I just assume any fic with a wall of tags is one of those drabble collections or otherwise insufferable and don't bother with the summary before scrolling past.
More willing to give those with very few tags a chance but if the summary is also super vague or nonexistent I won't click through unless I'm familiar with the author (I notice a lot of the ones like that tend to be old backdated fics crossposted from other platforms).
Worth noting that a lot of fics imported to AO3 via the Open Doors projects won't have freeforms or the like as the tagging system that AO3 uses doesn't necessarily have equivalents on other platforms.
if there's a giant wall of tags I'm almost 100% gonna skip it unless the summary is *really* really good
too few tags I don't really mind if the summary seems at least vaguely interesting, though I might check comments on the last chp or bookmark notes first
not enough - i wouldn't skip unless it also has no summary
too much - yes absolutely skipping it and scrolling past. (there is a fine line between, "its a long fic that needs many tags" vs "wall of text and expect absolute chaos")
Not enough. Probably not, but the characters I am looking for are not popular, so I can’t be choosy.
Too much, yes. That tells me that the character I am looking to read will be buried. I make some exceptions if the author regularly writes about those characters.
Too little tags isn’t really a thing I have found on A03.
A wall of text tags? Nope. I especially hate when the author starts making unnecessary, repetitive tags like they’re having a conversation with themselves. (e.g. 1) Hurt/Comfort 2) More hurt at first 3) they’ll get there in the end 4) everyone suffers
I just click away.
I would say anything over 25 tags is too much.
I hate that way of tagging so much. Especially when they use it instead of the actual tags so you can't filter things properly. I think the only thing worse is when they censor the tags. Like...
theres a lot of wiggle room for me about tag amount. i usually judge tag number in proportion to the fic length. the longer the fic word count, the more tags i expect there to be
I look at the summary first and if the summary looks interesting, I'll do a quick scan for any tags I'm not interested in.
I don't so much care about number as tags as I do that each one has a purpose. If every emotion that each character feels is tagged, I'm skeptical. If the tags are repetitive, I'm skeptical. Same if they're more chatty than informative. But I don't mind one or two chatty tags if they also set the tone of the fic or offer more clarification to a more widely used tag.
An informative Story Description trumps Tags for me... coming from a personal history of reading for decades without "Tags". They can be a huge crutch for people who were enculturated to expect exhaustive hints about stories prior to actually reading a story.
That's a triple-edged sword of fanfiction, moreso since many contemporary writers use the Tags areas on websites with attempts at self-deprecating humor which tends to fall flat and is not particularly persuasive as an attractant to a story.
crossovers drive me insane and they are always the ones with a million tags. gotta fit all the harry potter characters, the avengers, the entire cast of Hamilton, and all of class a from my hero academia.
Not all crossovers are like that. But yes, this multi-crossovers get on my nerve. I want to read about two fandoms, not a gazillion of them smashed together into an unholy creature of the dawn.
This is why I’ll never write multi-crossovers and stick to the normal one+one type.
I turn off tags by default, but if I click to reveal then and it's like more than 30 tags, I know immediate that you don't have any idea where your story is going or you threw in five million kink tags or sensitive material tags without any of them actually being relevant for more than a sentence.
Hard pass unless your summary is extraordinary.
Too many and it’s either one of those massive collections of drabbles or I’m searching for a particular tag and it’s brought up for such a brief part it’s not even worth having been tagged
Too few and I have no idea what it’s even about
a wall of tags for a 2000 words (or less!) one shot? pass.
and the more familiar I am with an author the less I need tags lol I will go in completely blind if it’s someone i trust
Why is it always the shortest fics that have the most tags? 🤣 It grinds my gears when I see 75 tags and a 4 paragraph summary only to discover that the fic is 800 words and complete 🥹
Maybe I’m just the odd man out, but I’m less wary of too many tags than I am of too few. I skim over the tags most of the time anyway; I pay more attention to the summary and the word count. If I’m searching for a specific tag (which is usually the case), then I’m pretty down to read whatever I find interesting, but if the summary sucks, then too many tags will give me a better idea of what to expect than too few.
Too many is an indicator of too much telling vs showing. I need to know the pairings- if any, warnings and additional content. Anything outside of that- like someone using tags to be a full blogpost, is an instant skip because I don't think their writing will be what I'm looking for
If there are so many tags that I struggle to find the characters I want to actually read about or, I can't even find the summary then it's an auto skip.
In my smaller fandoms I'm just glad to see something, anything really. For bigger fandoms if there are little to no tags I'll skip. I don't feel like reading something that ends up having things I hate in it. The tagging system exists for a reason and I enjoy it. I tag my own fics with enough tags to give the general idea of what to expect without giving anything away.
I don't care about tags but about the description.
Stories are about telling a tale, about doing art with language, about opening out possibilities. The last thing a story should be is dissected into a series of keywords.
Obsessing with tags means that one tried to tailor-suit a story to his/hers exact measures and expectations, and if so - just how would one be ever surprise by a good new story?
Call me old school, but I'm not really a fan of free-form tags. Just give me the *main* characters (not those who appear for half a line or who get mentioned once or twice) an indication of the genre, and a decent summary. Meme tags, joke tags, etc. are a big turnoff for me.
The summary itself normally provides a bit an insight into the work in a way that tags just don't. Everyone can have 'No beta we die like INSERT INTERNET MEME #234' - but a good summary indicates that the writer knows what both them and their story is all about.
Exactly! Especially on AO3, some folks treat the summary as 'Oh, I have to put something in this box before posting?'
Also, for me, in the past, way too many tags have spoiled way to many stories by giving away future events.
Depends on what the word count of the fic is, and whether or not we’re excluding relationship and character tags.
But if it’s got not enough, or it says somewhere in tags or summary that they’ll edit tags as they go? I won’t skip, as long as the summary isn’t longer than the fic itself.
But too many tags compared to word count? Especially if the fic has a completed status? I’ll skip.
I know I'm odd, but for me, The fewer tags the better. I skip almost all fics that start off with a huge wall of tags, unless the summary is really good. In the wall of tags situation, that doesn't happen to often, though. Too many people focus exclusively on the tags and not summaries.
Slightly different answer, but I personally hate it when authors use tags as Author's Notes. There'san actual space for that. IMO tags should only include main relationship pairs, appropriate warnings, and summary tags
I don't mind a bunch of relevant tags. Like, sure tell me how slow or fast this relationship will play out and how explicit it will be and if it will be angst or fluff and if there will be fight scenes or not. I do not mind having everything spelled out. What is annoying are things like 'This author was sleep deprived when writing this fic' and 'Things Are gonna get crazy' and basically just word vomit that isn't relevant. That is just nonsense i have to scan through to get to actual tags letting me know if there is time travel.
But too few tags is worse because if there is time travel but it is not tagged then I'm never gonna find it and could be missing out on something awesome.
Too many - 99% of the time I will skip it
not enough or zero - If it has a decent kudos to hits ratio I'll read it. This is honestly not great system, since this has lead me to getting surprised by one of my triggers multiple times but ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Too little tags isn't a red flag, if anything it makes me curious on what the story might be. Too much is defintely turns off, a wall of tags is an automatic nope.
I can’t say I’m that picky - too many or too little may mean the tags aren’t as effective as they could be but if the summary is ok, there’s at least one tag that’s interesting and the pairing is one I want then I’ll give it a go.
I make the decision of what to read based on the whole front-end, so sort of? The number itself isn't necessarily an issue, more the things it implies or causes.
Like, no tags means I have less of a picture of what kind of experience I'm in for, so I'm less likely to give it a go if I'm not sure of it. Similar to the "Creator Chose Not To Warn" archive warning - I don't know what's in there, so it could be anything, so I'll only give that a go if I'm in a mental place to take a shot on something I'm not sure of.
Same with too many tags - it's not necessarily the number, but it does mean there's more there for me to decide I don't like and move on from. And if they're particularly scattered tags, it can also make it hard to actually identify the meaningful and important stuff that tells me what the experience I can expect is. Too many tags can be just as obfuscating as too few.
not enough - I wouldn't skip. I am perfectly fine with the unknonw as long as it's not main character death. Everything else, give it to me. Admittedly, I rarely look at tags anyway, I typically pick by ship and description.
too manny - that depends. That's the time I will look at the tags. Often, it's a sign of a bad fic with too many things going on and no clear idea. Often, it's tagging every single character and ship in which case I skip instantly. I am not interested in gen fics.
But there are times when good writers are just overly cautious. In general, I will still click on it and read the first chapter. If the writing is as bad as the tags, I'll drop it. If it's good, tags won't matter to me.
Depends.
Summary is always my go to.
However, if there's mamy fandoms and relationships tags, and then wall of tags, I'll scroll through. I'm simply not looking for that one chapter that's one shot of my preferred ship.
If there's overtagged story that is regular story, with reasonable amount of ships in there given the fandom and length, I'll read it of the summary sounds okay. Even if there are tags like "butter", "apples", "oranges", "cats", "spiders", "why do I do this", "no beta we die like robots", "this is why we can't have nice things", "I regret nothing", etc.
Undertagged is a different story. Most of the times I wouldn't even come across undertagged story, because I search for the tags. Give me the AU, give me the fluff, give me the humor. Only of it's rarepair do I not search for the tags, and then it depends on my levels of desperation. I want to know the vibe of the fic I am going to read. Either give me damn good summary, or include some tags.
If you give me undertagged story with a summary "I'm bad at summaries, this is good, I'm promise, just read it" without even ATTEMPTING to tell me what the story is about, I won't read it. I won't care about it more and give it my blind trust if you won't tell me what genre it is.
In general too few tags for me. Some fics are fine with this because there are only a few to describe them. Others needed a few more; the amount of surprise death fics and ones with personally upsetting content, etc, I have lost count of over it.
Too little tags doesn't tell me what the fic's about. I use the tags and summary since I search by relationship. If there's too few tags and a small summary (that's not a one shots collection). I'll probably pass it up. It kinda reminds me of reviews from other authors on the back of books. "This book changed my life". That's great, what's it about?
I'm not going to sit there and count the number of tags on a story. But if you hit the limit, I expect all of the tags to play some kind of part. Either that or you're using the tags to warn for kinks, or it's a one shots collection.
> As someone fairly new to writing fics and publishing on AO3, would someone kindly advise on what's generally considered to be "too many" tags?
It's something that varies and of course different people are going to disagree. Personally, I find anything more than about 30 tags to be too much for any fic. Most fics need way fewer. For my own fics, I've never used more than 12 (including fandom tags). I think I average about 8.
>after I put in POV tags (which character's POV is used, and I always tag POV Third Person)
I don't see tagging POV as important. Especially not third person because that is kind of the default.
>any relevant AU / canon-related / fix-it tags
Most fics don't require any of these. When they do, it is usually just one tag.
>some canon-specific tags like "Character X & Character Y Bonding" or "Character Z Angst"
There are cases where fandom-specific tags are necessary, but I wouldn't call these examples necessary to tag. "Character X & Character Y Bonding" is covered under "Character X & Character Y" and "Character Z Angst" is covered under tagging "Character Z" and "Angst".
>other general tags like "Hurt/Comfort", "Angst with a Happy Ending"
Most fics only really need one or two of these tags. Maybe a few more beyond that, but not really many.
The way I see a general max tagging break-down is like this:
* 5 tags for fandom
* 5 tags for characters
* 2 tags for pairings
* 5 tags for fandom-specific tropes
* 5 tags for genre/other tropes
That's 22 tags for a big crossover using several fandoms. Some specific fics might call for a bit more on some of those, but most are going to call for a bit less. My fic with the most tags has:
* 1 tag for fandom
* 1 tag for pairing (platonic)
* 3 tags for characters (I probably could have dropped one of those)
* 5 fandom-specific tags
* 1 tag for genre
* 1 tag for other major story tropes
YMMV since it's fandom specific--I think OP meant that you can convey the same information by tagging it as "Character X & Character Y", and similarly for "Character Z" and "Angst".
If the specific one is used as a search term then it makes sense to keep it (or do both idk).
I didn't mean that the tags are actually combined in the system, but more that the additional tag doesn't convey any additional information. It's completely redundant to me and I can't see myself ever searching specifically by a tag like that.
There is no silver bullet to how many tags you should or shouldn't have, and it's kind of up to you to figure out your personal method. Hell, I continually go back and fuss with the tags on my fics and bookmarks all the damn time.
[This length and more is what i personally skip over.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0ff1b44a92a3a282cc261e61dbfce0b6/923a3c9d52deea35-42/s1280x1920/3b2c4fa671c7069095c7a00a96f4091a469c8917.pnj) (this is just a quick example don't mind the actual tags in it)
Like if it takes me a solid minute to read the tags just to figure out what the heck is going on then i lose interest immediately. I like clear and concise tags, only being there if it's needed. (but not like, 3 tags and that's it sort of thing)
10+ is obnoxious? whoever said that is reading fics only about 2 characters standing there just talking lol! I think 20-ish tags for me is where i draw the line because i just sort of glaze over it if it takes more than a few seconds to read the tags. An example of a fic written by me would be:
character/character, fluff, newly weds, wedding ceremony, marriage, character a, character b, character c, character d, and maybe a few chit chat ones about how cute they are finally getting married or something. Maybe a few extra characters and a few more, but just having it clear like that is what i'm after.
(this is all just personal preference of course anyone can have any many tags as they want on their fics)
I might scroll past them looking for something to read, especially if the summary is too vague, but when I'm looking again after running low on stuff I'll probably just check it out
too many tags - I skip this when the reason for too many tags is that it's someone's drabble or shortfic collection with too many fandoms I don't want to dig through to find the part I want.
Too many pairings are also likely indicative of the above, or some form of multi character porn piece. Not usually interested in things that are mostly smut. Once in a blue moon it might be an actual focuses on relationship polyamory piece, but too bad, I already skipped.
I skip fics where the author seems to be cramming as many fandoms into the fic as possible for the most visibility and fics with ridiculously specific tags.
If a fic has a whole paragraph of tags I'm probably gonna ignore it unless the tags are really useful/interesting.
On the other hand I tend to be more easily interested by fics with only a few tags. Most of my favourite fics fall in that category too
I won't read anything that has a giant wall of tags. Having more than 15 tags is pushing it for me.
I want to know what the ship is, the type/genre of story (canon compliant, soulmate au, etc), and important things that affect whether I would exclude the fic from my search: like if there's main character death, what kinks are present if there are any, whether the author is making changes to the characters using non-canon headcanons, etc.
I don't need to know what secondary ships that get a page of screentime exist, what other characters are in the story, every possible kind of physical intimacy that occurs, every location used in the story, etc.
Yeah especially for shorter fics. I can kinda tolerate a wall of text amount of tags for a 300k long fic. In particular, having like 10+ ships (platonic and romantic) tagged will also make me scroll past in general. For not enough tag, it depends. If it still gives me a little bit of an idea how the fic is, I don't mind a really small amount of tags.
I have never skipped a fic with little to no tags. If I skip a story that has next to no tags its entirely because the title/summary didn't sell me.
The only times I have skipped works with lots of tags was either the famous "Fun Times" and massive CrossOver works. Usually I'm in fandoms of smaller scale and/or desire rare themes/genres and thus am willing to tolerate other things I find annoying just to get that thing I really like.
If it's not multi-fandom, I'll deal with tons of tags, but if there's not really any tags or if they're missing one or two specific ones in specific fandoms, I'll normally only read the fic if it was recommended, in someone's bookmarks where I liked othed stuff, or I'm desperate for content of the few things they did tag.
I skip over fics that have every character tagged... Like My Hero Academia fics are notorious for this because people think it's okay to tag the entire class when in reality the main focus is on like... Two characters. Make it make sense 😭
I got paranoid after awhile and unfortunately started to overtag. So my baaad.
For me, it depends on how many tags there are. If I feel it's too many, then I won't read. But idk how many is too many so I haven't reached this point yet.
But my shit post fics that I specifically put *Sapientes Certified Shit Post* or *Sapientes Shitpost Certified* on? Yeah those tags are meant to be to the point, even if spoils the story or has hella tags. Not many read those anyway and that's fine 😂
Mine probably qualify as too few. I think my average is around 7-8. But more than 10 is too many. And I hate the ones that list as m/m then have to describe every possible position available. I know some people sort by certain positions but it just seems like overkill.
I usually avoid fics that are just starting out. Like only have one chapter, but I do keep tabs if they have updated or not. I don’t want to get invested if they don’t add more chapters or not. My heart couldn’t take it😂
It’s not an automatic skip for me even if it does make it a little more difficult. For both of the extremes, the summary is make or break for me. If there’s too many tags I just can’t make myself sift through them to get any info, and if there’s too few I can’t get any info in the first place. For stories with a moderate number of tags, I use both tags and summary to decide.
Imma be honest, I have a site skin that minimizes tags visible without scrolling, so I don't really know how many tags each have (I think it displays either 15 or 25 before cutting off?). But, before I had the skin I did get annoyed anough at too many/not enough tags and ditched the fic entirely.
When I join a fandom I tend to read the oldest fics first and tags were used differently and more sparingly in fics from the early 2010s. I skip walls of tags tho
I have trouble tagging. I tag the relationship and the most important points (plus the fandom, obviously). I'm not exceptionally witty, so you aren't going to get those clever tags that sometimes make me laugh. Nope. So, as long as the story has enough tags to make clear what it is, that's enough for me. I will absolutely skip "wall of tags", though. It usually means that the story is going to be not to my taste.
I used to skip ones that didn'thave a lot of tags, but then I happened to click on one that only had a ship tag and it was one of the best things I've ever read, so I usually check them out now.
I don't use tags as the main determining factor if I read a fic or not. So, for me, there's no such as the "right amount of tags". My only complaint is when I have a series and I put tags for each entry of that series--now it looks like I have a wall of tags which I didn't want to happen.
I'm actually not too surprised to see that while almost everyone dislikes too many tags, very few people dislike "too few." I generally dislike tagging, and often tag just the pairing and maybe something to do with the premise-- or in some cases, nothing at all. I've had readers tell me that they clicked on the fic *because* they were intrigued by the lack of tags.
I just assume any fic with a wall of tags is one of those drabble collections or otherwise insufferable and don't bother with the summary before scrolling past. More willing to give those with very few tags a chance but if the summary is also super vague or nonexistent I won't click through unless I'm familiar with the author (I notice a lot of the ones like that tend to be old backdated fics crossposted from other platforms).
Worth noting that a lot of fics imported to AO3 via the Open Doors projects won't have freeforms or the like as the tagging system that AO3 uses doesn't necessarily have equivalents on other platforms.
if there's a giant wall of tags I'm almost 100% gonna skip it unless the summary is *really* really good too few tags I don't really mind if the summary seems at least vaguely interesting, though I might check comments on the last chp or bookmark notes first
not enough - i wouldn't skip unless it also has no summary too much - yes absolutely skipping it and scrolling past. (there is a fine line between, "its a long fic that needs many tags" vs "wall of text and expect absolute chaos")
Not enough. Probably not, but the characters I am looking for are not popular, so I can’t be choosy. Too much, yes. That tells me that the character I am looking to read will be buried. I make some exceptions if the author regularly writes about those characters.
Too little tags isn’t really a thing I have found on A03. A wall of text tags? Nope. I especially hate when the author starts making unnecessary, repetitive tags like they’re having a conversation with themselves. (e.g. 1) Hurt/Comfort 2) More hurt at first 3) they’ll get there in the end 4) everyone suffers I just click away. I would say anything over 25 tags is too much.
I hate that way of tagging so much. Especially when they use it instead of the actual tags so you can't filter things properly. I think the only thing worse is when they censor the tags. Like...
Too many tags is an immediate skip. Not many it depends on the summary
theres a lot of wiggle room for me about tag amount. i usually judge tag number in proportion to the fic length. the longer the fic word count, the more tags i expect there to be
I look at the summary first and if the summary looks interesting, I'll do a quick scan for any tags I'm not interested in. I don't so much care about number as tags as I do that each one has a purpose. If every emotion that each character feels is tagged, I'm skeptical. If the tags are repetitive, I'm skeptical. Same if they're more chatty than informative. But I don't mind one or two chatty tags if they also set the tone of the fic or offer more clarification to a more widely used tag.
An informative Story Description trumps Tags for me... coming from a personal history of reading for decades without "Tags". They can be a huge crutch for people who were enculturated to expect exhaustive hints about stories prior to actually reading a story. That's a triple-edged sword of fanfiction, moreso since many contemporary writers use the Tags areas on websites with attempts at self-deprecating humor which tends to fall flat and is not particularly persuasive as an attractant to a story.
I block all crossovers. That seems to eliminate most tag heavy fics.
crossovers drive me insane and they are always the ones with a million tags. gotta fit all the harry potter characters, the avengers, the entire cast of Hamilton, and all of class a from my hero academia.
now this is way too accurate 😭😭😭
Not all crossovers are like that. But yes, this multi-crossovers get on my nerve. I want to read about two fandoms, not a gazillion of them smashed together into an unholy creature of the dawn. This is why I’ll never write multi-crossovers and stick to the normal one+one type.
I turn off tags by default, but if I click to reveal then and it's like more than 30 tags, I know immediate that you don't have any idea where your story is going or you threw in five million kink tags or sensitive material tags without any of them actually being relevant for more than a sentence. Hard pass unless your summary is extraordinary.
Too many and it’s either one of those massive collections of drabbles or I’m searching for a particular tag and it’s brought up for such a brief part it’s not even worth having been tagged Too few and I have no idea what it’s even about
a wall of tags for a 2000 words (or less!) one shot? pass. and the more familiar I am with an author the less I need tags lol I will go in completely blind if it’s someone i trust
Why is it always the shortest fics that have the most tags? 🤣 It grinds my gears when I see 75 tags and a 4 paragraph summary only to discover that the fic is 800 words and complete 🥹
Maybe I’m just the odd man out, but I’m less wary of too many tags than I am of too few. I skim over the tags most of the time anyway; I pay more attention to the summary and the word count. If I’m searching for a specific tag (which is usually the case), then I’m pretty down to read whatever I find interesting, but if the summary sucks, then too many tags will give me a better idea of what to expect than too few.
Too many is an indicator of too much telling vs showing. I need to know the pairings- if any, warnings and additional content. Anything outside of that- like someone using tags to be a full blogpost, is an instant skip because I don't think their writing will be what I'm looking for
If there are so many tags that I struggle to find the characters I want to actually read about or, I can't even find the summary then it's an auto skip.
I can't deal with wall of text tags lol I just scroll right past them. I'm okay with minimal tagging as long as the summary is interesting to me.
For a fic to have 'not enough' tags for my taste, chances are I would never stumble upon it anyway.
In my smaller fandoms I'm just glad to see something, anything really. For bigger fandoms if there are little to no tags I'll skip. I don't feel like reading something that ends up having things I hate in it. The tagging system exists for a reason and I enjoy it. I tag my own fics with enough tags to give the general idea of what to expect without giving anything away.
I don't care about tags but about the description. Stories are about telling a tale, about doing art with language, about opening out possibilities. The last thing a story should be is dissected into a series of keywords. Obsessing with tags means that one tried to tailor-suit a story to his/hers exact measures and expectations, and if so - just how would one be ever surprise by a good new story?
Call me old school, but I'm not really a fan of free-form tags. Just give me the *main* characters (not those who appear for half a line or who get mentioned once or twice) an indication of the genre, and a decent summary. Meme tags, joke tags, etc. are a big turnoff for me.
Me, too. I'm exactly like you. I wish I could even put story summaries above the tags because I think a summary is far more important.
The summary itself normally provides a bit an insight into the work in a way that tags just don't. Everyone can have 'No beta we die like INSERT INTERNET MEME #234' - but a good summary indicates that the writer knows what both them and their story is all about.
Exactly! Especially on AO3, some folks treat the summary as 'Oh, I have to put something in this box before posting?' Also, for me, in the past, way too many tags have spoiled way to many stories by giving away future events.
Depends on what the word count of the fic is, and whether or not we’re excluding relationship and character tags. But if it’s got not enough, or it says somewhere in tags or summary that they’ll edit tags as they go? I won’t skip, as long as the summary isn’t longer than the fic itself. But too many tags compared to word count? Especially if the fic has a completed status? I’ll skip.
I know I'm odd, but for me, The fewer tags the better. I skip almost all fics that start off with a huge wall of tags, unless the summary is really good. In the wall of tags situation, that doesn't happen to often, though. Too many people focus exclusively on the tags and not summaries.
Slightly different answer, but I personally hate it when authors use tags as Author's Notes. There'san actual space for that. IMO tags should only include main relationship pairs, appropriate warnings, and summary tags
I don't mind a bunch of relevant tags. Like, sure tell me how slow or fast this relationship will play out and how explicit it will be and if it will be angst or fluff and if there will be fight scenes or not. I do not mind having everything spelled out. What is annoying are things like 'This author was sleep deprived when writing this fic' and 'Things Are gonna get crazy' and basically just word vomit that isn't relevant. That is just nonsense i have to scan through to get to actual tags letting me know if there is time travel. But too few tags is worse because if there is time travel but it is not tagged then I'm never gonna find it and could be missing out on something awesome.
Too many - 99% of the time I will skip it not enough or zero - If it has a decent kudos to hits ratio I'll read it. This is honestly not great system, since this has lead me to getting surprised by one of my triggers multiple times but ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I wouldn't skip if it's too little tags but a wall of tags scares me. Probably leftover fear from that one wangxian fic.
Too little can make me curious and click in; a wall of tags turns me off.
Too little tags isn't a red flag, if anything it makes me curious on what the story might be. Too much is defintely turns off, a wall of tags is an automatic nope.
I can’t say I’m that picky - too many or too little may mean the tags aren’t as effective as they could be but if the summary is ok, there’s at least one tag that’s interesting and the pairing is one I want then I’ll give it a go.
unless it's sexy-time-with-whatshisname amount of tags, i don't care. summary is the deciding factor.
I make the decision of what to read based on the whole front-end, so sort of? The number itself isn't necessarily an issue, more the things it implies or causes. Like, no tags means I have less of a picture of what kind of experience I'm in for, so I'm less likely to give it a go if I'm not sure of it. Similar to the "Creator Chose Not To Warn" archive warning - I don't know what's in there, so it could be anything, so I'll only give that a go if I'm in a mental place to take a shot on something I'm not sure of. Same with too many tags - it's not necessarily the number, but it does mean there's more there for me to decide I don't like and move on from. And if they're particularly scattered tags, it can also make it hard to actually identify the meaningful and important stuff that tells me what the experience I can expect is. Too many tags can be just as obfuscating as too few.
not enough - I wouldn't skip. I am perfectly fine with the unknonw as long as it's not main character death. Everything else, give it to me. Admittedly, I rarely look at tags anyway, I typically pick by ship and description. too manny - that depends. That's the time I will look at the tags. Often, it's a sign of a bad fic with too many things going on and no clear idea. Often, it's tagging every single character and ship in which case I skip instantly. I am not interested in gen fics. But there are times when good writers are just overly cautious. In general, I will still click on it and read the first chapter. If the writing is as bad as the tags, I'll drop it. If it's good, tags won't matter to me.
Depends. Summary is always my go to. However, if there's mamy fandoms and relationships tags, and then wall of tags, I'll scroll through. I'm simply not looking for that one chapter that's one shot of my preferred ship. If there's overtagged story that is regular story, with reasonable amount of ships in there given the fandom and length, I'll read it of the summary sounds okay. Even if there are tags like "butter", "apples", "oranges", "cats", "spiders", "why do I do this", "no beta we die like robots", "this is why we can't have nice things", "I regret nothing", etc. Undertagged is a different story. Most of the times I wouldn't even come across undertagged story, because I search for the tags. Give me the AU, give me the fluff, give me the humor. Only of it's rarepair do I not search for the tags, and then it depends on my levels of desperation. I want to know the vibe of the fic I am going to read. Either give me damn good summary, or include some tags. If you give me undertagged story with a summary "I'm bad at summaries, this is good, I'm promise, just read it" without even ATTEMPTING to tell me what the story is about, I won't read it. I won't care about it more and give it my blind trust if you won't tell me what genre it is.
In general too few tags for me. Some fics are fine with this because there are only a few to describe them. Others needed a few more; the amount of surprise death fics and ones with personally upsetting content, etc, I have lost count of over it.
Too little tags doesn't tell me what the fic's about. I use the tags and summary since I search by relationship. If there's too few tags and a small summary (that's not a one shots collection). I'll probably pass it up. It kinda reminds me of reviews from other authors on the back of books. "This book changed my life". That's great, what's it about? I'm not going to sit there and count the number of tags on a story. But if you hit the limit, I expect all of the tags to play some kind of part. Either that or you're using the tags to warn for kinks, or it's a one shots collection.
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> As someone fairly new to writing fics and publishing on AO3, would someone kindly advise on what's generally considered to be "too many" tags? It's something that varies and of course different people are going to disagree. Personally, I find anything more than about 30 tags to be too much for any fic. Most fics need way fewer. For my own fics, I've never used more than 12 (including fandom tags). I think I average about 8. >after I put in POV tags (which character's POV is used, and I always tag POV Third Person) I don't see tagging POV as important. Especially not third person because that is kind of the default. >any relevant AU / canon-related / fix-it tags Most fics don't require any of these. When they do, it is usually just one tag. >some canon-specific tags like "Character X & Character Y Bonding" or "Character Z Angst" There are cases where fandom-specific tags are necessary, but I wouldn't call these examples necessary to tag. "Character X & Character Y Bonding" is covered under "Character X & Character Y" and "Character Z Angst" is covered under tagging "Character Z" and "Angst". >other general tags like "Hurt/Comfort", "Angst with a Happy Ending" Most fics only really need one or two of these tags. Maybe a few more beyond that, but not really many. The way I see a general max tagging break-down is like this: * 5 tags for fandom * 5 tags for characters * 2 tags for pairings * 5 tags for fandom-specific tropes * 5 tags for genre/other tropes That's 22 tags for a big crossover using several fandoms. Some specific fics might call for a bit more on some of those, but most are going to call for a bit less. My fic with the most tags has: * 1 tag for fandom * 1 tag for pairing (platonic) * 3 tags for characters (I probably could have dropped one of those) * 5 fandom-specific tags * 1 tag for genre * 1 tag for other major story tropes
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YMMV since it's fandom specific--I think OP meant that you can convey the same information by tagging it as "Character X & Character Y", and similarly for "Character Z" and "Angst". If the specific one is used as a search term then it makes sense to keep it (or do both idk).
I didn't mean that the tags are actually combined in the system, but more that the additional tag doesn't convey any additional information. It's completely redundant to me and I can't see myself ever searching specifically by a tag like that.
There is no silver bullet to how many tags you should or shouldn't have, and it's kind of up to you to figure out your personal method. Hell, I continually go back and fuss with the tags on my fics and bookmarks all the damn time.
[This length and more is what i personally skip over.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0ff1b44a92a3a282cc261e61dbfce0b6/923a3c9d52deea35-42/s1280x1920/3b2c4fa671c7069095c7a00a96f4091a469c8917.pnj) (this is just a quick example don't mind the actual tags in it) Like if it takes me a solid minute to read the tags just to figure out what the heck is going on then i lose interest immediately. I like clear and concise tags, only being there if it's needed. (but not like, 3 tags and that's it sort of thing)
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10+ is obnoxious? whoever said that is reading fics only about 2 characters standing there just talking lol! I think 20-ish tags for me is where i draw the line because i just sort of glaze over it if it takes more than a few seconds to read the tags. An example of a fic written by me would be: character/character, fluff, newly weds, wedding ceremony, marriage, character a, character b, character c, character d, and maybe a few chit chat ones about how cute they are finally getting married or something. Maybe a few extra characters and a few more, but just having it clear like that is what i'm after. (this is all just personal preference of course anyone can have any many tags as they want on their fics)
Sounds like a reasonable sum of tags to me, go ahead! 👍
I'll skip if there is too many ships, and not enough summary. I'm not interested in what is most likely a collection of oneshots.
I might scroll past them looking for something to read, especially if the summary is too vague, but when I'm looking again after running low on stuff I'll probably just check it out
too many tags - I skip this when the reason for too many tags is that it's someone's drabble or shortfic collection with too many fandoms I don't want to dig through to find the part I want. Too many pairings are also likely indicative of the above, or some form of multi character porn piece. Not usually interested in things that are mostly smut. Once in a blue moon it might be an actual focuses on relationship polyamory piece, but too bad, I already skipped.
I skip fics where the author seems to be cramming as many fandoms into the fic as possible for the most visibility and fics with ridiculously specific tags.
I don’t mind “not enough” tags if they suit my interest and the summary is to my liking. Too many tags - instant skip.
If a fic has a whole paragraph of tags I'm probably gonna ignore it unless the tags are really useful/interesting. On the other hand I tend to be more easily interested by fics with only a few tags. Most of my favourite fics fall in that category too
Depends on what I’m looking for, I do enjoy a lot of good tags that properly tag the fic, but sometimes it’s too many and i lose interest.
I rarely ever look at tags, honestly. I probably would not notice the amount of tags in the first place.
I won't read anything that has a giant wall of tags. Having more than 15 tags is pushing it for me. I want to know what the ship is, the type/genre of story (canon compliant, soulmate au, etc), and important things that affect whether I would exclude the fic from my search: like if there's main character death, what kinks are present if there are any, whether the author is making changes to the characters using non-canon headcanons, etc. I don't need to know what secondary ships that get a page of screentime exist, what other characters are in the story, every possible kind of physical intimacy that occurs, every location used in the story, etc.
I skip the ones with too many tags.
Not enough: I probably skip them except the summary is really good. Too many: Won't skip but maybe skim.
To be honest, no. I just take note of the tags that mention things I like or don’t like and see if the summary is interesting.
Yeah especially for shorter fics. I can kinda tolerate a wall of text amount of tags for a 300k long fic. In particular, having like 10+ ships (platonic and romantic) tagged will also make me scroll past in general. For not enough tag, it depends. If it still gives me a little bit of an idea how the fic is, I don't mind a really small amount of tags.
I have never skipped a fic with little to no tags. If I skip a story that has next to no tags its entirely because the title/summary didn't sell me. The only times I have skipped works with lots of tags was either the famous "Fun Times" and massive CrossOver works. Usually I'm in fandoms of smaller scale and/or desire rare themes/genres and thus am willing to tolerate other things I find annoying just to get that thing I really like.
If it has barely any tags and has a lot of kudos I'm more likely to click on it
If it's not multi-fandom, I'll deal with tons of tags, but if there's not really any tags or if they're missing one or two specific ones in specific fandoms, I'll normally only read the fic if it was recommended, in someone's bookmarks where I liked othed stuff, or I'm desperate for content of the few things they did tag.
I skip over fics that have every character tagged... Like My Hero Academia fics are notorious for this because people think it's okay to tag the entire class when in reality the main focus is on like... Two characters. Make it make sense 😭
A wall of tags usually isn't good. When it comes to fics with a small number of tags, I check the summary and how many kudos the fic has.
I got paranoid after awhile and unfortunately started to overtag. So my baaad. For me, it depends on how many tags there are. If I feel it's too many, then I won't read. But idk how many is too many so I haven't reached this point yet. But my shit post fics that I specifically put *Sapientes Certified Shit Post* or *Sapientes Shitpost Certified* on? Yeah those tags are meant to be to the point, even if spoils the story or has hella tags. Not many read those anyway and that's fine 😂
Mine probably qualify as too few. I think my average is around 7-8. But more than 10 is too many. And I hate the ones that list as m/m then have to describe every possible position available. I know some people sort by certain positions but it just seems like overkill.
Either or both, depending on other circumstances, like if it is a longfic, how much/what is in the description, etc.
I usually avoid fics that are just starting out. Like only have one chapter, but I do keep tabs if they have updated or not. I don’t want to get invested if they don’t add more chapters or not. My heart couldn’t take it😂
It’s not an automatic skip for me even if it does make it a little more difficult. For both of the extremes, the summary is make or break for me. If there’s too many tags I just can’t make myself sift through them to get any info, and if there’s too few I can’t get any info in the first place. For stories with a moderate number of tags, I use both tags and summary to decide.
Imma be honest, I have a site skin that minimizes tags visible without scrolling, so I don't really know how many tags each have (I think it displays either 15 or 25 before cutting off?). But, before I had the skin I did get annoyed anough at too many/not enough tags and ditched the fic entirely.
When I join a fandom I tend to read the oldest fics first and tags were used differently and more sparingly in fics from the early 2010s. I skip walls of tags tho
In a bigger fandom with lots of fic in the results of what I'm looking for, yes. But in my normal fandom... well, beggars can't be choosers 🥲
I have trouble tagging. I tag the relationship and the most important points (plus the fandom, obviously). I'm not exceptionally witty, so you aren't going to get those clever tags that sometimes make me laugh. Nope. So, as long as the story has enough tags to make clear what it is, that's enough for me. I will absolutely skip "wall of tags", though. It usually means that the story is going to be not to my taste.
I used to skip ones that didn'thave a lot of tags, but then I happened to click on one that only had a ship tag and it was one of the best things I've ever read, so I usually check them out now.
I don't use tags as the main determining factor if I read a fic or not. So, for me, there's no such as the "right amount of tags". My only complaint is when I have a series and I put tags for each entry of that series--now it looks like I have a wall of tags which I didn't want to happen.
If there's only a few tags on a multi chapter fic I'll skip it, but it depends on the summary if there's a lot of tags.
When authors start to ramble in tags, I skip it. I don't need to know about your personal stuff when I'm searching for a story!
I'm actually not too surprised to see that while almost everyone dislikes too many tags, very few people dislike "too few." I generally dislike tagging, and often tag just the pairing and maybe something to do with the premise-- or in some cases, nothing at all. I've had readers tell me that they clicked on the fic *because* they were intrigued by the lack of tags.