Tagging characters on AO3

[sholio]

This has to do with the story I posted earlier ... but it kinda made me wonder how other people handle this issue on AO3. The story has most of the major characters in it, but not in major roles, and all of them were hovering right around or below my "enough of this character to tag for it" threshold. I ended up tagging just for Neal and Peter, the most pivotal characters and the only one who are in the whole story, mostly because I figured that if someone is looking for a Mozzie story and clicks on the Mozzie tag, finding out that he's only in one scene would be really frustrating.

But now, for people who look at tags as a guide to content, the tags are somewhat misleading, because while the story is focused on Peter and Neal, it's not just them and has quite a bit of ensemble as well. Tagging just for the two of them implies a different story focus than tagging for the whole set. But tagging for the whole set doesn't convey that some characters have a far more prominent role in the story than others.

... I guess this whole issue would be solved if AO3 eventually implements major/minor character tags (note: not a complaint; I know they're busy and it's not an important feature, just a nice bell'n'whistle!), but in the meantime I'm wondering -- how do other people handle it?

Comments

[ratcreature]

Well, since I tag drawings I tend to tag everyone I've drawn so that is easier than with stories... But to reflect your content, you could tag it with "ensemble" in addition to the major individual characters?

[sholio]

Oh, that's a good idea! I actually kinda wish in a lot of fandoms that they had the option of an "ensemble" or "team" character tag. Though I guess the freeform tags can be used for that.

[arduinna]

Seconding ensemble, and/or "family".

[meridian_rose]

I do agonise over this sometimes. Generally if someone gets a line of dialogue or is mentioned a lot in the story (eg Peter thinking about Neal and their friendship, even if Neal doesn't appear) I tag them. I do sometimes think it's misleading though - minor/major would be a great feature, and it's a good idea to use the ensemble freeform tag (which I use in my own headers but somehow hadn't thought of using at the archive) so thanks for posting about this.

[astridv]

I agree tagging it with ensemble is a good idea. Or else you could mention the background characters in the notes or at the end of the summary.

Hm, if you tag "CharacterA (background)" using freeform tags, would the character still show up in a regular character search for that name? If it doesn't, that would be a good alternative, too.
I'll have to test that...

[sahiya]

I tend to tag everyone who appears in the story. People use the tags in a variety of ways, and one of the ways I use them, at least, is to figure out who's actually in the story besides the principles (who are often obvious from the summary).

[astridv]

That kind of tagging makes it very hard to search for fic about less popular characters, though. Because the few stories that actually center around them get totally lost in a sea of stories where they have only one line. It's frustrating.

[sahiya]

Well, as I said - people use them in a variety of ways. That is not the way I tend to use them myself.

My "team" icon is appropriate

[veleda_k]

Damned if I know! I tend to do a few different things. In my most recent Kate and Fowler story, I listed Peter as a character in my journal (he has one line), but I didn't tag him on AO3, because, as you said, someone looking for a Peter story wouldn't be satisfied with that.

However, I have tagged him when I considered him emotionally important to the story. He appears only briefly in Weigh Your Eyelids Down and Living in a Kind of Daydream, but I consider him important in these stories. Same problem with Wish You Were here. Peter and Mozzie have one scene each, but I consider those important scenes.

I have an even bigger problem tagging pairings. What's the line between tagging a story as gen, tagging a story as both ship (het/slash/whatever) and gen, and when is it a pairing fic? There are certain pairings that are frequent background parings. When I go looking for Peter/El or Neal/Kate fic, it's hard to find actual pairing fic. But I understand why people do it. Weigh Your Eyelids Down is tagged as both Neal/Kate and June/Byron, despite the fact that it's quite gen, because those pairings do appear in the story.

A background pairing tag would be a godsend, is what I'm saying.

[lizbee]

Personally I tend to go with "ensemble". But my pet peeve is fics with Lin Beifong in the character list, and actually her whole presence is one scene where she talks about how much she ships Korra/Mako.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

[metanewsmods]

Hi, can we link this at metanews?