Tags and Spoilers

[wrabbit]

So I have noticed some fans saying that they prefer to ignore or not read the tags on AO3 because they might find them spoilery. As someone who doesn't consider many things spoilers I found this intriguing. I would like to pose a few questions to everyone:

1) Do you typically read tags? How often do you search by tag?

2) What kinds of tags do you find spoilery and why?

3) What do you want to know about the content of a story before you read? Why?

4) What do you not want to know about the content of a story before you read? Why?

5) Would whether you consider any tags to be spoilery or not be affected if the author wrote the content indicated by the tags creatively or in an atypical way?

Comments

[wrabbit]

There is also a thin line between tags that might encourage assumptions, purposefully or not, and tags that actively mislead. Bad example of the former: if I see the two tags "Hallucinations, Monsters," I might assume the monsters are hallucinations, but maybe the monsters end up being real in the story and the hallucinations are something else.

[princessofgeeks]

This specific example I would not have a problem with. Because as far as it goes, it's accurate. The reader may conflate or interpret the meaning of the two tags, but that is okay by me.