Fanfiction Downloader and freeform tags.

[sketchme]

Does anyone here use the FFDL plugin for Calibre?

If so, how do you manage the Freeform tags? Any tips/advice?

I've been using FFDL for some weeks now, and I've accumulated about 200 AO3 fics. I've left the freeform tags alone but I now have over 500 tags, and that could keep on increasing. So I'm thinking I should try to manage them a bit. But how?

It's not as simple as Fandom tags. Where you can tidy things up with replace_metadata. The freeform tags are huge, you'd be doing the job of the wranglers.

I wish FFDL could get hold of the canonical tags for a fic. It would make things more workable. Does anyone know if AO3 attaches those tags to a story?

Comments

[samjohnsson]

I wish FFDL could get hold of the canonical tags for a fic. It would make things more workable. Does anyone know if AO3 attaches those tags to a story?

Unfortunately, no - that's handled entirely in the database. In theory, they could technologically be added as hidden metadata; however, current practice is that Tags are Content, so unless something breaks the ToS, they're sacrosanct.

[sketchme]

Yeah, I was hoping it was at least hidden metadata. :( But then I've often thought the work of the wranglers should be brought out into the light. The canonical tags could be a OTW project in its own right. An urban dictionary type thing for fanfiction.

I mean, it really is a dictionary that the wranglers are compiling. It's an enormous task. It seems a bit of a waste that it's just in the background to support freeform tags.

Imagine if you could then install the dictionary on devices or apps like calibre.

[amalthia]

I delete everything in the freeform tag field and add my own tags. What I normally do is select multiple stories from the same fandom and use the edit metadata option to remove all tags and add my own at the same time. It works great in bulk.

I use custom columns to collect the rest of the data, such as warnings, relationships, word count, status (complete or in-progress), series, and collection/challenges information.

[sketchme]

This is where I was heading. The freeform tags are so unworkable, I'm going to have to delete them and come up with a tagging system.

[sally_maria]

I'm not a heavy duty tagger, I pretty much just want the fandom attached to stories I keep, so I use FFDL to replace all of the free-form tags with "New" and then tag the fandoms on the stories I decide to keep once I've read them.

The bulk metadata editing tool is pretty useful for tidying things up semi-manually, but I'm not sure how automated you can make it.

[sketchme]

This is a timely comment for me to read. I started off wanting to get rid of all the tags. Decided to mess around with the include/exclude rules - only to keep a few useful canonical tags. But now I keep discovering and adding new ones to my whitelist, just in case. :\

[amalthia]

I haven't looked a the include/exclude rules it sounds like a handy feature.

[sketchme]

Yeah. Here's the documentation.

https://code.google.com/p/fanficdownloader/wiki/InExcludeMetadataFeature

It's handy. I'm going to limit my tags to 20.

[amalthia]

Thanks for sharing this link! I didn't realize I could make these changes in the personal.ini file. :)