As of now, 18:50 UTC on July 11, 2023, AO3 is back up. However, in the past hours the OTW website and the donation platform have become inaccessible. We believe it is part of the same attack first made on the Archive. We will be providing updates via the OTW Tumblr account https://transformativeworks.tumblr.com so please check there for further information.

We also want to alert fans that on Twitter someone is using the name AO3_Status_ (note the second underscore). If you are on Twitter, please block and report this account.

This fake account is impersonating our service status account and attempting to scam AO3 users out of money. Fans on all platforms should be wary of anyone soliciting money on behalf of the OTW or its projects at this time. (The real donation form is currently down due to a DDoS.)

Open Doors and Legal Advocacy pages are also not available at this time. Our Fanlore project is being worked on and should be back today. Our Transformative Works and Cultures site has not been affected. Thank you for being patient while we restore services!

Communications volunteers have read your responses to our decision and wanted to make an additional post addressing your feedback. We want to state at the outset though that this will not be changing the decision that has been made, but hope it will show how much we value your feedback and have put thought into this decision. ( Read more... )

Hello OTW News readers!

As we mentioned in our post on June 10, the OTW Communications Committee has been reviewing usage of this community and getting responses from subscribers about potentially following OTW News via a feed account instead.

We have now compiled the responses we received to both the original message and the follow-up message, and we have decided to turn this account inactive and to direct users to follow the feed accounts instead.

Several factors went into this decision.

Amount of Response

Although there was a quick response to our initial post, and some additional comments to our follow-up, overall only 55 people replied to one or both posts out of 1206 subscribers. (An additional 16 accounts have added the community since then, but these users were either not following OTW News before, or were doing so elsewhere.)

Although it wasn't expected that the majority of people would respond, this amounts to less than 5% of subscribers. ( Read more... )

What Happens Next?

If you have not already done so, click on this link for the otw_rss_feed (and, if you want AO3 News as well, the AO3 News blog) and click on the Subscribe link. You will begin receiving the news post links in your reading list as each one goes out.

In order to allow time for people to switch over without losing news, we will continue posting here for the next few weeks. Then, this community's profile page will be changed and a pinned post will be made which will offer directions to any visitors on how to keep viewing news, see all past news, and how to contact us.

Hello OTW News readers!

As we mentioned in the post here of June 10, the OTW Communications Committee has been reviewing its current news distribution sites to determine how best to allocate volunteer resources and how to reach the maximum number of fans interested in knowing more about our organization and projects.

We have compiled the responses we received and want to continue the comment period ending June 24 before any decision is made. There were a number of concerns raised which might or might not have appealing solutions, and there were also some misunderstandings we'd like to clear up.

Why is engagement important?

The short answer is that it's not. We don't expect anyone reading to feel the need to comment, and as some people have pointed out, they prefer to do so at the OTW website instead once they've read the entire post. ( Read more... )

What's next?

As we stated up top, we'd like to continue hearing from readers now that we've provided more information in response to your comments. After June 24 we'll discuss how we'll proceed, which might involve turning this account inactive, or continuing to post here manually for at least the next year, or should another alternative be put in place in the near future, doing another comment period to see how many people might be served by that option.

Thank you for your responses, and we hope to hear from you again.

The OTW Communications Committee periodically reviews its news distribution process to best balance volunteer workload and the maximum reach possible for readership. This review has shown that for some years now there has been little to no engagement here on Dreamwidth.

However readers on Dreamwidth are capable of utilizing RSS feed accounts. On Dreamwidth, OTW news can be found via the otw_rss_feed and there is a separate account for the AO3 News blog.

The Communications Committee is proposing to stop manually adding blurbs and links to this account, and instead redirecting readers to subscribe to the feeds. This account will not be deleted, so its archive will remain open. It simply will not be updated.

Today begins a 2 week feedback period from readers regarding this change, letting us know how many people are still reading, and what reasons those readers might have as to why the feeds would not serve the same function.

If you do comment, please let us know how long you have been reading this account and how often you click through to the website to read the full news posts. On June 24, we will post again with a decision.

Thank you for your interest in OTW news!