Still on the Quest

Posted by Aditi Paul

https://www.transformativeworks.org/otw-signal-february-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=279937

Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.

In the News

A recent article in The Varsity, University of Toronto’s (UoT) campus paper, profiles a growing student community centered around a shared love of fanfiction.

Fanfiction Club president Zain Butt says that while interest was initially low, they now have 40–50 students at weekly events that include activities such as fandom potlucks, karaoke featuring fandom songs, and a collaborative murder mystery with the school’s Literacy club.

Both club president and social media manager acknowledged that there is still some stigma around fanfiction, with fans often being relegated to anonymous corners of the internet. The club and its interactions with other campus groups places fanfiction alongside other recognized student activities as an established creative practice. The club itself provides a space for students to grow a community outside of online spaces.

The community is really what made this club,” Butt said. “It wouldn’t be possible without people. The community really is something special. And there’s the fact that it’s so diverse: we have so many different people. Oftentimes, [they’re] completely different, personality-wise, but they bond over their shared fandom, or their shared trope. That’s what I really love.

A 2025 research paper by Victoria Lunden looks at the preservation of fandom and pop culture within archival institutions. In “Preserving the People’s Stories: The Preservation of Fandom and Pop Culture”, Lunden notes that archives have historically focused on “official” records while overlooking creative works produced by everyday people.

Citing the work of Abigail De Kosnik, Lunden positions fandom as both a cultural production and community record that captures the voices of marginalised groups and lacks the elitism often found in other archival institutions.

Fan archives must be regarded as having consequence and relevance for both fans and for larger society…they are ‘safe spaces’ for non-hetero-normative practices that are not documented anywhere else.

In the essay, Lunden highlights OTW projects Archive of Our Own (AO3), Fanlore and Open Doors as being models for community-driven, ethical digital archiving that, as a non-commercial space, offers a counter point to corporate-controlled narratives.

OTW Tips

Do you have questions for us, but don’t know who to ask? In November 2025, we updated our FAQ on how to contact OTW staff! The page features a comprehensive list of which committee to reach out to for many of the most common questions we receive.

We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/otw-signal-february-2026/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=279937

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-447-0-9-452-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=279879

We released several batches of bug fixes and code updates in December, focusing on error handling, improvements to the posting and browsing of works, and largely invisible code optimization. Many thanks to our coders, code reviewers, and testers!

Credits

• Coders: anna; Bilka; Brian Austin; Danaël / Rever; Edgar San Martin, Jr.; marcus8448; warlockmel; WelpThatWorked; Zooms; ömer faruk
• Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, lydia-theda, marcus8448, Sarken
• Testers: Brian Austin, calamario, Deniz, Dre, Lute, megidola, slavalamp, Teyris, Bilka, therealmorticia, marcus8448, Yuca, pk2317

Details

0.9.447

On December 3, we made some improvements to how we index information for admin user search.

• [AO3-7216] – Updates to the admin-facing user search feature were getting stuck due to their size, so we’ve reduced the amount of data we index.
• [AO3-7217] – We originally put updates for our admin-facing user search feature in the same queue as updates to user-facing search features (like work search). This meant that slowdowns in updating user search would also slow down updates to work search, so we’ve moved the admin search updates to a separate queue to prevent that.

0.9.449

On December 11, we deployed a batch of miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements. (We skipped version 0.9.448.)

• [AO3-7151] – Some buttons would become unreadable on hover and focus in the Low Vision Default skin, so we made sure all buttons have the correct border and text color to make them readable again.
• [AO3-7186] – In rare cases, trying to create a skin with the same title as an existing skin would throw an error 500 instead of telling you what’s wrong. Now you should always get the proper error message.
• [AO3-6851] – We removed a column from the challenge assignments table that is no longer used after some code changes.
• [AO3-7218] – We updated one of the utilities we use to deploy AO3 to its testing environment.
• [AO3-5871] – Renamed an ambiguously named method in the Works model code.
• [AO3-6738] – We improved the performance of the page that lists pseuds for a creator.
• [AO3-7084] – In several places, we disallow embedded images and will instead turn the <img> HTML into a plain link. We have now updated our help text to reflect this practice where it applies.
• [AO3-7152] – In work downloads (such as epub or HTML files), links would use the http protocol instead of https. We now make sure that all links start with https.
• [AO3-7209] – We optimized our code to prepare the help text pop-ups for translated versions once language options become available on the Archive.

0.9.450

We deployed another batch of improvements on December 15, including some small fixes to the work form in particular.

• [AO3-6797] – Trying to post a work with invalid comment permissions (which can sometimes happen due to browser translation tools affecting parts of the Archive code) would throw an error 500. Now a proper error message is displayed in that case.
• [AO3-7177] – Trying to add a new first chapter before the part that was already posted, without previewing first, would result in two second chapters. Now, when you add a new chapter and assign the first position to it, the database will actually respect your artistic process.
• [AO3-7228] – Optimized the code used to put together work headers.
• [AO3-7044] – Migrated the tagging table (not to be confused with the tags table) to the BIGINT format, to allow for a BIG integer number of records to be added in the future.
• [AO3-7049] – Restricted the ability to manage users invite requests to Policy and Abuse volunteers (and superadmins).

0.9.451

December 18 saw another release of a few fixes and updates. The Open Challenges page will now show all challenges that currently accept sign-ups, even if they aren’t allowing new works to be added yet.

• [AO3-4666] – The Open Challenges page wasn’t including closed collections, even if the gift exchange or prompt meme in question was open to sign-ups. This has been fixed!
• [AO3-7224] – Some places in the AO3 code relied on an old feature in Ruby, our programming language of choice. They were not made better by doing that, so we stopped in order to make ourselves ready for new Ruby versions.
• [AO3-7203] – The mailer preview for a deleted work notification now allows for a work ID to be specified for the preview.
• [AO3-7232] – Some elements of our Terms of Service were missing the proper CSS list styles. Now everything that should be a lowercase alphabetical list, is.
• [AO3-7230] – Before upgrading Ruby on Rails, the framework that powers AO3, we took a snapshot of the current database structure for historical purposes.
• [AO3-7233], [AO3-7234] – Updated a couple of dependencies.

0.9.452

On December 29, another small batch of fixes went out to ring in the new year!

• [AO3-6944] – There’s no option to sort a list of prompts by prompter if the list includes anonymous prompts. However, if you tried to do it manually by editing the URL, or refreshed a tab you had open from before anonymous prompts were added, it would cause an error 500. Now it just reverts to the default sort order.
• [AO3-7184] – If someone tried to access the related works page of a non-existent user (due to a misspelled link, for example), they would be redirected to the user search. Since the desired page does not exist, we now properly serve an error 404, like others for pages that don’t exist.
• [AO3-7245] – We made the help text explaining the locale preference translatable, matching the code changes included in release 0.9.449.
• [AO3-7225], [AO3-7235] – Updated a couple of dependencies.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-447-0-9-452-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=279879