A Pitch for Redoing the Genres

Kiweevil 2020-10-22 05:45:00 UTC #10

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

rajillustration 2020-10-22 06:00:36 UTC #11

There's also non-fiction comics that aren't slice of life, like self help and tutorials. Also philosophy, politics, and art comics. Like my biggest issue with the genres we have isn't consolidating them, it's that they aren't really specific enough when it's one of the biggest tools our audience has to use find us. That, and Gag-a-Days are still very prevalent, and not really slice-of-life, so I think they'd be a whole big category of their own.

darthmongoose 2020-10-22 06:45:38 UTC #12

I can see how this proposed idea is logical in terms of taxonomy, like it works in a vacuum, but the problem is it's not really fixing any of the problems we have here.
Romance (all forms, including GL, BL and some in LGBTQ+) is the biggest genre on Tapas. The entire reason it was separated out like it is was because it's so massive and that the BL was overshadowing the het in popularity so much that when they're in a single category, you'd go to "Romance" and get a list that's almost all male/male. By making the user need to then narrow their search to "straight romance", you're adding another click to the equation.

Assuming the comics are listed by popularity, in this proposed system, the user clicks "Romance" sees a sea of BL and one of three things happens:
1. "Oh huh, all the biggest titles are BL huh, I guess I'll read a BL"
2. "But I want man/woman...err... ah here's a button, let's add the het filter..."
3. "WTF does this site only have male/male!? I'm going to Webtoons!"

In all the cases, this system would result in a comparative loss of sub gain by the people making heterosexual, LGBTQ+ or GL romance. Because they need an extra click. Extra clicks matter. Hell, extra scrolling matters! I've been featured on the front page three times. Once in Staff Pick, right near the top of the page, resulting in increase of over 200 subs, once in Community Pick, which is in the middle of the page, resulting in about 60, and once in a collection that was at the very bottom of the page, from which I got about 20. It's basic UX that the further a person has to go and the more clicks are required to get a thing, the less that thing will be found or used.

You have to build the taxonomy around what the user is looking for and what the creators are making. A lot of people come to Tapas looking for queer content because wow, if you're queer and you're browsing Netflix for stuff, the options are slim pickings, so we're pretty hungry for new content and our primary interest, above the genre, is "does it represent my queer experience". This proposed system fragments the LGBTQ+ content on the site into Action-LGBTQ+, Adventure-LGBTQ+, Romance-LGBTQ+ etc. Making it less visible, harder to find and less financially viable for the people making it. Making the site conform to how bookshops organise works and a nice, neat structure based objectively on "what is the genre though?" may feel satisfyingly neat, but it wouldn't help users find what they want or creators feel findable in their categories.

liquidlilium 2020-10-22 13:08:40 UTC #13

I'm completely against removing GL as a main genre. The GL community have fought for over a year (probably years) to get our genre on the site and honestly a lot of us would probably just get fed up and leave if it's removed or relegated to a tag again. We might be the smallest of the romance genres, but romance is popular enough that we're still far from the least profitable.

I'm not sure if the BL fans feel the same since their content dominates the site and is easy to find regardless. But having BL as it's own genre is necessary to keep the other genres a bit more varied (while also making the site more appealing to the very profitable fans of the genre).

I know there is some problems with search-ability but I think Tapas fixing/improving/replacing the tag system would be better.

The only change to the genre-system itself I would suggest is adding an other/custom genre to accommodate things like non-fiction, poetry, experimental etc.

domisotto 2020-10-22 13:30:11 UTC #14

Yeah, I prefer Romance, BL and GL to be their own main genres because it makes sense for which romance you look for. While all romances are romances, I prefer that authors went by the main pairing just because it helps giving more people spotlight for their work, otherwise, the category will be overwhelmed, PARTICULARY if Fantasy and Sci-Fi are not there to handle the overflow. I mean, I already see BL authors putting their stuff in Romance in hopes for more visibility, and that's in novels that are not as numerous as comics.

Like, i know some people dislike romance and want to downplay its popularity, but let's face it, Romance drives readership on the net and in the publishing industry. That's what people want to read... and write. Or draw.

And, no sci-fi and fantasy are not the same and they are absolutely the main genres with very specific audience who are okay with lore and not-in-the-real world stuff. There are a lot of people who don't want fantasy element when they read. They don't process it well, they don't like it etc.

For me, among other things, the big difference is that Sci-Fi implies that I am more likely to find modern equality, gender role distribution and societies, as well as aliens and spaceships. Instead of dragons, kingdoms and adventures of the only un-oppressed woman in the whole Realm.

Personally, I want to see Teen Fiction to handle the High School stories, Paranormal to help with Werewolves and Witches vs Dragons and Deposed Kings

Overall, Mystery/Thriller could go together, though I agree that Internet rarely provides actual mystery stories.

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 14:12:11 UTC #15

I believe this is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you can be specific, but on the other hand, people that are seeking to avoid any exposure to an LGBTQ story can have their way. This way, you can search for romance in general but the secondary genre is still there for specifying if you want to. it just wouldn't be the default.

This is a bit of a misconception of the concept. They are still there just in a different capacity for organization. you can still have a "Sci-Fi Fantasy" page where you can see all the comics that are under this banner.

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 14:21:39 UTC #16

I still think it being considered a "secondary" isn't about its size but rather what it means for the story. That Fantasy is an aesthetic and doesn't dictate what the story itself will actually be about. But I have updated the post above to reflect concerns.

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 14:23:28 UTC #17

It wouldn't be removed, it would still be a genre. This is just a method for more clear organization as right now things are too messy IMO. It would still have a singular page where it can be found.

Agreed. I will add those.

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 14:24:37 UTC #18

Good points. I will add those.

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 14:29:16 UTC #19

You make a fair point on the Romance section, but I think my naming convention is causing some confusion. With this system you would be able to click the LGBTQ Secondary Genre and see ALL the LGBTQ comics. It wouldn't be a cascading system where you are only seeing Action->LGBTQ+ My concept here is to make 6 or 7 clear bubble genres with the option to search for as many other genres with their associated comics. But technically on a search level the "secondaries" have the same function and would have pages just like the "primes"

jjfresh 2020-10-22 14:32:14 UTC #20

All in favour of fixing the genres.

I like the idea of choosing from a finite number of genres for a given story, let's say 3.
Either one main genre with a few sub genres or choose any 3 genres to represent your story.

My comic as an example:
Main: Romance
Sub1: Psychological
Sub2: Fantasy

alternative
Genre1: Romance
Genre2: Psychological
Genre3: Fantasy

I do think it should be limited on how many you can add so that you know how to focus on your story for one and you don't clutter the genres.
If they gonna add LGBT genres, they should add mature, psychological, tragedy, scifi and such as well. Oh and scifi/fantasy should be separate. In fact are the actually under the same label? Because that's stupid if so.

BL and GL are standalones simply because there's a lot of them out there so it makes sense. Though I could see them being under a subgenre since it's a sub of Romance.

Okay basically, I just want tragedy and psych added because those are my favourites. If they can add horror, they can add tragedy. Additionally, I like the idea of a mature label if your comic contains lot of mature themes, not just on individual pages so it can flag the warning for the comic as a whole (just an idea, may not be good feel free to correct me)

domisotto 2020-10-22 14:47:16 UTC #21

No, because Fresh in the MAIN GENRE is the main or the only means of exposure on this site for the not social-media super-stars creators.

But the combined genre category will be overflown with works, making it far harder to find readership. Atm, if you add up Romance, BL, GL and LGBTQ, you will have a GIGANTIC category, so might as well go and post it on Wattpad then, hoping to stand out among the 60 billion books.

Anyway, it's good the way it is imo for romance divided into 4 main genres each with its own Popular, Trending and Fresh. It's just how it works. Post in Action, and you are going to sit in Fresh for a few hours, but your potential audience pool is small. Post in BL, and you will have 5-10 books right over you the minute you've posted, but bigger pool. Combine all romances--and good-buy any exposure.

BL is certainly not hurting for readers, so concerns about avoidance are unwarranted & nothing stops anyone from choosing Romance as their main genre. People specifically want to go to BL and GL hoping for more audience or shop around for audience in 2-3 main categories.

And no pedantic argument is going to change the practical side of things that dictates that romance has to have multiple categories while Action doesn't.

Thinking that people actually search on tags or subcategory is unrealistic. We are very, very lucky if they select Free-to-Read and click away to Fresh in a Genre!

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 15:04:59 UTC #22

Well, that's exactly why 2 years ago I tried to get the forums to brainstorm additional ways for smaller creators to be discovered because I still believe there's a popularity ceiling that most series hit where they got stuck outside of the Fresh section and don't have enough readers to reach the Trending category. I wanted things like Creator recommendations and rotating pools, and the ability to be randomly suggested a comic in a genre of your choosing but people were very combative about this because they saw it is me, a small creator, being butthurt.

None of what I'm suggesting will probably be implanted. but the goal here is to also provide a solution that benefits the romance/BL/GL genres further. They wouldn't go away. They'd be more robust. This way you could find Sports/BL or Horror/GL or and Romance/Westerns you wanted, etc.

This system would ideally, prevent any one genre from becoming oversaturated by a secondary genre because you can filter out the secondaries. Like if you wanted to see the best non-BL Romance, for example.

HGohwell 2020-10-22 15:05:08 UTC #23

~~I mean it's not gonna happen any more than they're gonna give us an age rating system, remember it look years of "if BL gets a category why doesn't GL and LGBTQ" to change it, but ok.~~

A few things:

You can have sci-fi and fantasy under one main genre (perhaps as speculative fiction which is the super category for science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero fiction, alternate history, utopian and dystopian fiction, and supernatural fiction and others) and then have them separate as secondary categories. Sci-fi and fantasy are too large on their own without lumping them together. If you went in looking for LOTR and the genre was cluttered with Blade Runner, it'd be a problem, right? Also, compare Blade Runner to something like Star Wars. Compare LOTR to The Witches or to Twilight. These are massive categories on their own. If anything should be lumped it should be Action/Adventure (which is actually a very common grouping, you yourself have used it above).

We've been talking about genres for a long time, and the generally the agreement tends to be we just need more. Most people aren't hugely offended by the ones we have but just want more ability to sub categories. There's a massive difference between urban fantasy and high epic fantasy, between a hack and slash bloody horror and a spooky atmospheric ghost story horror and a psychological horror. Just look at how many different genres I just listed for speculative fictional alone.

domisotto 2020-10-22 15:05:52 UTC #24

In my view, your suggestions don't benefit anyone, sorry, and only make things worse for the writers

DaveStankoven 2020-10-22 15:08:49 UTC #25

I don't see how yet but that is partially what this forum post is for.

ar-ninetysix 2020-10-22 15:10:53 UTC #26

I'm just reading all the replies kinda lost on the subject of how this new system would work. It sounds complicated and that's a big turn off for me for using the search feature I genuinely like where we're at, I just want more genres to pick from. That's it. None of this prime, secondary business. Just.. more genres.

Zaboem 2020-10-22 15:14:13 UTC #27

Some of these main-secondary combos just don't work. Like, none of the six main categories really work with Non-fiction as a secondary. If a creator makes -- say a drawing tutorial like "Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga" -- this doesn't match any of the six main categories. For a Tapas-derived example, look at the novel series "The Stalker" which is all book reviews. The entire reference section of my library would have the same problem.

I don't have a problem with the concept of major and minor genres as organizational tools. It's just the way.that these were selected seem to be focused in preserving the way things already are done (which is why Action and Adventure remain separate categories) and making that broken system more complex with more choices. To borrow a software term, that's feature creep. The proposed change doesn't actually fix anything as far as I can tell and therefore isn't enough of an improvement to justify the change.

HGohwell 2020-10-22 15:14:14 UTC #28

I think it's just an over complicated way of saying main genre and sub genres. My comic is mainly sci-fi but there are some hints of fantasy and romance. But more complicated.

jjfresh 2020-10-22 15:14:58 UTC #29

That's basically what I'd vote for lul. More genre options and more genres you can pick. It should definitely be limited how many you choose but, how many can we pick now? 2? Could do with more

When Tapastic first started, you only could choose one of like 5