Who We Are

The Tag Wrangling committee is responsible for sorting, organizing, and connecting tags used on Archive of Our Own (AO3) according to the Tag Wrangling guidelines. Utilizing our own knowledge of canon and doing research where we need it, we work as a team to create tags that are clear and understandable but also reflect what our fellow fans are tagging.

Tag wranglers work on the “back end” to connect tags and make them more easily filterable for users. We do not change the tags on AO3 works; we believe that users can and should use whatever tags they think fit best so long as they do not violate our Terms of Service. Our goal is to handle tags consistently once they are used, while keeping in mind that different fandoms (and people) organize information about their fandoms differently.

The committee we work closest with is AO3 Support, who handles requests from users related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about tags which were first used over a month ago, you can contact Support who will pass the request along to us. We also work with OTW Open Doors when they’re importing new works to AO3, as we help them “map” tags used on other archives to their AO3 tag equivalent.

Internal Structure

Tag Wrangling is the largest OTW committee with over 400 volunteers. The vast majority of volunteers are Tag Wranglers who handle incoming tags, document wrangling decisions made in fandom or in collaboration with other wranglers, and revisit existing tags and update them as necessary.

Wranglers may optionally get involved in committee-wide discussions, short-term projects related to documentation or researching niche tags, and mentoring new wranglers. Each volunteer’s workload will vary depending on the number of fandoms they help with, and how busy those fandoms are. Wranglers generally take on a minimum of five fandoms and commit to at least five hours of work per week when they join the team, but beyond that can sign up for as many fandoms as they have time to oversee and meet the workload requirements for.

In addition to multiple chairs, Tag Wrangling also is supported by over 30 supervisors, who help the committee run recruitment, write training documentation, provide general assistance to wrangling volunteers, help with cross-committee requests, and more.

Some supervisors may take on the role of liaison to other committees, such as Support, and help facilitate communication and work between the two committees. Other supervisors may take on the role of chair assistant and help manage wrangling discussions and projects, assist with recruiting and training new supervisors, consult on sensitive personnel questions, along with helping with other tasks chairs handle.

Life Cycle of a Tag

Every tag is handled by multiple people during the course of its life on AO3:

1. A user posts a work and tags it with a handful of tags. For example, a user may tag “contains hurt/comfort”.
2. When a tag wrangler next checks the wrangling interface, they’ll see this new tag appear in an “incoming tag” bin. The volunteer will evaluate what fandom concepts the tag has. In this example, “Hurt/Comfort” is not specific to any fandom, so the tag will be wrangled to No Fandom.
3. The volunteer will also evaluate if the tag is appropriate to be made a synonym of any other tags. In this example, the incoming tag would be made a synonym of “Hurt/Comfort.” If someone looks on the Works page for “Hurt/Comfort,” they’ll also see works tagged with “contains hurt/comfort.”

Tags may also go through other processes:

• If we encounter tags in languages other than English, we will ask other volunteers who are fluent and fannish in that language to translate.
• If a concept in additional tags has been tagged for by three unique users, and does not have a canonical tag (a tag that appears in the dropdown when filtering and posting), a new canonical tag for it may be made.
• Sometimes, we need to update existing canonical tags due to new canon information, changing fandom preferences, or other reasons. In these cases, we may “rename” a tag by changing which tag is canonical. As mentioned above, we do not change what tags are used on individual works.

Contact Us

If you want to learn more about the Tag Wrangling committee or if you have questions about a tag on AO3, please contact us – we will be happy to hear from you.

If you are interested in volunteering as a tag wrangler, we recommend you refer to the volunteering page or read the Volunteering FAQ. When wrangling recruitment is open, details will be posted there.