AO3 Tag Limits

On August 24, 2021, the OTW announced that Archive of Our Own (AO3) would limit the number of tags that could be added to a single fanwork to 75. Previously, AO3 had never limited the number of tags a user could add to a work.
The announcement generated a lot of fan discussion on multiple platforms. Opinions varied widely, though the majority of site users appeared to be in favor. The discussion also revealed the philosophies behind different tagging practices.
==Background==
AO3 users can add tags to their own works or bookmarks. The work form includes several freeform fields that users can enter tags into: Fandoms, Characters, Relationships, Additional Tags. Users can select existing "canonical" tags from the dropdown or create their own. Volunteer tag wranglers work on the back end to connect synonyms and "canonize" tags to improve site navigation. (Archive warnings, relationship categories, and Rating are also tags, but users must select them from a predefined list and cannot make new ones.) 
From 2009 when the archive entered open beta until 2021, AO3 had no limit on the number of tags that could be added to a work. All of the tags and other metadata would display as part of the work blurb on search results and work list pages. Occasionally archive users would complain of "walls of tags" on some works that they deemed to have too many tags, but no one, it seems, was prepared for what came next.
Many people believe that the trigger for the new tag limit policy was Sexy times with Wangxian by virtual1979, a frequently-updated million-word Mo Dao Zu Shi work with thousands of tags. Matters came to a head in early 2021 when the increasing number of tags caused the site to crash for some users, while more and more users became annoyed at this work appearing at the top of every tag they wanted to read. The author seemed impervious to user requests to remove tags. Copy cat trolls then started flooding the site with more works with thousands of tags for a few days before they and Sexy times with Wangxian were removed from view. 
A ticket to limit tags was opened on AO3's public bug tracker on March 31.Limit the number of tags that can be used on works (accessed 16 April 2021) In April virtual1979 announced that the AO3 had told them there was a new tag limit policy, but nothing official was heard until August....
==AO3 News Post==
The tag limit announcement was posted to the News section of AO3 itself, as well as to a few of the OTW's social media accounts. The AO3 post explained that after the next code update went live, the combined total of fandom, character, relationship, and additional tags could not exceed 75. Existing works with more than 75 tags would not be affected until the user tried to update the work--the user would be prompted to remove the extra tags before saving.
In response to questions, the OTW clarified in a later post that "the new limits will not apply to bookmarks, series, or gift exchanges and prompt memes run on the site." , posted 2021-09-12. (Accessed 13 September 2021.)
==Reactions==
Before comments were closed, the AO3 News post received 1,715 comments. As of 8 September, the tumblr announcement post had 14,120 notes. Most users (especially readers) seemed to be in favor, with a minority of authors against.
The main disagreement seemed to be between fans who treated tags as an index to their work (tagging every element that appears) and fans who believed that only the most important elements of the work should be tagged. Also at play was the tension between tagging so people could exclude things they don't like (squicks, triggers, a character they hate so much even a brief mention is too much) vs. tagging for things people actively like (would a fan of this character be happy with the amount of screen time they get in the fic?). Some longfic writers, writers who liked collecting all their short works as chapters in one work, and fans in complex franchise fandoms with large numbers of characters expressed disappointment in the new policy. Fans of rarepairs and side characters, fans who didn't like collections-as-works, fans who were annoyed by Sexy times with Wangxian, and other AO3 users who used tags to find fanworks expressed varying degrees of satisfaction with the new policy. Some people thought having a limit made sense, but wanted the limit to be higher or lower than 75. Some people just posted "The evil is defeated" gifs.
Discussions about how AO3's tag system worked also took place, as it turned out that some fans worried about the limit were unaware that they could use metatags instead and didn't have to tag all synonyms separately.
===Some AO3 News replies===
===Some Tumblr replies===
===Some Twitter replies===
==Further Reading==
*AO3 Tag Wrangling
*AO3 Tagging Policy Debate
*Overtagging
*Bruce Banner Syndrome
===Official Announcements===
*AO3 News: , 24 August 2021
*ao3org tumblr: , 24 August 2021
*@AO3_Status twitter: , 25 August 2021
*@AO3_Status twitter: , 26 August 2021
*OTW weibo: , 24 August 2021
===Fan Discussions/Meta===
*r/FanFiction: , 24 August 2021 
*r/HPfanfiction: , 24 August 2021
*Twitter: tweet by CaptShirogane, 24 August 2021
*fail_fandomanon: , 24 August 2021
*fail_fandomanon: , 25 August 2021
*warlock4warlock: , 25 August 2021
*Tumblr: by AO3 Comment of the Day, 25 August 2021
*Dreamwidth: by elf, 25 August 2021
*Twitter: by GenmaichaGreen, 25 August 2021
*Twitter: by verity, 26 August 2021
*, tableau report by verity
*Dreamwidth: by tei, 27 August 2021
*fail_fandomanon: , 29 August 2021
==References==
Category:Archive of Our Own
Category:Fandom Occurrences
Category:2021 Events