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OTW Signal, March 2025

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 study from Humboldt-Univertät zu Berlin highlighted the function and benefits of Archive of Our Own’s (AO3) “exclude tag” feature.

1,105 AO3 users participated in the study, exploring demographics such as age and fandom type (e.g. books, gaming, sports, etc.), along with their experiences with search filters on library websites. The study explored users’ awareness and usage of AO3’s exclude filters feature: how often and in what situations they applied it, its perceived usefulness, and more. This data-driven analysis provided valuable insights into fandom behavior.

Findings suggest that AO3 users are generally familiar with the exclude filters and use them often. Almost 90% of participants found the exclude filters to be extremely helpful in obtaining accurate results, while 17% of participants indicated that they only used exclude filters when they had no other choice.

Participants also expressed they wished exclude filters were available on other websites, including library websites. Although the boolean operator “NOT” can often be used in library or web searches, participants didn’t indicate using it as often or finding it as useful.

… since I found AO3 and learned to use tags, and specifically excluding tags, I refuse to go elsewhere when I can find quality works which have the aspects I’m looking for and lack the ones I’m not. I frequently wish that the rest of the Internet was as efficient to navigate as this site is, and that’s largely attributable to this feature. – participant ID 338 (Bieletzki, 2025)

I find browsing library websites more challenging to start with. – participant ID 430 (Bieletzki, 2025)

The study results emphasize how accessible users find AO3’s filters and highlight the need for an organized tagging system for it to work effectively. This innovative feature of AO3, which AO3’s Tag Wrangling committee supports, could be an inspiration for how searching and filtering work in other archives or for the Library and Information Science field.

Curious about Tag Wrangling? Visit the Tag Wrangling committee page, or take a look at the publicly available Wrangling Guidelines on AO3!


Another study, conducted at the University of Southern Mississippi, investigated publishing trends on AO3 among fandoms of different sizes.

To investigate this, 20 fandoms were selected from data released by AO3 in 2021 and ranked by the number of works. The top ten highest tagged fandoms (excluding “No Fandom”) were selected as the “large fandom set” and the ten biggest with less than 10,000 taggings were selected as the “small fandom set.” From here, each fandom’s works were reviewed and divided by word count, completion status, date last updated, and whether or not they were tagged with “gen.”

This data was then used to analyze trends related to:

  • Average Fandom Ratings
  • Work lengths
  • Work completion rates
  • Relationship & non-relationship-focused works

Results showed that the small fandom set and large fandom set showed similar trends in almost all areas. The most common rating across both sets was “Teen and Up”, and the least likely rating was “Not Rated.” The most common word count in both sets was 1,0001-10,000 words, followed by 1-1,000 words.

There were also similarities in work completion rate, with at least two-thirds marked complete across all but one fandom in the set, irrespective of size. All fandoms checked saw a large majority of romance-centric works as compared to gen works, with only one fandom being an exception. There were no notable trends in small or large fandom regarding work update rate.

Publication trends in ratings, work length, completion status, and work focus were the same among all fandoms observed. Trends were more homogenous within the larger fandoms. Of outliers, a common probable cause was the age demographic of the fandom in question…This research can be expanded upon by examining the content of publications in terms of the type and audience of the fandom. Looking at publication trends directly following the release of new media within fandoms could speak to the reason for work creation. It would also be useful to cross-examine publication trends with readership trends to better understand the consumption trends of this media (Moore, 2024).

Enjoy fandom-related quantitative data and statistics? Check out the Fandom Statistics page on Fanlore, where you can learn more about how fandom data is collected, analyzed and even go through statistical projects dating back more than 20 years!


OTW Tips

Speaking of tags—did you know you could filter fanworks and news posts by tags on AO3? From any AO3 page, hover over the “About” tab and select “News.” Now you can choose a tag in the “Tag” box and even read news in other languages by choosing a language in the “Language” box. If you want to catch up on developments regarding a certain topic, pick a tag and read away!


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.


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