vs Non-ephemeral

Ephemeral content is generally meant to be read at a particular time and is not allowed on the Archive. Content disallowed under this requirement include works that are:

Allowed Content With the addition of fannish nonfiction, such as meta, currently allowed types of works include:

Advertising on "Archive of Our Own" is not allowed. This includes mentions by fans of writing commissions and Patreon work.

As stated in the TOS[41]

D. What you can't do:

You agree not to use the Service (as well as the e-mail addresses and URLs of OTW sites):

4. to make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising (defined as solicitations for direct or indirect commercial advantage), junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any other form of solicitation;

As stated in various parts of the TOS FAQ[42]

In addition, we will enforce the noncommercialization policy strictly, including a ban on works posted to promote the sale of the author's other works, even if those are not hosted on the site.

That means that [the Archive] isn't the right place for offering merchandise, even fan-related merchandise. Linking to your personal page (not, for example, an Amazon author page) is fine, even if the personal page includes some items for sale, but the Archive is not advertising space.

The Archive will host fanworks of any origin, including fanworks created in response to charity drives or other challenges. A link to a charity drive to explain the origin of a fanwork is appropriate. Solicitation itself, however, should take place outside the Archive. We concluded that this policy was the easiest to apply fairly to everyone, given the wide range of possible solicitation activities.

psa: don’t mention commissions/patreon on AO3

Hi guys! So I know we all don’t actually read the terms and conditions of things and just hit agree assuming there’s nothing important in there (I do it too oops) but if you take writing commissions or anything involving money, then there’s actually something in the AO3 terms and conditions to be aware of.

Today someone reported one of my fics as violating this condition - presumably because I’d mentioned my patreon in the author’s note (I wasn’t actively requesting donations either… I’d literally just mentioned that it existed, and that the fic in question was written as a thank-you for hitting one of my goals).

I’ve written to AO3 to check whether just saying ‘thank you to those who support me on patreon’ is fine and I’ll let you guys know when they get back to me, but if it’s still going too far in terms of being a ‘commercial promotion’ then I’ll just avoid mentioning this in the future! :’)

As I said, someone did actually report my fic for this - so there are people out there who are noticing/reporting these situations. Please be aware of this if you take fic commissions, or use patreon or ko-fi, because your account could end up suspended, which of course no one wants!