like a true nature's child

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32811

Forging Ghost, a Spike/Angel fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had work(s) on Forging Ghost
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

Forging Ghost was a Yahoo! Group dedicated to fanfiction for Spike/Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. Ghostsforge, the moderator, preserved Forging Ghost when Yahoo! Groups was shut down in 2019 and asked Open Doors for assistance in importing its works to AO3.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Ghostsforge to import Forging Ghost into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanart currently in Forging Ghost will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Forging Ghost to the AO3 after September. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Forging Ghost?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your Forging Ghost pseud and email address(es), if:

1. You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Forging Ghost account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Forging Ghost mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Forging Ghost

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Forging Ghost on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We're excited to be able to help preserve Forging Ghost!

- The Open Doors team and Ghostsforge

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32811

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32796

I. 2025 BOARD ELECTION

Elections successfully closed the 2025 OTW Board Director election. Congratulations to the OTW's new Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg! Elizabeth and Harlan will be replacing the seats of outgoing Board members Jennifer Haynes and Zixin Zhang.

Many committees collaborated on Board Election work, with Communications helping distribute announcements, Development & Membership coordinating with OTW members, and Translation making Elections material available in multiple languages.

Elections would like to thank all the candidates who ran, the volunteers from across the OTW who assisted Elections in their work, and everyone who engaged with the election by asking questions or turning out to vote.

Statistics from this year’s election were made available on September 1: out of 15,138 eligible voters, 2,197 cast a ballot, representing 14.5% of potential voters.

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In August, AO3 celebrated both one million Mandarin Chinese works and nine million users. Thank you to everyone who's helped us reach these milestones!

Also in August, Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) deployed a couple releases that included bug fixes and security improvements, and Systems continued their routine tasks, such as improving performance and auditing Archive traffic for malicious bots. User Response Translation began completing ticket translation requests, and Open Doors announced the import of Faerie, a Tolkien fanfiction archive.

In July, Policy & Abuse received 3,570 tickets, while Support received 3,999 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled just over 636,000 tags, or over 1,400 per wrangling volunteer!

Elsewhere, Tag Wrangling coordinated with AD&T and announced changes to fandom tag policies for fangames and fanmade web series in a series of three posts on the @ao3org Tumblr. The first post outlined the general policy, while the second post focused on Undertale and the third post focused on Fangans from Dangan Ronpa. Lastly, Tag Wrangling also coordinated with Communications to announce 20 new "No Fandom" canonical tags on AO3 News.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

Legal is continuing to answer user queries and monitor legal developments. Although there are many concerning legal developments around freedom of speech and expression online, they are not directly affecting AO3. Legal also dealt with some unauthorized app who’ve used OTW and AO3 trademarks in confusing ways.

Transformative Works and Cultures has two active calls for papers, both due by January 1, 2026. The first is a special issue on Latin American Fandoms, and the next is a special issue on Music Fandom.

Communications' Con Outreach division wrapped up Worldcon 2025 in Seattle, Washington, USA - thank you to everyone who tabled and who said hi to us! You can check out con goers' recommendations in the con's AO3 collection.

Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! Their next editing challenge, Stub September will run from September 14-28, and graphics will have an animals with swords theme. Check their Bluesky, Twitter/X and Tumblr for announcements.

IV. GOVERNANCE

In August, Board, Board Assistants Team (BAT), Organizational Culture Roadmap, and Volunteers & Recruiting began a cross-committee review of the OTW's Code of Conduct. This review aims to ensure the Code of Conduct still serves both the OTW as an organization as well as its many volunteers.

Elsewhere, Board collaborated with other committees on Crisis Communication Guidelines, began their biennial review of the Board Confidentiality Policy, had their quarterly check-in with Legal, and approved the 2024 Annual Report. Minutes from July's public Board meeting are now available on the OTW website. Board also started preparations for the upcoming Board turnover after receiving the 2025 OTW Board election results.

BAT continued work on several projects, including collaborations with the Organizational Culture Roadmap and a report on nonprofit training. Lastly, Strategic Planning continued work on their two-year progress report on the implementation of the current strategic plan.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

In addition to the aforementioned Code of Conduct Review, Volunteers & Recruiting also began a project focused on workgroups, aiming to increase the OTW’s ability to support projects that might not fit within the purview of a single committee.

This month, Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees: BAT and Development & Membership.

From July 23 to August 20, Volunteers & Recruiting received 203 new requests, and completed 252, leaving them with 51 open requests. As of August 20, 2025, the OTW has 982 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Communications Volunteers: GrayIsNotEmo, KW Ukuku, Magda19, and 1 other TikTok Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: Becca Bun, Jules Moon, Tiff, Zoe Bird, and 2 other Social Media & Outreach Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Ain, embobem, Gail, Rissi, and 2 other Policy & Abuse Volunteers
New Support Volunteers: ChangYan, Clarice Strand, Jennifer Elliott, llianne, John Pork, Louie, Maycix, melon8, Mily, nayogn, Stevie, TinaOe, viewofsilence, Wtchmn23, Ziting, and 8 other Support Volunteers
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: amphob, Bec, Berix, Bettelort, bingus, Bismuth, bluejello, Clarissa, Daisya, dila, Draconic, Drakoshig, firstestly, genitus6, grexigone, Hazelwyrm, heliolatry, Jas, KD, Lace, Lau, Leo M, Leuconoen, Maris, Mary, Nerva, nekojoo, null_ice, Nyxia, Pandasaurio, pickledragon, radiance, Ravenna, rikka, RJ, Sabrina_Tangerina, sarkastic, Sayornis, SCEnt Hope, shrikes, Soyash, Talixa, Tea Huimyni, Thunder, twistingsands, Zee, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Ana Niccals, Bekyro, PerpetuallyPurple, and 2 other Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers

Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Communications Chair
Departing BAT Volunteers: 2 Board Assistant Team Volunteers
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 Event Coordinator, 1 Media Outreach Volunteer, 1 Report Writer, and 2 TikTok Moderators
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Social Media & Outreach Volunteer
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Esin and 9 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Janka (Translator)

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, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32796