tagset questions 2022

[fiachairecht]

Hello everyone! As we get ready for the exchange's 2022 round, mods have a few questions about tagset organisation we would like some community feedback on. Note that we are not going back to using 'All Media Types', these are just questions about the fandoms we will pre-load in.

1) Character/Reader Fic: Last year, canon character/reader ships were included in the fandom the character belonged to, e.g. 'Finn (SWST)/Reader' would be under the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy fandom. Are people who are planning to nominate/offer request readerfic happy with this, or would you prefer a separate fandom for character/reader fics?

2) The Disney+ Shows: There seem to be varying levels of overlap here, e.g. The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett have a decent amount of crossover, while Kenobi is more separate. Is there enough overlap that combining them into something like a Star Wars (Live Action TV) fandom makes sense? Should only some of them be combined? Should they all be separate? Please chime in if you're planning to nominate/offer/request, not all your mods even have Disney+.

3) Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader: Anakin and Vader have historically been considered separate characters for ships & when determining ship eligibility requirements due to AO3 choices. This is distinct from our handling of Kylo Ren | Ben Solo, who is harder to break into separate characters, again due to AO3 choices. This year, we're considering combining Anakin | Vader when considering eligibility requirements - e.g. combining all Anakin/x, Vader/x, and Anakin|Vader/x fics - in order to bring the requirements into alignment. If a ship still qualifies, you would still be able to nominate Anakin/x and Vader/x separately in order to indicate the version of the ship that you like, just as you were able to nominate Ben/x and Kylo/x separately last year. How do you all feel about this?

4) Anything else? If you have any other questions or concerns about where certain things go, missing fandoms, fandoms that should be combined, etc, please leave them on this post. Last year's fandoms & descriptions are here.

We are planning to run this on a similar schedule to last year (so nominations opening around September 18th), so please try to get your comments in in the next week-and-a-half or so.

Comments

[independence1776]

I do not think Kenobi should be lumped in with Mando or Boba Fett. There is no overlap between them (though I haven't seen Boba Fett to know for sure). I suspect Andor will likewise be more standalone than not.

[fiachairecht]

Thank you, that was my vague understanding but it's good to have confirmation (it's me, I'm the mod without D+)

[coragyps]

Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett make sense to combine together, but Obi-Wan really wouldn't combine with them since there's no overlap. I think Luke's the only character that is in all of those, but at a very different time period in Obi-Wan than Mando/Boba Fett.

I think it would make sense to combine Anakin and Vader since they are the same character, even if Anakin/x would always be very, very different than Vader/x. But I'm also someone who will only request some weird crack ships with Vader so maybe I'm not the right person to ask

[fiachairecht]

Thank you, we'll keep that in mind!

Anakin and Vader would be collapsed for purposes of determining ship eligibility, you would still be able to specify Anakin/x or Vader/x when nominating, requesting, and creating.

[firewins]

Personally I like the idea of having a reader X category (but I'm not a requester or writer of it so I don't really know if it's my place to comment on that)

I don't think the Disney plus shows should be combined (Especially more stand alone things like Kenobi or Andor. However I also don't think Boba Fett and Mando should be combined as some Mando pairings/characters don't show up in Boba Fett at all, for example Omera)

It makes sense to combine Anakin and Vader... But as a requester of certain pairs it feels wrong lol. (My mind is definitely going to a different place with Anakin/Boba than Vader/Boba 😅)

[fiachairecht]

Thank you, we'll keep your answers to 1 & 2 in mind!

Anakin and Vader would be collapsed only for purposes of determining ship eligibility, you would still be able to specify Anakin/x or Vader/x when nominating, requesting, and creating, if that changes your feelings on 3.

[firewins]

Oh in that case I see no problem with combining them at all!

[extrapenguin]

1) and 2) are not applicable to me, so skipping those.

3) I do not mind combining the tags for eligibility checking. I was first worried that you'd merge the tags into Anakin | Vader/x for noms, but as long as that's not happening, I'm good to go. (I request Anakin/x and prompt for, amongst other things, "Vader doesn't happen", so combining the tags would be ... a bit of a bummer for anyone who matched on an Anakin | Vader/x hoping for Vader.)

I think the Obi-Wan show might lead to people wanting to nominate Anakin | Vader/x – this is mostly academic for me, but you might want to think about how you're dealing with that.

[fiachairecht]

Thank you!

And yes, Anakin and Vader would be collapsed only for purposes of determining ship eligibility - though that's a good point about Kenobi that we will definitely be discussing!

[padmeamidala]

1. I’m torn on this but lean toward its own category. It would keep things more manageable for characters that cross lots of fandoms/eras. But that does make the nominations less specific.

2. I think they should be separate. The prequels and Clone Wars have a lot of overlap but are different eligible fandoms.

3. I’m mainly opposed to AO3’s choices because I think they should be treated the same (combined, in my pov) but I think your plan makes sense.

[shadaras]

1. Making readerfic its own category seems in-line with having "Ships With Original Star Wars Characters" as its own category, but I'm not going to write/request/read that category so it's an academic division to me.

2. Please don't combine the live action shows. As they span different eras and it's possible to watch only some of them (e.g., I haven't seen either Mando or Boba Fett, but I did watch Kenobi and will watch Andor), lumping them together sounds more confusing than helpful. (If people who have seen Mando and Boba Fett want to combine them, everything I've heard says that there's a decent argument for it, but they aren't my fandoms so I'm not gonna worry about it.)

3. Your reasoning makes sense to me! I'm down for this way of counting the Anakin | Vader tags.

[annathecrow]

My 2 cents about the Disney+ shows, I think combining The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett is a good idea. These two directly tie to each other in both plot and characters, it gets difficult to choose which show to nominate ships in when the characters have meaningful interactions in both.

That said, I definitely wouldn't combine all Disney+ shows together. Kenobi has zero overlap with either Mando or TBOBF and Andor seems to be its own thing as well.

[reyskyrissian]

The Mandalorian and TBOBF combined makes sense because TBOBF is essentially Mando season 2.5, but since they don't have any overlap with Kenobi series (and I doubt they have overlap with Andor) I think keeping them separate is fine.
Though I am supporting the combining of Mando and TBOBF.

As for combining Anakin|Vader, it's fine by me. I think when it comes to requests everyone can specify in their requests which aspect of the character they prefer for the pairing he's involved in, if it plays a significant role in what they want.

[ancslove]

I’m fine with combining Anakin and Vader ships for noms purposes. A lot of Vaderkin ships do tag both. Eg there’s a good number of fics that tag both Luke/Vader and Luke/Anakin, so just adding the sum of both tags can be misleading. But I’m happy to do the work to argue any unclear cases!

[darthastris]

1) Separate might be better, just for ease of finding, but I'm not into it so I really have no horse in this race.

2) Live action TV shows sounds good. Seems easier to match than having to put a ship into several different categories if there's crossover.

3) I'm huge on separating Anakin and Vader, and Ben and Kylo, if only because SW itself often treats the "fallen" as entirely separate individuals from their own points of view ("Anakin Is Gone…I Am What Remains." "Your son is gone!" "Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive!" etc.) and that stories created with those requests usually have very different flavors in the way the character behave and react themselves, as well as how other characters will react toward them (a Ben/Tai story is bound to be much softer than a Kylo/Tai story).

4) Just a logistics question: why did we move away from using SW - AMT? Seems like it would be easier to avoid repeats that way, and also make matching easier due to not knowing where someone stuck a crossover ship? Presumably this was to facilitate matching, though people will still tag their actual works with whatever they want, right? Sorry, I just don't understand why separate them out into some categories but not all the different choices out there already, especially given that, with rarepairs, people often ship two characters who never even encountered one another in canon, and it seems like ease of matching would be the priority rather than having to figure out all the different categories someone might have put a pair in? (Sorry, these are genuine questions, not being snide. I'm trying to set up my own SW exchange and wondering if there are some kind of benefits to this branching out thing, because it sounds like more work on the outset.)