#blocking tags

I never want to read RPF. it's a big squick. There's music RPF and Actor RPF and SPORT RPF but people rarely TAG their fic as "RPF".

So if I'm searching an author's or collections 'works' or searching through an existing canonical tag's results (let's use #Dom/sub);

HOW do I exclude all the fics within the RPF genre?

I'm going to recommend using a site skin instead of using filters. This is because there's a limit to how many filters you can apply. Each filter adds on to the length of the URL that populates your results, and at a certain point that maxes out and you won't be able to load the page anymore.

Not to mention, there are a lot of fandoms, for example bandoms, that don't use RPF tags at all. The fandom itself is for real people, so the RPF/RPS tags are assumed and not necessary to add on. Using something like -RPF in your filters therefore, won't filter those out.

With a site skin, you'll be able to hide fics with any number of tags that you want, and the list will be infinitely expandable. You only need to create the skin once and then edit when there's a new tag you want to hide. You won't have to save a set of filters - in fact, you won't have to think about it at all. You'll just browse the Archive normally and none of the works with those tags will appear for you.

Instructions for how to block tags with a site skin can be found here. Bonus instructions for blocking a user, a work, or a series can be found here.

i recommend creating a site skin just for blocking those things. That way, you can pair it with any other site skin you might want to use.

To combine skins, create your blocking skin and then scroll down to the bottom of the CSS box and tap on the button that says Show.

This will open up a menu where you can Add a Parent Skin

Just start typing the name of the skin you want to combine your blocks with, and it will autopopulate for you from a dropdown, just like searches and filters do

Once you've got all of the tags (and works and series) blocked that you want to block, you can browse AO3 normally. The things you've blocked will be invisible for you on the site, so if an author has 10 works and 2 of them use tags that you've blocked, you'll only see 8 on their profile.

How To Block Tags (no browser add ons)

How to exclude tags so that you don't have to set filters every time you search. This is where it gets more complicated. But the results can be well worth it if there are specific tags you don't want to see. Now this isn't full-proof by any means due to the fact that not everyone is going to tag their work appropriately, and some tags that have such varied meanings it can be hard to pin them down. But it should really reduce your accidental exposure to things you don't like.

Excluding Ships

Firstly you go into your site skin (if you don't have one see this post) and click on Custom CSS, it will show the box where the code for the skin will go:

Then for excluding tags there is a piece of code you must use:

.blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/tagstringhere/works"]) { display: none !important; }

Excluding a ship tag (maybe one that's popular in a fandom you're in, and always clogs the search, that you simply hate) I find works best since it's such a specific tag. To do this you will need the URL pulled directly from the tag. I will use a ship I don't like to demonstrate. I want to excluding the ship of Hank Anderson/Connor from my searches because I have no interest in reading for this ship: 

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Hank%20Anderson*s*Connor/works

For the tag block to work we don't need the whole URL:

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Hank%20Anderson*s*Connor/works

Take the remaining part and paste it into the "quotation marks". It should look something like this:

.blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/Hank%20Anderson*s*Connor/works"]) { display: none !important; }

Update the skin and your display should look like this for the excluded ship:

You can repeat this process as many times as needed for different ships and you will have no more works tagged with the specific ship or ships appearing in your search. Pretty cool!!! 

Excluding Other Tags

Excluding other tags is done in the same way, using the same piece of code. But it may not be as effective, especially if it's from the 'additional tags' section. There are many tags that link to other tags so excluding all of them that link up may not be possible, but excluding the main offenders should help reduce your exposure to works you don't like.

Here's an example list of some tags that I want to exclude:

Puppy Play

Pet Play (which links to the tag 'Animal Play' allong with many others)

Here's what the code I have used to exclude them looks like:

.blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/Puppy%20Play/works"]) { display: none !important; } .blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/Animal%20Play/works"]) { display: none !important; } .blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/Petplay/works"]) { display: none !important; } .blurb:has(a[href$="/tags/Pet%20Play/works"]) { display: none !important; }

Since Sonic 3 is coming out today, I'm going to be blocking all the Sonic 3 tags so I don't get spoilers. Looking forward to discussing the movie with you all when I get the chance to see it after Christmas! I'm super excited! :D

Like how in Excel you can set up

"*"&"mute this"&"*"

And similar stuff for other programs and searches and such.

[with small about dpxdc venting/hate posts at the end]

First, what is Filtering Tags and what is Filtering Post Content.

Filtered Tags: the tags you hide here will be hidden from you dashboard and in search.

Filtered Post Content: Post content filtering searches the entire post for the word/phrase you add. Not just the tags.

Below is a series of screen shots showing where the blocking/content filtering option are and how to use them.

DESKTOP: got to setting and scroll down. Tag filtering and Content Filtering are right above the Community Labels and under where your birthday is displayed.

MOBILE: Click on the gear in the top right corner of your dashboard → go to General Settings → scroll down until you see Filtering. There you will be able to see all of your blocked tags and filtered content once you add it in.

You add a tag or content to filter by, by clicking the plus sign and typing in the EXACT phrase or tag you want to filter out. As you can see in the video below, if you only block Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd only things with that exact tag (for tag filtering) or phrase in the post (content filtering) will be hidden.

Therefore you CAN block Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd and still see Jazz and Jason content respectively.

Jazz/Jason Content Filtering.mov

Here is an example of tag filtering we did with the dpxdc tag so you can see how it will look if you have a blocked tag, and how to UNBLOCK a tag very easily. Note that it’s really easy to block and unblock tags, and the change takes place IMMEDIATELY so it’s easy to block/unblock at your leisure.

dpxdc Tag Blocking.mov

A helpful cheat sheet for words/phrases to filter by!

On another note: PLEASE DON'T tag vents or hate about dpxdc as "dpxdc" or as "dp x dc" as those are the main fandom tags.