(Partially) fixing the tag system

[xihute]

An Original Character and a Self-Insert are not synonyms.
An Original Character is when the author creates a character from scratch.
A Self-Insert is when the author models a character on themselves.

From a practical standpoint, a Self-Insert is almost always an OC or an OOC, but an OC or an OOC is by no means necessarily a Self-Insert.

And technically, none of the above need automatically be considered the Main Character.



I've come across a couple of stories where the MC thought of herself as a self-insert or an isekai character, but it turned out she was actually a character from that world who had gained knowledge of the story in some other way. Perhaps this tag refers to that kind of plot twist, but it still confuses me more than it explains.

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The main difference is that almost always SI has meta-knowledge.

 

[Have a Little Feith]

don't forget 'gacha', some folks leave off the chaos bit
I would personally like to request merging celestial forge, celestial grimoire, celestial dojo, celestial catalog, celestial chaos, and all other such derivatives so I can filter them all out at once

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Problem with this, is that they're all "CYOAs" of a sort. I get wanting to filter them all out at once, but they're different things. They should each stay their own tag. Merging tags related to them like "Celestial (cyoa here) inspired" with said CYOA's tag would be better.

 

[NotInventedHere]

A user doing a Tag search for (or against) Harem type tags will always start by typing "harem".
If the tags are worded in the more grammatically correct way "XxXxX Harem", then the user will not see them unless they specifically search for these tags. Which means they'll have to know these tags exist in the first place.
Whereas if the tags are kept worded as "Harem XxXxX" then the search engine will suggest this list of tags to the user.

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Actually, this isn't correct. The search engine autosuggest will suggest any tag with the typed-in text within it; you can test this easily by typing "fgo" into the filter or the tag search and noting that "extra fgo", "I blame jack the ripper (fgo)" and "post fgo au timeline" are all in the suggested list.

 

[Have a Little Feith]

I think so too, but I want to make sure, because it does change how I would prefer tags to be grouped.

What about the "double tags" like "worm au" that (imo) should be two separate tags: 'worm' and 'au'. It's not in the scope of what is done currently?

Edit:
Here are direct synonyms, 1 to 1 in meaning, pretty much:
{'worm', 'worm (parahumans)'}
{'worm au', 'worm au obviously'}
{'worm cyoa', 'worm cyoa inspired', 'worm cyoa v1', 'worm cyoa v17'}

I don't think there's a need to distinguish the version of cyoa in search results.

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Worm CYOA v1 and v17 aren't necessarily taking place in Worm. I've seen several fics where that's the case.

 

[Sleepwalker]

The main difference is that almost always SI has meta-knowledge.

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In fact, meta-knowledge doesn't have to be present in a Self-Insert. The character just needs to be based on the author's personality and, in a broad sense, reflect the culture of our world—that's all.

Yes, in most cases the Self-Insert does possess meta-knowledge, is the Main Character, and can be called a Mary Sue, but this is simply an established convention of mixing tropes, not something mandatory.

 

[The Unicorn]

If the tags are worded in the more grammatically correct way "XxXxX Harem", then the user will not see them unless they specifically search for these tags. Which means they'll have to know these tags exist in the first place.

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I tested this theory and it does not appear to be true. The search will suggest tags that contain the term you typed, even if that is in the middle or end of the tag. This can be seen easily by typing "obvious" in the tag field, or some other term where there are few or no tags starting with the term. "redo" is another good term to demonstrate this.

 

[riotous living]

maybe we do need to cut back on the for fun tags a bit tho...

just today I was checking to see if any new non yuri uma musume stories were made (they were some) so I excluded yuri and lesbian tags and added uma musume only to end up reading the first chapter of a story and suspiciously scrolling back to the top to see it was tagged "yonse huri" the whole time.

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The mods have said a few times they're not going to police tag usage.

Tags on QQ have a few uses, including setting expectations for the thread, aiding search, and making jokes. We don't want to sacrifice either of the other two (or any other unlisted uses) in service of optimising search results, nor do we want to implement any kind of enforced tagging (for reasons stated in detail over the years, in many threads).

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+laughs at only two posters commenting about harem tags+
Ah, QQ.

But I still gotta ask, why differentiate harem eventually, harem posible, harem likely?

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I've seen enough people getting worked up about proper degrees of lewds-tagging in NSFW Creative Writing to think this might be for the best, since some people feel equally strongly about harems. Also, authors might want to set expectations from the start without having to plan too far ahead/be able to take reader feedback into account, which is where the possible versus likely tags can come into play.

 

[Hanada]

Here are ones that bothered me the most

-I think alternative universe and original character/s tags should be used instead of writing OC/AU next to a series like Worm AU or Naruto OC.
-Self Insert also has a lot of variants.
-Each series having only one tags instead of different ones with similar spellings
-Having clear tags in lemon stories instead of obscure ones or just not adding them

 

[TheMLaser]

These discussions of ASOIAF and GOT being different things a should be separated are wrong.

Yes. There is difference in the books and the show but separating them is meaningless after all you are not searching for it in a fanfiction. I for one didn't know that it refer to different things, and even now I don't know which refers to the books and which the series.

They were practically the same in the beginning of the plot being diverged as it progresses, which for a fanfiction unless you are starting in the middle of the plot it wouldn't make a difference.

 

[Angarac]

I think someone already mentioned it, but for Fandom tags I think it'd be better to keep them abbreviated: asoiaf, got, hotd, mha, etc. Or alteast for the major ones? Just for easier filtering imo

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The problem with using abbreviations is when they begin overlapping with newer titles, GoT -> Game of Thrones -> Ghost of Tsushima, Hotd -> House of the Dragon -> Highschool of the Dead -> The House of the Dead etc.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Maybe I'm just slow, but is there a list of existing tags somewhere on the site? Or when I'm posting a story and typing tags by their first letters, does the system automatically suggest options from existing tags?
Let's say I want to post a story; I'll need to come up with tags. Not only do I have to choose the most common synonym, but there's also a chance I might make a typo. I've definitely seen tags with typos before.

 

[BluexXHorizon]

An Original Character and a Self-Insert are not synonyms.
An Original Character is when the author creates a character from scratch.
A Self-Insert is when the author models a character on themselves.

From a practical standpoint, a Self-Insert is almost always an OC or an OOC, but an OC or an OOC is by no means necessarily a Self-Insert.

And technically, none of the above need automatically be considered the Main Character.

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That's a good point, I was thinking more along the terms of gendered lead instead of type. And thinking the the lead gender would be grouped together, and then have the type of lead get its own separate tag.

So, like, all female characters are rated as female leads, and then the qualifier of SI, OC, etc. get it's own separate tag, instead of being female SI, or Female OC, or just Female lead.

If that makes sense.

But it that case, it really depends on how one views tagging and shelving as a whole? Idk. I just woke up.

Still, that's a good fair point.

 

[Facepalmist]

So, just to clarify so that folks aren't confused.
The mergers are just for aggregating the search function, this is jut literally background stuff you usually cant see and don't know about.
The actual tags you see on the stories wont be affected at all.

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As someone who's a tag wrangler on SB nowadays, allow me to clarify a little further.

There are three courses of action that are being discussed (and conflated to an extent) here in this thread: Merging tags, assigning tags as Synonyms to Canonical tags, and creating Parent/Child linkages between tags.


Merging tags: Tag A is selected to merge into Tag B; confirming that merge causes every extant instance of Tag A to be auto-edited into Tag B.

Example: Merge <caiaphas cain> into <ciaphas cain>. This turns every existing <caiaphas cain> tag into <ciaphas cain>. Search for <caiaphas cain>, and you get nothing - at least, unless some later threadstarter goes to the effort of specifying <caiaphas cain> as a new tag, which goes onto an approval queue. (Yes, there's almost certainly an approval queue. It's how you avert tags like <tehelgee is a faggot>.)​

(Note that after Merging away a tag, there might or might not be an option to auto-refuse that particular tag, at least in that particular spelling. As SB is not QQ, I can't say whether or not that's a thing here.)

Canonical/Synonymous tags: Tag A is selected to be a Synonym of Tag B; confirming that linkage causes every search for Tag A to include Tag B's results. If you then make Tag C and Tag D Synonyms of Canonical Tag B, they also show up.

Example: Make <40k> a Synonym of <warhammer 40k>. This means that Search results for <40k> will include results for <warhammer 40k> - and if they've also been made Synonyms of <warhammer 40k>, will also include results for <warhammer 40000>, <wh40k>, and so forth. Search any of the Synonyms or the Canonical tag, and you get the whole batch of results.​

Parent/Child tags: not literally (unless it happens to be). Tag A is selected to be a Child of Tag B; confirming that linkage causes every search for Tag B (the Parent) to include results for Tag A - but not vice versa. (You can also make Tag B a Parent of Tag A, but that's neither here nor there.)

Example: Make <ciaphas cain> a Child of <warhammer 40k>. This means that Search results for <warhammer 40k> will include results for <ciaphas cain>, but that Search results for <ciaphas cain> will not include <warhammer 40k> results unless those threads also have <ciaphas cain> tags.​

Important complicating factor on the back-end: a given tag can have any number of Children (unless a limit's been imposed), but it can only have one Parent. If <ciaphas cain> is a Child of <warhammer 40k>, then it can't be made a Child of <warhammer>.

To illustrate why this is important on the front-end too: the <sakura> tag, which currently gives 15 results.

• Oldest result on that Search: a Quest explicitly featuring a Sakura in a Sakura - specifically Sakura Haruno (of Naruto) as a reincarnation of Sakura Kasugano (of Street Fighter).
• Two results up, Sakura Matou (of the Type-Moon [Nasuverse]: Fate series).
• (Not currently represented: Sakura Kinomoto (of Cardcaptor Sakura), Sakura Minamoto (Zombie Land Saga), Sakura Shinguji (Sakura Wars), Haruka Sakura (Windbreaker) any of the dozen-plus Sakura's from various other Japanese properties, the several characters named Asakura (which incidentally is a tag in its own right), let alone 'sakura' as a theme.)

If QQ staff were to assign <sakura> as a Synonym of <sakura haruno>, then they'd have to either (a) go through the Search results equivalent of <sakura>-tagged threads, manually, to pick out the ones that don't involve Sakura Haruno, or (b) just be lazy and wait for threadstarters to correct the issue themselves. Basically (to grab a recent quote)

The problem with using abbreviations is when they begin overlapping with newer titles, GoT -> Game of Thrones -> Ghost of Tsushima, Hotd -> House of the Dragon -> Highschool of the Dead -> The House of the Dead etc.

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this. This is more work that has to be done by QQ staff in order to parse Option A (the intuitively obvious...right now) from Option B (the intuitively obvious...from ten years ago) from Option C (the intuitively obvious...from twenty years ago) from Option D, E, F... (those other 'House of the Dead' media).

 

[grimr]

My only suggestion is to reduce multi words objects to one word:

dick - cock - penis - pocket pistol -> dick
boobs - breasts - tits - bezaongas -> boobs

while still letting them be modified by other words
[huge][big][massive][small][tiny][average]{dick, boobs}

Reducing more humours tags is a bit sad, but I think that tags aren't necessarily the place for that type of humour. Tags are meant to help people find works.

 

[theghoul05ita]

{my hero academia - my_hero_academia - boku no hero academia - my boku academia} my hero academia

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i don't know if they are used for other things, but i often see these as "mha" and "bnha" tags

edit: sorry, didn't scroll far enough to see the comment about acronyms commment amended

 

[hrepdrep]

i don't know if they are used for other things, but i often see these as "mha" and "bnha" tags

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It's only used for one fic, but "heroaca" should be added too.

 

[GirlBrain]

So, just to clarify so that folks aren't confused.
The mergers are just for aggregating the search function, this is jut literally background stuff you usually cant see and don't know about.
The actual tags you see on the stories wont be affected at all.
In fact if people don't actually read this thread they may assume some tags get automatically linked together, instead of it being effort put in by staff


As SI stuff we already mentioned multiple times...
Just wanted to make a distinction it doesn't get accidentslly merged/people don't know about it and just lump it into SI stuff
Friend insert should absolutely remain distinct from SI tags as that's very much a collaboration work between two(or more) compared to the average SI story..

(Joke suggestion; connect Nihilo and the friend insert tag)


Admittedly, while I'm willing to give a suggestion or twocif it occurs to me, never thought that so mqny people would put so, so muxh attention on tags..mainly because i rarely search by tags, and instead by keywords(with tags maybe being used to narrow a search), if i bother searching stuff instead of just browsing the main page
like
Genuinely unsure i i want to know how much Tim some of you waste including/excluding tags on AO3

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I have a copy paste for tag exclusions. A03 is hell, and some authors just don't want their stories found I feel like.

 

[ComradeKremer]

Atla and avatar the last airbender need to be merged