The "Search Within Results" Field and You, Pt. 2

• Part 1: The Basics
• Part 2: Advanced Filtering
• Part 3: The Round-Up

Users frequently ask us for an easy, clickable option to filter *out* certain tags, or generate a list of works that are either one rating *or* another. Right now, ticking boxes in the filters will only show you a work if it has *all* the things you have ticked. (And as a work cannot be both Explicit and Mature, you can only pick one rating, not two.) Creating an interface that does everything and is also a) easy on the eye, b) accessible to screenreaders and other assistive tech, and c) not entirely reliant on JavaScript is not an easy task, and it will be a while yet before we can offer this.

However, we previously showed you a workaround using the 'Search within results' field in the Sort & Filter sidebar. Using a simple minus sign, you can exclude anything you don't want, or you can string together things with an uppercase OR to find all works that have at least one of those.

As this relies on text matches across all tags, summary, and notes, putting in -Explicit will also hide works from you that are rated Teen, but include something like "This will get explicit in later parts!" in the notes. Or, as mentioned in our last post, "Derek/Stiles" will also match a list of tags containing "Derek, Stiles" in that order.

There's a way you can use our expertly wrangled tags in the 'Search within results' field, but it requires you to look up a tag ID. Right now, this is only possible for Fandom, Character, and Relationship tags. Those have feeds, which contain the tag ID:

On the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski works page, you will find a 'Subscribe to the feed' button towards the upper right. The feed link will give you a number (as part of its URL). Now copy the number and you can do this:

• "teen wolf" -filter_ids:264659

This will use the tag's structure to exclude any works with this tag *and* its synonyms, e.g. "Sterek" or "Derek/Stiles", but since it's not a text match it *won't* accidentally exclude works that have "Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski" somewhere else in the tags.

And while we're blowing your mind, you can do the following to only show works that have *no* pairing tags at all:

• -relationship_ids:*

(Search results that do contain a pairing are due to tags that aren't indexed properly or have no canonical version. But close!)

Obviously, most Archive users will never need these little hacks! The tags, search form, and filter options already allow you to drill down to content you like with just a few button clicks. However, if you do find these extra options useful, but don't want to type them into the box every time you do a search, there's an unofficial userscript for you! It will automatically perform your prefered search when you open a list of works. Give it a whirl if you use Firefox or Chrome.

(We have collected more unofficial userscripts and other tools in our Cool Stuff FAQ, including an AO3 Savior script which will automatically hide works that contain certain words. Tumblr users might be familiar with the concept...)