ADMIN: A refresher on our tagging system!

[virtualinsomnia]

First off, to everyone who is taking the time to properly tag all their fics here, THANK YOU! You are totally awesome!!! :-)

Secondly, as much as I'd like to make sure that every single story is tagged, I simply don't have the time. I've gone through hundreds (maybe even thousands) of stories here, and that didn't even seem to scratch the surface. We have TONS of authors writing TONS of shiny fics, with more coming in each day. So I'm going to have to officially turn it over to you guys to manage your own tags from now on. I simply don't have the time to go back through and check them all.

So, perhaps you're wondering WHY you should bother tagging your fic, hmmm? Well, I'll tell you. Tagging your fic makes it easier for others to find it. Plain and simple. If I'm looking for a kick-ass River fic, my first course of action is to click on the "river" tag. And if your fic hasn't been tagged, then it WON'T SHOW UP. So essentially, after it drops off the main page of entries, it will vanish into the bowls of our community, and the likelihood of someone finding it to read it go way down. But if it's tagged appropriately, then somebody like me who's looking through the "river" tag, for instance, will be able to find TONS of older fic, all about the youngest Tam. And boom, your fic gets read again and possibly even receives some shiny feedback!

However, tagging is not a requirement by any means. If you don't do it, I'm not going to come make you or anything. It simply means that your fic has a smaller chance of being noticed once it drops off the main page.

Anyway, okay, so now that I've talked some about WHY you should tag, here's a little bit about HOW you should tag. You see, it seems like a few of our tags are a touch unclear, so here's the skinny on the ones most often misused:

1. The "serenity" tag is not for fic written about the pilot episode or the movie. It's for fic that include the starship Serenity as a major character in some way. That doesn't mean your fic about the ship Serenity can't take place during either of those times, because it can, but the timing alone does not equal use of the "serenity" tag. The ship itself MUST be a major character or play an especially important role in the fic for that tag to apply.


2. When adding your entry tags, please DO NOT use the "other" tag for regular fic posts. It is not meant to signify a character other than the main nine. Rather, it is for non-fic posts. (e.g. beta requests, links, etc.) Okay, so some people couldn't seem to get a handle on this, so I've renamed the tag to "non-fic" instead, and deleted the tag from all the posts that used it inappropriately. Hopefully this will prevent further confusion on the matter.


3. If you are using a minor character from the show (i.e. characters like Saffron, Mr. Universe, Nandi, etc.) and there isn't an entry tag created for them yet, please let me know by making a post with the subject line "Tag Request" and the name of the character you need a tag for. Once I've created the appropriate tag, I will delete the post, so there's no need to tag your tag request posts. And if you make your tag request post and more than a week passes without a reply of some sort from me (sometimes RL gets busy and I can't check on my LJ communities as much as I'd like to), then please drop me a comment, either in my personal journal or on one of my posts here. And hopefully then I'll get the email notification and be able to quickly make you the tag that you need.


4. If you're writing a crossover with another show/movie/book/etc. then please use the "xover" tag on your story. However, you will not be able to tag your story with the name of the secondary fandom or the names of any non-Firefly characters. Just using "xover" will have to suffice.


5. If your story features an original character of some sort, either use "omc" or "ofc" (depending on if your new character is a man or a woman).

Okay, tagging lecture over. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Firefly fic!

Comments

[wildannuette.livejournal.com]

Oh cool, I didn't realize we could tag ourselves. Is there a tag list somewhere? My observational skills are woefully lacking.

[virtualinsomnia]

All the tags are in the community sidebar, so feel free to check them out. However, the basic gist is that we go by first name (when possible), and they're lowercase.

Also, if, after you post your entry, you click on the edit tags button, it should take you to a page with all the tags there for you to choose from. Just point, click and save. :-)

[nowcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Would you like to affy this comm and any others with everyfandomfest?