6 ms·

I can't wait for the author of this thread to discover the AO3 tagging system, which is, frankly, a masterpiece that demonstrates how effective community manage

I can't wait for the author of this thread to discover the AO3 tagging system, which is, frankly, a masterpiece that demonstrates how effective community management can lead to extremely good tagging and categorization, with very little miscategorization. https://www.wired.com/story/archive-of-our-own-fans-better-than-tech-organizing-information/ https://www.wired.com/story/archive-of-our-own-fans-better-t... https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags

rubinlinux 4y ago
> The only system I know that does that is the fanfiction site AO3, where teams of volunteers manually create aliases from, say, "snarry" to "Harry/Snape" They seem aware already.
swyx 4y ago
its literally the third tweet in his thread
at_a_remove 4y ago
The AO3 tagging system badly needs pruning. I hesitate to make examples, as the specificity will serve as a "call out," but quite a lot of authors throw in single-use, digressive tags as some kind of commentary on their own work. Huge meandering swaths of crap tags, and the people who make them ought to have their permissions to create tags revoked.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I kind of disagree with this. Tags are dual use in AO3, specifically they serve as a way to find specific stories with specific thematic or plot elements, but they additionally serve as a free expression of the author because its the author who chooses which if any tags they want to use to describe their piece. When an author gets to decide the categories of a work, the categorization also becomes an expression. Consider the flavor of "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" tag, which serves both as an author's expression of warning the reader and also a category of fanfic that is expected to have transgressive elements. Just tagging, idk, "child endangerment" completely misses the point of "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" comparatively.
  - at_a_remove 4y ago
    I will paraphrase this to avoid a callout, but "no regenerating limbs those arms are toast sorry QA despises them" is not a useful tag. (This is a mild example, I've seen far worse) First, it is a single-use tag. Tags are for categories, not solo entries. Solo entries explode the tagspace to no good end. Second, that expression belongs in the summation of the work, or just about anywhere else. Tags are for other people to use to find similar works or for readers to look for things based on their interests. Metadata is not for artistic expression, unless you're one of those people who believes that artists ought to be able to choose their own Library of Congress call numbers and such, people who want to include "elephant" in the metadata despite the work having nothing to do with elephants.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      I think you're missing the point that, in AO3 specifically, tags are not solely metadata. Tags are also artistic expression in the context of AO3. That's the thing. AO3 doesn't function like the Library of Congress, and there are no librarians that are independently assigning categories to fanfic. An author can choose to opt out of tags entirely, and people cannot put tags on other people's fanfic even if it's relevant and would benefit that work's findability. The simple mechanism of the author having sole control of what tags they want to apply to the work causes the act of tagging to also serve the purpose of artistic expression-- this results in spontaneous tags going from single-use to culturally known, such as "no beta we die like men", and therefore I think arguably useful but only in the context of AO3.
      - at_a_remove 4y ago
        Then tags in AO3 are just more of the text and not much of a finding aid. You can't have both.
        PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        Tags end up being an excellent finding aid due to the strength of the community's tag linking, you see. So they serve both purposes.
taggingthrowaw 4y ago
A taxonomy or hierarchical system sometimes also helps, eg. on E621: https://e621.net/wiki_pages/23556 https://e621.net/wiki_pages/23556 (NSFW if you scroll at all or click anything).
account-5 4y ago
They mention it 4th post in the thread. I never heard of it though, what's so good about it?
redbar0n 4y ago
He is already familiar with it: https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1579942625242931200?s=21&t=RKrfPXQYcf-Ez9SEatS54A https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1579942625242931200?s... Hillel actually mentioned it cursorily in the thread.

rubinlinux 4y ago

> The only system I know that does that is the fanfiction site AO3, where teams of volunteers manually create aliases from, say, "snarry" to "Harry/Snape" They seem aware already.

swyx 4y ago

its literally the third tweet in his thread

at_a_remove 4y ago

The AO3 tagging system badly needs pruning. I hesitate to make examples, as the specificity will serve as a "call out," but quite a lot of authors throw in single-use, digressive tags as some kind of commentary on their own work. Huge meandering swaths of crap tags, and the people who make them ought to have their permissions to create tags revoked.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I kind of disagree with this. Tags are dual use in AO3, specifically they serve as a way to find specific stories with specific thematic or plot elements, but they additionally serve as a free expression of the author because its the author who chooses which if any tags they want to use to describe their piece. When an author gets to decide the categories of a work, the categorization also becomes an expression. Consider the flavor of "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" tag, which serves both as an author's expression of warning the reader and also a category of fanfic that is expected to have transgressive elements. Just tagging, idk, "child endangerment" completely misses the point of "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" comparatively.
- at_a_remove 4y ago
  I will paraphrase this to avoid a callout, but "no regenerating limbs those arms are toast sorry QA despises them" is not a useful tag. (This is a mild example, I've seen far worse) First, it is a single-use tag. Tags are for categories, not solo entries. Solo entries explode the tagspace to no good end. Second, that expression belongs in the summation of the work, or just about anywhere else. Tags are for other people to use to find similar works or for readers to look for things based on their interests. Metadata is not for artistic expression, unless you're one of those people who believes that artists ought to be able to choose their own Library of Congress call numbers and such, people who want to include "elephant" in the metadata despite the work having nothing to do with elephants.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    I think you're missing the point that, in AO3 specifically, tags are not solely metadata. Tags are also artistic expression in the context of AO3. That's the thing. AO3 doesn't function like the Library of Congress, and there are no librarians that are independently assigning categories to fanfic. An author can choose to opt out of tags entirely, and people cannot put tags on other people's fanfic even if it's relevant and would benefit that work's findability. The simple mechanism of the author having sole control of what tags they want to apply to the work causes the act of tagging to also serve the purpose of artistic expression-- this results in spontaneous tags going from single-use to culturally known, such as "no beta we die like men", and therefore I think arguably useful but only in the context of AO3.
    - at_a_remove 4y ago
      Then tags in AO3 are just more of the text and not much of a finding aid. You can't have both.
      - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        Tags end up being an excellent finding aid due to the strength of the community's tag linking, you see. So they serve both purposes.

taggingthrowaw 4y ago

A taxonomy or hierarchical system sometimes also helps, eg. on E621: https://e621.net/wiki_pages/23556 https://e621.net/wiki_pages/23556 (NSFW if you scroll at all or click anything).

account-5 4y ago

They mention it 4th post in the thread. I never heard of it though, what's so good about it?

redbar0n 4y ago

He is already familiar with it: https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1579942625242931200?s=21&t=RKrfPXQYcf-Ez9SEatS54A https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1579942625242931200?s... Hillel actually mentioned it cursorily in the thread.