ladydragon76 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladydragon76) wrote2024-09-01 01:20 pm
ladydragon76) wrote2024-09-01 01:20 pm
Entry tags:
My Letter to Ao3 re: their desire to remove Transformers-All Media
Below the cut so as not to clutter everyone's reading page.
First, I'd like to link to a post on Tumblr by someone far more articulate than me -
https://www.tumblr.com/pipermca/760352433570447361/new-ao3-tag-wrangling-policy-and-the-transformers
Pipermca really explains it well, and I can really only second everything said in that post. I will however add how I use Transformers-All Media as a tag and why it's important to me specifically.
I have 728 works on this site. My first post was on Jan 21, 2011. 723 of those fics are posted under the Transformers-All Media tag. This is because, while I nearly always also add the continuity-specific tag, continuity-specific tags are just a subcategory and really only used so my readers know what flavors the fic will contain. As Pipermca says, Transformers authors play with continuity soup ALL the time. I very literally JUST discussed the requirement of an umbrella fandom tag with Melo of Superlove a few days ago when I opened an account there, as I was the first person to post a Transformers fic to the site. It's ALL Transformers. All of it. Tagging with G1, or IDW, or Bayverse, or TFA, or Prime just gives the idea of the setting and possible personalities the author is using. I JUST yesterday received a notification for someone I subscribe to here who had tagged their fic with ONLY the All Media tag, and that is NOT uncommon for our fandom.
When I want to read and no one I subscribe to has posted something new, I go to the All Media tag. I ONLY ever search the All Media tag because that is used by the fandom as an umbrella for everything else. If the All Media tag is removed, or Ao3 stops adding the new continuities to it, I (and basically everyone I've know in this fandom for the last 17+ years) will need to add ALL the continuities to every search for new fics lest I (we) risk missing a gem that SHOULD have been included under the umbrella of Transformers-All Media.
I truly don't know how other massive fandoms do it, but I can't imagine that DC or Marvel, which have comics, books, movies, cartoons, cartoon movies, and tv shows too, are all that different from Transformers. We have FORTY (40) continuities, and the only one not currently under the Transformers- All Media umbrella tag is the new movie, Transformers One, coming out in just two weeks. They've JUST announced a new Transformers Anime (it'll be number 41 of the continuities). Our fandom is 40 years old THIS month. I've been in this fandom since 1984 when I was LARPing in the backyard and at recess with my friends. Having an umbrella tag is so critically important, and I can't fathom the benefit of removing it.
If Ao3 intends to break our fandom into parts and make searching new stories more difficult, I'm concerned. In a time when I KNOW so many of us are struggling to find a place to be active with fandom on websites which keep making it harder and harder to form a community of shared interest, this feels… almost cruel and deliberately so.
Please. Please, leave us our umbrella fandom tag and maintain it. If Transformers-All Media is for some reason unpalatable after nearly 14 YEARS of use, then why not just "Transformers-General" or just simply "Transformers"?
Thank you for reading and I look forward to your response.
-LadyDragon76
To add: I sent this to Ao3 as Pipermca suggested in their tumblr post, I'm not just posting it here and crossing my fingers they see it. I'm posting it publicly to raise awareness about the issue and add my voice and plea that they not chop up my fandom and make it even harder to find people and their wonderful, creative works.
First, I'd like to link to a post on Tumblr by someone far more articulate than me -
https://www.tumblr.com/pipermca/760352433570447361/new-ao3-tag-wrangling-policy-and-the-transformers
Pipermca really explains it well, and I can really only second everything said in that post. I will however add how I use Transformers-All Media as a tag and why it's important to me specifically.
I have 728 works on this site. My first post was on Jan 21, 2011. 723 of those fics are posted under the Transformers-All Media tag. This is because, while I nearly always also add the continuity-specific tag, continuity-specific tags are just a subcategory and really only used so my readers know what flavors the fic will contain. As Pipermca says, Transformers authors play with continuity soup ALL the time. I very literally JUST discussed the requirement of an umbrella fandom tag with Melo of Superlove a few days ago when I opened an account there, as I was the first person to post a Transformers fic to the site. It's ALL Transformers. All of it. Tagging with G1, or IDW, or Bayverse, or TFA, or Prime just gives the idea of the setting and possible personalities the author is using. I JUST yesterday received a notification for someone I subscribe to here who had tagged their fic with ONLY the All Media tag, and that is NOT uncommon for our fandom.
When I want to read and no one I subscribe to has posted something new, I go to the All Media tag. I ONLY ever search the All Media tag because that is used by the fandom as an umbrella for everything else. If the All Media tag is removed, or Ao3 stops adding the new continuities to it, I (and basically everyone I've know in this fandom for the last 17+ years) will need to add ALL the continuities to every search for new fics lest I (we) risk missing a gem that SHOULD have been included under the umbrella of Transformers-All Media.
I truly don't know how other massive fandoms do it, but I can't imagine that DC or Marvel, which have comics, books, movies, cartoons, cartoon movies, and tv shows too, are all that different from Transformers. We have FORTY (40) continuities, and the only one not currently under the Transformers- All Media umbrella tag is the new movie, Transformers One, coming out in just two weeks. They've JUST announced a new Transformers Anime (it'll be number 41 of the continuities). Our fandom is 40 years old THIS month. I've been in this fandom since 1984 when I was LARPing in the backyard and at recess with my friends. Having an umbrella tag is so critically important, and I can't fathom the benefit of removing it.
If Ao3 intends to break our fandom into parts and make searching new stories more difficult, I'm concerned. In a time when I KNOW so many of us are struggling to find a place to be active with fandom on websites which keep making it harder and harder to form a community of shared interest, this feels… almost cruel and deliberately so.
Please. Please, leave us our umbrella fandom tag and maintain it. If Transformers-All Media is for some reason unpalatable after nearly 14 YEARS of use, then why not just "Transformers-General" or just simply "Transformers"?
Thank you for reading and I look forward to your response.
-LadyDragon76
To add: I sent this to Ao3 as Pipermca suggested in their tumblr post, I'm not just posting it here and crossing my fingers they see it. I'm posting it publicly to raise awareness about the issue and add my voice and plea that they not chop up my fandom and make it even harder to find people and their wonderful, creative works.
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I am a proponent of keeping AMT tags in ALL fandoms. I feel like a large canonical umbrella tag, and then more granular era / canon / title tags would make the most sense in all the big fandoms, to allow people to be as general or detailed as they need. Taking away tags never improves the flow.
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And while I DO fully believe this is just someone(s) not understanding how massive fandoms like ours work, it DOES feel almost intentionally mean to try to dice up our fandom up into 'specific' categories and divide us and our access to each other.
Like, no. Please. Being specific (when it's even needed or desired) is the POINT of sub-tags. AMT tags are very important and while my understanding of tag wrangling IS still very basic in the how-this-works-behind the scenes, and only as well understood as it is thanks to Melo, AMT or SOME kind of umbrella tag is crucial for multi-media fandoms. Superlove opted for Transformers(Franchise) as the umbrella rather than All Media, but it still does the same job.
It's a bit wild that Ao3 is doing this mere DAYS after I had a different site owner nodding as I struggled to make sense explaining something I've never had to put to words before cuz it's just so INTRINSIC to how our fandom functions and going, no, I get it, how about this? and making it work.
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Hopefully enough of us going OMG NOOOOOO! PLEASE NOOO! will give them pause to reconsider.