Archive Testing, 1... 2... 3...

[icarus]

An Archive Of Our Own is in testing. To help facilitate this, I am slowly uploading fics there and assiduously providing feedback on what works, what doesn't. Hopefully my suggestions are helpful and not too redundant.

Please let the archive know if you note any problems:

Tanlines & Dogtags

First Signs Of Magic: Hermione Granger

A Moment Of Sin

My question for you is on tagging in the An Archive Of Our Own. Yes, it sorts by tags like delicious.

What would you like to see in tags so you can find what you want to read? What makes a good tag? How general should I be? How specific? How much should I customize tags to the content of the story? Is there such thing as "over-tagging"?

For example, for Tanlines & Dogtags I have the tags:

* drama
* pre-slash
* ust
* mild angst
* photography
* art

While for A Moment Of Sin I only used the tag:

* prostitution

I realized, huh, I'm not sure how to do this.

This is in your interest. If I tag badly, it will make it difficult for you to find what you want. It also helps me, so thank you all very much in advance.


ETA: Based on your suggestions, here's what I have for tags: http://archiveofourown.org/en/users/Icarus/profile

Length: shortfic, medium length, longfic, novel length

Character: All prominent characters are listed, even if they're not the main pairing.

Time: season, pre-OotP, where relevant.

Genre: humor, angst, romance, darkfic, drama, crack!fic, au, bdsm, pwp

Pairing generalities: rairpair, crossgen, chan

Story themes to help people beeline their searches: prostitution, polyjuice, photography, gay bar, gun kink, wingfic, crossdressing, non-con, exhibitionism, skinny dipping, etc.

Series name: Primer to the Dark Arts, Beg Me For It, Skinny Dipping, and First Signs of Magic series names (and future series names).

It's clear to me that your ability to filter and find stories will depend upon successful tagging by the authors.

Comments

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on how the tags are supposed to work? Will you be able to search a specific fandom + pairing + tag, or does that stuff need to go in the tags? What about age ratings? Right now I could find your fics easily by searching, but if I click a tag all fics with that tag come up. I would like to be able to click forinstance the "photograpy" tag and either first get stuff in the same fandom/author or easily be able to refine my search within the photography tag area. Otherwise tag-to-tag jumping will be very difficult if the archive gets big and to know exactly what words to search for can be a hassle, especially if you add british/US spellings and so.

Basically: Your tags seem pretty okay (though I would maybe add something about younger character or child to First signs of magic) but the set-up with the tags at the site may need some fine-tuning.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

the set-up with the tags at the site may need some fine-tuning

You're right. I've put in a feedback form, crediting you for your astute observation.

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Thanks, very nice of you =) I'll probably use the archive as a reader, but I'm too lazy to sign up and give proper feedback and stuff right now.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

They're still limiting the accounts to people who gave them feedback and suggestions in the first round. I think they don't want to be flooded with fic while in beta.

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Ah, even better then!