How Do I Tag?

You don’t have to? It’s up to you. If you do, it might make sense to end them with (OC) so people/wranglers know what you’re talking about, but again it’s up to you. If you don’t want to tag them all individually, you can use the Original Characters tags :) 

The side characters… I suppose it depends on HOW “side” they are? If they’re really minor in the story, tagging something along the lines of Background [Character Name] in the ADDITIONAL TAGS (freeforms) would be more useful than tagging them in the characters section. 

Hmmm, well you could search using the “vampires” tag and then just sort out the Twilight stuff? AO3 is rolling out an exclude from search option ASAP (see their news posts, it’s one of the most recent), but until then there are a few ways to do it. The easiest that I would use would to be just type “-Twilight” into the search bar when searching for vampires. 

Hi there! / means romantic and/or sexual, & is literally any other relationship (friendship, family, coworkers I guess???, etc).

| and “and” are incorrect formats to use based on AO3′s tagging system, and they’d be synned to either / or & based on their context :) 

I hope this helps! 

*waves* Hi there! 

A crossover is a fic that contains the cast of two or more different fandoms. An AU is short for Alternate Universe – it just means that you’re taking the characters of a fandom and sticking them in a different reality than canon. A fusion means you’re taking the characters of one fandom, and merging them into the plot/story of another. 

Essentially, in this case, you’d use the fandom tag of Sherlock, and then the Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion tag :) 

Cheers! 

Hi!! :)

Hello! Incoming post from Agent Potato here. I’ve noticed some Asks about this (we’ll get to individual answers as soon as we can!) and I’ve personally been reading some great fics with Original Characters (OCs), so I wanted to write some information about them related to tagging and tags on the Archive.

What are Original Characters?

These characters are exactly what they sound like! Characters that don’t show up in canon (the original source of the fandom) that the creator of the fan-work created themselves or that they are using from somebody else.

Hello, and welcome to the first week of our Ro2 Challenge! 

In order for new fandom-specific freeform tags to be created, each tag must have at least 3 separate uses by 3 different users (some larger fandoms require 5 or even more!). This is called the Rule of 3 (Ro3). Each week, we will post a new list of a handful of tags one use away from hitting the required amount to become a candidate for canonization as a fun sort of set of writing prompts for you to use if you so desire! BONUS POINTS: work all 3 from a fandom into one fic! Learn more here. 

Listed below are the tags in the format they would be canonized (i.e. the way they would show up in the drop-down if marked common!). You, of course, can tag however you’d like to, but if you tag in this way specifically, it is less likely to be lost to ambiguity. (What is ambiguity? Tagtorial coming up soon!) 

Harry Potter~

Dementor Harry Potter Current Existing Tags: here & here & here

Smart Luna Lovegood Current Existing Tags: here & here & here

Vampire Neville Longbottom Current Existing Tags: here & here

Phandom~

Firefighter Phil Lester Current Existing Tags: here

Cheerleader Dan Howell Current Existing Tags: here & here

Slytherin Chris Kendall Current Existing Tags: here

Overwatch~

Demisexual Hanzo Shimada Current Existing Tags: here

Intersex Tekhartha Zenyatta Current Existing Tags: here

Vampire Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes Current Existing Tags: here

Supernatural~

Castiel Doesn’t Know Dean Winchester Current Existing Tags: here

Raphael (Supernatural) is Not Amused Current Existing Tags: here

Aerialist Dean Winchester Current Existing Tags: here

BTS~ 

Mute Jung Hoseok | J-Hope Current Existing Tags: here & here

Agender Kim Namjoon | RM Current Existing Tags: here

Hi! Here begins the first of many tagging tutorials I will be doing on a particular topic. The link to this area of the wrangling guidelines can be found here. 

So, to begin... what is tag wrangling?

Tag wrangling is the reason you get to tag however you’d like to on AO3! Whenever you input a tag into any category (fandoms, characters, relationships, or “additional tags” [freeforms]), it goes into a system. IF SOMEONE HAS TAGGED IT BEFORE (or it is a canonical tag, i.e. any tag from the drop-down menu), typically it’s already been dealt with and sorted, so the wranglers won’t see it again. However, if it hasn’t, it goes and sits in a “bin” where a group of volunteers, called the tag wranglers, can see it and deal with it. 

For example, let’s say I’m writing a Harry Potter fanfiction. Now, I’m obviously going to tag it with the Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling canonical fandom tag (the one that shows up in the drop-down when I type in “Harry Potter” to see what comes up). My story is centered on Harry and Draco’s relationships as boyfriends, so in the characters field I’ll type in Harry Potter as one tag, and Draco Malfoy as another. In the relationships field, I’ll type in Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Now for the last category, I’m more confused. What other tags should I be using? Feeling overwhelmed, I type in “zd;ognid;fonsrgno;” and “wtf even goes here???? how do I do this???” and then finally, “Angst.” I leave it at that and publish my story. 

So what goes on behind the scenes? 

Well, when the story gets processed and the tags enter into the system, most won’t have to be dealt with again. The fandom, character, and relationship tags are all canonical, so the wranglers won’t see those again. However, the freeforms (additional tags) are a bit more tricky. “Angst” is a canonical tag, so the wranglers won’t see that, but the other two tags are not canonical, and have never been used before, so they will go into the “bin” of the Harry Potter fandom. There, a team of volunteers will see them and sort them accordingly. 

But how do they sort them? Well, there are a couple of different ways this gets done. One, if it’s a tag that is not specific to any fandom, and is not similar enough to any canonical tag to be “synned” there, then they will take the tag and put it in “no fandom,” the home for all tags that aren’t specific to any tag. There, it will sit in the unfilterable part of the bins, because it has no current easy syns. 

But wait... what is “synning”? 

Synning is the act of making a tag that has the same meaning as another tag appear in the same filter. FOR EXAMPLE, if I tag Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy in the relationships field, tag wranglers have synned it to Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, so when you go to find Drarry stories, all the works will appear in one search. 

The next way the tag might get sorted is if it’s fandom specific and has no canonical form. In this case, the tag simply goes to the fandom it is specific to and sits unfilterable in that bin. 

Finally, if it has an easy syn, it can be synned there. For example, if I tag Fireman!Dean in the freeforms, a wrangler for Supernatural will see it and note that they have a canonical form of that -- Firefighter Dean Winchester, and they can syn it there. 

So what happens to my two tags that I put that weren’t canonical? Well, neither “zd;ognid;fonsrgno;” nor “wtf even goes here???? how do I do this???” has any real purpose when searching for stories, nor does it have an easy canonical to syn to, so they’d likely put them both in no fandom where they would sit in the unfilterable bins. 

So wait... can tag wranglers delete my tags if they don’t fit? 

No! Fear not. Tag wranglers have no control over your tags, that’s the job of Policy & Abuse, which will only very, very rarely mess with your tags if they violate the TOS (see here!). 

So who are the tag wranglers? The tag wrangling committee is a group of volunteers! They recruit once every 2-4 months, approximately. if you’re interested in joining, be sure to check the AO3 news posts regularly! 

I hope you liked this! This is going to be the first in a long line of tagging tutorials, so be sure to stay tuned for more! 

Hello, and welcome to howdoitag, your new source for tagging help! I’m here to answer any and all questions you may have about navigating the tagging system, including (but not limited to):

How can/should I tag my fics? Which tag(s) should I use? 

I want to find X. How should I search for it? 

What does [XYZ] mean? 

How can I tag my fics in such a way that they will get the most traffic possible? 

If I’m searching for this, will I also find this? 

I’m searching for this, so why am I seeing this? 

Is there a way to filter by...? 

And more! I will also be publishing tutorials on various parts of the Archive and more on the tagging system as a whole!