Searching on AO3

[arduinna]

In the wake of some of the "meta on AO3" discussions that veered off into talking about finding things on the archive, I decided to poke more intently at the search and filter features.

Like pretty much everyone else, I think things will be easier and more organized once there are media categories to sort on, and I'm very much hoping that the posting forms pick up a radio button for "nonfiction" to make all sorts of nonfic things filterable. I also really hope that a crossover button gets added, and that crossovers become something that can be filtered in or out.

My own ideal filter sidebar would include options to include/exclude terms from each section, with sections added for Source Media Type and Fanwork Media Type (based on the media categories I suggested in the Category Change post, which I'm still very keen on), and checkboxes for complete/wips, crossovers/no-crossovers, and creative/nonfiction.

It would look something like this, with an option to set each section to include or exclude those terms (include being the default, and "include all" being the unspoken default):

Sort by [dropdown]

Top 25 Tags (I live in hope)

Source Media type:
[x] Include [ ] Exclude
[ ] Audio
[ ] Drawn
[ ] Game
[ ] Live Action
[ ] Real People
[ ] Written
[ ] Multi-media
[ ] Other

Fanwork Media type:
[x] Include [ ] Exclude
[ ] Audio
[ ] Drawn
[ ] Physical
[ ] Video
[ ] Written
[ ] Multi-media

Ratings:
[x] Include [ ] Exclude
[ ] General
[ ] Teen
[ ] Mature
[ ] Explicit
[ ] Not Rated

Warnings:
[x] Include [ ] Exclude

etc. through other filter sets

Other Tags: [search box]

Search Within Results: [search box - although better help to explain excludes and special characters would help]

Language: [dropdown]

Options:

[ ] Complete [ ] Work in progress

[ ] Only Crossovers [ ] No Crossovers

[ ] Creative fanworks only [ ] Nonfiction fanworks only

*sings* I dreamed a dream of easy search, I dreamed a dream of ticky boxes... */sings*

But we don't have that yet, so I figured I would try to make the existing filters/search do what I wanted them to.

There are three basic ways to search.

• The general search box at the top of every page, where you just type in a string of search terms, whatever you're looking for.


• The filters sidebar on any tag-based landing page -- fandom, pairing, trope, etc. These let you see the most common tags in use on that landing page, so you have a starting point to work from.


• The Advanced Search, available via link at the top of every page, or directly at http://archiveofourown.org/works/search. This is a form that provides structure for your search, with a lot of detail.

All three of these default to AND searches: every term you type in is considered a requirement, so the more terms you add, the narrower your search.

All three also have a box that does allow you to search for options (OR) or exclude things (NOT), across all of the fields associated with a work in the database, including title, author, summary, notes, and tags. That means this is a text search box. It doesn't search for tags specifically, it searches for the text inside the tags.

In the general search box, you can do OR or NOT directly in the box. In the filters sidebar, this is the Search within results box. In the Advanced Search form, this is the Any Field box.

Using that single-box search no matter where you find it.

• Search terms are separated by spaces.


• Search terms are not case-sensitive. You can use capitals or lower-case as you prefer.


• Slashes, ampersands, and commas are treated as spaces.


• To search for a multi-word term, surround the term in double quotation marks. Multi-word terms include terms separated by punctuation such as hyphens, slashes, and ampersands.


• "bilbo baggins"


• "x-men"


• "loki/thor"


• "harold finch & john reese"


• To search for a multi-word term that includes quote marks, change the internal quote marks to single quotes, and surround entire the term in double quotation marks


• Search for the archive tag James "Bucky" Barnes as "james 'bucky' barnes".


• To include a term in your search, just type it in.


• Spaces function as AND unless you indicate otherwise, so each term you put in will count as a requirement.


• The more terms you include, the more narrow your search is. Searching for "f/m" "m/m" "person of interest (tv)" humor "first time" will return only those results that match on all those terms.


• To exclude a term in your search, type a minus sign (hyphen, dash) in front of it, with no space between the symbol and the term.


• If words are easier for you than symbols, type the word NOT (in all caps) with a space before the search term.


• If you want to exclude a multi-word term, put the minus sign (or the word NOT) outside the quotation mark.


• Searching for "person of interest (tv)" -"first time" NOT "harold finch/john reese" -humor will return only those Person of Interest stories that are not tagged "first time", "harold finch/john reese", or "humor".


• To include one term or another, without requiring that all terms be present, type || surrounded by spaces between your terms.


• If words are easier for you than symbols, type the word OR (in all caps) with a space before the search term.


• If you want to request an "or" for multi-word terms, put the || (or the word OR) outside the quotation mark.


• The safest way to make sure the search knows which terms are optional is to surround your "or" set in parentheses.


• Searching for "person of interest (tv)" ("first time" OR "harold finch/john reese" || humor) will return any Person of Interest story on the archive that contains at least one of the other terms.


• To find all possible forms of something, use the wildcard symbol *.


• Searching for knee* will return results for knee, knees, kneed, kneeing, kneecap, kneecapping and so forth


• To use work stats (words, hits, comments, kudos, bookmarks) to narrow things down, use the equal to (=), greater than (>), or less than (<) symbols, combined with the number or range you're looking for, with no spaces.


• Searching for words>100000 will return only those works with more than 100,000 words.


• Searching for comments<15 will return only those works with fewer than 15 comments.


• Searching for kudos=10 will return only those works with exactly 10 kudos.


• Searching for hits=10-20 will return only those works with between 10 and 20 hits.


• To sort your results, use the greater than (>) symbol for "ascending order" (lowest to highest) or less than (<) symbol for "descending order" (highest to lowest), with no spaces.


• You can sort by author, title, date, words, hits, comments, kudos, or bookmarks


• Searching for sort>hits will return your results sorted from lowest hits to highest hits.


• Searching for sort>date will return your results sorted from oldest posted work to newest posted work.


• Searching for sort<words will return your results sorted from highest to lowest word count.


• Searching for sort<author will return your works sorted by author names from Z to A.


• You can mix and match your requirements however you want.


• To find all Person of Interest first-time or hurt/comfort Finch/Reese stories except humor, AU, or anything crossed over with Avengers, with more than 20 bookmarks, sorted by highest number of bookmarks first, search for:
  "person of interest (tv)" "harold finch/john reese" ("first time" OR "hurt/comfort") -humor -"alternate universe" -"The Avengers (2012)" bookmarks>20 sort<bookmarks

Things to keep in mind using the search box:

• The search box searches all header information, including category, warnings, rating, title, author, fandom, relationships, characters, additional tags, notes, and summaries.


• For the most precise results, try to use the archive's canonical terms, since those will be an exact match to the correct words in the correct order.


• The search currently ignores slashes, ampersands, and commas. For terms inside quotation marks, it returns results based on the exact words in the exact order, as found in any field it searches.


• This means that it's not currently possible to exclude specific pairings from searches without also excluding the characters in that pairing.


• Typing -"Steve Rogers/Tony Stark" will exclude all works that have those names in that order, either directly or separated by punctuation.


• Wildcard searching for pairings does not work. Searching for "Tony Stark/* will include any work that has Tony Stark's name, whether in a pairing or not. Searching for -"Tony Stark/*" will exclude any work that has Tony Stark's name, whether in a pairing or not.

---

So those are the things they all have in common. They all have some differences and specific strengths, as well.

The general search box does everything listed under the "single box" explanation, and has the huge advantage of being right there on every page, and very fast to use.

Using the general search box

• It's best for fairly fast searches using just a few terms, when you have a pretty good general idea of what you want and are willing to browse around through results.


• It's also good as a shortcut to a specific tag, such as fandom, character, relationship, trope.


• Type in the term you want, and then on the results you can click on the appropriate tag to be brought to a filters page if you want.


• Once it returns your results, it clears the search box. You can see what you've chosen at the top of the results page, which will say "you searched for: [your search terms]".


• The results it gives you are on a page with no filters available.


• If you want to refine your search further without losing your search terms, click the "Edit your search" button, which will bring you to the Advanced Search form. Your search terms will all be in the Any Field box.


• You can add or delete terms to that box, or use the other fields available in the Advanced Search to specify other options.

---

The filters let you see what you're dealing with, so you can easily adjust things on the fly. You can use filters on a fandom page, bookmarks page, tag page, and individual people's Works and Bookmarks pages.

Using the filters sidebar

This is probably where most people start: clicking into their fandom or onto a tag they're interested in, and filtering through all the results. The filters give you a quick look at the most common tags in use for whatever filter/search you've set up. This gives you a good starting point to filter/search from, rather than having to start cold.

Filters can be found on fandom pages, bookmark pages, tag pages, and individual people's Works and Bookmarks pages.

The more you can narrow down your search with the filters, the less you have to type. But don't add more filters than you really want to have in every single result.

• Every filter selection functions as an AND. If you click on a term, that term must be included in the results.


• If you select "Graphic Depictions of Violence" and "Major Character Death", the sort & filter will return only those results that are tagged both of those things.


• If you select humor, historical, and romance from the "Additional Tags" filter, the sort & filter will return only those works that are tagged with all of those tropes, limiting your search to funny historical romances.


• If you select all of the above options, your results will be limited to funny historical romances that warn for Graphic Violence and Major Character Death.


• You can continually refine your search.


• Any time you want to see what the results are for the selections you've made so far, click the "sort & filter" button. This will return all the results that match your selections, while keeping those choices selected.


• If you want to refine further, simply select or deselect options and click "sort & filter" again. It will return the refined results, and will again remember all your choices.


• If you want to add tags that aren't currently visible in the filters to your search, use the Other Tags box.


• This is a pure Tags box, which will give you autocomplete options for whatever you start typing.


• It allows any tag from across the archive (fandom, character, relationship, "additional tags"), not just tags related to your filter/search so far.


• Like the terms in the filters, all tags added in this box function as AND, and will be required elements in your search.


• Once you have selected all the tags that you definitely want to appear in each result, you can refine your search in a number of ways using the search within results box.


• This is a text search box, with no access to the autocomplete function. You have to type everything out.


• Exclude any tags you specifically don't want, such as particular crossover fandoms or personal squicks.


• Include any either/or tags you want, such as works tagged either Mature OR Explicit, or works tagged Avengers OR Sherlock OR Dresden Files.


• Use wildcards to find all possible forms of something.


• Use work statistics (words, hits, comments, kudos, bookmarks) to narrow your search.

---

Filtering crossovers in or out

Unless and until they add a specific box to filter crossovers in or out, you'll need to handle it manually.

• Limiting crossovers to one or several fandoms is currently the easiest thing to do.


• To limit your search to crossovers with one fandom, tick that fandom in the Fandom filter and hit "sort & filter".


• If the fandom you want isn't in the Fandom filter, type it into the Other Tags box, and hit "sort & filter" to see if there are any results.


• If you want works that cross multiple fandoms at once, such as Supernatural/Doctor Who/Sherlock, tick all the relevant fandoms in the Fandoms filter, or add any relevant names to the Other Tags box, and click "sort & filter".


• If you want to include separate crossovers with specific fandoms, use the search within results box to do so. Type or copy-paste the names of the fandoms you want as an "OR" sequence, surrounded by parentheses.


• For example, to include all crossovers with Avengers, Sherlock, or the Dresden Files books, type ("Avengers (2012)" OR "Sherlock (TV)" OR "The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher")


• Using the canonical form of the fandom gives you more precision. Non-canonical versions will work, but the results will be sloppier.


• If you want to exclude crossovers with specific fandoms, use the search within results box to do so. Type or copy-paste the names of the fandoms you DON'T want as an exclude.


• To exclude Avengers, Sherlock, and the Dresden Files books, type -"Avengers (2012)" -"Sherlock (TV)" -"The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher"


• If you want to exclude all crossovers completely, first type -crossover -fusion and click "sort & filter". This will clear anything tagged as a crossover or fusion, and will save you some time.


• This won't get rid of everything, though, as many people choose not to tag their crossovers/fusions as crossover/fusion. You'll need to clear the rest individually.


• To clear the rest of the crossover fandoms from the filters, open up the Fandoms filter to see what's there, and either copy-paste or type each one you don't want into the "search within results" box as an exclude, then click "sort & filter".


• To exclude Avengers, Sherlock, and the Dresden Files books, type -"Avengers (2012)" -"Sherlock (TV)" -"The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher"


• Works with the fandoms you don't want to see will vanish from the results.


• The "search within results" box will still contain the fandoms you excluded. Leave them there, so they remain part of your search criteria.


• The Fandoms filter may be full again, as fandoms with fewer crossovers move up the list into the "top ten" spot.


• Add the next batch of fandoms, with minus signs and surrounded by double quote marks, to the "search within results" box, which should already contain your previous selections. The search string here can grow as long as you need it to.


• As you work your way through, the Fandoms filter will eventually shrink to just the fandom(s) you want.


• To include all crossovers, things are a little trickier. There's basically no way right now to easily see all crossovers, or all crossover fandoms that go with a particular fandom.


• Filtering for "crossover" will only get you those results that people have tagged as crossovers, which won't even come close to the full number of crossovers.


• The "easiest" way I've found to narrow down results to only crossovers is to first exclude all crossover fandoms, then copy the string of excludes and change them to a long OR sequence, and paste that in to use instead.


• Follow the above instructions for excluding all crossover fandoms, except do not exclude the terms "crossover" or "fusion".


• Once you've excluded all the crossover fandoms, copy the string out to something that has a search & replace function, and replace the minus signs with OR.


• Paste the new search string into the "search within results box", overwriting the old string, and click "sort & filter".


• You should now have a full set of all crossovers with your fandom.

---

The advanced search lets you search not just fanworks, but also bookmarks, tags, and people. It also lets you specify date ranges for you results, which neither of the other two search options do.

Using Advanced Search

Advanced Search is a window into different parts of the archive. Like the other two search options, it lets you search works, but unlike them it also lets you search for specific tags, specific people, and bookmarks. And it lets you specify date ranges for both works and bookmarks.

The Work Search

• Almost every field on this page functions as an AND, or "include". Any terms you add will be required elements in your search results.


• The top field is the one exception: the Any Field box, where you can do other kinds of searches.


• You can exclude any tags you specifically don't want, such as particular crossover fandoms or personal squicks.


• You can include any either/or tags you want, such as works tagged either Mature OR Explicit, or works tagged Avengers OR Sherlock OR Dresden Files.


• You can use wildcards to find all possible forms of something.


• You can specify titles, authors, fandoms, ratings, warnings, categories, relationships, characters, language, other tags.


• You can specify if you want only completed works, or only single-chapter works


• You can use work stats (words, hits, comments, kudos, bookmarks) to narrow down your search.


• Popup help will tell you how to format your request, using < and > symbols.


• You can specify specific amounts (100 hits), specific ranges (20-30 bookmarks), or general ranges (more than 100,000 words, fewer than 10 comments).


• You can specify dates and date ranges to narrow down your search.


• You can search by hour, day, week, month, or year.


• Popup help will tell you how to format your request, using < and > symbols.


• You can target your search to a specific time, such as "exactly one month ago from today".


• You can target your search to a range, such as "posted in the last two weeks" or "posted earlier than a year ago".


• All of these can be combined into the narrowest search you want.


• You can sort your results by Best Match (the default), Author, Title, Date Posted, Date Updated, Word Count, Hits, Kudos, Comments, or Bookmarks.


• You can also choose whether your sort is ascending or descending.


• Click "search" when you're happy with your search parameters.


• Like the general search box, the results it gives you are on a page with no filters available.


• If you want to refine your search further, click the "Edit your search" button, which will bring you back to the Advanced Search form, still filled out with your previous choices. Add or delete whatever terms you want, and then click search again.


• If you want to start a new search, click the "Advanced Search" link at the top of the page.


• Do not hit the back button to return to the search page.


• Hitting the back button will erase some, but not all, of your previous choices, which will screw up your results whether you're trying to refine an existing search or start a new one.

---

The Tag Search

This is just what it says on the tin. If there's a tag you're looking for, you can type it in and get all the relevant results.

• You can narrow this down by type of tag (fandom, character, relationship, freeform), and by whether you want only canonical tag results.


• Leaving the type-of-tag option blank sometimes generates errors. If you get an error, back-button to the search again and pick a tag type.


• Specifying "canonical tags only" may narrow your results dramatically.


• Canonical Freeform tag "hurt/comfort": 3 results


• All Freeform tag "hurt/comfort": 175 results


• Clicking on a tag in your results will bring up its Tag Page


• The page for a canonical tag will have buttons for Works and Bookmarks that will take you to filterable results for that tag.


• The canonical Tag Page will also show you a list of tags with the same meaning that have been merged with the canonical tag, metatags and subtags, parent tags, and child tags. (ETA: changed text to be more accurate, based on by samjohnsson's explanation in the comments. /ETA)


• You can click on any of those tags to be taken to their Tag Page


• The page for a tag that has been merged with a canonical tag will tell you what tag it's been merged with, and link you to that tag.


• For example, on the page for the tag "ouch my feels", the message is: ouch my feels has been merged into Feels for filtering. Works and bookmarks tagged with ouch my feels will show up in Feels's filter.


• The page for a non-canonical tag that hasn't been merged with anything yet will show you Works and Bookmarks results for that tag


• For example, searching for the tag "stony" and clicking on the option "Stony - Freeform" brings up 117 work listings that all use it as a tag, separated by Works and Bookmarks, all of which you can browse through.

---

The Bookmark Search

This is similar to the Works search, but with fields specific to bookmarks.

• The first field, "Any Field", lets you search for any field in the form all in one place. Good for if you know what you want and would rather just go for it.


• You can include any specific terms you wish, such as fandoms or characters.


• You can exclude any tags you specifically don't want, such as particular crossover fandoms or personal squicks.


• You can include any either/or tags you want, such as works tagged either Mature OR Explicit, or works tagged Avengers OR Sherlock OR Dresden Files.


• You can use wildcards to find all possible forms of something.


• The other fields on the form walk you through a variety of options.


• Bookmarker lets you specify a particular bookmarker.


• Notes lets you search across a particular bookmarker's notes, or all notes in all bookmarks.


• For example, here are all the bookmarks that use "omg" somewhere in their notes.


• Tag lets you specify any tag used on works: Rating, Warning, Category, Fandom, Character, Relationship, Additional Tags.


• This field seems iffy on multi-word terms. If there's a multi-word tag you want to add, put it in the Any Field box surrounded by quotation marks.


• Rec and With Notes allow you to narrow your search down to only those bookmarks that are marked as recs, and/or only those bookmarks that contain notes from the bookmarker.


• Type right now means a choice between Works, Series, and External bookmarks. Leaving this blank searches all three types.


• Date Bookmarked lets you use specific dates or date ranges to narrow down your bookmark results.


• You can search by hour, day, week, month, or year.


• Popup help will tell you how to format your request, using < and > symbols.


• You can target your search to a specific time, such as "bookmarked exactly one month ago from today".


• You can target your search to a range, such as "bookmarked in the last two weeks" or "bookmarked earlier than a year ago".


• Date Updated lets you use specific dates or date ranges to narrow down your bookmark results by choosing bookmarked works that were updated in a specific timeframe.


• You can search by hour, day, week, month, or year.


• Popup help will tell you how to format your request, using < and > symbols.


• You can target your search to a specific time, such as "posted one month ago from today".


• You can target your search to a range, such as "posted in the last two weeks" or "posted earlier than a year ago".


• Sort by allows you to sort by Best Match, Date Bookmarked, or Date Updated.


• You can combine these parameters as much or as little as you want.


• If you want to refine your search further, click the "Edit your search" button, which will bring you back to the Advanced Search form, still filled out with your previous choices. Add or delete whatever terms you want, and then click search again.


• If you want to start a new search, click the "Advanced Search" link at the top of the page, then click the Bookmark button.


• Do not hit the back button to return to the search page.


• Hitting the back button may erase some, but not all, of your previous choices, which will screw up your results whether you're trying to refine an existing search or start a new one.

---

The People Search

This is a simple box.

• If you only remember part of the name, use the wildcard *.


• Searching for use will return names with Use in them. Searching for use* will search for Use, User, User Base, Used To Write, Used Clever Examples, etc.


• The notice on the page says this is still an Alpha search page. It shows. Results are sometimes a little wiggy.


• But it's still a faster, easier way of finding users than almost anything else, unless their name is something unique enough that nothing else on the archive will match it.

---

There are still a few things I'm hoping will be added to search on AO3: crossover filters, source media types, fanwork media types, excludes right within the filter options and advanced search fields.

But the search as it stands is miles ahead of where it was three months ago, and it's possible to do some pretty refined searching now.

Tips:

• You can use the general search box as a shortcut to your fandom, pairing, character, or trope of choice. Type the term in, and click on the first appropriate tag in the results to get to the Filters page for that term.


• If you only check your fandom, pairing, or favorite trope once every week or two and only want to see the most recent works, use Advanced Search to set up what you want.


Specify your fandom and/or pairing and/or tag, and put in a duration such as <7 days or < 2 weeks in the Date field. Bookmark your search results in your browser, and you can just click that bookmark any time you want to catch up on the last week or two.


• If you never want crossovers for your fandom, go to your fandom page and filter out all the crossovers, then bookmark your results. You can use that bookmark as your landing page for your fandom, and just start filtering/searching from there every time.


• You may need to update your bookmark as more crossovers are created in your fandom, by adding more fandoms to your "search within results" box.


• Don't just default to excludes; sometimes OR searches will be better.


• If you want all ratings but Explicit, searching for -explicit is the way to go.


• But if you want only General and Teen ratings, searching for ("general audiences" OR "teen and up audiences") may be easier than excluding all other ratings.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

OMG You are a rock star. Thank you so much for doing this.

[arduinna]

*beams* I hope it's useful!

(also, aw, yay, Fi! <3)

[samjohnsson]

I love you, just a little bit, right now.

I'd like to nitpick tag terms real quick, though: The canonical Tag Page will also show you a list of tags with the same meaning that have been merged with the canonical tag, parent tags, sub (or "child") tags, or "meta" tags.

Subtags are technically a type of child tag, but child tags are mostly not subtags. Likewise, metatags are sort of a parent tag, but parent tags are rarely metatags.

Example: character: "John Watson" (JW, henceforth) http://archiveofourown.org/tags/John%20Watson
JW is a child tag of a number of fandom tags, including "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle". "Sherlock (TV)" is a parent tag to JW as well.
Searching for the parent tag won't necessarily return works with the child tag (it has some importance for the auto-complete, and a lot for keeping wrangling sane, but outside of that, parent and child links don't have a huge impact. Parent and Child tags are (almost) always different tag types.

JW has a wall of synonyms - on the Tag View page, these are called "Tags with the Same Meaning".
Searching for a synonym tag will return results of any other synonym, and list them all under the canonical.

JW is a subtag of "John" and of "Watson". Searching "Watson" will grab all works marked "Watson" as well as works with "John Watson" and the other subtags. JW is a metatag for "Joan Watson": searching for "John Watson" will include results using "Joan Watson", but searching for "Joan Watson" will not return results with JW.*
Searching for a metatag will return results for any of its subtags. Searching for a subtag will never return metatag results. Metatags and subtags are _always_ within the same tag type.

* this latter relationship is for genderalt and competing canon reasons

Probably way too much info, and kinda off topic, but thought I should say. tl;dr: The canonical Tag Page will also show you a list of tags with the same meaning that have been merged with the canonical tag, metatags and subtags, parent tags, and child tags.

[princessofgeeks]

you don't know me, but i read your posts and you are also a rock star.

[arduinna]

Ah, thank you! I hmm'd at that a little when I wrote it, and meant to check it. Replacing with your text!

[elz]

Oops, accidentally replied to Sam.

[isis]

Yowza! What a comprehensive and useful explanation!

[arduinna]

Thanks!

[cest_what]

Gosh, so much information, this is awesome. I had no idea you could filter by kudos count etc.

[arduinna]

Yay, I'm glad this is helpful!

I knew things had gotten a lot more powerful when they re-introduced it a few months back, but I'd never really dug into it until now. You can do so much now!

[umadoshi]

This post is amazing. *_*

[arduinna]

*beams* Thanks!

[elz]

This is great - thank you for writing it up! As the person who built the system, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to find a balance between maximum functionality and an interface that's not overwhelming or confusing, and I agree that there's definitely still a lot of room for improvement. Just the help info is a lot more text than most people will necessarily read or remember, so how to work that in can be tricky. (I'm really liking what Github did with the placeholder text on their advanced search: https://github.com/search/advanced) And integrating all the complexity of the tag system with the search engine is a bit of a challenge, although we do have the capacity to do excludes based on synonyms and metatags, we just need the time to work that into the interface.

The feature I actually use the most as a reader is advanced searching for date less than x days ago (whenever I last checked the fandom), in a particular fandom, sorted by kudos, comments, or bookmarks. I find that really helpful for following big, active fandoms where you may not have time to look at everything as it's posted but you want to make sure you don't miss the good stuff. (Obligatory caveat here about how the best works may or may not be the ones with the most kudos/comments.)

[arduinna]

Ah, thank you for the system! \o/ I've lived through pretty much every kind of archive, all the way back to ftp and then hand-coded lists of stories, and the sheer flexibility and power of AO3's search is amazing to me. I don't use all that power most of the time, because I got trained up early to browse what I'm given and be grateful, dammit *g*, but man, the bits I do use, I love.

It really is a tough balancing act between flexibility and overwhelmingness; even as I was typing this up, I was thinking this is something that just can't go on the archive proper. It's too much, no one's going to read it. It really needs to be something like the current combination of quiet hints in the general search box to provide syntax clues, the popup help, and the broad-strokes explanations are about the only combination that have any real hope of being read. That Github method looks great, though!

Honestly, I think part of the problem people have is that they're used to Google and its bubbling ways, without even realizing that it's Google's relentless spying on them that lets it serve up things like the restaurant half a block away when you type in "pasta dinner". Everyone's used to being able to put in the vaguest term and come up with incredibly targeted results.

Well, that and the fact that so many people don't put useful info in their tags (which I'm guilty of - I hate spoiling my stories for people! It's really hard to make myself put content labels on, even when I appreciate other people doing so.).

But you've made at least this user very happy indeed! And now that I've dug around more at the bells and whistles, I suspect I'm going to start very daringly targeting my browsing a little more closely...

[scrollgirl]

This is extremely helpful, thanks!

[arduinna]

Yay, I'm so glad!

[lorax]

This is awesomely helpful, thank you!

[arduinna]

\o/

[caput_mortuum]

I really like your proposed search and think that would be a good model for the posting interface as well!

[arduinna]

Thank you!

[ardyforshort]

This is awesome, thank you.

[arduinna]

Yay, I'm glad it's useful!

[hl]

Really nice write up!

[arduinna]

Thank you!

[msilverstar]

Your tips are great, thank you!

This implementation of the search options is really not optimal, the whole point is to see what you're going to get and get there easily :-( If they just made the options into HTML links, it would work so much better, as they are ANDing anyway!

[sketchme]

This has been very useful for me, it has explained some of the issues I've been having with my searches, like excluding pairings means I'm excluding those characters as a term. This is is tough, because my fandom has a very dominate pairing and everyone is in the habit of listing them in the character section and listing all pairings within a fic.

Also, ampersanded pairings are treated differently from slashed. More problems. I don't understand why this is, I assumed the wranglers would combine them.

I'd like to be able to search for my pairing, both slashed and ampersanded, limited to gen and m/m, excluding the dominate pairing as well as some search terms.

[arduinna]

not a wrangler! But as I understand it, the ampersand and slashed pairings are separated because they're different in many fandoms; ampersand is a gen or friendship relationship, and slash is romantic or sexual. So people looking strictly for one type or the other don't want results for both.

The inability to exclude a pairing while including the characters as individuals is one of the most frustrating things about the search for me, too. But! In very good news, the ability to do that has been approved for implementation (you can check on the Trello board for suggestions -- and this is the specific 'card' for that feature).

I don't know when the coders will start working on it, but it should be coming at some point. *fingers crossed for soon*

Once that's implemented, everything's going to get easier.

[(Anonymous)]

Several years old, but still very useful!
I'm glad you took the time to put this extensive guide together (and that I found it :-) )
Thank you!