#tagtorials

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! 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.