Talk:Archive of Our Own

New relevance

This platform hosts a community which produces a large amount of content. Unusually, the community tags this content with many metadata tags. The original intent of all this metadata tagging is to increase discoverability through library cataloging. An unanticipated side effect is that all this tagging greatly facilitates informatics and data science research.

I am not jumping into this right now but the Wikimedia community has continuous interest in online communities which collaboratively generate content. There are parallels in the management of Wikipedia versus the Ao3 community. I notice the user moderation, the escalation of this to committees, and even the organization of representative elections to the highest level of governance. Mixed in with all this is that metadata which would permit any research to do machine analysis on all these relationships and what is going on where.

I searched around in the academic literature and I found various papers on this collection. Some papers talk about network connections; many do literary analysis on the collection by using that metadata.

If anyone went into the academic literature, that is probably a source for spinning out a subsection on both research applications and maybe another for research conclusions.

The copyright of all these contributions is unclear to me, as is any asserted ownership of the metadata. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)This platform hosts a community which produces a large amount of content. Unusually, the community tags this content with many metadata tags. The original intent of all this metadata tagging is to increase discoverability through library cataloging. An unanticipated side effect is that all this tagging greatly facilitates informatics and data science research.

I am not jumping into this right now but the Wikimedia community has continuous interest in online communities which collaboratively generate content. There are parallels in the management of Wikipedia versus the Ao3 community. I notice the user moderation, the escalation of this to committees, and even the organization of representative elections to the highest level of governance. Mixed in with all this is that metadata which would permit any research to do machine analysis on all these relationships and what is going on where.

I searched around in the academic literature and I found various papers on this collection. Some papers talk about network connections; many do literary analysis on the collection by using that metadata.

If anyone went into the academic literature, that is probably a source for spinning out a subsection on both research applications and maybe another for research conclusions.

The copyright of all these contributions is unclear to me, as is any asserted ownership of the metadata. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Please Semi-protect This Page

Request is on Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Archive_of_Our_Own.

WP:BATTLEGROUND --KumaTea  ^来喝茶！  12:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 March 2020

there are some misunderstanding in this things，please be justice Dddorothy (talk) 12:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear what edit you want made. You can suggest edits here on this talk page on the form "Please change X to Y" citing reliable sources. – Thjarkur (talk) 12:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

SP-EReq 01-MAR-2020

Information to be added or removed: "As of February 29 2020, Archive Of Our Own is unavailable in mainland China." References supporting change: https://en.greatfire.org/archiveofourown.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.52.74.197 (talk) 17:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done The article does not currently contain a section where accessibility of the subject platform in differing locales is mentioned. A full listing of country availability might work here, but that's not really the function of the article. The website offered as a reference seems to accomplish that task more thoroughly than Wikipedia could. Regards,  Spintendo  18:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Regarding AO3 being blocked in China

Hello editors, I think it is relevant to have the information regarding AO3 being blocked by the GFW under the "history and operations" section. It would also help explaining the situation better if the speculation on the cause (mass reports from fans brought attention) can be included, as long as it's worded properly. I'm not an editor myself and I don't know if this is the right place to make a suggestion, so sorry if I'm doing this wrong. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.52.74.197 (talk) 01:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

A problem with AO3

I don't know a thing about AO3, but there is an long article about how the fiction that miffed the Chinese government is creating some sort of major problem, apparently because it has so many tags. Some-one who understands what this all is and is about can go to the article to see if the information there is worth using: https://thegeekiary.com/how-one-fanfic-is-breaking-ao3-and-fandom/91998 . Kdammers (talk) 05:31, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Fanfiction needs wider representation in other Wikipedia articles

Polygon has a really interesting article (Sept 23, 2021) about Ao3 and the history of Star Trek fanfiction. Remarkably, the Wikipedia article Cultural influence of Star Trek has extensive material on "fandom" but ignores fanfiction cultures entirely. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:48, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

blocked in Russia

One Ukrainian blogger reported site into Roscomnadzor. Now this cite is bloked. Ukrainian blogger glad that she able to remove Russian people from that resource. 2A00:1FA2:2E4:B060:A99A:8110:A0F0:2B8B (talk) 08:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Updating numbers

Hell all, just wanted to restate that if you are going to update any of the numbers, like the user count, please make sure to update the Home Page archive link to the latest copy first and then use it to update both the numbers in the infobox and in the first paragraph, thanks. – Mesidast (talk) 08:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Digital Writing

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation–supported course assignment, between 21 August 2023 and 8 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cja2023, Lightofthefireflies (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Knighttime2610, ShouldBeCats.

— Assignment last updated by Cja2023 (talk) 14:13, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

"AOOO" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect AOOO has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 January 10 § AOOO until a consensus is reached. Rusalkii (talk) 07:01, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Equitable Futures - Internet Cultures and Open Access

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation–supported course assignment, between 28 January 2025 and 16 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WarrickB37 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: YellowElephant29.

— Assignment last updated by WikiEdit7205 (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Adding Section on Culture/Fandoms

Would it not be beneficial to add a section on the culture/fandoms that AO3 has helped to generate? I'm well aware that many aspects of tagging, etc have been mentioned, but what about the impacts it has had on the fanfiction community as a whole, and the individual communities that it has helped propel to popularity? Just a thought though, thanks editors! Esg08 (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I also think this is a good idea, especially using the Marauders fandom as an example of a fandom that has flourished thanks to AO3 Emuuuuheh (talk) 06:00, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

History Section

I’m admittedly a little disappointed in how little detail is given for the actual motivations behind the creation of Ao3 besides vague restrictions on FanLib and LiveJournal, and the little citations. Is there really not a good, comprehensive source that goes into this? To my knowledge it was specifically due to stronger restrictions and bans on NSFW or at least more morally looked down upon NSFW, relatively speaking. JammySammy 2601:189:4602:3040:9535:7D5F:B397:60FA (talk) 02:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Shipping ethics controversy in fanfiction goes in depth about this. Brynn Who Likes Editing (talk) 07:14, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Created in 2008?

 there are fanfics in the website from the 70s .. Frvityxj (talk) 00:13, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

See the third paragraph in the Content section about the Open Doors program. —⁠Collin^{t c} 01:45, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

You can select whatever date you want when you publish something. jolielover♥talk 19:02, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

"Sexy times with Wangxian" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Sexy times with Wangxian has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 20 § Sexy times with Wangxian until a consensus is reached. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

dmy dates?

Shouldn't the article be written in mdy dates because AO3 is located in the United States? lullabying (talk) 07:16, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Had to look back and check but I was the one originally standardised it all to dmy since before that it was a mix of dmy, mdy and ymd. I set it as dmy since Organization for Transformative Works is in dmy format and I never found a mention on either article of where it was actually hosted, so just treated it as a worldwide thing and defaulted to dmy. – Mesidast (talk) 16:43, 1 July 2026 (UTC)