fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2560 ]

[ SECRET POST #2560 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2560 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #366.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unfortunately, a lot of AO3 has been flooded by die-hard Tumblr users, who have a 'just tag it with everything and commentary, too' mentality. They don't quite realize that unlike Tumblr, where tags are for tracking and commentary, the tags on AO3 serve a much broader and much more organized purpose.

...maybe they don't understand that MCU will automatically be pulled up under Marvel Movies when they just tag for that because the AO3 doesn't explain just how the tags WORK and which tag governs which in the user interface, and they just want to make sure. I mean someone upthread linked a fucking powerpoint presentation to help people out and if I need that that is ridiculous. It's simply bad UI design.

+1, neither lj nor tumblr have threaded, hierarchical tags like that, you can't just expect users to understand this intuitively

Well, the page that shows each tag's place in the hierarchy is linked at the top of each of their works pages. (If you click on the name of the tag where it says '1-20 of howevermany works in Tag.) They've also explained the tag-nesting in FAQ (http://archiveofourown.org/archive_faqs/10#metatag)s as well as in a few different newsposts, aside from wranglers I've seen explaining things just on their own. All the UI and explanations in the world won't help if people don't pay attention to them.

But you only know to click that link if you do more elaborate tag searches now and then, not if you're just a casual user. It's not even called 'go to the tag tree link' or whatever. Most people just don't go consult FAQs or newsposts before posting somewhere, if you want to encourage people to use only the one tag that is necessary because otherwise your whole movies category front is basically one fandom you have to guide them towards that in the UI.

Yes and no. The tags are supposed to be structured in a way that everyone would understand, and when you go to tag something there even is a little help link that tells you roughly how tags work. It's all just nested tags, and that powerpoint is an over-elaboration of a fairly simple concept (i.e. "if you look up Marvel, you'll see everything in 616 and MCU, but if you look up MCU, you won't see anything in Marvel" - very efficient in terms of categorizing and searching).

However, because some previous fandom websites have had problems with mods being too strict about tags, the mods put that explanation out there but AO3 tag wranglers aren't really allowed to actually direct people to it or otherwise tell people directly that they should or shouldn't tag a certain way...much to just about EVERYONE's frustration.

Now, because people tag things so much and so differently/non-sensically, AO3 has to keep a small army of 'tag wranglers' to make certain tags null, and make sure things like "Odin's A++ parenting" link back to "Dysfunctional Families" or something to that effect.

If you use the AO3 tags like, well, AO3 tags, they work fine. Once people forget that AO3 =/= Tumblr, it goes to shit, but the AO3 mods are too hung up in the whole "freedom of posting and tagging" shit to do anything about it.

It was definitely an over-elaboration. I was trying to be as thorough as I could although it can definitely be explained a lot more simply than my slideshow.

It's basically 90% of tagging issues are covered by 10% of the PowerPoints, while 90% of the PowerPoint covers about 10% of the obscure or convoluted tagging issues. :)

Ahahah yeah. I mean, really, that powerpoint only covered the MCU. Had I even extended it to Marvel in GENERAL, it would have been soooo much longer.

Still, it's a pretty decent example.

ayrt
Well, my point was that this issue can't be blamed on the stupid tumblrites but is something that needs to be handled better on AO3's end and I stand by that. Making volunteers explain things on tumblr is no solution and most people just don't go click around so much to figure out how things work.
I'm aware of how tag wrangling and the tags work but only because rubbernecking on the tagging wank used to be my hobby.

The top-fandom page as it is right now is eventually going to go away down the line with the whole Category Change thing, so this particular issue isn't gonna be a problem anymore at that point. Granted, that's still fairly far down the line, but it's temporary nonetheless and a sign that the coders are aware that it's an issue.

But nobody made me explain it on tumblr; I just kinda felt like it one evening.

Really, overtagging in the fandoms isn't a hideous problem on the wrangling end or something, I just feel a little bad when people are doing more work than they strictly speaking have to.

DA

They seem to have forgotten the cartoon category. Will the cartoon category be seperated from the comics and graphic novels one? Throwing all three of them together was kinda annoying tbh.

With the caveat I'm not in Cat Change, so I'm not entirely up on exactly how it's going down at this point... It's a very early proposal. Not all of the categories and subcategories listed will end up being exactly as listed. The comments to that post are full of people making comments and suggestions and also being responded to, and I'm sure, although I haven't reread the comment threads in a while, that cartoons was mentioned by at least a few people.

It's a really tricky proposition to reorganize, and they're trying to be careful. It's also one of those things that will be impossible to make everyone perfectly happy with, but at least they're listening to feedback on it.

Oh, thank you for such a quick response! It looks good, even if it is just a very early proposal. I was just wondering if they'd forgotten about that category or if they would split it up?

I'm not sure if tgis is your area either, but do you know if they've thought about putting the english title first/japanese title second to make it easier to find stuff when it comes to Japanese media? I understand wanting to respect the original source, but finding stuff there can ve a bit tricky if you're just scrolling for it.

Argh, that question mark in the third sentence was meant to be a period. I'm on my phone and you've already answered that so ignore it.

Not sure on that one. It might yet be split up to some degree. 'Cartoons' is kind of nebulous and covers a lot in and of itself, depending on how any one person defines it.

On the fandoms page, all the multilingual tags like that that begin in a non-Latin script are alphabetized by the English name (or should be, at any rate. If any aren't, that warrants a bug report.) My kingdom for parallel canonicals, and many wranglers will probably say the same thing, because that will be a thing ultimately able to get rid of the awkward piped tags entirely. (Parallel canonicals being basically tags that have multiple canonical forms but still lead to the same works like synonyms. Its on the list of approved features for down the line, but that's going to probably be much later. At present, finding-in-page is your best bet otherwise.)

Alright, thank you so much for answering my questions. You've been rather helpful and I cannot thank you enough for that. I will be looking foward to these changes when they come.

No trouble at all. Tags and categorization and stuff make me happy, so I'm always glad to explain what I know to the extent that I do. :)

Sure, I didn't think someone held a gun to your head but you jumped in because the site doesn't explain itself and the posting forms probably aren't going to see an update in the next three years. I don't think overtagging is a huge issue either (I don't even load that site personally) and well, most people will probably continue to do so because adding an extra tag from the dropdown, just in case takes, three seconds as opposed to educating themselves for 20 min or so. It just annoys me when the casual users are insulted here for not understanding for how the AO3 works behind the scenes and that's what my response was about.

In that case, yeah, I don't disagree. There are ways to find out almost anything, but the nature of people in general mean that people aren't necessarily going to be finding them because there are different degrees of interest in such things as documentation and news posts and things and the posting form is intuitive enough on a basic level, at least, that looking for more info really isn't a requirement. Insulting someone for just not knowing something tends to be silly and a bit counterproductive, especially when it doesn't really make a difference in the long run on anything but an aesthetic level.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2560 ]

That's because people on AO3 don't know how to tag.

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