fail_fandomanon

I'm a tag wrangler, I think it'll be a waste of time in the long run. And I try to push any additional tags into the "No Fandom" fandom if at all possible, so I don't have to deal with them.

I'd feel more appreciated if they actually did something about the whole thing, instead of claiming my efforts are depreciated. Because the former could ease my work load, while the later still leaves me with the fucking messed up tags the users come up with or use "wrong", because they don't know better.

Calling the Additional Tags Additional Tags instead of Freeforms behind the scenes, so the coders and wranglers talk about freeforms even in public, would be a start. So everybody actually knows what we are talking about and doesn't conflate being able to put whatever you want into every tag field with those tag fields being freeforms.

"it's not uncommon for there to be wrangling parties in the chatroom, where a group of co-wranglers will get together to work on a tricky or busy fandom"
Actually it is uncommon to find anybody in that room. At the beginning of the term there often was a staffer, as the sole person in the room, but now it's dead unless staff holds a meeting.
I can't remember the last wrangling party. Talk occurs in the comments of specific tags or on the mailing list.

I also wish they'd at least tip ADT off that they are thinking about asking for horizontal tags instead of waiting what the search and filters redesign brings.

I also wish they'd at least tip ADT off that they are thinking about asking for horizontal tags instead of waiting what the search and filters redesign brings.

Wait, the desired end results of that redesign aren't being discussed? This work is in progress and you don't know what it's going to do? Or do you mean you're all waiting to see what the proposal for the redesign is?

/professional software engineer nonnie

I know that the search will switch to elastisearch. I don't know anything beyond that, although a proposed search and filter cdocumentation may be on basecamp. As a volunteer I don't have access to that, I can only see the internal wiki.

DA

Huh, so the filter is supposed to be coming online at the end of this month (?: according to the ao3 twitter), but no one knows what it's going to look like?

One thing that I think ao3 doesn't get is that a reason why there is such frustration is that they don't consult the userbase. They don't go "hey, let's gather your ideas about what you'd like to see in filters," and they don't even go "here is a mock up of our proposed filter, which will be coming in two months, please tell us if you see any problems." They don't inform the userbase about these plans in detail or ask what they think.

DA (not a part of the OTW organization) I understand why they dont' want to consult the userbase about some things. They can't run the organization efficiently by taking into account every criticism that has been directed to them. They also probably don't have the resources to have a committee that does address all the public criticism. But I do agree with you so much.

I"ve thought about this a little bit and I don't see why they can't establish some sort of system where they solicit public comment and actually address those comments in a timely fashion. Why can't they solicit comments via notices posted on the OTW website that are then publicized via their twitter, DW accounts, etc? Announce an initiative or that they are considering changes to tagging or whatever (have they even asked people if they really, really need those freeform tags?) accept comments for 10 days, assign a group to review the comments and then move forward with a course of action while keeping the public informed. They don't need to hamstring themselves, but maybe it would make things easier for them and less frustrating for the userbase and the volunteers.

I agree that they definitely don't need to solicit feedback on everything they do, especially things that are mostly internal facing. Nor do I think they need to actually respond to all criticism. But they seem to not solicit feedback on things that do affect the userbase.

I'm not suggesting that they be bound to follow all suggestions, because given that there are so many contradictory ones, it's not possible.

+ 1

And as a former tag wrangler, I can't even tell you how infuriating it was when we did things for the sake of the 'userbase' when, as a user, I couldn't figure out when or where they'd asked me a damn thing.

Also a tag wrangler, also frustrated. I have no problem going through and fixing peoples character and pairing tags to make them more searchable, but one of my fandoms has 700 unsortable freeform tags (mostly of the "X is a sad performing horse and I wrote this on a sugar high lol" type) and I just have to ignore them because they're fandom-specific.

I actually have no problem with people getting a space to write whatever they like, if only we could just leave it there!

DA:

I really, really freaking want the ability to mark tags as unwrangleable and hide them from my wrangling bin. It's not just that it's annoying to have three hundred unsortable freeforms and broken-can't-be-fixed tags hanging around in my wrangler bins... it makes the work distinctly more difficult, because I have to comb through all those stupid never-gonna-be-sorted tags to find the ones that do need me to wrangle them. It makes wrangling take longer! And there's nothing I can do about it. I wish I could just hide them.

... I'm confused. The ability to mark tags unwrangleable has been around for a while. There were announcements to wranglers and the feature's there on the interface. Are you talking about some different wrangling bin area?

I guess they are talking about Freeforms/Additional Tags, they statements regarding them are ambiguous. Certain ones mustn't be unwrangleabled, others can maybe or maybe not be unwrangleabled, generally it has been suggested not to unwrangleable them at this point in time. And they are the section which need unwrangleabling the most.