You know you want it.

[tzikeh]

My fanfiction archive search option dream du jour:

"fandom" AND "pairing" AND NOT "author"

Alas, this Boolean gem doesn't stand a chance of implementation unless and until an epic war is waged upon the "Cult of Nice"—waged and won—by the coalition forces of "Seriously, Have You Ever Read a Book" and "Jesus Fucking Christ, My Eyes"—a war the magnitude of which would not have been witnessed by the world of words since the battlefields of 15th-century Southern England echoed with anguished long vowels as a million tongues were pulled, inexorably, upward and forward, by The Fightin' Diphthongs of the 1700's.



(I have been drinking.)

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

oh man, I want to quote you EVERYWHERE.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Feel free, of course. :) Wow, is it possible I become smarter when I drink? That would be a bad development. I almost never drink.

[vass]

When I was about 11, and rather inattentively reading the forward to Stephen Lawhead's Taliesin, I came to the conclusion that the Dipthongs were a Celtic tribe.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

THEY SHOULD BE

[giglet.livejournal.com]

How hard, I wonder, would it be to write a search that does that? I mean, the "NOT" wouldn't have to be specific to author. It could very usefully be put towards other tags.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think it would be hard to write at all. I just think it would be perceived as "mean," rather than "useful and you know it."

[(Anonymous)]

love the icon.

[luminosity]

Ah, I see you've been imbibing the Eloquence Wine (as opposed to Eloquent Whine, which is almost the same thing).

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Seriously -- this is a disturbing yet hilarious turn of events. I don't generally drink. Perhaps I should take it up (specifically the night before an assignment is due).

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing* I LOFF THIS WHOLE PARAGRAPH.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Apparently, drinking makes me smarter. This does not bode well.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to think of people who would make a fuss about this option in reference to "omg you're so mean" but isn't it just a way to filter that allows you to find new things instead of ones you already know? Isn't that something we're supposed to find useful? I am clearly not up on fandom politics.

In fact, I would also like to be able to look for "NOT pairing" and "NOT whatever cliché/genre/kink I don't want to read at the moment". It's not really a value judgment on the part of the people providing the search options. And whether or not it's a value judgment on my part is really no one's business but my own.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

isn't it just a way to filter that allows you to find new things instead of ones you already know?

For me, it would be a way to filter my search to exclude authors who are terrible writers. The problem is that fandom conflates "I think she's a terrible writer" with "I think she's a terrible person"--hence the opinion that it would be mean to create that filter.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

Yes, but to filter out someone you think is a terrible writer you have to have read at least a little bit of their work, no? Therefore, we are clearly both right, but if you wanted to sell it to the "no meanies" folk, you'd probably go with "oh hey, this is how we promote new writers with PRETTY MUCH NO EFFORT" and then people will pat you on the back and maybe give you a tin-foil medal made from tinhats.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

I am going to buy you drinks FOREVER.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what to do with this. Maybe this is why so many of our great mythologized writers were drunkards?

[halcyon-shift.livejournal.com]

Heeee!

At least AO3 has your dreams covered, more or less *g*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Really? Can you point that filter out to me?

[halcyon-shift.livejournal.com]

If you go to http://archiveofourown.org/search?query

then in the Tag field put: "white collar" "Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey" (include quotes)
then in the Author field put: -authorname (include minus sign)

You should get results in WC for Peter/Neal without the given author. I don't know how accurate it will be because I think the search is still in beta, but it seems to work as far as I can see.

The little question mark icons probably have more detailed info ...

Edit: Actually you could probably lose the "white collar", because it's all tags, heh