AO3 Tagging System

This article is about the Archive of Our Own tag system. For the committee that oversees the tag system, see Organization for Transformative Works/Tag Wrangling.

Related terms:	Wrangulator, Tag, Hashtag, Header
See also:	Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative Works/Tag Wrangling
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The Archive of Our Own's tagging system is unique and complex, based on the principles of user-entered folksonomy; it allows users to create and apply any tags they like to their own fanworks, and on the back end, an army of volunteer tag wranglers link together tags with the same meaning so that users can browse the site more easily. Rules and guidelines for wrangling are developed by the OTW's Tag Wrangling Committee in discussion with the wranglers and often with feedback from the community.

Tag wranglers wrangle the tags, and the committee wrangles the wranglers....

The way AO3 tags work--including the initial lack of a comprehensive tagging FAQ and clear guidelines for creators tagging their works, and the workload on the tag wranglers--have led to repeated criticism. See AO3 Tagging Policy Debate.

The Tags

User-Generated Tags

There are four different categories of freeform tags on the AO3:

• Fandom - This is the only one of the four freeform tags that is a required tag when uploading a fanwork. It indicates the canon or source material the fanwork is based on - such as Highlander or Final Fantasy.
• Character - This category houses the various characters that appear in a fanwork - such as Greg House or Tony Stark.
• Relationship - This category lists the various character relationships described in the fanwork - such as Carl/Gabriel Van Helsing or Buick 8/Christine.
• Additional Tags - This category holds all other tags users include on a fanwork, such as trope, mood, setting, format, additional warnings, the community the work was created for, whether it's beta-read, "tumblr-style" chatty tags, or any other descriptor a user may wish to include. (Tag Wranglers refer to the Additional Tags as Freeforms because that is the term on the tag wrangling user interface. Freeform is also used on the Tag Search page.)

These categories can be seen in the "tag" section of the upload form when a fanwork is uploaded to the archive. They are also visible to everyone in the "Sort and Filter" sidebar on works list pages.

Other Tags on a Work

Three other tag types are included in AO3 work metadata that the creator can select when posting. These are not freeform tags; users must select from a pre-defined list. Two of them are enforceable for accuracy under the Terms of Service if another user files a Policy & Abuse ticket.

• Archive Warnings - Enforceable - Creators must select at least one of six archive warnings when posting a fanwork: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage. These were selected to be critical warnings for legal and other reasons. "Choose not to warn" is the blanket warning for all possible content - a "read at your own risk!"
• Rating - Enforceable - A dropdown with the following options: Not Rated (the default), General Audiences, Teen and Up Audiences, Mature, Explicit. A pop-up window on the New Work form provides some guidance on which rating to choose. "Not Rated" is a blanket warning for all possible content - a "read at your own risk!"
• Category - These tags indicate whether the work contains romantic or sexual relations, and if so, the number or gender of the participants. Users can select none, one, or more of these options: "Gen", "F/F", "F/M", "M/M", "Multi", "Other".

Fanworks

The first tag wrangler RPF was posted to the AO3 in 2009, followed by several more set in a shared universe called Wrangulatorverse. One story, chroma, by akamine_chan, even fictionalizes wranglers' long wait for metatag functionality. All wrangler RPF is folded into the OTW RPF fandom tag.

Tags themselves became their own separate fandom on AO3 in late 2012, AO3 Tags, although the fandom tag was later decanonized.

In October 2012, Isabear wrote Avengers Assemble, a found poem using AO3 tags from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The idea quickly spread, and someone nominated AO3 Tags as a fandom for Yuletide 2012. Two works were written for that challenge: The Bar at the End of the Fandom by Firstlighteos for Misslucyjane, which anthropomorphizes several freeform tags, and Somebody had to write this (so why not me?) by Who_la_hoop for Dizmo, which is a found poem centered around various tag themes.

In 2013, a number of tag wranglers got into the action with art, stories, and meta about tags, sometimes intersecting with works about wranglers. In addition, an upsurge in positive interest in freeform tags on Tumblr and Dreamwidth resulted in several posts linking, screencapping, or transforming tags, such as Melannen's Alot of Tags fanart of Hyperbole and a Half in June, and Thingswithwings's dramatic podcast reading of the landing page for the Feels tag in early August.

Also in 2013 Melannen wrote a filk titled A Complete History of the AO3 as Told by a Humble Wrangler Arranged to the Melody of 'A Complete History of the Soviet Union as Told by a Humble Worker Arranged to the Melody of Tetris'. Podficcers later sung it for Voiceteam 2020.

Other Uses of AO3 Tags

The Ao3 tagging system, the wide range of fics on AO3, and the popularity of Tumblr in fandom have encouraged the growth of very specific tags, including Tumblr style chatty tags, on AO3. In turn, celebrating and meming on the huge range of unhinged ao3 tags has quickly become a part of fandom culture.

Fans have set up various social media accounts to share especially interesting or deranged AO3 tags. Examples: neatao3tags, dear-ao3, ao3tagoftheday, and Unhinged AO3 tags.

AO3 tags have been used in memes (example: Ao3 tags as SPN search histories) and online quizzes (example: a uquiz on what unhinged ao3 tag you are).

Fans have discussed their favorite tags:

• Most unhinged tags you've come across?, ^{Archived version}

Fandom Statistics fans have made extension use of AO3 tagging to drawn conclusions about various fanwork trends.

Criticism and discussion of AO3's tagging system

The way AO3 tags work for Archive readers, writers, and wranglers has been extensively discussed and criticized. In 2009, one discussion and a comment by zvi on Tags Wuzzles resulted in an Ao3 newspost, Tags (Wuzzles) explained. Zvi's comment became a newspost because there was confusion in fannish spaces about Ao3's tagging system at the time, with many users unfamiliar with the curated folksonomy model.

One hub for discussion on the topic is panfandom anonmeme Fail Fandomanon (FFA). Anons there regularly voice both their appreciation and disapproval of aspects of AO3's tagging system. FFA is frequented by many current and former OTW volunteers, including tag wranglers. In fact, wranglers were reprimanded at least once in 2016 for asking wrangling questions on FFA instead of through official channels. (The reason the anons gave for using FFA was that they didn't want to attach their name and be judged for not knowing the answer; this reasoning caused someone else to question the wrangler's fitness to be a wrangler and others to point out that this was exactly the reaction the anon feared and that the problem was with OTW management.)

The AO3 Tagging Policy Debate page captures some of the criticisms popular around 2011-2012, including complaints about "Tumblr-style tagging", but other criticisms have surfaced in the years since. See also Bruce Banner Syndrome, Overtagging, AO3 Tag Limits, No Fandom Freeforms, and AO3 Original Works and Self-Pub Wrangling Debacle, AO3 Tagging Policy Debate, and AO3 Fandom Metatag Removal Controversy.

Some years after AO3's code was updated to allow metatags, the tag wrangling committee started instituting new policies to address problems that emerged - site performance/indexing issues, as well as "concept drift" in freeform tag trees. For many years technical issues were blamed for unpopular changes in how fandom tags were handled, though it's unclear if this was the real reason. At fail_fandomanon and elsewhere, fans complained that individual films that formerly had their own fandom tag were merged into the series metatags, making it more difficult for fandoms that were genuinely focused on just the one film to operate on AO3. Tag wrangling policy also changed to disallow canonizing fandom metatags like "AUTHOR - Works" and "- All Media Types". The result for fandoms with a new popular television adaptation was television fans adding the book tag to their television fic to increase its visibility; MDZS book fans have complained that most of the fanworks in the MDZS tag are actually for The Untamed.

Sometime between 2017 and 2022, the Tag Wrangler committee settled on a policy to deprecate metatags. At first, they stopped making "All Media Types" and "& Related Fandom" metatags for new fandoms being added to the archive, but by 2022 Tag Wranglers were removing existing metatags (by which I mean removing their metatag status and underlying subtag tree -- the actual tag still exists just gets synned to one of the former subtags). This sparked outcry when users noticed it, but it grew to major controversy in late August 2024 when Tag Wranglers removed the "Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms" meta tag and synned it to "Sherlock (TV)" -- the tag for BBC Sherlock. Holmes fans were incensed, but it also prompted many fans in larger fandoms with many different canon installments to speak out about how this policy change has already or may yet make it harder for them to use AO3. On September 4, 2024 AO3 restored "Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms" metatag and on September 5th they make an official announcement on tumblr about reverting the SH&RF tag, and that further AMT deprecation would be put on hold pending further policy discussions.

External links

• Tags FAQ
• Tutorial: Tags on the AO3 \o/ (AO3 News post)
• Wrangling Guidelines
• Tag Wrangling 101! Lesson 1! (Archived Version) by dizmo - shows what the tag wrangling interface looked like in 2010 (very different)
• How tags work on AO3 by ao3commentoftheday (2021)