Is there a way to make the "Post New" button a drop-down menu? Meaning, you press "post new" and have to choose "podfic", "meta" "graphics" or "fanfic" before you even get to the screen where you put in titles and summaries and stuff? That way, there's no room for people to fail to tag appropriately. In addition, I like the idea of having an account setting so you can permanently choose to "never see meta results" so that you don't have to filter it out for every single search.
ETA: Actually, I think something like that would also help within the fanfic posting menu. Right now, lots of people writing crossovers forget to tag their works as crossovers (which makes me sad, because I'm sure there are so many good ones I will never find), and then there are things with multiple fandoms in the header that look like crossovers, but actually are just drabble collections across multiple fandoms. I would love if there was a new menu when posting a new work that sat just above the part where you enter the fandom. And you would have to pick among radio buttons for "single fandom work", "crossover" "multi-fandom collection" and "other" (no idea what other would be, but I'm sure there's something I'm not thinking of). Then part of the filtering menu could let you pick what you wanted to see. That way, those of us who love crossovers (or hate them) would be more certain of finding them, and it would be easy for people like me, who would never read something in a multi-fandom post, to filter them out.
Being able to categorize your work in a way that users can find (or exclude it) from their searches is definitely going to be one component of hosting non-fiction (as well as other media formats) on the AO3. We are still in the early stages of discussing how we can best make that work in a way that serves both posters and searchers. But it will likely involve both actions by users and technical options. Unfortunately, a technical solution is likely to take much longer than the policy parts and tagging options.
"We are still in the early stages of discussing how we can best make that work in a way that serves both posters and searchers."
If the mechanisms aren't in place to handle multiple types of fanworks in a way that works for both posters and searchers, I don't understand why multiple types of fanworks are allowed. Build the house first and then move in, it seems to me.
A +1 and a question for AO3 that's been concerning me about the replies so far.
So when you say "Being able to categorize your work in a way that users can find (or exclude it) from their searches" does this mean that the solution we can be looking forward to is that the way to choose type of fanwork one wants to see, would be to undergo a search operation or is that mostly a figure of speech?
In the short term, searching is definitely going to be one option. Further posts on the meta issue should include some recommendations of what users can do to find or exclude content, as well as what's under consideration for long-term options.
Well, I don't mind searching being one option, the problem here is if that's going to be the only option. I do believe this whole comment page has been fairly clear about that, so idk why there's this confusion?
What exactly is the time period OTW considers long-term?
BTW, a tangential question. I was trying to look for any information about proposed Ao3 developmental roadmaps available to users under OTWs proposed greater transparency, I'm afraid I'm not being great at navigating the OTW site. Is this information available?
+ 1 I understand that this announcment is more about getting started on policy and all that, but don't you think the archive should be ready for more media types before you even start with the policies? Usually it's advisable to make one step after the other.
Maybe you should have been more clear in your announcment about the overall planning?
Comment on OTW Board Approves Meta Hosting on the AO3
aurilly Sat 16 Feb 2013 05:30PM UTC
Last Edited Sat 16 Feb 2013 09:12PM UTC
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admin-claudia (Guest) Sat 16 Feb 2013 10:55PM UTC
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Lydia (lydiabell) Sun 17 Feb 2013 12:16AM UTC
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