"no regenerating limbs those arms are toast sorry QA despises them" just isn't useful if I want to locate a particular text, other than "I'm liable to get a Tumblr-stink off of this crap."
And your defense of this is really ... internal, as in, this all looks like a lot of in-jokes to an outsider who is new to AO3, or even new to a particular fandom. If someone doesn't know the slang, the in-joke reference, it's still unhelpful.
> "no regenerating limbs those arms are toast sorry QA despises them" just isn't useful if I want to locate a particular text, other than "I'm liable to get a Tumblr-stink off of this crap."
Yeah, but you're not looking for that tag, and that tag wouldn't affect your search in any way. That's the thing. You're approaching tags like they can only only ever be used one way, and yes they can be that, and also other things that don't affect your personal use. So when you search for your specific tag, all synonymous tags will also appear, and all superfluous tags don't affect your search. A one-off tag doesn't affect your ability to search for multi-use tags.
EDIT: Additionally, the fact the tag exists has also helpfully indicated to you that this is a fic you probably don't want to read because of the author's cultural hinting through their use of tags. You're proving my point here-- the one-off tag doesn't affect your ability to search for your specific fandom or tropes, but also it allows you to pick flavors of fanfic you want from that search because of your dislike of one-off tags.
You have it backward: I found the fic through other means entirely and eventually dropped it. When I encountered it again on AO3 (it was a cross-post), I said "Oh, look at those horrible tags." It was notable in the fact that I said "I need to keep this one handy the next time I end up having yet another conversation with someone about how much tagging sucks on AO3." Because this isn't the first time someone has brought it up to me.
They just crap up the results if I am searching for "regeneration" or "limbs." If something is used more than one way, yes, it does affect my personal use because it means "more stuff I have to filter through." When you search, what you do not want is extraneous results. That's the whole point of searching! And I guess my library experience is showing, but AO3 just reeks of amateur hour shenanigans. I predict that at some point there will be a movement to clean up that kind of junk.
Wait so, this tag you didn't like didn't even stop you from finding the fic? It didn't clog up your search at all because it wasn't even in your search when you found the fic you were looking for? What's the problem exactly? You're approaching this with a library lens but it's not a library! It was never even intended to be a library!
Additionally, it doesn't show up when you're searching for regeneration or limbs because it's a one-off tag and therefore isn't linked to the rest of the tag network. I suppose it would be a problem if you put it in the general search, but you'd also be catching anything with limb in the title, or limb in the author's name, too. I think this is coming from a place of multiple misunderstandings of how tags work from both a technical and a cultural standpoint.
And that's a problem, isn't it? I shouldn't have to be immersed in a culture to use the system. You've traded usability and user experience for ... a cultural in-joke. "Hi, this is AO3, and our tags aren't anything like anyone else's tags, but we're still gonna call them tags" is a problem. It's like if I made a search bar and it returned random results. It says search, but culturally, we give you random results. That's how we do it.
But it's not a problem because it doesn't affect your ability to search. One-off tags do not enter the tag search results. I'm super confused why this isn't obvious and intuitive to you..
