I don't believe you did. I was not replying to your message individually, but to the multiple messages from people chiming in agreement to a sentiment that I do not share. This is a gripe thread, it is for griping in - gripes being a venting of frustrations where others can witness or agree with them. That's why I acknowledged in my first comment, that griping here is not going up to the authors and telling them so, but a place of working it out without doing so. My concern came more from, sometimes people feel empowered when they hear only agreement with their point of view, to the point of riding that empowered feeling into sharing it with others. I do so myself, from time to time, sometimes for the better, sometimes to the point of picking fights on the internet or beyond. Not everyone is as prone to impulse as that, so that part of my concern may have no base. This is also not a private forum, and people can lurk and view this forum's contents at any moment, and sometimes share our contents more widely without our intending or agreement. If they do so, that's not on any of us, but on the jackass rude enough to weaponize those words... but the worry lingers with me. I'm getting the sense that my emphasis on taking the problems and proposing some kind of solutions, the want to troubleshoot, is not at all the energy that this thread is intended for. I can only say that I deeply dislike when there is a Right Way To Do Things, especially if it's accompanied by any hint of because that's how we've always done it, and I spoke from an agitated kneejerk of refusing to be told how to do things (even though I'm one of the AO3 people who doesn't use much conversational tags...? kneejerk gonna kneejerk.) I'm also getting the sense that my emphasis on wanting to troubleshoot was scolding, a pressuring people into doing things as I prefer to, rather than letting people just vent in the vent thread. I agree with wanting better onboarding, not just in giving a This Is How We Do It, but in giving a why we do it too, one open enough to hearing how others want to do it that they at least feel wanted. Brainstorming how the new ways aren't slotting in the current system, whether they could adapt their ways to previously existing things like A/Ns or if if it'd be possible and useful to make changes to the current system to semi-incorporate their ways... That's a different energy than venting to release some frustration. Would it make more sense for me to take that wanting to troubleshoot to a different thread, intended for the energy of saying "okay, so what can we do?" I'm not super in the mood to create a thread or be the main person behind it, but I also don't wanna be bringing down the mood in this thread for others.
(ftr, my comment wasn't intended to be disagreement with you, swirlingflight; I just seemed to understand the ideas of hiding some tags and using conversational tags were being presented as mutually exclusive in some way and I don't feel like they are)
I haven't seen anything that addresses tag bloat, whether formal or conversational, but I have seen an experimental add-on for filtering tags recently posted. It's for filtering to a specific relationship tag, ship or otherwise, and seeing only the fics have it as the first tag - the idea being that the first tag is the main relationship focused on in the story. Obviously doesn't work with all fics, depending on how they tag, but could be useful searching for stories that focus on rare pairs.
I seem to be a minority opinion here, but I was a tumblr user for like a week once, have been using AO3 heavily for not quite as long as it’s been around, and I consider conversational tags to be vital archive conventions. If there are no conversational tags and especially minimal tags in general, it may feel to me like the author saw the process of posting the fic to AO3 as an afterthought or a tedious necessity? I’m not a fan of giant walls of tags either, but I’d definitely like significantly more than the bare bones. It’s how I get a feel for the author and story. I don’t want that moved to the summary area. I’m used to that mostly focusing on being a summary. It can still have or be commentary if that is a serviceable way to summarize what the story is, but I feel like it’s far more likely to get awkward if someone makes the sassy comments about their own work in the summary than the tags. I absolutely do not want that kind of thing in the author’s notes. I do not want to have to click on a story to get a basic feel for what to expect. I’m all for an option to not see certain types of tags, or only show a particular number with an option to expand, but only if I can opt out.
Okay, to clarify, when I say "conversational tags" I mean something that looks like On Tumblr tags are more like a footnote at the end of a post and the majority of them are hidden by default on dash, so people don't often even bother writing whole sentences in them. Myself included. I leave a lot of foot-note-y tags on posts. And in my opinion, if you want to put a footnote on your fic, that's fine -- but that belongs in the A/N, and I hate being forced to slog through one to find the tags relevant to the content if there are any. Sometimes, the tags are all "tag that tells you nothing about the work". The problem here isn't jokey tags that go on for a long time -- I follow Ao3 Tag Of The Day on every social media, I'm delighted whenever a fic says "#[highly specific flowery tag] #oh wow that was a tag already" because it's such a great Same Brain Moment, I have a fics with tags that are descriptive and florid because I felt like putting that shit in the tags allowed me the freedom to make the summary something more punchy and attention-grabbing instead. But tags that specifically go on and on about the author's life, at best the circumstances of the writing, just jump out at me as someone not getting the point of Ao3's tagging system.
I don’t necessarily mind memes or keysmashes. If there’s excessive clutter, I agree that it feels like the person doesn’t understand the point. But I probably have a pretty good idea of whether I’m likely to enjoy the fic, which saves time. The answer isn’t necessarily no. If they’re writing something specific enough and they have good taste in memes, we can give it a try. If it’s a particularly huge block of mostly shitpost tags with nothing to do with the work, that is irritating. I’m unlikely to bother sifting through it for relevant tags. I figure I probably won’t enjoy the story and can move on. dni tags can absolutely go to hell. I will not read anything that includes a dni anywhere. I may remember authors who have dni stuff on their work, and if I see their name I won’t read their fic even if it sounds like it might be up my alley. Knowing that the author is someone I don’t want to be anywhere near is technically sorta useful, I guess, but it is not worth having to subject my poor eyes to that shit.
I dont much care about seeing the flowers tsgs but IMO you should absolutely put the relevant tags FIRST before your commentary stuff
i am now imagining a world where the tags are just kind of spread chaotically about with no apparent rhyme or reason for which sort is going where and i am full of terror
I agree except when it interrupts the flow of the tagging (like “I can’t believe this is/isn’t already a tag”). And then there is this particular instance which made me laugh by almost certainly being an example of its own complaint:
not actually a gripe, but since we don't have a fanfiction lolwut thread: u guys Vladimir Putin writes Rainbow Six/Cobra Kai crossover fic!
No, clearly the numbers in that username indicate that this is the person who will become the president of Russia after they destroy Putin in about two years. An AO3 user who writes gay fanfic about some apparently web-based form of media will be the one to finally lead us out of this nightmare...everything tracks, alright.
This isn’t exclusively a fanfic gripe, but I am sick of stories with where the supporting cast resent the protagonist for being asexual. Especially when the asexual character kisses someone or is forced into a kiss at a dramatic moment and then the rest of the cast act like it’s proof they’re not really asexual. (It keeps happening. Why does it keep happening?)
how to speedrun "breaking the reader's immersion:" have the narration of 11-year old draco malfoy make a "jigglypuff" joke 3 paragraphs in
Argh, someone just said "you had brung" in narration and I want to reach through the screen and slap them with a dictionary.
In a way that sounds painfully true to life. Almost like a groundhog day of all your peers being somehow personally affronted by your asexuality over and over and over in fresh new ways that are not actually fresh or new. Why. Just why. I can absolutely see it as a vent fic thing, but if that's most of what's out there, that's so depressing. And if the character's asexuality is mainly there in the story to serve as a romance obstacle instead of other people's lack of respect for them being the problem, then that's sprinting towards offensive at truly impressive speeds. Why not just make the character a hopeless romantic with commitment issues because They've Been Hurt Before or something?
