It's a cultural shift thing, too, as more and more of media fandom is involved via Tumblr and have become accustomed to using the free-form Tumblr tags for communicating.

Totally. It's been an adjustment, but it isn't that far off from what people would tag in LJ/DW when the function became available. The fact that AO3 as a whole can organize fic around fandom, pairing, rating, etc is still pretty miraculous for me. Particularly so because I've been going back to LOTR stories, circa the early aughts, and while a surprising number of the links still work, more are down.

And comparatively the work it took to find stories back then (get offa my lawn!) is nearly worth the loss of ignorance from the hypercontextual world of AO3.

Although I do sincerely wish there were a way to turn off automatic display of "Notes" especially when the author is writing a WIP. I genuinely do not give a good shit about the weather or what's going on with your guinea pig; I just want to read the next bedamned chapter of your idfic.

Although I do sincerely wish there were a way to turn off automatic display of "Notes" especially when the author is writing a WIP. I genuinely do not give a good shit about the weather or what's going on with your guinea pig; I just want to read the next bedamned chapter of your idfic.

As you know, Bob, I share these feels.

So much.

You got to hear me rant about it complete with examples, even!

Or put the Notes at the end of the fic.

Well, the end of the chapter. I know you have Reasons for not getting back to the work more quickly, God know we've all got Reasons.

Notes at the end is an option. But where they display when at the end is hard to avoid, so if you're reading something and the author has a summary at the end of any chapter where there is problematic content (hi, have you met me? I'm the person who is searching for the dubcon and noncon, so this is a lot of my reading) detailing in summary form the problematic content--a common thing these days--chances are you will get stuck seeing them.

I could skin it to hide it, but I don't want to, because I want to be able to turn it on for important notes like translations and occasional footnotes.

As you know, Bob, I share these feels.

The more we talked about it the more committed I got.

detailing in summary form the problematic content--a common thing these days--chances are you will get stuck seeing them.

Yeah. I have "choose not to show archive warnings" checked, because I don't want to know. Similarly, I don't want to be spoiled for the bloody story in the notes. But I suspect that is the trend of fandom.

Man, LOTR fandom was so crazy back in the day. Just shuffling through crack_van (long live crack_van!) and seeing all the pairings wide and yonder fills me with delight. You think crack reached its height in Inception or Teen Wolf? O my friend, LOTR did it all first (and in many cases for the better).

Yeah. I have "choose not to show archive warnings" checked, because I don't want to know. Similarly, I don't want to be spoiled for the bloody story in the notes. But I suspect that is the trend of fandom.

Thus my desire to be able to turn the things off! Jesus, I don't need a summary of EVERYTHING SOMEONE MIGHT BE BOTHERED BY IN THE NOTES. "Blair cuts his hair. He gets into a fight with Jim over it that then turns sexual. Neither of them consent specifically, but both enjoy themselves. Jim worries that he has crossed a line with Blair never the less."

If you've already tagged it, you have warned enough!

I don't want to be spoiled for the bloody story in the notes

I do a quick scan for my standard Do Not Read tags, look over the pairings and standard tags, then skip the notes.

Blair cuts his hair.

this remains the ur-warning, heralding all other warnings in fandom.

It does indeed.

Though, you know, I kind of want to read the story I just summarized now.

OH! SA, I should send you my schedule for Norwescon so you can come mock me when I'm on the fanfic panels. I think a day pass isn't too horrifically costly.