Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This guide assumes you know the basics of AO3's tagging and filtering system. You don't need to know everything, but it assumes you can...

• filter AO3's built-in Ratings, Warnings, and Categories; filter crossovers, filter by completion status, filter by word count, filter by date updated, select a language, and choose how to sort your results (by date updated, kudos received, etc) to your satisfaction. This guide never touches on those topics, only on Fandoms, Characters, Relationships, and Additional Tags so it's good to know exactly what those things I don't address do in case you need them, and being able to do those things probably means you have a decent handle on how to use AO3's tagging and filtering system.
• understand what kind of tags Fandoms, Characters, Relationships, and Additional Tags refer to
• know what a tag search field is (basically, the places where you specifically type in tags you want to include or exclude)
• include multiple tags, exclude multiple tags, and have some tags included while others are excluded
• understand how Search within results and/or Any Field differs from other search filters like Other tags to include or Title

If you don't know those things, this page from AO3's FAQ is very informative, and I highly suggest you read it before coming back to this tutorial.

Understanding what canonical tags are, what a synonymous tag is, how to find canonical tags, and how filtering with canonical tags produces different results than filtering by one of their synonymous tags is necessary for understanding how different tag filtering solutions compare to one another, as is understanding metatags, so it's highly recommended you read their sections even if you aren't interested in using AO3's built-in filter system.

There are several different ways to filter out works with tags you don’t like. One of the ways is simply optimizing your use of AO3's built-in filter system.

• Search syntax
  
  • If you have the grey sidebar that says Sort and Filter on the top and bottom, as shown below, click the blue question mark next to Search within results. If you're on the Work Search page (this thing), click the blue question mark next to Any Field. Both will show you the exact same search syntax tips.

• Fast tag search
  • Do a search excluding all the tags you hate and including all the ones you must see before you read the fic. Copy/paste the URL after you get your results, and save that URL somewhere: whether through a bookmark, in a text file, or in an autoexpansion keyboard shortcut (tutorial on keyboard shortcuts here). You can repeat this multiple times, for different searches with different tag combinations.
  • Paste a list of tags with commas separating them into the search bar. All of those tags will get successfully entered as their own separate tags. If I paste the three tags OCs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fanart into the relevant tag search field, this means with one pasted list I have successfully entered three tags as if I had typed them in or selected them from the autocomplete individually. Again, save this copy/pasted tag list somewhere, like in a text file or autoexpansion keyboard shortcut; and you can repeat it multiple times for different searches with different tag combinations.
• Using canonical tags and sometimes metatags to maximize fics caught with the minimum amount of tags
  • Canonical tag explanation in section below. TL;DR: the "official" AO3 tag, catches fics with tags that mean the same thing. Filtering by one of the tags that mean the same thing will not catch fics with other tags that mean the same thing, only the canonical tag will do that. For example, the canonical Modern Setting - Alternate Universe catches the same-meaning Modern AU and Present Day AU, but the noncanonical Modern AU doesn't catch the same-meaning Modern Setting - Alternate Universe and Present Day AU.
  • Metatags also get their own explanation. TL;DR: have several uses, but the use relevant to avoiding tags you don't like is that they have tons of subtags. If you recognize a theme between tags you don't like, a metatag might hold them all together, and you can exclude the metatag to exclude all those things. For example, the tag Alternate Universe - Career is a metatag of Alternate Universe - Office and Alternate Universe - Chefs, and excluding Alternate Universe - Career will exclude both Alternate Universe - Office and Alternate Universe - Chefs.

The rest of this chapter explains canonical tags and metatags. If you already know how those things work, feel free to stop reading the chapter, you won't miss anything since there's nothing else after the explanations.

The same concept can be tagged in multiple different ways. Let’s say I’m writing a fanfic for a story that’s set in the 1600s. My fanfic takes the characters and puts them in a modern setting, and I should indicate that. I could tag my fic with Modern AU, but I might instead tag it with Present Day AU. A human person can tell these two tags mean the same thing. A computer can’t. A computer only sees the exact sequence of characters making up the tags, and decides that because the sequence is different, the two tags are different too. This might cause a problem: when I try to include or exclude the tag Modern AU from my search, the computer only looks for the exact sequence Modern AU, and skips the fics tagged Present Day AU. Nobody wants to predict and type all the different ways someone might tag a modern setting just to make sure they catch all the Modern AUs, whether to avoid them or seek them out. (I do realize some tags are more commonly used than others: perhaps 6 tags would get 90% of the Modern AUs and the other 700 tags get the other 10%, and so you might decide removing 90% is good enough and only include/exclude those 6 tags, but it's still more work than necessary.)

Here’s where AO3’s system, and canonical tags, come in. AO3 has a system to let the computer know the three tags are the same. It picks a single tag, called the canonical tag, for one concept. Volunteers called tag wranglers tell the computer which tags have the same meaning as, which tags are synonymous to, the canonical tag. Now when you include or exclude the canonical tag from your search, all the tags with the same meaning also get included or excluded. The canonical tag for Modern AUs is Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, and two of its synonymous tags are Modern AU and Present Day AU. So when you include or exclude Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, you will also catch fics tagged with Modern AU and fics tagged with Present Day AU. However, including or excluding noncanonical tags will not catch fics that have other tags with the same meaning, i.e. it doesn't work in reverse. Including or excluding the noncanonical Present Day AU will not also include or exclude fics tagged with Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, or with Modern AU, even though those are all tags with the same meaning. It will only include or exclude Present Day AU. To include or exclude tags with the same meaning, you must use the canonical tag Alternate Universe - Modern Setting.

There are three ways to find what the canonical tag for a concept is.

1. Use the AO3 Tag Search.
   1. Hover over the word Search located on the red horizontal bar near the top of the screen, and click Tags in the dropdown menu.
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   2. You may want to check off Canonical under the Wrangling Status category, ensuring all your results are canonical tags, but you might not want to in case you're worried the real canonical term might be very different from the tag name you're searching for. Either way, search for a tag.
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   3. Scroll down and click the tag you want. Here, I clicked !Alternate Universe!. 
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   4. After clicking the tag you want, you'll be taken to that tag's tag page. The tag page may have a message saying the tag you clicked on has been made a synonym of another tag, and Works and bookmarks tagged with the tag you clicked on will show up in the other tag's filter. Then that other tag is canonical and the one you clicked on is synonymous to the canonical tag. Here, we have found that !Alternate Universe! is synonymous to the canonical tag Alternate Universe.
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2. Click one of the tags on a fic. If at the top of the screen you see some range of a number of Works in a tag, and the tag name displayed is different from the name of the tag you clicked on, the tag name displayed after Works in is the canonical tag and the tag you clicked on is one of its synonymous tags. [picture]
3. Only canonical tags will show up as autocomplete suggestions in tag search fields, so try typing your desired tag into one of those search fields. If you're using the grey sidebar with Sort and Filter at the top and bottom of it, type it into Other tags to include or Other tags to exclude. If you're using the Work Search tool, it's a little more complicated: you can't just type any tag like with the grey sidebar, you have to find and use the correct field out of Fandom, Characters, Relationships, and Additional Tags, since they will only suggest tags of that respective type. For example, Fandom will only ever suggest fandoms, never characters, relationships or additional tags. Note that Additional Tags is not a catch-all for all tags. You cannot expect to find a fandom, character, or relationship in there, it's a catch-all for everything that doesn't fit within those three categories.  

There's still two flaws in this system: tag wranglers might not get to tell the computer about every tag that means the same thing as a canonical tag, and not everybody tags properly. Maybe some Modern AU fics are tagged Alternative Universe - Present Day, but the tag wranglers haven't come across those fics yet, so they haven't told the computer that it means the same thing as Alternate Universe - Modern Setting. (As of the day I'm writing this paragraph, July 23 2021, Alternative Universe - Present Day is indeed not a tag that's listed under Tags with the same meaning: on the Alternate Universe - Modern Setting tag page.) So the computer won't know to also include/exclude Alternative Universe - Present Day fics when you include/exclude Alternate Universe - Modern Setting. Until the tag wranglers find out about that tag, if you wanted to see Modern AUs you'll be stuck missing out on the ones tagged with Alternative Universe - Present Day and if you didn't want to see them you'll be shown the ones tagged Alternative Universe - Present Day anyways. And even if tag wranglers got to every single tag, some people don't tag their fics with the relevant tags. I've come across several Modern AU fics that have zero tags indicating they're Modern AUs. If I wanted to see Modern AUs, I'd miss out on their fic, and if I didn't want to see Modern AUs I'd end up seeing one anyways.

The first flaw has a bright side: tag wranglers are pretty good at their job. I personally exclude Alternate Universe - Modern Setting and I have yet to come across a fic tagged as a Modern AU that still made it to my results; the only Modern AUs I see after excluding Alternate Universe - Modern Setting are the ones that have zero tags indicating their status as a Modern AU. If you look at the tag pages, they've got quite a few permutations of the same tag, suggesting they've found a good deal of them. I did say that Alternative Universe - Present Day isn't listed on the tag page for Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, but that's not because the wranglers missed it: it actually hasn't been used yet as of July 23 2021. (I did get 5 results when searching for that tag, but all of them used the individual words Alternative, Universe, Present, and Day somewhere in their tags without ever using the phrase Alternative Universe - Present Day. Pretty much how the blue question mark next to Include on the grey sidebar said it would work if the tag was never used before. Often, the 4 words were split up amongst multiple tags.) And if you find a tag synonymous to a canonical tag, that the wranglers haven't gotten to yet, that doesn't show up under Tags with the same meaning: on the canonical tag's tag page, you can contact the wranglers through the Support and Feedback form or via their Twitter account.

As for the second flaw, in my experience authors will usually add a tag to their work if you request it, especially if it's a trigger. If you're really worried about a negative response to your request, if the author has anonymous comments enabled on their works, you can comment anonymously to ask them to add the tag and provide a nonexistent email in the mandatory email field (I personally like to use a keyboard smash smattered with numbers, and a valid domain name. Something like [email protected], to make sure that no real person gets a random unexpected email. Most websites don't autoreject my made-up email and I'm fairly sure it's because of the valid domain name).

I am not entirely sure about the specifics of parent tags and metatags let alone how those are different from each other, even after reading the Tag Wrangling Guidelines, but I have found out some things. I'll be focusing on metatags since I know more about them, but I'll share what I know about parent tags (very little): excluding a parent tag will not necessarily exclude all its child tags. This can be demonstrated if you go to the tag page of a relationship tag. Under Parent tags (more general): will be the character tag for one of the characters in the relationship. Now exclude the character (a parent tag), while including the relationship (one of its child tags). You should still find some fics. This would be impossible if excluding a parent tag excluded its child tags. I'll add more about parent tags when I learn more about them. Now back to metatags.

A tag that has a metatag is considered a subtags of the metatag, and a tag that has a subtag is considered a metatag of the subtag. For example, Alternate Universe - Career is a metatag of Alternate Universe - Office and Alternate Universe - Chefs. Alternate Universe - Office and Alternate Universe - Chefs are subtags of Alternate Universe - Career. Excluding a metatag will exclude its subtags: excluding Alternate Universe - Career will exclude Alternate Universe - Office and Alternate Universe - Chefs. Excluding a subtag will not exclude its metatags or any of its fellow subtags: excluding Alternate Universe - Chefs doesn't exclude its metatag Alternate Universe - Career or Alternate Universe - Office which is, like Alternate Universe - Chefs, a subtag of Alternate Universe - Career. Compare this to how excluding canonical tags excludes its synonyms, but excluding one of those synonyms will not exclude the canonical tag or other tags with the same meaning.

So how are metatags useful, and how do you know to pick the right one? I came across metatags because I noticed many AUs in a fandom that changed the characters' occupation: they became chefs, firefighters, artists, etc. and I didn't want to have to type in every single new occupation they held, nor did I think I could given how many occupations exist in the world and how much this fandom liked to change the characters' occupations. I clicked on one of the tags, looked at the tag page, and found that it belonged to the metatag Alternate Universe - Career. I investigated that tag and saw all its subtags, which were alternate universes about different careers, including subtags that I recognized as being frequently used in the fandom. Once I excluded Alternate Universe - Career most of the career change fics (which happened to be tagged with tags listed on Alternate Universe - Career's Subtags) disappeared. So if you notice a common thread between several tags you don't like, perhaps you can kill all the birds with one stone by eliminating the metatag. This might not be necessary if you copy/paste tag lists, but if the list of disliked tags is very long (if you didn't like the career changes whenever they showed up, and there were so many different ones so typing all of them out might be unrealistic: just look at the long list of subtags for Alternate Universe - Career) it becomes a great help.