After an outage caused by distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, Archive of Our Own (AO3) is back online. AO3 is a leading repository of fanfiction, with categories for both the type of fiction and the fandom to which the work belongs. The site went offline on Monday and AO3 staff have been working to restore the site ever since.
AO3 continued to update fans and readers through the site official tumblr And Twitter accounts. While the site is back and readers can once again enjoy juicy fanfiction, staff said users may encounter some stability issues in the coming days while remaining issues are resolved.
“We may need to do some work optimizing our shiny new Cloudflare setup – we’ll keep you posted of any issues or downtime,” the update post on both Twitter and Tumblr reads.
AO3 is an open-source website hosting millions of fanworks in over 57,000 fandoms. The site has received literary acclaim, including the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Works.
The outage – and the work of AO3 staff to restore the site as quickly as possible – has given impetus some readers donate to the site (or at least tweet a few words of praise.)
Unfortunately, some bad actors take advantage of this generosity. A tweet from the AO3 account reads: “Attention! Someone using the name AO3__Status (note the second underscore) is posing as this account and trying to scam AO3 users out of money.”
NB! Someone using the name AO3_Status_ (note the second underscore) is impersonating this account and trying to scam AO3 users out of money. Block and report this account. (And please note that the real donation form is currently unavailable due to a DDoS.)
— AO3 Status (@AO3_Status) July 11, 2023
AO3 will continue to inform users about the status of the site; it is possible that it will go down again. For now, fans can enjoy cheeky fanfiction, or upload their own works, but they should be careful if they choose to donate.