An Archive of Their Own: A Case Study of Feminist HCI and Values in Design
summary
Archive of Our Own (AO3) is a community-built fanfiction archive launched in 2008 that grows to hundreds of thousands of accounts (uploader notes ~750,000 users, 2M+ works) and combines code, volunteer curation, and policy to encode values. The research reports 28 interviews with users and developers, describes user-built by predominantly women governance, a volunteer army of tag wranglers for a flexible search folksonomy, multi‑language docs, and the orphaning feature that preserves works while protecting identity.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction to feminist HCI
- 1:10Community building their own space
- 3:16Archive of Our Own origin story
- 5:23Site features and growth
- 6:49Research methodology
- 7:57Feminist HCI principles in design
- 9:00Participatory design process
- 10:28Rejecting universality in design
- 11:31Tagging system and inclusivity
- 12:56Challenges in values-based design
- 14:50Influencing community values
- 15:12Conclusion and takeaways
related talks
49mHacking In-Group Bias for Fun and Profit
25mThis is bigger than us: Building a future for Open Source
14mTrans_: An Anthology of Trans People & the Internet
23mHow to Demonstrate Allyship to Women+ in Open Source
11mOpen Source Standards: Toward a more diverse and equal internet
32mBuilding inclusive Open Source communities
41mThis is bigger than us: Building a future for Open Source
47mOpen Source for Equality - Promoting Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Through...