AO3 Original Works and Self-Pub Wrangling Debacle

The AO3 Original Works and Self-Pub Wrangling Debacle is one way of referring to the deliberate miswrangling of fanfiction for Erin A. Bisson's novels and the original slash novel The Course of Honour (TCoH) by Avoliot. They're both often brought up at the same time because both fandoms have had their Archive of Our Own fandom tags synned with the "Original Works" fandom tag. Erin A. Bisson's works are most often just referred to by the name of her first novel, King of Bones (KoB), although all of her works have been affected in the past and most still are.
The multifandom Dreamwidth anon meme fail_fandomanon (FFA) usually brings up the miswrangling of one where the other is brought up because the miswrangling of both fandoms happened more or less concurrently, although the canon sources have nothing to do with each other and the fandoms have little to no overlap except on FFA/in exchange fandom.
==General Background==
===Fail_FandomAnon===
fail_fandomanon has had many long and enthusiastic threads about what they both like and don't like about the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW, AO3's parent organization) in general and Archive of Our Own's tag system in specific. They also track and sleuth fandom wank.FFA's wank-sleuthing: For example, in mid-November of 2017, FFA discussed and eventually debunked an author's claim that one of their works of original fiction had been deleted for TOS violations — an anon discovered that the "fic" that was actually deleted was comprised of blog-style updates from the author about his life. (. Posted 12 November 2017. Accessed 31 July 2018.)
===Original Fiction on AO3===
Around 2010 there was a debate about whether to allow original fiction on Archive of Our Own.melannen, On original fic and fanfic, posted 10 April 2010. (Accessed 31 July 2018.) In some corners of fandom, the line between original fiction and fanfiction is clear, but in others (especially in Spanish,The livejournal community recs_ftw accepts recs on any fandom and original fiction, as it says in the rules ("Fanfic y RPF, RPS, y los queridos originales. ¡Todo es bueno a la hora de recomendar!" or "Fanfic, RPF, RPS, and beloved originals. When you're rec'ing, it's all good!"). German-speaking,The Freie Arbeiten category in fanfiktion.de, which includes subcategories for prose and poetry. and Japanese-speaking fandom communities; in Original Slash, Original Yaoi, and furry communities; and in the Jane Austen fandomThe Original Stories subforum (locked) at the A Happy Assembly fanfiction board.) original fiction is considered a fannish activity. AO3 chose to include original fiction in the Archive, under the fandom tag "Original Works," but the wording on what kinds of original fiction are allowed is vague.
The AO3 Terms of Service FAQ says:
==="Synning" and "Canonical" Tags===
:More information: Additional Tag Wrangling Vocabulary
Some background on how AO3 and its tag wrangling works is necessary to understand the problems discussed below.
"Synning" is the act of linking (wrangling) two separate tags together so that AO3's search engine considers them synonymous. Unsynning (removing the link) is "the easiest thing in the world."Anonymous, identifying as a former wrangler. Re: Archive of Our Own [AO3 thread - The Course Of Honour fic synned to Original]. Posted 26 August 2017. (Accessed 31 July 2018.) 
:* For example, a wrangler might syn "puppies" and "puppers" under the assumption that anyone searching for one would be looking for works tagged with the other. 
:* Anyone who wants to view just works tagged "puppers" and not works tagged with "puppies" (and everything synned with "puppies") will have to use the text search function.
A "canonical" tag is a tag that can be used to filter works and that will show up in autocompletes when a user is tagging a work. Non-canonical tags can still be viewed, but you can only see works that match exactly and you can't filter the tagged works. 
:* If the tag "puppers" isn't canonized and isn't synned to a canonical tag, then: 
::* Folks who misspell it are out of luck, as "pupppers" will never be synned to "puppers." 
::* Anyone who wants to browse works tagged "puppers" will have to do so from most-recent to oldest, with no ability to exclude anything, or use the text search function.
Being non-canonical is different from being synned. Synned tags cannot be viewed—attempting to do so redirects you to the canonical tag they've been synned to.
The text search function searches titles, authors, tags, summaries, author's notes, and the entire text of the fic.
==The Course of Honour by Avoliot==
===Background===
The Course of Honour was posted on AO3 by Avoliot starting in February 2017 and ending in May 2017. Its fandom tag is "Original Work." In the first author's note for the work Avoliot thanks emilyenrose for her beta work:
Avoliot linked to emilyenrose's tumblr, but emilyenrose has the same username on AO3. This easily establishes emilyenrose and Avoliot as friends to anyone who opens The Course of Honour, including tag wranglers who might google "The Course of Honor" to find out how to wrangle a new fandom tag.
In May 2017, just after the novel ended, emilyenrose posted the TCoH fanfiction And Indeed There Will Be Time, which she had been working on before Avoliot finished TCoH. In July 2017, emilyenrose posted Is The New Prince K Here To Stay?. Both fics have the fandom tag "The Course of Honor - Avoliot" and the appropriate character and relationship tags.
===The Miswrangling===
By August 2017, emilyenrose's two fics were the only TCoH fanworks on the Archive."...It looks like so far there are only two works by one user..." - Anonymous in Re: AO3 THREAD - Unwrangled Tags Lamentations, posted 11 August 2017. (Accessed 01 August 2018.) An anon on FFA complained in July:
One anon thought that people should just use the "inspired by" function on AO3.
In mid-August, another anon appeared to complain about the synning of the TCoH tag to "Original Works". In a subthread for "Unwrangled Tag Lamentation", they wrote:
The anon from July arrived up to commiserate with Mid-August Anon:
One anon suggests that the Wranglers might be waiting for more than one author to write TCoH fic before they canonize the fandom (even though Mid-August Anon is complaining that the tag is synned, not non-canonical) and Mid-August Anon replies that they aren't emilyenrose, but they hadn't considered that more works might help get the miswrangling fixed.
Yet another anon said:
FFA complained more at the end of August that the TCoH tag was still synned with Original Works.Anonymous in Re: Recommended Original Works on Ao3, posted 23 August 2017. (Accessed 01 August 2018.) They also worried about of The Course of Honor would be allowed for Yuletide and if they should risk wasting their nominations on it.Anonymous in Re: Yuletide - Book canons, posted 26 August 2017. (Accessed 01 August 2018.) (It was nominated and accepted for Yuletide 2017—three works in the Yuletide 2017 collection are TCoH fics.
===First AO3 Support Contact===
On August 26, 2017, an anonymous user posted to fail_fandomanon's AO3 thread asking for advice on what to say to AO3 Support to convince them to unsynn the fandom tag "The Course of Honour - Avoliot" from "Original Works." Possibly this anon was Mid-August Anon, but it's equally likely that it was a separate person who had also experienced frustration and confusion over this miswrangling.
Late August Anon said:
====FFA Reacts and Helps Draft a Reply====
Anons at the top of the thread had a short discussion about why this was a problem.
Other anons elaborate on why the "lack of a clearly published source material"/"not based on a published pre-existing canon"/"not fanworks of an existing canon, but a cooperative attempt to build a canon" reasoning presented by Support on behalf of the Wranglers is flawed and upsetting.
Some anons hoped that this would be handled easily once it was kicked up the chain.Anonymous in Re: Archive of Our Own [AO3 thread - The Course Of Honour fic synned to Original], posted 26 August 2017. (Accessed 01 August 2018.) Archive.org link. Archived 16 November 2022. 
===Reply to AO3 Support===
Late August Anon, posts what they planned to write back to AO3 support:
===Second AO3 Support Contact===
On September 2, 2017, Late August Anon returned with a reply from AO3 Support:
====FFA Reaction====
Anons on the thread bring up Fae TalesAnonymous in Re: New reply from AO3 support on The Course of Honour fanfic tag syn, posted 02 September 2017. (Accessed 02 August 2018.) and Paris Burning,Anonymous in Re: New reply from AO3 support on The Course of Honour fanfic tag syn, posted 02 September 2017. (Accessed 02 August 2018.) both original fiction works posted to AO3 that have their own canonized fandom tags. Fae Tales had its fandom tag ("Fae Tales - not_poignant") canonized because an anon on FFA said they wanted a canonized tag for Fae Tales and a tag wrangler reading the meme made it happen for them."The Fae Tales tag! I remember how that happened - I talked about wanting one on meme, and a nonnie wrangled it for me, thank you. :D" - Anonymous in Re: New reply from AO3 support on The Course of Honour fanfic tag syn, posted 02 September 2017. (Accessed 02 August 2018.)
At least one other complaint was sent in to AO3 support:
===Third AO3 Support Contact===
On September 13, Late August Anon returns with more news:
====FFA Reaction====
==King of Bones and Erin A. Bisson's Other Works==
===Background===
===AO3 Support Contact===
In a post on Dreamwidth in early November, 2017, kalloway wrote out a report of her recent communications with AO3 Support regarding the synning of the "King of Bones - Erin A. Bisson" fandom tag with the "Original Works" fandom tag. After some back-and-forth, the reply she got from AO3 Support detailing the wranglers' decision to synn the two tags was as follows:
Kalloway replied:
The author confirmed on her own Dreamwidth account that she had never linked her professional publishing name with her fannish identity on AO3.taichara (Erin A. Bisson) in her post AO3, near-doxxing, and arbitrary definition of "fanworks" as applied to Yours Truly. Posted 09 November 2017. (Accessed 31 July 2018.)
An anonymous wrangler on fail_fandomanon dug into the wrangling notes for the King of Bones fandom tag. There were two fandom tags, one without the middle name initial and one with the middle initial and both had notes linking the author's fannish AO3 and Dreamwidth identity with her publishing identity. The tag without the middle initial had its note written in April, 2017, while the tag with the middle initial had its note written in September, 2017. This is likely when they were respectively synned.Anonymous posting to fail_fandomanon on 02 December 2017. (Accessed 31 July 2018.)
By March, 2018, the "Machine City Knights - Erin A. Bisson" tag was re-canonized,Anonymous posting to fail_fandomanon on 11 March 2018. (Accessed 31 July 2018.) and although it was suggested that the reason was because a third author wrote something for the tag, that's also true of Triskelion which has not has its fandom tag re-canonized.
===FFA Reaction===
==Notes and References==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Archive_of_Our_Own
Category:2017 Events
Category:2018 Events
Category:Scandals