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As I'm sure everyone has noticed by now, the canonical tag in the POI fandom for Root has been changed from "Root (Person of Interest)" to "Root | Samantha Groves," and all her relationship tags changed in a similar fashion. I made a post about it on Tumblr about it over here, but then I remembered, hey! Meta on AO3 is totally a thing! Go to the source! So here it is, this time with more detail.
I'm going to be writing this with the intended audience being both general AO3 users and its tag wranglers, so if you're in the latter group: a) I love you keep doing good work you all are angels, and b) apologies for telling you some things you already know.
How Canonical Tags Work
From AO3's FAQ about canonical tags:
A canonical tag is a tag used to build our search and browse features; they are the tags that appear in our browse filters and in the tag auto-complete in the Post Work and Save a Bookmark forms, and the Fandom tags which appear on the Fandom pages. Canonical tags are usually intended to be the most universal and easily understood form of a tag (though this isn’t necessarily so, see Which tags get made canonical?), with all other versions linked to it as synonyms.
So, when you go to post a new work and start typing in tags, a dropdown list will appear with suggestions, and those are the “canonical” tags. You can tag with whatever you want, but those are considered the main ones. So, in the case of POI, you can start typing “Reese/Finch” and either select the canonical tag of “Harold Finch/John Reese,” or you can keep your original intended “Reese/Finch” tag. In the latter case, that will be the tag that appears on your work, but for search indexing purposes, it’s considered a synonym of and will fall under the “Harold Finch/John Reese” canonical tag. When you click on the “Reese/Finch” tag, you will be taken to the search results for the “Harold Finch/John Reese” tag, which will also contain all other possible combinations that fall under that umbrella, including “Finch/Reese,” “Harold/John,” “Rinch,” et cetera. The canonical tag/synonym tag system same holds true for character tags, fandom tags, and additional tags (such as “HS AU” = “alternate universe - high school” and “H/C” = “hurt/comfort.”)
It gets a bit more complicated for characters, as you see above with the “Root | Samantha Groves” tag. That pipe between the names is AO3′s tag wrangling method of handling characters that go by different names. For example, in Once Upon a Time, there’s a character known by Regina Mills in the modern setting, and by the Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest setting, and another known by either Mary Margaret or Snow White. They’re the same character regardless of setting, but they go by both names with about the same relative frequency. Thus, their canonical tags are, respectively, “Evil Queen | Regina Mills” and “Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard.”
So, I've tagged this work with "Root (Person of Interest)" rather than "Root | Samantha Groves" despite the latter tag being the canonical tag. The way the AO3 tags work allow me to tag how I want, but once tags achieve a certain popularity they're marked as common or canonical, and tags that have the same meaning get linked together to the same canonical tag. So if you were to click on my "Root (Person of Interest)" tag above, you will be taken to the search results for fics tagged with the canonical tag, "Root | Samantha Groves." But I had to manually enter my preferred tag, it didn't pop up in the suggestions when I started typing the name "Root" in the characters box. The same holds true for relationship tags involving Root:
Fandom History of Tagging "Samantha Groves"
Prior to Root's canonical tag change on March 16, 2016, there were 4878 fics in the Person of Interest fandom on AO3. Of these, 1373 were Root/Shaw fics, 1682 were Reese/Finch fics, and 1897 weren't tagged with either of those two pairings. (There are some fics tagged with both Root/Shaw and Reese/Finch, hence the math on the breakdowns adding up to more than 4878.)
To determine the fandom's usage of any variety of "Samantha Groves" in the tags of works before the canonical tag change, I did a text search for the word "Groves" on each page of search results. This is what I found:
- Within the Root/Shaw tag, there were eleven fics that used some variation of "Samantha Groves" to refer to Root. Eleven out of 1373 is 0.80%
- Within the Reese/Finch tag, there were five which used some variation of "Samantha Groves" to refer to Root. Five out of 1682 is 0.29%.
- Of the fics not tagged either Root/Shaw or Reese/Finch (filtered according to AO3's hints and tips by using each pairing's RSS feed ID number), there were two that used some variation of "Samantha Groves" to refer to Root. Two out of 1897 is 0.11%
- All together, that's eighteen fics out of 4878 total prior to March 16th that tagged Root as some form of "Samantha Groves," or 0.37%.
There were a handful of fics that referred to "Samantha Groves" or some variation of it in the summary but not in the tags, so I'd estimate the total number of fics that referred to Root by that name in either tags or summary to be no greater than 30, out of 4878, or 0.62%.
Canon References
(The following gifs in this section come from this post by tumblr user agentgroves.)
Root is first introduced in episode 1x13, "Root Cause." She is an unseen hacker who is behind the framing of the episode's number of the week for murder, tries to hack into Harold's systems at the library, and taunts him via IRC chat at the end and introduces herself as Root:
She next appears in the season 1 finale, "Firewall," posing as a therapist in danger from HR to get the attention of the Machine, Harold, and John. She reveals her true identity when she shoots Alicia Corwin and abducts Harold, and introduces herself to him:
The first two episodes of season two continue to follow Root and Harold as she tries to get the location of the Machine from him. In 2x02, "Bad Code," we see flashbacks to the early 1990s as we follow Reese and Carter's investigation into Root's past after the Machine gives them the number of Hanna Frey, a 14 year old girl who went missing in Texas. We're led to believe that the missing girl became Root, but at the end of the episode it's revealed that her friend, Samantha Groves, was the one who became Root. The final shot of the episode is her finishing a game of Oregon Trail and entering her name:
Apart from those flashbacks, Root never goes by "Samantha Groves." She continuously tells people to call her "Root," including Harold, who is the only character to consistently call her "Miss Groves." (Apart from the series' main villain, Greer, and his associates.)
Harold's use of "Miss Groves" is framed as being due to two factors: his habit of referring to everyone by title and surname ("Mr. Reese," "Miss Shaw," "Detective Carter," etc.); and his personal discomfort with Root due to the two times she kidnapped him and her relationship with the Machine, his creation that he never intended to serve as someone's God. He calls her "Samantha" twice in episode 4x13, "MIA," during attempts to appeal to her humanity while expressing sympathy for the loss of Shaw and attempting to convince her not to torture someone.
By this point in canon, it's been over twenty years since the last time Root was shown to go by "Samantha Groves."
Fandom Sentiment
Many people in the fandom have come to identify with Root’s demand for acceptance of her chosen name and identity, and feel the same visceral anger and pain as she does in their day to day real lives when those around them elect to deadname them. See, for instance, this post. As a cis woman who hasn’t had to deal with this in my life, I can’t say I have any personal experience to speak from - although it should be noted there are many other reasons to change one’s name than gender identity, all of which are deserving of respect. But I can certainly empathize with and understand the connection of those who do experience such things in their own lives with a character who’s been shown over the course of four seasons to place A Lot of importance on her chosen name. “Root | Samantha Groves” places identical weight on Root’s chosen name and the one that she abandoned twenty years ago, and tells people who’ve chosen their own name that no matter how much they insist on their new name, it’s still perfectly valid for people to deadname them.
In the less than 24 hours since I posted this post, there were many comments to that effect in the replies, reblogs, and tags:
There is a separate, similar discussion exhibiting the same sentiments on this post.
There are also authors protesting the changed canonical tag within the tags on their works:
Tag Wrangling Guidelines
In communication with AO3 support about the canonical Root tag, tumblr user constantlyhalfcocked was told that Root's case falls under the tag wrangling guidelines for Alter Egos & Secret Identities, Pen Names & Pseudonyms:
Standard Format: One name is chosen and made CANONICAL. This name should be:
- Easily recognizable as referring to all identities OR
- The most commonly used name in the source material OR
- The name with the greatest recognition in popular culture.
If a character's real name and alter ego/pseudonym are both about as well-known/well-used in the fandom, canonicals can be constructed with a "|", similar to translated names.
Using the standard format criteria above, "Root" would be the appropriate name to use. Mention the name "Root," everyone who's seen an episode she's been in will know who you mean. Mention "Samantha Groves," that won't necessarily be the case. "Root" is by far the most commonly used in canon, as shown in the Canon section above. It's the name with the greatest recognition in popular culture, both on AO3 as shown by the fandom section above and as demonstrated by media articles about the show referring to her as Root. (For what it's worth, TVLine just put Root's "You can just call me Root, bitch" line from the season 5 premiere as its number one top quote of the week, as seen here.)
So if the Alter Egos/Secret Identities/Pen Names/Pseudonyms guidelines are the ones that Root falls under, it must be the case that the last point of the quoted section is the reasoning used for changing the canonical tag to "Root | Samantha Groves" - that "Root" and "Samantha Groves" are both as well-known/well-used by the fandom. But as I showed above in the fandom history section, only 0.62% of all Person of Interest fics on AO3 prior to the change referred to her as such. (And it should be noted that very few of those fics I found used "Samantha Groves" exclusively. Most used both that tag and the "Root (Person of Interest)" tag.)
If the argument is that Harold calls her "Miss Groves" and that should be reflected in the tags, then the argument can absolutely be made that Harold's "Harold Wren" alias should be similarly piped in his canonical tag. After all, that is the identity he has been using since the 1970s, as seen in his many flashbacks to MIT and the programming of the Machine. Nathan Ingram and his son knew him as Harold Wren, and we see present-day interactions with Will Ingram (who calls Harold "Uncle Harold" in episode 1x14) in which Harold uses his Harold Wren identity as his "real life" identity. He considers that name much more legitimate than Root will ever consider "Samantha Groves" to be legitimate, but Harold's canonical tag is simply "Harold Finch" rather than "Harold Finch | Harold Wren."
Root has made it clear that she does not consider "Root" to be her alias - she considers it her name. The characters (other than Finch and the villains), the show, the billing of the show, the media, and the fandom all consider "Root" to be her name. AO3 has a different set of tag wrangling guidelines that seem to be more relevant to Root, given this fact. The Canonical Name Changes guidelines say this:
For a character who changes their name over the course of canon (due to adoption, divorce, gender presentation change, marriage, or other plot reason), choose the canonical based on:
- The character's in-canon stated preference
- Which name they went by at the start of canon;
- How long they went by a name (i.e. were they known as one for longer than the other in the canon);
- Which name the fans most often use/is most common on the Archive.
If multiple names are commonly used in the fandom, the canonical can incorporate them both; e.g. "Lily Evans Potter". If the names are sufficiently distinct, canonicals can be constructed with a "|", similar to translated names.
It's clear in canon that Root's situation is a name change situation. Thus, going by the criteria above, the canonical tag for her should not include her former name. It is her in-canon stated preference, time and time again. It's the name she went by from her first introduction. It's the name she's used the longest. And it's the one the fandom uses most often, as clearly shown in the fandom usage section above. These guidelines do say that names can be piped if they are both "commonly used in the fandom," but again, "Samantha Groves" clearly does not even begin to approach "common" use.
And again, it is this canon name change and the importance that Root places on it that so many people in the fandom identify with and makes this tag change decision an issue in the first place.
Addendum: a former tag wrangler commented on one of the tumblr posts on this subject with the insight that a lot of the time, canonical tags are selected to be the broadest possible identifier - so the piped tag's intent is to encompass all possible taggings of Root in whatever incarnation or age, thus including the name she went by as a child in one episode's worth of flashbacks. Which is a reasonable enough point, but a) the archive's name change guidelines outlined above seem to allow for exceptions to this this, as evidenced by the fact that b) that's not how other fandoms on the archive handle every character who's changed their name, even when we see them going by their former name at some point in canon.
In the Glee fandom, for example, Sheldon Beiste's canonical tag is just "Sheldon Beiste," even though when the character was introduced we knew him as "Shannon Beiste" and much of his canon storyline has him going by that name. But "Shannon" is not the name he's chosen, so his canonical tag reflects that choice, despite the existence of fic set during the time when he did use that name. Likewise, "Sophia Burset" is the canonical tag for Sophia in Orange is the New Black, despite the audience seeing her pre-transition when she went by "Marcus." Luke Cage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is known simply by "Luke Cage" in his canonical tag, even though his birth name was "Carl Lucas" and there is an episode with extensive flashbacks of him being referred to solely by that name and others in present canon continue to do so despite his protests - much the same situation as Root. Even Jerry Gergich from Parks and Recreation is canonically tagged simply as "Jerry Gergich," no pipes, despite him going by several names throughout canon (Jerry, Larry, Terry, and Garry) - "Garry" is his birth name and the one he's known by at the end of canon, but it's not in his canonical tag. There's plenty of precedent for not including "Samantha Groves" in Root's tag even with the existence of fic set during her childhood and on-screen use of that name.
Communication With AO3 Support So Far
As mentioned above, tumblr user constantlyhalfcocked has had some communication with AO3 Support about changing Root's canonical tags back to the versions without "Samantha Groves." One message included this explanation for the change:
Thanks for asking about the “Root | Samantha Groves” tag. The “Person of Interest” wrangling team noted that she does use the name at certain points in canon, that other main story characters use the name, and that a significant minority of fans have also exclusively used the name on the Archive. As fannish practice is one of the guiding principles when wrangling, they felt it best to reflect that in the canonical.
(Tumblr user superjinkyo also contacted support and received much the same message, as seen in this post.)
Which is fine... but every point in that message is refuted in the sections above. The only time Root uses that name in canon is when she's twelve years old. The only other characters who use "Samantha Groves" are either villains or Finch, who uses it because he's uncomfortable with calling her Root (ie, not a good reason to not use her preferred name). There is no "significant" minority of fans who exclusively use that name on the Archive, unless 0.62% counts as significant enough to ignore the larger proportion of Archive users who are damaged by the split usage.
A subsequent message between constantlyhalfcocked and Support mentioned this:
Write-in campaigns are one way to provide feedback to wranglers, but aggregating the data into a single message to pass on to the wranglers consumes the limited time our Support volunteers have. Changing the actual usage on the works and bookmarks is a much more effective and direct way to convey a fandom’s preferences to the wranglers!
Similarly, superjinkyo's message included this: "Even with this feedback [write-in campaigns, support tickets], the wranglers prioritize usage on works and bookmarks over petitions."
So it seems the best way to convey our desire to have the canonical tag changed back is to not use the "Root | Samantha Groves" tag, and instead use the "Root (Person of Interest)" tag. Although I am completely baffled as to why it was changed in the first place, if user habits are supposed to be the best way of conveying user preference for canonical tags and only 0.62% of fics tagged Root as "Samantha Groves" before the tag was changed.
(I just want to take a moment to emphasize that last point: if, according to Support, tag wranglers look primarily at user tagging habits when deciding to change canonical tags, but only 0.62% of POI fics ever tagged Root as "Samantha Groves" before the canonical tag changed, why was it ever changed in the first place?)
In talking with a former tag wrangler, the point was raised that there is a preference among tag wranglers to not use character tags that don't follow the "FirstName LastName" format where possible, since single-word names require disambiguation. Hence why Root's canonical tag was "Root (Person of Interest)" rather than just "Root" before March 16th. Which is a valid point, and one I can imagine being a personal pet peeve of mine since I like things to be neat and orderly. But if that's the reason the canonical tag was changed, then I don't think it comes near to being a good enough reason to appear to give equal weight to both "Root" and "Samantha Groves" and cause actual legitimate discomfort to users of this site who have negative personal experiences with being deadnamed in their real lives.
What We Can Do
I've never been a tag wrangler and I've only had limited conversation with one person who used to be a tag wrangler. I don't know exactly how it works or how much work goes into changing a character's set of canonical tags. (Bear in mind, it's not just the "Root | Samantha Groves" tag that needs to change, but all canonical tags that include her in a relationship.) Presumably, since it was changed back in March with no apparent disruption to the indexing of POI fics, the tags can be changed back just as easily, but I'm not an expert.
In the meantime, when posting new works and creating bookmarks, we can refrain from using the autofill suggestions that come up in the tag boxes. Using non-canonical but "common" tags which have been identified as synonyms to canonical tags will still allow your fics to appear in the tag feeds. So, tag your fics with "Root (Person of Interest)" instead of "Root | Samantha Groves" and "Root/Sameen Shaw" rather than "Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw" and follow the same format for any other relationship tags you may use. You will have to manually type that in rather than selecting from any of the autofill suggestions.
My understanding of the way canonization of tags works is, once three or more different users use a new tag, it's marked for being considered canonical or a synonym of a canonical. (I could easily be wrong though, but that's how I read the wrangling guidelines.) So, in theory, if multiple people started using the new tags for Root that I tagged this work with - "Root | Just Root" or "Root | Her Name Is Root" or "Root | Not Samantha Groves" or "Please Call Me | Root"- then those tags would specifically brought to wranglers' attention. For what it's worth. EDIT 5-9-16 20:00EDT: nope, nevermind, that's only for the freeform tags. Don't do this.
Feel free to discuss your thoughts about all this in the comments. The more sentiment expressed in favor of changing it back, the better!
EDIT 5-9-16 20:00EDT: The suggestion has been raised of using "Analog Interface" as Root's "other name," if wranglers are insistent on piping her name for disambiguation reasons. The Machine refers to her as its "Analog Interface" and Root very much accepts that as a title. So instead of "Root | Samantha Groves" it'd be "Root | Analog Interface." Thoughts?
EDIT 8-13-16 00:30EDT: I've been in touch with AO3 support, and this is what I've been told:
After the first Support ticket was submitted on this subject, the Tag Wrangling Chairs reviewed the tag and determined that the wranglers of the fandom had made a decision in keeping with current guidelines. Therefore, with the support of the Tag Wrangling Chairs and Staff, the tag will not change at this time. [...] They consider the matter closed. I’m sorry we aren’t able to reach a more satisfactory conclusion.
I, on the other hand, don't consider the matter closed, at least not until I understand why the harm the tag does is outweighed by whatever benefits come from piping the tag. So, I'll keep folks posted on how that goes here or on tumblr.
One More Thing
The OTW is the best fucking thing to ever happen to fandom (adults! doing adulting things! for the benefit of fandom! submitting legal briefs to the US court system! building our own fanfiction archive that’s not subject to the whims of arbitrary “moral standards” or seeking to profit off the backs of our free labor done for love!) and AO3 is a glittering beacon of light and sunshine and happiness and puppies and rainbows and it’s my happy place and the programmers and support staff and tag wranglers and translators and everyone else who works so hard (volunteers! the lot of them!) to keep it up and running and searchable and user friendly are all angels who walk on this earth doing the lord’s work so if I see anybody insulting them or raging against them because of this issue instead of having a nice friendly discussion, I’m going to come to your house and install a beeping device that wakes you up every time you start to drift off to sleep and you’ll be left with nothing to do but lie in bed thinking about how terrible you are as a human being. :)