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

[turlough]

I find narratives stressful when I don't know what to expect so I am much happier reading a story when I know what's going to happen in it - then it's about the experience of the narrative instead of worrying about what might or might not happen next.

I pretty much agree with everything in this comment but particularly with this. And it's not just the narrative, roughly knowing what will happen makes it possible for me to enjoy the craftmanship of the writer in a way I wouldn't be able to if I were focused on worrying what would happen next. In other words, it's the journey itself that interests me, not the goal.