I only use the fandom tags for searching, so doing away with the challenge tags wouldn't affect my use of the comm at all - at least if there's still a way of telling what challenge a work was created for, which I see you've already thought if! But what do you think about creating a dedicated tag for the roundup posts, such as "roundup" or similar? That would be a way to allow people to find all the works for one particular challenge without having to deal with the huge tag load. (It would mean going through all the roundup posts to find the desired tag, but that's relatively simple when the roundup posts are just a few pages.)

As a new person, I really appreciate the challenge tags. Without them, the community becomes a lot less searchable. When the first amnesty came up, I used the tags to figure out which prompts had the least fills, and that was really fun! I’d be sad to lose that ability. (Generally, I’m not terribly interested in filtering by fandom.)

The following notes are me thinking through the problem, and not intended to be critical! I’m also new so I may be missing details.

When I checked the extra features page, it seemed like premium paid gets 2000 tags - would that be an option? I’m happy to donate points/etc. if that might work https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=4

If that really doesn’t work, I think the previous suggestion of a roundup tag would be helpful, and I’d also suggest creating a masterlist with links to all the roundup posts (happy to help if needed). However, the issue I notice is that I’m not sure how amnesty would fit with that, unfortunately. Amnesty fills aren’t part of the original roundup post, and it’s not easy to go and edit the roundup posts to add them since it depends on who posted the roundup. I suppose they could be added as comments to the roundup? But that’s a lot of extra work for the person assembling an amnesty roundup, and the back-cataloguing.

The other issue is that the template header provided doesn’t include the challenge, so while I’ve seen some posts include the challenge, I know I didn’t (except for amnesty) and I imagine others in the past may not have as well, so once the challenge tags are deleted, a creator wanting to re-title their posts might have to resort to referencing the round-ups. (Unless most creators were adding in the challenge prompt part of the header?)

In many ways, it feels like if tagging in the community is no longer feasible, then tagging would be best replaced by an external tagging source, like I think fancake has a pinboard? But that’s also extra work, and would require a massive amount of backlog entry.

All in all, it’s a tricky issue, unfortunately!

Edited (Forgot a word 🤦) 2025-07-11 03:36 am (UTC)

I do occasionally look back to see what I've written for a particular prompt, but it's not essential and it's easy enough to check for the latest ones. No surprise, but I will not be retitling 11 years worth!

I have been using them to find the original challenge posts so I can find out what's posted under them, but I don't really need to do that. A simple challenge post tag that covers all challenges would be fine, and the roundup tag is also a good idea.

I sometimes use the challenge tags to see if I've done something for a certain prompt and tend to combine with my creator tag to narrow down especially during amnesty when I have the spreadsheet to work from too becuase I still haven't come up with an offline system for tracking my fills that works well for me. A few things I've tried don't quite work and using the tags helps.

The tags limit on a premium paid account is 2000 tags, I don't know if you've looked into that option or not. Just a suggestion, in case it's a viable option for the comm, especially with the tagging.

I use the tags to update my personal master list of all the challenges, and, though I absolutely understand the reasoning behind dispensing with the challenge tags, doing so would, ah, completely obliterate that list. ^^; That's just a me thing, though.