Dreamwidth & AO3
Jan. 27th, 2010 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfI have to say I'm impressed - both with the improvement AO3 seems to be over most other archive formats I'm familiar with, and with the ease of importing my LJ including, well, very nearly everything except for PMs apparently, to DW.
Can I re-import my LJ at a later date, btw? Because, for the time being, I'd like my main journal to remain here on LJ (because imports don't work the other way around) but I'd also like to keep a more or less up-to-date backup on DW. And since there is no automatic crossposting from here to DW, it seems the only way to do that would be to re-import my LJ to DW periodically...
I love the tags options on AO3. I'm the type of reader who often looks for something fairly exotic, so the most common genre classifications etc. often don't really work for me. I'm not really looking for slash, or het, or even gen; despite my angst icons, even angst doesn't really describe my preferences that well. I like subsets of fics that often cut across those categories. But if people really take to the tagging system, there's a real chance that I may eventually be able to find stuff that fits my preferences via tags. Yay! Love the tags, people - use them! Make life easier for people like me. ;-)
I also love the bookmark option, and the comments function. They obviously tried to create an archive with the added benefits of the most fannishly useful features of LJ and del.icio.us....
How well-accepted is AO3? Remember, I've been out of the loop...
Can I re-import my LJ at a later date, btw? Because, for the time being, I'd like my main journal to remain here on LJ (because imports don't work the other way around) but I'd also like to keep a more or less up-to-date backup on DW. And since there is no automatic crossposting from here to DW, it seems the only way to do that would be to re-import my LJ to DW periodically...
I love the tags options on AO3. I'm the type of reader who often looks for something fairly exotic, so the most common genre classifications etc. often don't really work for me. I'm not really looking for slash, or het, or even gen; despite my angst icons, even angst doesn't really describe my preferences that well. I like subsets of fics that often cut across those categories. But if people really take to the tagging system, there's a real chance that I may eventually be able to find stuff that fits my preferences via tags. Yay! Love the tags, people - use them! Make life easier for people like me. ;-)
I also love the bookmark option, and the comments function. They obviously tried to create an archive with the added benefits of the most fannishly useful features of LJ and del.icio.us....
How well-accepted is AO3? Remember, I've been out of the loop...
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 11:03 pm (UTC)AO3 - I think the anti-OTW uproar is dying down. People who don't like it or their projects like AO3 or FanLore are just ignoring it. I'm sure there is still wank out there, I'm just seeing less of it. In general most of my own flist is very supportive of AO3 and almost all of my own fic is loaded up there. While no one thinks full centralization is good, the idea that there is an independent, non-profit archive out there seems to be perceived as a good thing.
Of course I'm a member of OTW so my perspective is a bit biased. *grin*
I'm not using the tags as well as I should; I'm simply uncertain how to tag something like Undercover ("drama" and "angst" are givens, but really don't say a lot about the historical nature of the story arc), or even the "Toys" series (beyond plushophilia, which it IS, but I also like to think it is more than just that...*sigh*)
(hey hey, I've been working on the FanLore page for LoM-UK and given a whole section to 2.08 - if you are feeling strong, please do check it out. No pressure, though, I know it is a stressful issue for you. <3 )
Tagsplosion
Date: 2010-01-27 11:51 pm (UTC)And you know I'm still hoping at *least* for a part that may be tagged "coming out" or something like that. And "activism". ;-)
Further possible tags: "gay in the 70s"? "Gay in the police"?
A tag that refers to the fact that Sam's only *discovering* his gay/bi identity may also be a good idea. I don't know what you'd call that, though. Hmm.
Oh, wait. I sort forgot *my* main fetish here, which is actually general enough to make a good tag: "identity"/"identity issues".
And possibly, for the first part, something to refer to the 'going undercover in the gay scene' aspect? Because I'm sure that's *somebody's* fetish, and they'll be happy to be able to find the fic. ;-)
As for the Toys series... hmm. Well, it goes *deeper* than one might expect of something titled 'plushophilia' (is that a real word??), but I do think that is the main theme, nevertheless - it's just treated with a high degree of psychological realism, which people may not expect. Maybe if you tag it something like "character study" in addition...? And, if I recall correctly, the element of being discovered is important in the first part, too. Not sure how I'd phrase that for a tag, though.
Thanks!
Date: 2010-01-27 11:52 pm (UTC)Tagsplosion, ctd.
Date: 2010-01-28 01:49 am (UTC)"Issueporn"
;-)
Rather by accident,
Date: 2010-01-28 02:00 pm (UTC)Tags, tags, tags...
Date: 2010-01-28 02:14 pm (UTC)I see there's a tag for "awkward sexual situations", as well. I leave it to your discretion if you think that's fitting for some of your fic or not. ;-)
'car sex' is another obvious one...
(I am amused by, so far, having encountered special tags for Baltimore and Cleveland, btw. ETA: and Detroit.)
Ha. 'Closeted Characters' is a tag, too.
Okay, I don't have time for this, I'm only up to D... Anyway, the point is: there's plenty of pre-established tags that fit your fic, I think.
On the other hand, I do see how tagging close to a hundred fics might be a bit daunting...
... Can readers tag fic? Because then I'd probably consider tagging everything I read. I do plan to read around AO3 a lot, in the months to come...
Maybe one could establish...
Date: 2010-01-28 02:16 pm (UTC)(I'd volunteer for that, as long as nobody would expect me to do a whole *lot* of tagging in a short time. It'd have to be something I can do on the side, on and off, whenever I feel like reading a bit.)
Okay, I've gone and suggested that...
Date: 2010-01-28 03:47 pm (UTC)BTW, retagging my own stuff right now, and found these tags for you:
"secret relationship"; "sexual identity"; "break-up"
If you also want to tag minor things that may nevertheless be major kinks for some people: "sharing a bed"; "shower sex"... You might also want to tag Appearances with "hospital", even if it's only a fourth or so of the fic.
I noticed there's also decade tags, so you could also tag stuff "1970s", unless that's considered redundant in LoM.
I think I've discovered a good method to go about this tagging thing, btw. One of these days I'll go through the entire tags list and pick out all the tags that could possibly apply to fic of mine, and make a list of those - and *then* I'll go and apply that narrowed-down list to my fics. It's far too much work to go through the entire mammoth list again and again for every fic I upload...
Tags - bookmarks, canonical, uncanonical
Date: 2010-01-28 07:16 pm (UTC)Bookmarks (and recs and external works, which are subsets of bookmarks) can have their own tags, so readers can indeed tag fic.
The raw tags, as entered by users, work just like delicious tags. If you click on a given one, you get anything else tagged exactly the same way.
We also have tag wranglers who take user-created tags and associate them with each other. We do things like creating a fandom name tag in a standard format and connecting all the different misspellings, abbreviations, and alternate titles to it (i.e. we get around that delicious problem where things that are obviously the same but that are written slightly differently don't sort together). Only these "canonical" tags appear in filters and tag cloud type things, but individual fics still show the tags as written by users. (For example, we mostly use the spelled-out versions for canonicals, so we'd have "Alternate Universe" rather than the probably more popular "AU" and "Lord of the Rings RPF" rather than the fandom standard of "LOTRiPS"/"LOTRPS". The canonicals aren't the "correct" version; they're just the one we've chosen to stick in filters.)
In the future, we'll also be able to associate tags with related but not identical meanings. (The code for that isn't ready yet.) This is how we'd connect, for example, all the different Star Trek canons or all of the characters named "Jack So-and-So" with just plain "Jack".
Just for reference, I think we currently have about three thousand freeform/additional tags that haven't been sorted at all and that don't appear on that "tags" page: http://archiveofourown.org/tags People are more than welcome to make up new tags whenever they want. If you use something like "undercover in a gay bar", a wrangler will probably come along eventually and connect it to "undercover as gay", for example.
If you're interested in being a tag wrangler, I think we're still gladly accepting volunteers, but if you just want to play with the tag system in a less time-intensive way, bookmarks are the way to go.
Re: Tags - bookmarks, canonical, uncanonical
Date: 2010-01-29 01:46 pm (UTC)yeah, I actually already read about tag wranglers. And, for the record, I think tag wranglers are a *fantastic* idea.
As for bookmarking and tagging - that's nice, but the thing is... I'd be totally willing to help by tagging everything I read - but I'm pretty sure I won't want to *bookmark* everything I read. Not everything's going to be good enough, or hit my kink buttons well enough, or whatever, to really warrant putting it in my bookmarks. So what about all the stuff I don't bookmark? That will have to remain tagless, right? Which is a bit of a shame, because that makes it just that little bit more invisible.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply! :-)
Oh, wait. Idea: I could create a separate pseud just for tagging, and bookmark *everything* I read there. Or is there only one, unified bookmarks list for every user, rather than for every pseudonym/identity of that user? I'd really like to keep my main identity's bookmarks free of clutter.
Huh? How did my last line end up in the middle of that comment?
Date: 2010-01-29 01:54 pm (UTC)Thought I should add: I think for me to join up in any kind of official function wouldn't be a good idea at the moment, as I'm kind of overwhelmed with both RL demands and other, older fannish duties already. Tagging stuff whenever I happen to read some fic is one thing, because I'll be reading some fic anyway, but doing anything on a more or less regular basis is more of a challenge than I can accept with a clear conscience at the moment. I'd just let you guys down.
Re: Huh? How did my last line end up in the middle of that comment?
Date: 2010-01-29 05:26 pm (UTC)I'm not sure if bookmarks are differentiated by pseud. I think maybe not?
One thing you can do (though it might still not seem terribly attractive) is to make use of the "rec" tickybox. This automatically distinguishes between bookmarks that are just bookmarks and bookmarks that are recs. You'd probably still end up with cluttered bookmarks though.
On the other hand, if you don't actually think a fic is worth reading, it doesn't need to be findable, so who cares about tags? ;D
Re: Huh? How did my last line end up in the middle of that comment?
Date: 2010-01-29 07:00 pm (UTC)b) There's also a difference between "of intense interest to *me* personally" (=to be bookmarked by me) and "not of that much interest to me due to my narrow and obscure core reading preferences, but probably worth reading to plenty of other people" (=not to be bookmarked by me).
There is actually very little stuff that fits my idiosyncratic criteria for bookmark-worthiness, so if I go by these criteria, I wouldn't be able to help the archive much, as I'd only be able to bookmark a tiny fraction of the fic available in my fandoms.
I believe it would be of benefit for all readers if it were easy for readers to tag stuff (without cluttering their bookmarks, that is). Or, in case that is considered too risky, to at least allow a limited number of readers that privilege, so as to get a larger proportion of the archive tagged. More tagged fics = more & happier niche readers. (Of course, it *may* be decided that niche readers just make up too tiny a portion of fandom to be worth the trouble...)
I suppose I could sign up for the archive with another e-mail and username just for "inofficial tagging volunteering" purposes, but I don't like making myself a sockpuppet.