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Post by nonniesock on Jan 19, 2013 21:48:22 GMT
I was looking at the alternate universe tag - archiveofourown.org/tags/Alternate%20Universe and it left me wondering about how it's decided to merge a tag, rather than create a subtag, as there doesn't appear to be any consistency. I've looked at the FAQ/guidelines, but I can't figure out why say Harry Potter AU is merged into the meta tag and not into the Alternate Universe - Hogwarts tag. I mean someone clicking on Harry Potter AU is probably not looking for every single alternate universe fic on the archive. There's similar results in most of the big fandoms, with highlander, farscape J2 and a whole bunch of other fandom specific tags merged into the main alternate universe tag. Is there something really obvious I'm missing about why those tags get merged but things like individual stargate aus don't |
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Post by samjohnsson on Jan 21, 2013 3:41:33 GMT
Nope. Inconsistent Guidelines are Inconsistent? But I'm (thankfully) not a "No Fandom" wrangler. I've left a note on the Stargate tag to find out, and will let y'all know.
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Post by Wrangler Dash on Jan 21, 2013 4:04:59 GMT
How to merge a tag is decided by individual wranglers, or maybe a consensus of a handful of wranglers from the relevant fandom(s).
That means inconsistencies happen. Some wranglers are pickier than others about what to merge and when; sometimes a general policy is changed but nobody thinks to go back and alter old tags; sometimes there's ordinary human error.
The placing of that HP AU tag you noticed wasn't any secret policy twist, probably just an accident or a mistake somewhere along the line. It's been added to "Alternate Universe - Hogwarts" with all the other similar tags.
Some factors that may affect the other tags you mentioned:
(1) When a user posts New Work that's been tagged with Never-Before Used Tag, it gets automatically brought to the notice of everyone who wrangles the fandoms New Work was posted in. So if a user posts New Work for the series Awesome Fandom, does not give it a Harry Potter series tag, but then tags it "super special personal HP AU tag", the wranglers for Awesome Fandom will see it...but the wranglers for Harry Potter might not.
All it takes is one AF wrangler who isn't familiar with the whole list of AU tags, or aware that there are enough HP AU tags to warrant a whole subtag, to merge it with the main "Alternate Universe" tag and then forget about it.
(2) A general guideline is that a tag should be made canonical if it gets used by three different people. If only one user has tagged something "Tiny Fandom AU", it doesn't warrant being its own canonical, so it has to be merged with something...often the top-level Alternate Universe tag.
"Farscape AU" has only been used once, thus why it's merged. Same with "extreme Highlander AU" and "Dresden Files AU" and several others.
If, later on, five users post works with the tag "AU - Tiny Fandom", that one may be made canonical -- but there's no guarantee anyone will go back and find "Tiny Fandom AU" and merge it with the more specific tag. So that's another potential issue.
(3) Users create tags in inconsistent ways, and not necessarily ways that are ideal for filtering.
For instance, the "J2AU" and "J2 AU" freeforms are used on a handful of J2 fics that are also AUs. Readers looking for such fics are better off filtering on a combination of "Alternate Universe" and "Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki" -- that works fine while J2AU and J2 AU are merged with "Alternate Universe". Creating a separate freeform tag for the concept wouldn't make that search any better, and the tag wouldn't be useful in its own right, since it would only cover about 4 fics.
(Full disclosure, I am not a J2 wrangler of any stripe, and this is not an official statement on their behalf. At some point in the future those wranglers may decide it's useful to have a J2 AU canonical after all.)
(4) Fandoms and their needs differ. Wranglers and their priorities differ too.
The Stargate franchise has a lot of canonical AUs; they end up getting consistent fanon names, lots of writers, readers specifically seeking them out. In light of that, it's not surprising that Stargate wranglers are particularly well-organized when it comes to AU tags.
If there are any other tags you're worried are misplaced, or are just curious about, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer :)
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Post by Wrangler Dash on Jan 21, 2013 7:24:21 GMT
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Post by nonniesock on Jan 21, 2013 14:43:56 GMT
Thanks for all the info, that helps it make more sense.
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