taken out of context I must seem so strange

[lotesse]

long & interesting ffa thread on the AO3/OTW

Thing is, as a writer, I don't particularly care about having access to uncurated tags. Especially for things like pairing/character/genre, or even for tropes. I can see the benefit of having an uncurated "other stuff" field, but for everything else I would be perfectly happy to select from a dropdown menu or similar, as on ff.n. I try to tag my own work based on autofills, and try to remain within AO3 style, but it's not easy to do, and I don't know how successful I am even then at creating useful metadata for my fics.

As a reader, right now I feel like I would actively PREFER curated tags; I have fond memories of using the old Automated Archive search engine with various inclusions/exclusions, browsing long lists of generated story-links. And I just - I wonder how much this is a THING for people, or if others share my general attitude of not-caring.

Some polls:

Poll #11083

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53

uncurated character/pairing/?genre tags are

View Answers

essential to my creative process
0 (0.0%)

very important to me
13 (24.5%)

not a thing for me one way or the other
15 (28.3%)

not my favorite, but I can deal with them
14 (26.4%)

the cause of the flames on the side of my face
11 (20.8%)

Poll #11084

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48

I want access to SOME FORM of uncurated tagging

View Answers

yes
34 (70.8%)

no
14 (29.2%)

taking this to comments
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[swatkat]

Some of the uncurated tags are indeed very helpful, like, say, a 'magic made them do it' tag. I tend to use them as information about a story I'm about to read. I'm less likely to use them to search, however, although I understand that other people might. But AO3 *has* seen a lot of Tumblr-style tagging, the purpose of which I can't quite fathom in a fic archive. I don't know the first thing about code or what slows AO3 down, but if the freeform tags are a problem then I wouldn't mind losing the search by freeform tags function.

[lotesse]

I mean - I'm not a coder or anything even close to it, I can use systems but I got nuthin on how they're built - I would think that you could put together curated lists of The Big Tropes, even. Made Them Do It, Aphrodisiac Substances, Body Modification, ect. ect. Right? TV Tropes does this, and it seems like their linking/search/browse system works pretty well.

Obvs. there would be ~stuff~ about how they were designated/phrased/what was left out, which is why I can see utility in SOME uncurated capacity, but as a writer I don't feel like categorizing a "magic made them do it" under a broader "external coercion" tag, or something like that, and then using freeforms for greater specificity, would throw me too far off.

[ilthit]

Other: Both, please.

Ff.net often didn't have the characters I wanted or enough character slots, and I didn't like having to select which character the story was principally about. I like AO3's current system where some tags are required and in a specific form, but can be manually inserted (as in for characters or fandoms that were not already in the system) because that helps finding specific stories, and that it also has a freeform tagging option that lets you select an autofill or come up with a wholly new tag. It's the most satisfying fic tagging system I've ever used.

[lotesse]

Is it satisfying for you as a writer, as a reader, or both? Because I find it just fine as a writer but somewhat frustrating as a reader, and as a writer that worries me because I'm not sure I'm doing everything I ought to ensure that my writing is found/read.

[ilthit]

I write more than I read, but both, really. If I'm going looking for something specific, I might look for a combination of characters or a crossover, which will be covered by the tags you have to choose, or I could be looking for a flavour like WWI AU or fics about spanking, and the freeform tags give me that. With no freeform tags, you'd not be able to find specified weird little things like that, and with no necessary standard-form tags, you might not be able to find the characters and ratings you're looking for.

I have something of a regimen of things I tag for in the free field, but I've let it slide and just put in whatever seems pertinent and that I remember at the moment. I try to put "art" in all the art posts and word count in all the fics, at least. Of course I'm not being very kind to my readers in the first place, since I post multifannish challenge output in a single "story". It just seemed like too much work to make it a series, especially when it's art. Having a whole "work" for a single piece of art that is consumed at one glance, or a drabble, didn't really seem like a good idea either.

[jack_of_none]

as a writer that worries me because I'm not sure I'm doing everything I ought to ensure that my writing is found/read.

This is why it drives me nuts that they won't make their tagging structure more transparent. If writers could actually SEE how tags were being organized and if there were some kind of statement on What Tagging is Supposed To Do that everyone could access, that would be so helpful.

[qem_chibati]

As a reader I've liked it due to additional information it's given me.


I've also found interesting works that I enjoyed based on tags such as technopathy, time travel, my favourite work, community: blind_go, which are all free form tags that I doubt would exist if writers didn't have the ability to create and group their works together.

My recommendations are to try and make your character tags unambiguated - so that it's clear which Hikaru your talking about for example (otherwise it will be hard for people to find your work when their looking for that specific one, although I've also enjoyed looking through all the varied Hikaru's on the archive - the Hikaru tag is a meta tag that will pull from many of the specific Hikaru's), and have a look at the top 200 tags list on ao3, for see what some of the most common tags are that your work could add on to.

[neotoma]

Considering I sometimes write in tiny fandoms (Flash Rogues!) and rare pairings (SPN: Gabriel/Kali), I like being able to write my own tags. I also, I get a lot of amusement out of what people write as free-form tags; sometimes they're starting a trope, sometimes they're not, but I enjoying the unique tags anyway.

[jack_of_none]

Well, the thing about AO3's tagging is that it isn't ACTUALLY uncurated. It has the illusion of being uncurated but behind the scenes, there's a small army of volunteers organizing all the mess. It's just not visible to the users. Basically this ends up being the worst of both worlds -- the users have no idea how their tags are supposed to be used and how they are going to be organized backstage, and the tag wranglers are putting in an ever increasing amount of work to try and untangle the mess. It's simply not sustainable and makes searching a pain.

Basically tags can serve two different functions -- they can be tools for authors to describe their work, or they can be ways for readers to find fic. One use or the other needs to be privileged -- AO3 is trying to have it both ways and nobody's winning.

I still don't understand why they won't put up a "how to tag!" FAQ or develop some better guidelines for basic search terms like fandoms, at least. Their current way of doing things has Merlin fanfic appearing under "Books & Literature", and quite frankly if you can't click on "Books & Literature" and get only fic based on books, something has gone frightfully wrong with your categorization scheme on a very basic level.

I am way in favor of a more curated tag system. At the very least things like character and fandom names should not be freeform. They already have a huge amount of volunteer work going into the tagging system, so I'm sure they could get new characters added by request much much faster than FF.net by utilizing their volunteer army, and nobody reasonable is going to cry if they are forced to tag their fic "Stargate: Atlantis" rather than "SGA". All the work that goes into linking people's different versions of fandom and character names is basically unnecessary busywork that serves no purpose, since every single tag variation (including typos) is linked up to a single canonical by tag wranglers anyway. You might as well just cut out the middleman and get people to use the canonical.

I have more feelings on this topic but they are adequately summarized by someone in the post you linked, so I won't repeat it here.

[erinptah]

These polls are asking the wrong question, IMO. Are you talking about pre-emptive curation or after-the-fact curation?

I (a wrangler+writer+reader, who doesn't deal with many juggernaut fandoms) get a lot of value out of being able to input my own tags and have them instantly accessible, without having to go through an approval process first. And I get the impression that's what you meant by "some form of uncurated tagging" in the second question. But like jack_of_none said, all those tags will get evaluated by wranglers eventually, so they aren't uncurated forever -- and I wouldn't want them to be.

[torachan]

Yeah, I really like that if I write something with a fandom, character, or pairing that is not yet on the archive, I don't have to ask someone to create it. I have stuff posted on FFN that because it's in a small fandom, it just has to go under "misc", which makes it pretty unfindable. And of course there are so many permutations of pairings (especially when you consider crossovers) that it's hard to have everything premade.

[quinara]

I don't mind entirely curated tags (with the option for suggestions and additions), as long as they're consistent - and preferably not too far away from what I want to use naturally. With the AO3, as it is, I forcibly exert my will on my tags because (a) that's apparently what I'm meant to do (I'll happily comply with any system, but if the system is that I'm supposed to be able to do whatever I want, I'll do that) and (b) at least people searching within my own fic then know what information they're likely to be able to sort by. Generally I don't use genre tags outside of marking something AU, for example, but I do try to mention the setting of the fic in relation to canon - just because that's how I generally browse.

I've never quite got the hang of browsing the AO3 (trying to get through the Buffyverse stuff, or even just the Spuffy stuff is very lumpy and hard-going), which probably says it all about my opinion of the tags as a reader... But it could also just be the way material has ended up on there, because the Buffyverse sections of the archive haven't really gone through any period of natural updates, rather than people arriving and uploading all of their stuff at once. (Although one problem to start with is that it's not very easy to get 'Buffyverse' ie. 'BtVS OR AtS' easily combined with more defined search options, as far as I know.)

[ruric]

As a writer I like having the option of not being constrained by drop down cannonical tags mostly because I've written quite a few rarepair crossovers and to would be a pain to have to keep requesting tags to be added.

As a reader I tend to navigate A03 by (a) fandom and (b) pairing tags and - so far - that works pretty well for me - though I do see the advatage of trope tags too.

Though TBH if someone is putting epic numbers of tumblr style tags plus tagging with things like "All the feels" and "I don't know why I did it" ad making their tagging fields longer than the story it's a good indicator I won't like the work *G*

As it is the current style of tagging works for me as both reader and writer though I imagine it generates a hellacious amount of work for the poor tag wranglers.