a few months ago, i installed a userscript that will automatically apply saved filters to whatever search you're making; however, because it was first made in 2014, the way it actually works is that it applies filters as if you were plugging something into the "search within results" box, which will not actually filter out tags, but rather, keywords present anywhere in a fic and its metadata.
this is not very useful on its own, considering the fact that most everyone likes ao3 so much for its robust tag filters. fortunately, there remains an old-fashioned search method from the time before native exclusion filters existed on the site, which allowed people to use "-filter_ids:[integer]" in the "search within results" box to exclude tags proper, as we expect them to work today.
there are, of course, other methods of having sticky/saved filters on ao3, such as bookmarking one's url after applying all the filters you desire to a particular search, but then that requires not only inputting all my filters again when i enter a new fandom tag (thereby necessitating maintaining a reference list), but also maintaining a bunch of bookmarks for everything i might want to regularly check, which. like. boooooo
anyway, another reason i like that userscript so much is bc a while back i learned that the ao3 advanced search box runs off apache lucene to parse its queries, meaning that you can actually get incredibly fine-grained with your requests. for example, to filter out both "slow burn that is complete and under 50k" and "slow burn that is in-progress and under 10k" while leaving all other slow burn fics in the same search:
-(filter_ids:103132 AND complete:false AND word_count:[* TO 10000]) -(filter_ids:103132 AND complete:true AND word_count:[* TO 50000])
or you could develop a whitelist for the tags you're filtering by using "!", like filtering out all ocs unless they're by a particular person:
-(filter_ids:2927 !user_ids:[integer])
point being, the ao3 advanced search box is very powerful, the possibilities are endless, and i am married to that saved filters script these days.
however, i am also a picky little bitch, and i have somewhere around a hundred tags i have automatically filtered out for my current fandom, and about forty additional tags that i have filtered out everywhere. the saved filters makes it a lot easier to maintain these filters, but also i'm lazy about appending new tags, and they can be hard to dig through if i want to take something out for whatever reason, so recently i've been putting together a spreadsheet that will automate the queries i want copy-pasted into the saved filters input box.
most of it has been simple, just maintaining a sheet with the name and filter_ids number of what i want filtered unconditionally, but for the more complex requests, uh.
(this one is supposed to say "22 !(176 || 110)")
(this one is supposed to say "((22 !(176 || 110 || 49838047)) AND expected_number_of_chapters:[5 TO 25]) || [further queries])"
........well, it's going!!!!
one of my friends says i should publish the spreadsheet when i perfect it, since even tho most people aren't as picky as me, it'd be nice to showcase ao3's fullest capabilities with it. for various reasons, it likely won't be much use to most people as a spreadsheet, but i've been Considering maybe figuring out how to make a userscript (or maybe even a firefox extension, if i can get permission from the people who made the relevant bookmarklets/userscripts to use their code And Also figure out enough js for that), so idk. stay tuned for that, maybe!
