No Fandom Freeform

A No Fandom Freeform is a type of non-fandom-specific tag found on Archive of Our Own. No Fandom freeforms are linked to the "No Fandom" fandom tag, categorized as "Additional Tags", and represent a wide variety of miscellaneous concepts and tropes. The term is used by past and present AO3 tag wranglers and other fans familiar with AO3's tagging system.
As of January 2025, there are over 13,400 canonical No Fandom freeforms.Results of AO3's tag search page, 22 January 2025. Note that fandom-specific tags are sometimes incorrectly added to No Fandom, so the true number may be lower. ("Canonical" or "common" tags have been flagged in the system so that they are filterable; tag wranglers create a new canonical or "canonize" the tag with the correct form according to guidelines and "syn" noncanonical tags to it. Canonical tags can also be assigned metatags or subtags.)
==What is No Fandom?==
"No Fandom" is a canonical fandom tag that was created for wranglers to store character, relationship, and additional tags that are not related to a specific fandom. 
*Character example: Sam
*Relationship example: Everyone/Everyone
*Additional Tags/Freeforms example: Amnesia
==What are Freeforms?==
Freeforms, also known as Additional Tags, are the "miscellaneous" category for AO3 tags, including everything from tropes and genres to specific LiveJournal communities to fanwork medium or format. See also AO3 Tagging System.
==Popular No Fandom Freeform Tags==
*Fluff - tagged on over two million works
*Angst - tagged on over two million works 
*Alternate Universe - tag with many subtags
*To Read - used mainly on bookmarks
*Hurt/Comfort
*Smut
*Not Beta Read
*Other Additional Tags to Be Added
*Isekai - canonical tag Isekai and Transmigration created in April 2024 
*Don't copy to another site - noncanonical with 68046 uses
*Monsterfucking and monster fucking - noncanonicals with 5889 uses and 2571 uses respectively
*Humans are space orcs - noncanonical with 3505 uses
*Free Use - noncanonical with 3481 uses
==Rule of Three==
When canonizing no-fandom freeforms was allowed, the rule was that the tag needed at least three uses by three different users to be canonized.
==Canonization Moratorium==
Canonizing new No Fandom freeform tags was paused for a decade. According to official OTW news outlets, the freeze has been lifted as of March 2024. However, as of June 2024 very few tags have been newly canonized.
Tag wranglers continued to syn tags to existing canonicals, but, with some limited exceptions, like tags for panfandom fests and exchanges (e.g. Yuletide 2023), could not create new canonical freeform tags or promote existing tags to be filterable. The wrangling freeze has rarely been mentioned in official OTW communications--and in all cases the OTW has avoided mentioning the duration of the freezeExample: , tweet by ao3_wranglers, 17 December 2017.Another example: , tweet by ao3_wranglers, 9 September 2015.--but seems to have started in late 2013 or early 2014. Many AO3 users were unaware of the freeze, but eventually noticed that popular tags remained uncanonized, occasionally posting on social media to express surprise or annoyance.Reddit example: asking why isekai isn't filterable. , r/AO3 post, 11 January 2023., r/AO3 post, 13 April 2023.Dreamwidth example: comment asking erinptah why Soulmate goose of enforcement isn't a canonical yet. , dreamwidth comment, 2023-06-21., tweet by GazeboGoose, 28 March 2023., tweet by FarFromZeTree, 30 June 2023., tweet by nnoontide, 4 October 2022., tweet by gegeenthusiast, 9 November 2021., tweet by applepieces, 30 August 2023. Users who submitted a Support ticket requesting a No Fandom freeform be canonized might receive a reply indicating that wrangling for those tags was on pause "at the moment"Email communication from Support to aethel, 5 November 2022. To be fair, not all email responses implied that the wrangling freeze was merely a brief interruption to business as usual. A popular response in 2019-2020 emails included the sentence "As there are a large number of No Fandom tags that need review, they probably will not address the issue for some time.". Fail_fandomanon, a dreamwidth anonmeme inhabited by many past and present OTW volunteers (including wranglers), was the main source of public information about developments in the No Fandom freeform canonization moratorium.
In November 2013, tag wrangling chairs sent an email to the mailing list with the subject line "Heavy server loads & freeform tag wrangling". In it, they noted ongoing server load issues and that wrangling had had to be turned off completely at several points. They asked wranglers to avoid wrangling a few types of tags. One of the types mentioned was No Fandom freeforms, "other than to syn tags to existing canonicals. Avoid canonizing new No Fandom freeform tags, making new subtag or metatags between No Fandom freeform tags, or changing No Fandom freeform canonicals." Part of the problem was that works and bookmarks got reindexed every time a tag changed, and if the tag was in a metatag tree, even more works would be automatically reindexed. (See these two 2018 fail_fandomanon threads where someone shared mailing list emails related to wrangling restrictions and the reindexing process.) As of 2013, any wrangler could create new No Fandom freeform canonicals or modify or create tag trees; the result was that some wranglers who abhorred an orphan tag created some very deep tag trees that needed to be fixed but that would allegedly kill the servers if anyone tried--the trees contained tags that were not very closely related ("concept drift") and tags that needed to be renamed.
No Fandom wrangling may have temporarily resumed at some point after the 2013 email, but in 2016 someone on fail_fandomanon reported that "the restriction took effect in January 2014, and will be lifted on [static, vague buzzing, sound of wranglers crying quietly in a corner].", anonymous comment in fail_fandomanon, 2016-12-21.
The initial reason given to tag wranglers for the moratorium was server load issues, and that rationale was repeated for years by various users who were aware of the moratorium., AO3 News, comment thread started by aethel (former wrangler), 30 Jun 2020., tweet by creon95, 15 April 2021. The official ao3_wranglers twitter account also mentioned server issues several times between 2014 and 2019 when replying to other twitter users about No Fandom tags., tweet by ao3_wranglers, 1 November 2014., tweet by ao3_wranglers, Mar 2, 2019. 
However, according to the gossip circulating on fail_fandomanon, the original technical problems were eventually resolved, possibly by a Rails upgrade, 2020-08-02., and that wrangling procedural issues became the holdup. From a 2021 discussion:
Other comments at fail_fandomanon indicate that Hanahaki Disease was canonized during a November 2018 "trial run"., fail_fandomanon thread, 2018-11-14., 2023-07-03. Several grumpy remarks have been made to the effect that the process set up in 2018 was a bureaucratic nightmare that was quickly abandoned:
Possibly the first mention of the moratorium in the OTW Newsletter was an item for the August 2020 issue: 
For context: After the moratorium, a page on the OTW's internal wiki was set up to track problems with the No Fandom freeform tags that needed to be fixed once the moratorium ended. These problems included: bad metatag trees, wrong canonical tag names, wrong syns, and tags needing to be canonized. Users, unaware of the growing backlog, continued to submit Support tickets requesting fixes to No Fandom freeforms; these were all added to the bottom of the list on the wiki page. The 2020 "Fast Track process" was a way to address some of the "wrong syns" from the six-year backlog. On fail_fandomanon in 2022, wrangler anons described the current state of the list and the process for fixing tags:
A few months later another anon, or perhaps the same anon(s), described the current workflow for regular wranglers in more detail. Phrases like "Kafkaesque bureaucracy" and "heat death of the universe" were thrown around., fail_fandomanon thread, 2022-11-09.
A May 2023 update from fail_fandomanon:
Meanwhile, the OTW's August 2023 newsletter produced an optimistic spin on the No Fandom wrangling moratorium:
The moratorium was also mentioned during the disastrous July 2023 OTW Board meeting in response to questions about AO3 & AI Generated Content. Meeting minutes didn't include any information about the discussion posted 2023-12-06. (Accessed 2 March 2024.), but the Board's statement was quoted on fail_fandomanon:
The fail_fandomanon community responded thusly:
===Impact===
Since the moratorium wasn't widely known, discussion about its potential impact has been limited. On fail_fandomanon, a few fans have suggested that not having new canonicals for such a long period of time was hindering the development of new tropes and genres in fanfiction.
Meanwhile, the growing number of popular tags that are not filterable makes it harder for other fans to find AO3 fanworks with tropes and genres they are interested in. 
===End of the Moratorium?===
In late 2023 scattered rumors on dreamwidth and brief mentions in the OTW Newsletter hinted that the moratorium was nearing its end. The November newsletter had this item:
In March 2024, the official AO3 tumblr account posted Update on "No Fandom" tags, describing their work on revising and adding new canonical tags., tumblr post by ao3org, 2 March 2024. As of March 9, five new canonicals, related to sex acts and generative AI, had been added.Tag Search for No Fandom canonical freeforms sorted in reverse chronological order. (Accessed 9 March 2024.), fail_fandomanon, 2024-03-08. In mid April, the tumblr account announced plans to canonize a few more tags: tags related to COVID-19, Isekai and Transmigration, Mommy Kink, and There Was Only One Bed. Some tags already canonized would also be updated, merged, or reorganized., ao3org tumblr, 16 April 2024.
However, as of June 2024 very few tags had actually been promoted or created under the new procedures, and gossip on fail_fandomanon suggested that the new procedures were still in the testing phase and moving at a glacial pace.
==References==
Category:Archive of Our Own Glossary