Real genuine reasons why things don’t happen faster at AO3

We’re all volunteers.

The person who’s needed to handle this issue is currently packing so they can move across the country for a new job.

They were in the middle of doing the thing, but their grandmother just died and they need to go to her funeral.

It requires coordinating with 3 other committees and the members are in 7 time zones and getting everyone together to discuss the problem and decide on a plan of action takes time.

I was waiting on a response that would answer my question to allow me to continue working on the thing from someone who’s asleep right now because they live in Australia.

I was going to do it tonight but I have an exchange fic due tomorrow that I really need to finish.

This person has a first date tonight and they’re too excited to concentrate!

They’re doing the thing, but in bits and pieces around having a 6-month-old baby.

We’re all volunteers.

They did the thing, but they need someone else to sign off on it, and that person is down with the stomach flu.

The thing is ready but it needs more testers before it can be safely deployed, and they’re waiting for people to be able to test it.

We ordered the things we need to allow us to do the thing, so now we’re waiting on the company that will ship them to us.

The 3rd-party software that we use to do the thing went down.

I worked for 5 hours on the thing after I got home from work today and it’s still not done and I’m exhausted and I need to sleep.

I was training new volunteers so that someday we can have more people who can do this thing, rather than working on the thing itself today.

This issue was picked up by one of those new volunteers, who is eager to help but doesn’t necessarily know all the ins and outs yet, and may take more time.

I looked at the insurmountable size of the thing and fell into a deep despair and had to sit and cry for a little while.

The ticket was so arrogant and rude that nobody wanted to answer it so it sat there for 6 weeks.

We’re all volunteers.

I decided that spending time with my family tonight was more important for my mental health and preserving relationships than sitting hunched over the computer for hours.

I made the mistake of going on social media and saw people yelling at us for failing to finish the thing already, what’s wrong with us, why can’t we just do it, it should be easy!

The new movie in the series I love most came out and I’m going to see it tonight!

I was reading a really good fic.

The thing is really complicated. It just genuinely takes a lot of time to do. Even paid employees would take a lot of time to do this, because it’s hard.

None of us are getting paid to do this, we are giving up our free time and energy and effort to this project, and sometimes we need to focus on the things we love to remind us why we’re doing this at all.

We’re all volunteers.