CNTW has become a catch-all for bad-faith actors. Works containing pedophilia apologism, real-person fiction depicting real-life violence, or content that skirts legal lines often use CNTW as a blank check. Worse, the system conflates “I want to hide a plot twist” with “I am posting content that would get me banned from any corporate platform.”
The reforms outlined here—smarter tagging, clearer warnings, paid moderators, UI updates—are not betrayals of the AO3 ethos. They are the fulfillment of its promise: an archive of our own , not one we are afraid to fix. reforming system ao3
The Abuse team is staffed entirely by volunteers who are also fandom participants—often the same people reading the same ships they are meant to moderate. This creates conflicts of interest, burnout, and inconsistent rulings. CNTW has become a catch-all for bad-faith actors
Currently, over 60,000 new tags are added per week . The wrangling team—all unpaid volunteers—operates on a backlog measured in years. For niche genres or rare pairings, new works can languish in the “unwrangled abyss,” invisible to anyone relying on canonical tag filters. They are the fulfillment of its promise: an