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AO3 Announcement: Disabling filters: Information and search tips
Key information: As an emergency measure to deal with recent performance issues, we have disabled browsing filters on the site (the grey box of choices which appears on work index pages). This is a temporary measure to ensure that as many people as possible can access the site. You can still use our tags and advanced search feature to find the works you want. As an additional bonus, removing the filters has allowed us to remove the 1000 works cap on lists of works, so you can browse through all the works in your fandom! Read on for more information!
What's happening
As detailed in our recent post on performance, our coders and sys-admins are continuing to work on the performance issues we've been experiencing. We've made some server adjustments which have alleviated some of the worst problems, but we still need to make some substantial changes to fix the issues. We're aware that lots of users are still unable to access the site; as an emergency measure, we've decided to disable tag filters, which put a very heavy load on our servers. This means that the grey box with tags you can check to filter a list of works will no longer appear on the work index pages. We know this will be an inconvenience for many users, but the filters are really the 800-pound gorilla sitting on top of our database. Removing them for now will mean that people can access the site, even if they can't browse quite as easily as usual.
We've been working on significantly redesigning the part of our code that handles filtering for a while - because it's a major performance burden on some of the most popular pages of the site, refactoring this code to make it more efficient has been a priority for some time now. We're almost done with the rewritten version, but it needs more work and extended testing before we roll it out. (We want to be sure it doesn't introduce new bugs.) So, the filters will go away for a few weeks, and will then be replaced by the new, rewritten version.
One major disadvantage of the way the filters were designed was that they needed to retrieve the tags from the list of works found in order to build the filter options. This meant that we had to limit the number of works returned at one time to 1000, because otherwise building the filters would take too long. A side bonus of removing the filters is that we've been able to remove the 1000 works cap! The browsing redesign in progressaims to work around this issue, so we hope to avoid re-introducing this limitation when filtering returns.
How can I find the works I want?
Although the removal of the filters will make it harder to browse the works listings for specific things, there are still lots of ways to find the works you need.
Fandoms page
If you're looking for a specific fandom, you can browse the Fandoms page. Fandoms are organised by media type; the easiest way to find a particular fandom is to use Ctrl + F (or Command + F on a Mac) to search the page in your browser. The fandom pages will give you a list of all the works in your fandom; unfortunately there will be no way to filter that list down further.
Tags
Clicking on any tag will still bring up works with that tag, or with any tag marked as a synonym. So, if you click on Riza Hawkeye you'll get all the works tagged with 'Riza Hawkeye', 'Riza', 'Riza is awesome', etc. Again, while the filters are disabled there'll be no way to filter this list further.
Advanced Search
If you want more refined control over which works you find, you will need to use our Work Search. This feature could use a little bit of prettifying, but the underlying search is quite powerful. Use the following tips to help you find exactly the works you want:
- A space equals AND. So, entering
Fluff Friendshipwould find you works tagged with both 'fluff' and 'friendship' - | equals OR. So, entering
Homestuck | My Little Ponywill find you works tagged with 'Homestuck' AND/OR 'My Little Pony' - - equals NOT. So, entering
Supernatural - Castiel/Dean Winchesterwill find works tagged Supernatural, but will exclude those tagged Castiel/Dean Winchester. - Fandom, Character, Relationship, Rating, Category, and Warning are all classed as tags (as well as the 'Additional tags'). So, you can search for works which are Explicit, or exclude works tagged 'Major Character Death'.
- Using quotes around a phrase will search for that exact phrase. So,
"Harry Potter"will get works tagged with 'Harry Potter', whereasHarry Potterwill get works tagged with 'Harry' and works tagged with 'Potter'. - Entering a term in the tag field will only find works with exactly that tag - so searching for
Charles/Erikwill bring up only the few works tagged with exactly that tag, not the ones tagged 'Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier' (whereas if you click on the 'Charles/Erik' tag you'll get works with all variations of that pairing). - The search has trouble with tags which have dashes in them. If you search for X-Men, for instance, you noticed you'll get lots with X and no X-Men. To get around this, put the tag in quotes: "X-Men".
As well as searching tags, titles, and authors, you can also search for specific word counts, hits, kudos, and dates - including ranges, which is a useful tool for finding fics in a fandom. For example, you can search for all Stargate Atlantis fics published 5-6 years ago.
Some search examples!
- Find an explicit Fullmetal Alchemist work with the pairing Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang, with no Archive Warnings: Enter
"Fullmetal Alchemist" "Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang" "No Archive Warnings Apply" Explicit. - Find works with Rodney McKay but without John Sheppard: Enter
"Rodney McKay" -"John Sheppard". - Find works tagged with "Alternate Universe" in either the Homestuck or White Collar fandoms: Enter
"Alternate Universe" Homestuck | "White Collar". - Find all explicit works tagged as angst, but excluding M/M pairings: Enter
Angst Explicit -M/M
Search bookmarklets
If you find yourself re-using the same search parameters (only T-rated works, only works under 5,000 words, only works with over 10 kudos) for new fandoms or characters you fall in love with, you could give these custom search bookmarklets a try. They are not official AO3 tools, but made by one of our own and utilizing the Advanced Search functionality. Think of them as a saved search that lets you enter a keyword (such as a fandom name or specific kink) and spits out only the kind of work you want to see. For help in putting together your own saved search, don't hesitate to comment on the post or here.
What next?
This is definitely a short term measure, but we think it will have a big effect on site performance. In a few weeks we hope to deploy our all new search and browse features, which will restore more browsing functionality without placing the same load on the servers. We thank you for your patience and understanding while we continue to work on the problem areas.
Mirrored from an original post on the Archive of Our Own.
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Thanks!
Lucy
AD&T / Communications / Support
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There's a subscription on Dreamwidth for the feed from the Archive news posts, yes. That's what you linked to, so it seems like you may indeed already have subscribed to it. *g*
Lucy
AD&T / Communications / Support
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No, we don't crosspost the release notes. Generally we crosspost important notices (like this one) to the OTW_News mirrors, and also our monthly news posts (although those haven't happened for a while due to staffing issues). I can see how it would be desirable, but the workload involved in the amount of crossposting we do at present, and in keeping on top of the comments in all the different places, is quite considerable. So, we would have to think carefully about increasing crossposting / adding another set of mirrors for AO3 news specifically.
Thanks!
Lucy
AD&T / Communications / Support
AO3 search tips