Some Thoughts about Tagging on AO3
Dec. 16th, 2019 07:48 pmI originally made this post back in 2014 on the Yuletide LJ com, and I think it's still both helpful and useful, and other people have told me it is, but it's not actually in my own space, so here it is for posterity.
There are a lot of people confused about what to tag their stuff on AO3. There aren't many rules, and even the guidelines are kind of fuzzy. But yet there are many dedicated volunteers who spend many hours trying to make some sense out of the mess! It's chaotic and organized at the same time. I'm not a tag mod or AO3 volunteer, but I am a power user of the site, and have been since it started, so I have a pretty good feel for the different ways people use the site and how people tag. So here are some suggestions, if you feel you need them. ETA: Thanks to some wonderful feedback in the comments, I'm adding some other perspectives.
First, remember that the primary purpose of tags is to help people find stuff they'd like to read. No matter what your philosophy of tagging is, your goal should be to make it easy for people to find your fic and decide if they want to read it.
There are two basic ways people use tags when they're looking for fic.
( How people use tags to find and evaluate fic )
So how does this affect how you tag your fic? I'm so glad you asked. It means you need to take both uses of tags--finding fic, and deciding if you want to read a fic you've found--into account. As you tag, ask yourself: what in my fic might people want to read? What kind of craving would my fic satisfy? Tag for those things (fandoms, characters, relationships, tropes, kinks, whatever). Then ask yourself: once people have found my fic, what might help them decide they want to read my fic? Then tag for that. Then ask yourself: is there anything in my fic that might squick people or that they might want to avoid? Then tag for that, too. Autocomplete is your friend. As you start typing in the tag field, it will bring up tags people have already used, which are searchable, and which may therefore help people find your fic.
Important notes about relationship tagging: First, AO3 uses the old fandom conventions of / to indicate a romantic relationship, and & to indicate a platonic relationship. "Harry/Draco" means that Harry and Draco are in a romantic and/or sexual relationship. "Harry & Draco" means that there is no romantic or sexual content between those two, but that them relating to one another is important to the fic. Maybe they're besties! Maybe they're frenemies! Maybe they're archnemeses! Maybe it's an AU where they're brothers! But whatever, the fic is about the two of them but not in a romantic or sexual way. The two tags are not synonymous, so please use the correct one. Second, tagging a fic with a relationship (whether using / or &) does not make it pop up in the tag for any of the characters involved. If you want your Harry/Draco or Harry&Draco fic to show up in the Harry Potter (character tag) or Draco Malfoy tags, you have to tag it with the relationship tag and the Harry Potter tag in the character field, and the Draco Malfoy tag.
Synonymous tags: Because the wranglers work behind the scenes to make sure tags that mean the same thing are synonymous, you don't have to tag your fic with multiple variations of the same idea. This is very different from Tumblr, where (in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom) the “adrinette” and “adrienette” tags go different places even though they mean the same thing. Because some people on tumblr use one and some use the other, if you want everyone to see your content you have to tag it with both tags. But on AO3, this is not the case. The two tags have been synned together, you can use either one and if someone clicks on that tag they will get ALL fic tagged with EITHER of those two things. (Thank you,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai for pointing this out.) In the previous example, "Harry/Draco" and "Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy" and "Draco/Harry" and "Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter" and "Drarry" are all synonymous and go to the same place. You only have to use one and AO3 (or, more precisely, the tag wranglers working behind the scenes) will do the rest.
( Some cautions )
On creating new tags: ( Creating New Tags )
From tag wrangler
lost_spook:
From an anonymous tag wrangler:
( Tag wranglers )
Hope this all helps!
There are a lot of people confused about what to tag their stuff on AO3. There aren't many rules, and even the guidelines are kind of fuzzy. But yet there are many dedicated volunteers who spend many hours trying to make some sense out of the mess! It's chaotic and organized at the same time. I'm not a tag mod or AO3 volunteer, but I am a power user of the site, and have been since it started, so I have a pretty good feel for the different ways people use the site and how people tag. So here are some suggestions, if you feel you need them. ETA: Thanks to some wonderful feedback in the comments, I'm adding some other perspectives.
First, remember that the primary purpose of tags is to help people find stuff they'd like to read. No matter what your philosophy of tagging is, your goal should be to make it easy for people to find your fic and decide if they want to read it.
There are two basic ways people use tags when they're looking for fic.
( How people use tags to find and evaluate fic )
So how does this affect how you tag your fic? I'm so glad you asked. It means you need to take both uses of tags--finding fic, and deciding if you want to read a fic you've found--into account. As you tag, ask yourself: what in my fic might people want to read? What kind of craving would my fic satisfy? Tag for those things (fandoms, characters, relationships, tropes, kinks, whatever). Then ask yourself: once people have found my fic, what might help them decide they want to read my fic? Then tag for that. Then ask yourself: is there anything in my fic that might squick people or that they might want to avoid? Then tag for that, too. Autocomplete is your friend. As you start typing in the tag field, it will bring up tags people have already used, which are searchable, and which may therefore help people find your fic.
Important notes about relationship tagging: First, AO3 uses the old fandom conventions of / to indicate a romantic relationship, and & to indicate a platonic relationship. "Harry/Draco" means that Harry and Draco are in a romantic and/or sexual relationship. "Harry & Draco" means that there is no romantic or sexual content between those two, but that them relating to one another is important to the fic. Maybe they're besties! Maybe they're frenemies! Maybe they're archnemeses! Maybe it's an AU where they're brothers! But whatever, the fic is about the two of them but not in a romantic or sexual way. The two tags are not synonymous, so please use the correct one. Second, tagging a fic with a relationship (whether using / or &) does not make it pop up in the tag for any of the characters involved. If you want your Harry/Draco or Harry&Draco fic to show up in the Harry Potter (character tag) or Draco Malfoy tags, you have to tag it with the relationship tag and the Harry Potter tag in the character field, and the Draco Malfoy tag.
Synonymous tags: Because the wranglers work behind the scenes to make sure tags that mean the same thing are synonymous, you don't have to tag your fic with multiple variations of the same idea. This is very different from Tumblr, where (in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom) the “adrinette” and “adrienette” tags go different places even though they mean the same thing. Because some people on tumblr use one and some use the other, if you want everyone to see your content you have to tag it with both tags. But on AO3, this is not the case. The two tags have been synned together, you can use either one and if someone clicks on that tag they will get ALL fic tagged with EITHER of those two things. (Thank you,
alexseanchai for pointing this out.) In the previous example, "Harry/Draco" and "Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy" and "Draco/Harry" and "Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter" and "Drarry" are all synonymous and go to the same place. You only have to use one and AO3 (or, more precisely, the tag wranglers working behind the scenes) will do the rest.( Some cautions )
On creating new tags: ( Creating New Tags )
From tag wrangler
lost_spook:
As another tag wrangler, I'd just add that the thing about cape names applies generally really - if you want to make a freeform (or any tag) involving your characters, remember the archive is a big place and expanding all the time with fandoms in multiple media, so the more you use full names etc., the more likely it is the tag can stay in your fandom or eventually become canonical.
one of the joys of Yuletide is that it's about fic in rare fandoms or non-existent-till-now fandoms, but that does mean you might well find yourself posting the first fic in a fandom or for that pairing or character - and that means you have to create that tag yourself. So I just wanted to add - don't be nervous of doing that! You don't have to read through archive tagging guidelines and get it perfect; just be as clear and specific as you can, especially with fandom tags, where the wranglers dealing with those might never have heard of it. The same with new character and relationship tags - do add them! Just be sure to use full names in both categories, and if the names are very common or likely to cause confusion, add something like the fandom name in brackets to make doubly sure. Wranglers can link up any tags like these no problem - it's only when things aren't clear (ambiguous), that it gets tricky.
(Wranglers in tiny fandoms love it when they suddenly have actual tags to wrangle! ♥)
From an anonymous tag wrangler:
One other thing I'd like to suggest is keeping each freeform/additional tag to one discrete concept! For example, "Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues" is a single concept; "Tony Stark has daddy issues and mommy issues and luckily lots of money too" includes several, and is unlikely to ever become filterable in any way. Also, if a single concept is split across multiple tags, a wrangler often can't do anything with the individual tags-- for example, the two tags "his heart", "it is so broken" is likely going to end up with both tags unfilterable instead of being linked to a canonical tag like Heartbreak.
( Tag wranglers )
Hope this all helps!
