That's actually a good point and thank you for that.
If it's gonna be more like shopping filters then, that sounds much better! There's room for improvement though. Like a lot of room.
First off. That massive list of genres. Way more overwhelming than I'd like it to be. And non-aphabeltical too? Bad. Ok, so let's keep the same genres we currently use, and give us the ability to look up 3 genres at once. (Maybe add Anthology for @skicoak , bc that's his jam.) I do think Anthology should be it's own actual thing since it's not tied down to a specific genre.
Along with looking up genres, let's add tags into the mix. So these are where the leftover genres in your list would go, but with a much wider span of content to look up. The genre-specific tags are the default options, but you'll be able to type out whatever. You could look up tags on their own already, but you still had to filter through the genres from there.. This would fix that.
Subscriber numbers.. Could be narrowed down further. Maybe by the milestones and just typing a specific number.
Format's a neat addition, but let's add color too. Give options for full color, black and white, monochrome, limited palette.. Maybe some others options well?
Let's also add completion status? On-going, Completed, On Hiatus, Cancelled. It'd be nice to know beforehand about how the story's going. If it's even gonna continue..
On a similar note, we gotta add Episode Numbers. 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500, 500+, and.. Just plain typing a number in!
Language? For the accessibility, man. There's users here who go out their way to translate their content to a different language alongside their english version, no reason to leave em out.
And we can't forget about free and premium. Make check boxes of those too. And if you check premium, have additional qualifier for ink paid per episode. 100-150, 150-200, 200-250, 250-300, etc..
In short.. Filtering by Genres, Tags, Format, Color, Completion Status, Episodes, Subscribers, Language, Free, Premium, Ink per Episode. Go big or go home, lol
I'm not really seeing how what you initially proposed was in any way like what I suggested. Did you... just reword my idea and paste it into your opening post? 
This is a really cool one. And if we're going all out with things they're never gonna do, to add to this a system to mark as hiatus and say when it's expected back would be cool. Like a hiatus notice. Expected back in a month or three months or unknown. That way I know if they're maybe just doing exams and definitely will come back (I often hiatus in the winter because my job gets super over the top with 12hour shifts and 7 day working weeks at Christmas) or if its just a burn out "yeah I'll get back to it eventually" which is less promising.
Yes all of these. I just hadn’t fleshed it out this far. I will add all of these when I’m back at a computer.
That's a major, major one.
I would totally live with everything as is by genre just fine (with addition of 2-3 extra Genres), but if they populate that Binge section, it would be a Good Thing.
This is exactly why I tried to boil it down to 6-8 Primes and the rest as secondaries but yes. There are so many Genres.
So, now we've got your huge comprehensive list, we start narrowing it down. Because we can't have all of those, and if you want Tapas to take this seriously, it's got to be something more manageable and only those with the biggest followings/common will actually make it. Please anyone writing/creating in these categories don't take it personally, this is just me saying what's likely on Tapas.
So, we start by putting in an Other/Misc category for people who don't fit into something else here.
Action (Change this to Action/Adventure, which is a common group)Adult (Idk what you intend this to be. If you mean aimed at adults, age ratings would help, if you mean contains sex, we have a Mature section and if you mean Erotica, that's not really allowed because the focus is sex)Adventure (Again, put this with Action)
Anthology
Anthropomorphized
Art
Biography
BL
Comedy
Crime
DramaEssay (I'm not sure how many people are doing essays, but it can merge with non-fiction or other, not big enough)
ExperimentalFairy Tale (Probably fits into another cat most the time)
FantasyFolktale (I would combine this with Mythology)
Gaming
GLGothic (probably not a big enough genre to justify it's own thing)
HorrorJoke-a-Day (probably fits with Comedy)
LGBTQ+Memoir (should probably go with either non-fiction or biography)Meta (is this a big genre on Tapas? never seen it)
Mystery
Mythology
Non-Fiction
Poety
Politics
Psychological
Reference (if you're going to have this it should probably be with things like Tutorials or a misc/other cat) Religion (I'm not sure this is big enough to be it's own unless everything ft angels/demons is in it)
Romance
Satire (Could possibly be merged with comedy or politics in some way)
Sci-Fi
Short Story
Silent
Slice-of-LifeSports (this doesn't seem big enough to come out of SoL, although if anyone has some good sports comics, please direct me to them)Spy (again, not big enough, probably goes in action)
Superhero (this is actually huge and something people have been asking for)Swashbuckler (not big enough)
ThrillerTragicomedy (goes in comedy)Travel (not big enough)Tutorials (can be put in with references)
War (I feel like this should be a sub-category of another, but I do know a lot of people write it)
Western (again, not sure this is big enough, but giving it the benefit of the doubt)
Obviously that's just a rough thing, but you can't expect Tapas to do a huge list of all genres. Some have to go, and only the biggest are realistically going to stay. A way around this is something of a tier system for creators when selecting their Main Genre. If it's Fantasy, you then get an extra choice to pick decide on sub-genres like Urban, High, Medieval, Dark ect. Or SoL it would drop down to something like Sports, School, Work, Home ect.
Also, some of these like Short Story and Anthology should possibly not be a genre but something else to select when creating. That way if you have a Fantasy Anthology, you can tell us its mainly Fantasy and then it's marked Anthology when you search. Something like a check box for Anthology, Short Story, Long Story(?idk what you'd call that?) when you make it.
Including "main" and "sub" genres was precisely where I ran into issues. I think these all should remain so that they can be found when needed. I also think this system removes the need to declare a "main" genre for any particular series. That they are a combination of these various types. Like, yes Joke-a-day is a comedy sub but that's for the reader and the creators to decide. It should be there so that people can find those types since not all comedies are joke-a-day.
Yup, I know I said I wanted more genres but like.. Yikes lol it crossed the line and then some. That's why I included the tags into my own take of that shopping filter idea, I don't feel like they get used enough. Those additional subgenres are still represented there like I suggested, through defaults you can click on, but you still have the option of typing other tags which expands the range significantly
You're issue with main and sub genres was that the ones you proposed weren't recognised sub-genres of a main genre. They were a random assortment (and essentially the same system we already have with a little rejig of the categories). Compare Buffy to GOT for instance, both are Fantasy but one is urban and one is medieval. They're recognized sub-genres of fantasy, and this is something people have been calling for for a while too. Comedy could be split into joke-a-day, satire, long form, dark comedy ect. Cyper-punk is a sub-genre of Sci-fi just like steam-punk is. Romance has romcom, tragic romance, harlequin romance, dark romance, paranormal romance. To continue the shopping metaphor, if comedy is a dress, joke-a-day is a you selecting you'd like a blue dress to further narrow the field and dark comedy is you selecting you'd like a black dress.
As I say, the difference between your main and sub and this main and sub is that they're recognised sub-genres of a specific genre. If you're honestly expecting Tapas to implement all of these genres, I think you're being a bit naïve or you're still not really grasping genres.
Which is why I think we need to avoid classifying any genre as Main and Sub. This way people can dial in exactly the series they've created and not be limited by your or my perspective on what counts as a legitimate genre.
Ok, these arent my views they're accepted sub-genres of a genre. That's like saying it's my opinion that blue dress is a type of dress. And again, genres are for the readers to find what they're after, not for creators to fuss over. It's a marketing strategy. Again, back to the metaphor. They want a dress, they want it blue. They want a fantasy, they want it LOTR style (that's epic/high fantasy). Arguing that his is "my perspective" on sub-genres is like arguing it's "my perspective" that high-heel shoes are a type of shoe. And again, people have been asking on the forum for the option to refine what by sub genre for ages because there are massive differences in sub-genres.
These are standard across the industry and amateurs. Please go and reread that link on genres I gave you up above and see all the accepted sub-genres of major genres.
Anyway, this is all academic because Tapas isn't going to do any of it and definitely not like this, so I'm done. I can't explain genres and sub-genres to you any more simply.
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