Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-06-10 06:34 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-06-10 06:34 pm
[ SECRET POST #2351 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2350 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 113 secrets from Secret Submission Post #336.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-06-11 12:51 am (UTC)(link)This is a good point. There aren't really any guidelines that explain how authors should tag on AO3, which is a shame, really. As a tag wrangler, this is how I would prefer people would tag. You don't have to tag this way, of course, and there are times when you shouldn't. These are just my personal preferences, to make my life easier.
1) Check to see if there's already a freeform tag to cover what you want to say. So, if you want to tag your fic as "Fluffy Angst", try searching on AO3 to see if this is already a canonical tag. You can do that by first going to the metatags, which would be "Angst" and "Fluff". (Since the thought "Cracky Angst" is more specific, but still related to Angst and Crack.) Tags are formatted like this:
http://archiveofourown.org/tags/tagname
Question marks are this: *q*
Slashes are this: *s*
There are always spaces between the dashes if they are used in a tag. Spaces are written as %20. So the tag "AO3 Tags - Freeform" would be written out as: http://archiveofourown.org/tags/AO3%20Tags%20-%20Freeform
The search option on AO3 is pretty terrible, so your best option is to Google search it (site:archiveofourown.org tagname), or just try writing it out in the address bar.
So you would go to: http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Angst, to see if there's a Fluffy Angst tag subtagged under it. So now you're at the tag page, and you see the tag Fluff and Angst. That fits, so you use that.
2) If there is no freeform for your tag, feel free to create one. But try to make sure that it fits the structure. Again, see the Angst metatag. You can see that the various subtags are generally formatted like this: "Angst and X". Angst and Humor. Angst and Feels. Angst and Romance. Angst and Porn. You get the point. So let's say you wanted to tag your fic with "Cracky Angst". Instead of tagging it like that, you'd tag it as "Angst and Crack". That way, if it eventually passed the Rule of Three, it would be really easy to canonize. For example, in our Dubious Consent tag, we recently canonized Mildly Dubious Consent as a subtag under it, as a complement to our other subtag, Extremely Dubious Consent. Now we had to hunt down all the tags that said things like "consent is mildly dubious", "very very mild dub-con", "mild dub-con so if you're triggered by that don't read", "dub-con (but very mild)". If people had just used "Mildly Dubious Consent" -- which fit well with our other tag "Extremely Dubious Consent" -- it would've been a lot simpler. I mean, come on. What's the point of tagging your fic as "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGST" or "aaaaaaaangst" or "Aaaaaaangst" or "Aaaaannnnngggggsssssttttttt!!!" instead of just "Angst"? (Those are all real tags, by the way.)
3) Make your tags about the fic, and not about you. This is the one that gives me the most headaches. I mean, I can pretty easily syn "OMG ANGST ANGST ANGST" and "SO MUCH AAAAANNNNGGGSSSTTT OMGGG" to "Angst". But tags that concern the author are harder. Do you canonize the tag "The Author Regrets Nothing"? Why? Why not? Does it help out the people who are searching for the fic? Is this problematic because it doesn't include artists, podficcers, vidders, et cetera? Should it become a canonical? What should it be subtagged (or metatagged) under? Do we have the right to police other people's self-expression by canonizing their personal feelings and making them searchable? What value does this tag have? What about the metatag "AO3 Tags - Freeform"? This tag includes useful tags as its subs, such as "Other Additional Tags to Be Added" and "Tags Contain Spoilers", but also the tags "How Do I Tag" and "I'm Bad At Tagging". These tags aren't very useful to the readers. Shouldn't tags be of use to the readers? Or should they be more independent, in order to reflect what people are trying to say? Are tags for the readers? Or for the writers? (Sure as hell not for the tag wranglers, though.)
What about tags that say things like "I had so much fun writing this", "I LOVE SHERLOCK SO MUCH", "I REGRET NOTHING", I, I, I, I, I? Are we lending legitimacy to these tags by synning and canonizing them? Or is this problematic? (Oh, the problematics.)
4) Make sure your tags make sense independent of each other. There are people who use tags like they're phrases in a sentence. Like this (I just made this up): #Stiles is so handsome #also he's sparkly #like a vampire #or something. You see how each tag depends on the ones around it for context? So if we get three or more tags that say something like "Or Something", do we canonize it? What thought does it convey? There are currently more than 20 works using the "or something" tag, as well as 8 works using the "or something like that" tag. They don't make much sense by themselves; not like the tag "Angst". If they did make sense, we probably would have canonized it a long time ago. Do we canonize? Should we canonize? What about the "or not" tag? Again, we would've canonized it long time ago if it were a tag that made sense. If we canonize it, what about tags like "Could Be Read as Romance or Not", which make sense on their own? Do we subtag them under the "Or Not" metatag? Or is the metatag actually useful, and should we include it? So should we just let a bunch of "X Or Not" canonical freeforms drift around without having one metatag anchoring them? Is this another case of a tag wrangler prioritizing hir needs for organization over the needs of the creator's self-expression or the reader's needs for searching (which is not allowed)?
I'm going off on a tangent here, but basically -- the fic tags should be about the fic. If you want to talk about the process of writing it, how you feel about it, feel free. Just please keep it in your author's notes.
4) Read the AO3 tag wrangling guidelines. http://archiveofourown.org/archive_faqs. They should answer questions such as how to write character names, how to write various characters in pairings, et cetera. The tag wranglers themselves use it when we wrangle.
Really, this is partly AO3's fault, because it's so opaque when it comes to discourse. When I joined the tag wrangling team, they made me agree to a statement. Basically, it's not allowed -- or at least heavily frowned upon -- to talk about what goes on during tag wrangling. According to them, it's to protect people's privacy (because some people use their legal names as tag wranglers) and so that whatever we say isn't misinterpreted to be what the AO3 says. We're supposed to be this unified front.
That goes double for contentious issues, like the issue of changing tags themselves. That issue is a huge no-no. Apparently someone brings it up on the mailing list once in a blue moon, and the answer is always "No, we can't do that." Well, why not? Why can't we? The answer is always that tags are part of a creator's self-expression, and we can't police them. (This usually includes the word "problematic".) Who agreed to this? I sure as hell didn't.
So now we have all these random freeforms drifting around. They all convey the same general thought, but they're all worded very drastically different from each other. Sure, we could sort through the tens of thousands (I'm not even kidding) of freeform tags to find the three or so that fit the same general concept and canonize them under one tag. But by then, we're generally too fucking exhausted.
OP
(Anonymous) 2013-06-11 01:22 am (UTC)(link)I'm not trying to be creepy or anything, but I just checked out your AO3 account from your Dreamwidth. As far as I can see, you're tagging really well. So thank you for that. :)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-06-13 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)