TAG: you're it

[nrgburst]

I've been seeing lots of discussion about tagging recently on tumblr, discord and my f-list, ever since AO3 announced its decision to limit tags to 75. I think most of it is thoughtful and productive - I think awareness leads to people acting more thoughtfully (although as wheatear  has pointed out, there's no such thing as perfect tagging, though I'd argue that being aware of how and why people use tags in your fandom can certainly lead to "better" tagging. And I think the reason that AO3 made this decision is obvious: there's actually such a thing as "bad" tagging. 

I think the most obvious offenders are like manspreaders on trains - it's not egregiously harmful that they're taking up more space than others, but it can still be a real nuisance (and may present significant obstacles to some, like those using a screen reader, who can't "just keep scrolling" past). And I think a lot of it can be attributed to ignorance? I think most of the people tagging their fics like it's an ingredient label, listing every character, setting and trope that appears, however minutely, are usually newbies to the whole fandom thing. Ditto those uploading every single shortfic they write as "chapters" of a single fic and tagging every iteration of fandoms and characters - I think they're unaware of how much of an annoyance it is to have this massive, mostly irrelevant "description" appearing in whatever tag users have clicked on and of how readers actually use tags; they're just labelling, like a kid decorating their fic with stickers. It's not deliberately malicious, but it can still be damn irritating? Those are the garden variety Wall-o-Tag offenders, though: the full context of what actually forced AO3 to crack down is the site clogging trolling of STWW, a fic with several thousand tags (and its copycat trolls). It was such obvious abuse of a system that relies on the good faith tagging of authors (and one that affected millions of users at once) that it led to AO3 finally setting up this tag limit before it even introduced a long promised block function. 
 

At the other end of the "bad tagging" spectrum would be under-tagging, which basically functions in a way that "underadvertises" a fic and is detrimental to authors who were hoping to reach a wider audience or worse: "underwarns" for triggering/unwanted content and leads people to click on fics that will upset them. 


So what can be done to combat bad tagging/promote better tagging? 

Well, ao3commentoftheday has published this little flowchart of questions that I think are a great guide! And I think the better you know your fandom, the easier it will be to judge what you want to be tagging and how. For example: I know to tag background pairings in other tags in GoT fics, because there is so much content that people get annoyed when they find their OTP relegated to the background if you've tagged them in the character tags. TQG in contrast: such a small fandom that people are happy for whatever scraps of a pairing they can get. 

Listen to what people are complaining about on your shiptag on tumblr, or on your relevant discord server. Remember you can always add or delete tags - AO3 lets you do both with ease, so if you get complaints or suggestions, take them into consideration. 

Any other thoughts, oh f-list? 

Comments

[chase_acow]

This is way more thoughtful than my 'fandom-old shakes fist at sky' comment about this situation!

I absolutely can't stand tagging every pairing and character when they are briefly in the fic and especially the (mentioned) tag. Like yeah, I'm mostly in MCU which is gigantic, so why would I want to know that Scott Lang (mentioned) was literally only named dropped once in the fic when he was acknowledged as still existing by another character? I will absolutely skip all those fics.

Thank you for linking that flowchart! I'm a minimal tagger myself, and unlikely to change too much at this point.

[nrgburst]

Oh I hope so! I think there are some people who just didn't think that hard about it before they were protesting at any sort of restriction and devising even more abusive exploits to the system (just put all your tags in one line! Then they count only as one!) so I wanted to outline all the context without being as FFS YOU ABSOLUTE TWATS about it. 😅 (Seriously don't ever combine different tags into one line; volunteer tag wranglers don't need the hassle!)

I mean, I used to tag badly when I was new to the fandom thing, too! There's no fandom primer about tagging conventions or best practices, is there? So we all sort of play it by ear and try to read the room, and learn as we go. I know I tag a lot less than I used to, but I still think I reach the audience I want while keeping those who wouldn't be able to read parts of my fic properly warned to stay out. Definitely how NOT to do minor character tags was one of those learning curves!

[verdande_mi]

Well said, thanks for sharing!

What baffels me is when someone tags random information that gives no proper information about the fic at all, like saying you welcome fanart or requsting not to repost to other sides, same with saying I don't know how to tag this. It just clutters the whole tag-system.

[nrgburst]

Yeah, I mean, maybe they see those #fanart welcome tags as invitations for artists? I don’t know any artists that cruise AO3 looking for fic to draw, but maybe it makes them check out the fic if they happen to be an artist browsing the tag? I think useless metadata might still be helpful for readers - #i don’t know what to tag this might indicate the story doesn’t neatly fit into a certain genre or shiptag, for example, even if nobody is going to click that to search for a story!

[wheatear]

And I think the reason that AO3 made this decision is obvious: there's actually such a thing as "bad" tagging.

I agree: there may be no single "good" way of tagging, but that doesn't mean there aren't bad ways. The fic with thousands of tags was obviously bad because it broke the site, as well as the accessibility issues you mention. I would say that inaccurate tags are also bad, because they provide the wrong information.

Under-tagging is more complicated though. Authors don't technically have to tag anything beyond AO3's mandatory content warnings. Anything beyond that depends on what the author is trying to achieve with their tags.

[nrgburst]

I mean, they don’t technically have to, but then they shouldn’t be upset when people don’t read their story or complain about killing off their canon fave without warning. Can’t have it both ways?

I’m so glad you posted your meta to AO3 right away, too! Very relevant to the ~discourse right now! 🙌 There are some good links in that version too, that point out stuff I hadn’t thought of, like how a smaller amount of tags means we pay more attention to the individual words than if there were a wall of them. So true!

[wheatear]

Can’t have it both ways?

Yeah, it's a risk you take when you don't warn for spoilers. Complaints can happen when there's a mismatch between reader expectations and what the author was going for with their tags.

(On the other hand, I interpret the "Choose not to warn" archive warning as basically saying "enter at your own risk" so I wouldn't think it was appropriate to complain about e.g. not warning for major character death in that case. I'm not sure if that's how it's generally understood.)

like how a smaller amount of tags means we pay more attention to the individual words than if there were a wall of them.

Yeah, that was a really good point that got brought up in the guides. I think with fewer tags you're likely to put more weight on each individual tag, compared to a lot of tags where it's harder to tell if those things are just sprinkled in somewhere or if they're a major part of the story. Like if your one and only extra tag is "angst" I'd be pretty confident that the entire fic I'm about to click on is angst, compared to if it appeared along with a bunch of other tags like "fluff", where you're guessing either that it's a mixture or trying to get a sense of the overall vibe.

[nrgburst]

Yeah, I think #choose not to warn means exactly that too! So if you click anyway after reading the disclaimer, well... 🤷‍♀️

[spikedluv]

I saw this mentioned on Tumblr and my first thought was 'who needs 75 tags?!!!' I often have trouble thinking of tags to include, lol!

[nrgburst]

Lord, the fact that the first thing on one of my servers was people trying to still find ways to abuse the system instead really twerked me off. Like, oh, AO3 has run into a massive problem because it trusted us to do this (instead of doing what academic journals do, for example, and forcing you to pick from predetermined lists of tagwords) and your first instinct is to make it WORSE? 🤬🤬🤬

[rhoda_rants]

Good post! I've been thinking about this, too. And I still think 75 tags is . . . excessive. Mostly because of those shortfic collections you mentioned--I glide right by those without looking at them.

One thing I'd suggest: Bring back authors notes. I've been on this train longer than the tagging system even existed--I was here before "shipping" was the preferred term--and we always put any vital info that wouldn't go in the summary in the author's notes. And that's still what I use them for. That and, "Ahhhhh, long time, no update, I'm so sorry!!!!"

I know to tag background pairings in other tags in GoT fics, because there is so much content that people get annoyed when they find their OTP relegated to the background if you've tagged them in the character tags.

Oh gosh, I did have to learn this one, for the MCU specifically. I got halfway through a fic and realized I couldn't make one particular pairing "work" the way I wanted it to. So I took out the tag and put in an author's note to explain. I did lose a couple readers, but they were gracious about it.

But. Nobody needs more than 75 tags. I'd argue they don't need more than twenty, but I'm pretty spare in my writing, so.

[nrgburst]

Yeah, I agree - like one of the arguments being made was that those collections are the only way to find certain rarepairs! And upon reflection, it's like. Yeah, but that's still shitty tagging by the author? You should tag your rarepair in a single one-shot fic that doesn't clog the tag instead of shoving it in some bloated tome of other random fic that readers have to go through chapter by chapter attempting to find The Promised One and including 75+ tags in the process. 🙄 The 75+ tags are incidental and not a necessity. And it's not like you can't keep all your short fic in one place: you can do so by making them a series (NRG's one hit wonders!), that will still group all the tags together, but that only impacts your OWN page instead of sprawling across everybody else's tag browsing.

I don't think it has to do with being spare in your writing, exactly, but actually developing a better sense of judgement in describing your fic for people skimming/searching? Most of us have limited attention - when you slap a massive list of stuff in front of people, most people are not going to go through that word by word unless they have a severe allergy, you know? A few carefully selected words, on the other hand, will get their undivided attention. So I think it's a skill, actually, and one you honed with practice!

[rhoda_rants]

Collecting one-shots into series is FANTASTIC! I love that feature! It's genius, truly. I don't know when those massive collections started, but like. Even if you want all them as chapters in a single fic, you could always do a short "Go to Chapter 7 for This Rarepair!" so people don't have to comb through every single one. You know, if the author's notes. (I am a big fan of author's notes.)

But yes, to the thing about short attention spans! After a certain number of words, my brain shorts out and I can't take anything else in. "TL;DR" is out there for a reason.

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